Architecture: A bird in search of a skyline

GERRY JUDAH has designed a 60ft high monument to human rights. The exquisite model he made last year stands at the back of St James's Church, Piccadilly; the sculpture proper would stand for three years in a small park between Tower Bridge and a building lot on the south side of the Thames, before moving on to other European cities. It is a noble enterprise.

Following intense local pressure, however, the London Docklands Development Corporation has refused Judah permission to erect his monument for fear that the park would be overrun by left-wing demonstrators. It would, said the LDDC earlier this month, be bad for local business, particularly for St Martin's Property Investments, the Kuwaiti- backed owner of the development site next door.

The maquette, which is guarded by a retinue of homeless people who sleep in St James's Church, reveals strips of timber shaped into a pair of bird's wings outstretched as if in full flight, studded with hundreds of glowing fibre-optic candles.

The LDDC, which approved Britain's tallest building, Canary Wharf Tower, says the proposed sculpture is too big. 'It really is a massive object to dump down by the riverside,' says Bill Jack, an architect and member of the LDDC's planning committee.

St Martin's, which hired a planning consultant to fight Judah's application, says that the sculpture will be detrimental to its scheme to build hundreds of thousands of square feet of pseudo-Venetian offices on the empty lot beside the park. However, as Judah points out, 'The new office buildings and the sculpture will never co-exist. If London Bridge City Two (the Venetian scheme) was in existence, the site would be inappropriate for the monument. It needs a skyline and sunsets behind it, not a neo-Byzantine theme park.'

Some local people have expressed concern that the monument would attract organised demonstrations and vigils. Scotland Yard, however, suggests that because of the size of the park, neither the police nor its owners, the London Borough of Southwark, would allow large gatherings.

English Heritage believes that the location, opposite the Tower of London, in which political prisoners have been incarcerated over the centuries, is 'singularly appropriate'. The Royal Fine Art Commission and the Diocese of Southwark also support Judah. Meanwhile, British Steel, along with a number of other companies, has offered to donate materials.

Despite the LDDC's veto, Judah has not given up hope. Shortly after he was refused planning permission, a leading planning lawyer offered his services free of charge to fight the LDDC at appeal. Godfrey Bradman, the former chairman of the development company Rosehaugh, has advised Judah to apply for a year's temporary planning permission, which surely even St Martin's cannot object to.

Given this level of support, it will be surprising if the sculpture does not find a home where it would be seen to advantage, preferably along the Thames.

(Photograph omitted)