Richard Claridge

ADS 2: Fetter Lane

Typologies of Terror

From the River Thames to the Ring of Steel, London has in the past been protected by a variety of physical and territorial boundaries. Yet as standard weapons are replaced with a non-standard means of terrorism, London’s thresholds no longer feel secure when the ramifications of a chemical attack exceed the physical limitations. This building at Fetter Lane combines an awareness of biochemical warfare with how to act in an attack: a threefold architecture housing a defence library, pharmaceutical archive and a bio-terrorism simulation centre. If the objective behind terrorism is to instil fear in the mind of its people, then it is London’s objective to provide its people with knowledge of weapons.