Birmingham: the unfinished revolution

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Birmingham, Ken Shuttleworth, MAKE architects, New Labour, urban renewal

Hello both. I’m meant to be writing a project about refitting an office building to the highest standards of sustainable energy excellence. But I’m not. I’m writing instead for your reading pleasure about a city I have a soft spot for, and how it was treated in the first decade of this century.

For three delightful years, I studied Philosophy at Birmingham. I learnt a smattering of Nietzsche, a smattering more of Schopenhauer and had my first, tentative forays into somewhere that was beginning to describe itself as a “gay village”, with that post-QAF new sense of pride – and marketing potential – that was taking root in queer communities in English cities.

Whilst I was there – in 2000 – the Mailbox opened. This behemoth was noted amongst my Brummie friends as something of an ananchronism: it was due to house a Harvey Nicks, amongst other things. Jeez, this wasn’t what Birmingham was known for. Trashy hen weekends, yes; car manufacturing, sure; a strange round 60s tower called the Bull Ring, kind of. But high-end retail? Nah. I mean, that was what Rackham’s was for, right? And only your posh cousin Stanley’s grandma shopped there.

The Mailbox, in typical Birmingham style, was a building that fronted a busy A road and had a canal out the back. The site had previously housed an enormous sorting office (hence the referential name), built in 1970 with mechanised sorting and a tunnel link to the nearby New Street station; it had been the largest building in the city and its core steel structure was re-used in the new building.

Know thy station; or, the various fates of three north London termini – part 2

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George Gilbert Scott, listed building, Neo-Gothic, St Pancras, station

Greetings one and both! I hope this finds you well. St Pancras was a Christian zealot, apparently decapitated at the behest of Diocletian in 303AD. He was fourteen years old. There are three fine nineteenth century buildings that, directly or not, memorialise this headstrong lad. The station – of which more later; St Pancras new church (built, anachronistically, in the supposed Greek renaissance style, fashionable in the early 19th Century); and the old church (the fabric of which is mostly newer than the new church. Natch), in the churchyard of which stands Sir John Soane’s memorial to his wife and in which Percy Bysshe Shelley and Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin plotted their elopement. And they say romance is dead. Or something.

Pancras means, literally, “the one that holds everything”, and the station that bears this martyr’s name tries to do precisely that. “fine” burgers, “natural” remedies, “authentic” fossil (apparently that’s a distinctive modern vintage global lifestyle company specialising in consumer fashion accessories). You can even go to somewhere that helps you to “transform daily routines into the special rituals they once were”; going to the toilet never sounded so appealing. You can see a giant statue of two people melodramatically kissing, a much smaller statue of that wonderful old curmudgeon Sir John Betjemen, and – presumably for the next year or so – some Olympic-sized rings. If you’re really unlucky you might get to hear someone as arse-crushingly anodyne as Ed Sheeran whipping a crowd of international commuters into a frenzy of bedraggled bemusement as part of the “station sessions” series of unfortunate concerts.

Know thy station; or, the various fates of three north london termini – part 1

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Euston, Richard Seifert

Howdy. Where is this?

Bright sunshine gleaming off the polished granite, metal frames and glass of crisp, late international style office blocks. This could be somewhere on Park Avenue or – just perhaps – one of the less showy buildings in the Chicago Loop. Except not.

The pediments of Birmingham

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Split Pediment

Longer posts will – eventually – be forthcoming following my recent trip up midlands. Meanwhile, a few of the curvy pediments of Birmingham:

Two split pediments, canoodling behind a hedge:

A nice bit of stonework, snugly supporting a friendly cherub:

A rather pristine swoop of terracotta:

The Brighton Astoria, or; Art Deco ain’t what it used to be

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Brighton astoria, demolition, listed building, Planning policy

Hi both. What what, two posts in as many days? Cripes.

Yesterday afternoon, whilst you mere mortals were scrabbling around for an invite to Google+, the decider-actioners of the Brighton & Hove City Council Planning Committee were ringing the death-knell for one of the few remaining grand cinemas of our fair city.

“Eco-offices and jobs replease [sic] empty cinema” went the press release. (Which makes the classic press office mistake of not being able to spell overestimating the numbers – apparently the offices will bring “almost 200 jobs”. No, the actual estimate is 170 jobs. Is 170 almost 200? No. It’s exactly 170. Most of the populous can quite easily grasp the number 170. Perhaps if there were 192 jobs, you might call that almost 200. But 170 is nearer 150 than 200. Oh, OK are we rounding up to the nearest 50 now? So 151 is actually almost 200. *Sigh* I know a four year old that counts like that. Seriously. Grr. Calm down.)

Under different circumstances you might have found me rallying to the defence of a grade II listed building, if all they’re planning to replease replace it with is some rubbish offices. But in this case, the Councillors made exactly the right decision.

Let’s talk about planning policy. No! Sit down, Smithins! If you pay attention at the back you might actually learn something.

Space Syntax, or; a little semantics goes a long way.

So there’s this slightly shady organisation called “Space Syntax” who’ve been a little bit silly.

I’ve not really talked about the riots on here. Though I’m not devoid of thoughts on the subject, this is mainly because I think that riots are an incredibly complex urban phenomenon and it’s not something that I feel particularly qualified to comment on. During the riots I was merrily commuting between leafy hove and a bit of lovely Frank Bridge at the Royal Albert Hall. I’m not saying that nice, side-parted middle class vicar’s sons can’t ever comment on matters that don’t concern their immediate experience. I’m merely saying that the impetus behind rioting and looting is so foreign to me, and the brew of complex and contradictory motivating factors – coupled with the inherent randomness of big cities – such a vast area to try and comprehend, that this subject seems a little above my proverbial pay grade.

