For the Eye’s architect Julia Barfield, the landmark’s anniversary will be especially emotional because her husband, the iconic project’s co-creator David Marks, will not be there to toast its success with a glass of champagne. Sadly, after 36 years of marriage, and countless joint architectural commissions, David died from cancer three years ago aged just 64. With their most famous design, the couple created not only a fantastic tourist destination, but also a unique romantic venue which has inspired more than 5,000 proposals during “flights” above the capital’s majestic skyline. 

It’s fitting, in a way, because a simple love story lies at the heart of the creation of the London Eye. 

David was born in Stockholm, Sweden, and grew up in Geneva, but was drawn to study architecture in London, where he felt his big ideas and passion for designing spirit-lifting memorable structures would be recognised. While sharpening his talents at the Architectural Association School, he was taken by a rather shy fellow student called Julia, herself a prodigious and emerging talent. 

It was a match made in drawing heaven. 

Recalling his early years, David said in one interview: “Julia moved into the pub over the road and I fell in love with her straight away. She was with someone else but eventually we got together and went off travelling.” 

The couple married in 1981 and went on to have three children. Inseparable, after working for other people, they set up London-based Marks Barfield Architects in 1990, with the ambition of designing outstanding buildings and structures. 

When a competition was launched in 1993 to find a stunning structure to mark the Millennium they put their heads together for what would become an archetypal labour of love. 

“David and I had just set up the practice and we had a big project which had gone on hold because of the recession. We needed something to cheer us up so we entered the competition,” recalls Julia. 

“We knew it should be something celebratory that people could participate in. David came up with the idea of the wheel while walking in Clapham, South London, where our practice is based. 

“He looked into the distance and saw the Crystal Palace tower in one direction and the Post Office Tower in the other. The latter was closed at the time, so the only place you could go up high was the dome of St Paul’s. 

“A wheel was a very efficient way of getting a lot of people up high and down again, and together we had the idea of having a slowly unfolding view where the journey is as important as the arrival.” 

It was a beautifully simple concept, allowing visitors to spend half an hour taking in 360 degree views at various heights at a sedate speed. The wheel would rotate slowly enough to allow passengers to walk on and off the moving capsules at ground level without having to stop. Julia continues: “Originally we had the idea of 60 capsules as a reference to time, seconds and minutes, but it was probably a little too obvious. 

“We also thought everybody would be sitting down in special seats with each capsule holding 14 people. We did a mock-up and discovered you could get 25 people in a capsule and they could move about.” 

They reduced the number of 10-ton capsules to 32, one for each of the capital’s 32 boroughs, leaving out the number 13 for obvious reasons. 

Then they started looking at possible locations and Julia came up with the South Bank of the Thames in Jubilee Gardens, by the former County Hall. “That area is the centre of London, the perfect place,” she says. 

Speaking in 2015, David recalled: “We had our idea and our location but we didn’t win the competition. Nobody did – the judges didn’t think any of the ideas were good enough. We were narked. We had a great idea and no one was going to see it.” So they put in a complex planning application and met Lord St John of Fawsley, who was chairman of the Royal Fine Art Commission. 

“He thought the Eye was going to ruin London – he said it should go to Cardiff. He thought he was going to kill off our idea but we didn’t give up. At one point our whole livelihood was on the line.” 

Eventually, with airline BA and waxworks-owning entertainment group Tussauds as partners in the project – and after much planning and legal negotiation – the Eye got the go-ahead. “The point of no return came,” says Julia, “when the first quarter of the wheel rim came up the river and they opened Tower Bridge for it.” 

The £70million wheel, made from British steel, but with components and expertise from six European countries, was constructed in sections which were floated up the Thames on barges and assembled lying flat on piled platforms in the river. 

“We worked closely with engineers and one of our ideas was that the view from inside the capsules should not be impeded. In a traditional ferris wheel you are in a structure and you can’t see a lot,” says Julia. 

“We wanted people to feel they were on the top of a mountain while being in the middle of a city. The only way of doing that was putting the capsules on the outside. Then we had to figure out how on earth to do that because nobody had done that before. 

“What was groundbreaking was putting a whole series of new technologies together. We didn’t invent anything but we combined technologies in a new way.” Construction was not without problems. At one point, with the Eye complete but lying on its side – hanging out over the Thames and ostensibly stuck after a cable snapped – Virgin Airlines tycoon Richard Branson sent a hot air balloon over the site bearing the legend, “BA can’t get it up!!” 

Though prime minister Tony Blair formally opened The London Eye with a laser beam across the Thames on December 31, 1999, passengers were not allowed on board for another three months due to further teething problems. When it opened to the public on March 9, 2000, it was an instant success. 

But as it only had a five-year lease Julia and David designed it in a way that it could unbolted and moved elsewhere. “In the end it proved so popular it was given permanent status,” says Julia. It’s the UK’s most popular attraction, with 3.75 million visitors a year. 

She and her husband held a one third share of the wheel but were bought out by British Airways and Tussauds group in 2006. 

It was a tough decision but one neither regretted as they decided to replicate the experience of the London Eye with a different design, the i360 viewing structure in Brighton, another success story. They also created a tree-top walkway at Kew Gardens in West London. 

But for Julia, 67, the London Eye still holds special memories and she never tires of taking flights when the mood takes her. 

“I’ve been up hundreds of times but each flight is different,” she says. “It all depends what time of day it is, what the weather is like. I always find something new to see and appreciate. The last time I went was to celebrate my birthday and the birthday of my granddaughter, which was very nice. 

“It’s very robust so I think it will be there for a very long time, at least 50 more years. We designed it so that the cables could be replaced but they haven’t had to do that yet.” 

While the Eye is no longer the capital’s highest vantage point, having been superseded by the 804-ft high observation deck on the 72nd floor of The Shard, the view remains magnificent. On a clear day, it’s possible to see nearly 25 miles, which takes in far-off Windsor Castle to the west and the Thames downriver to the east. 

Even on a wintry day in March, it’s possible to appreciate the nearby treasures of the Houses of Parliament and Tower of London. 

The eminent British architect Sir Richard Rogers wrote of it: “The Eye has done for London what the Eiffel Tower did for Paris, which is to give it a symbol and to let people climb above the city and look back down on it. Not just specialists or rich people, but everybody. That’s the beauty of it: it is public and accessible, and it is in a great position at the heart of London.” 

Costing £30 a trip and carrying some 3.75 million passengers a year, the Eye has unsurprisingly become a Wheel of Fortune for its current operator, Merlin Entertainments. 

It’s won more than 85 awards, mainly for tourism and engineering, and the accolades delight Julia who has no plans to retire as an architect and is always seeking new ideas. 

But this year she has one special project on her mind, to have some sort of memorial to her husband erected at the London Eye. 

“I’m wondering what it should be and where it should be,” she adds. “It’s giving me something to think about.” 

Source: Read Full Article