Having put that thrilling caveat in, I do feel entirely qualified (by which I mean brain-between-the-ears qualified) to tear apart the analysis offered by Space Syntax. (Of course, you dear readers both don’t actually need telling any of this. You’ll read their work, scoff, chortle, roll your eyes and reach for the skittles. I do this for my own smug self-satisfaction.)

Space Syntax claim that “the spatial configuration of large post-war housing estates is the key influence” behind the riots. Yup. Uh huh. Why? Well, according to Bill Hillier of Space Syntax, large post-war housing estates are full of “over complex” spaces, where the kids can hang all on their lonesome and come up with nasty plans to steal dvd players from cash converters, unsupervised by adults. The hanging about that is, not the stealing. Moreover, “this pattern of activity … is not found in non-estate street networks.” Huh. So kids never hang around unsupervised on, I don’t know, street corners. Or in car parks. Or playgrounds. Or at school. Or at home, ffs.

Look, I’m not a romantic for “post-war” housing estates (by the way, it’s been 65 years, when do we stop using that term please?). I’ve read my Lynsey Hanley, and I’ve walked around enough housing to know that some housing estates are shit holes, some are poorly designed, some are interesting and stimulating, some are great. And I’m not going to pretend that the design of places doesn’t influence people’s behaviour. Of course it does; I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing if it didn’t. But this sort of “research”, that tries to hitch its flimsy waggon to the runaway cargo ship of the latest public catastrophe, this futile attempt to posit a singular, subjective, pseudo-quantifiable constant as the catalyst for the most random of urban events, is demeaning to all involved.

Right, well done for getting to the end of that. Have a pretty picture.

 

Wonky policy; or, why you should care about the NPPF

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localism, NPPF, Planning policy

Hi both. Hope you’re exceeding well. Well, isn’t it exciting?! No, not simply to be young on such a night as this. I am, of course, discussing the furore – nay, the incredulity – with which our sainted government’s latest wheeze has been welcomed. You will no doubt have heard of the National Planning Policy Framework, and will eagerly have submitted your responses to the consultation. What do you mean, you’ve been too busy alphabetising your Morrissey back-catalogue?!

Yeah, OK. I know it’s not the most thrilling of subjects. I mean, what fool would actually consider working in planning? I ask you. No really. And I realise that our beatific overlords are responsible for some other – how to put this politely? – execrably malodourous behaviour, but if you have a passing care for our environment (natural, built, or otherwise) then I would suggest that this NPPF is something that ought to concern you.

The background. Currently, the country has a lot of planning policy. A lot less than it used to, but quite a lot none the less. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing (though my views on this aren’t the same as a lot of planners’); our government, however, believe that it is, and have basically replaced a whole load of respected planning policy with 60-odd pages of astonishingly light-touch regulation. Which worked well for the banking industry, I think we can all agree.

Planning, it is deemed, is now basically in existence to encourage growth. No longer is it a tool to, er, plan. It is there so that we get growth. What is growth? Development. Apparently. “Development means growth“. Wha?!?! Is it growth when you knock down a school to build houses? Is it growth when you build an Asda on previously agricultural land? Is it growth when you, I don’t know, stick in double glazing? Planners, if the NPPF becomes policy, will be people you have to ask nicely to say yes to you. They won’t be able to say no, except in the most unusual circumstances. (By the way, planners say yes to about 85% of all applications at the moment. So we’re not talking about planners needing their wings clipped, we’re talking about removing their ability to say no to the 15% of rubbish that comes in.)

The National Trust and the Telegraph have both dug in their heels, mainly concerned about the threat to the countryside – and they’re not wrong. However, being an urbanite I’m particularly concerned with the diminishing of the reasons planners will be able to reject development on design grounds – only “obviously poor design” can be refused. Whilst I don’t claim that the last fifteen years have been salad days for architecture, at least planners were able to say no to the mediocre and unsuitable, the crass and the jarring; no longer will we strive for good design. If the NPPF goes through, we will see a decade of cheap, tacky, boorish buildings in nasty spaces. That’s a promise.

Good Scott

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George Gilbert Scott

A fuss (and given we’re talking about architectural history here, you can imagine the sheer scale of said fuss) has lately been made over George Gilbert Scott. See, for example, the oaf that is Simon Jenkins do his level best to portray Scott as a victim of an incomprehensible miscarriage of historical justice. Jenkins’ major argument is that nobody’s yet written a biography of Scott; this may be unfortunate, but it doesn’t exactly make him an architectural pariah, weighted down as he was with those triple guarantors of obscurity, a knighthood, RIBA’s royal gold medal and being buried here.

Scott’s name was one of the first I learnt as an autodidact of architectural history. Difficult to remember exactly why one remembers something, but I suspect it had something to do with the name’s dynastic tendencies and trying not to get into a muddle over my Gileses and (multiple) Georges. Indeed, both Jenkins’ article (now corrected) and the Mirror (brava Kirsty Henley-Washford! We commend your architectural predilections if not your accuracy!) cocked up the lineage. Of course, I need not have bothered. That excruciatingly embarrassing faux pas never occurred; very few people have heard of George Gilbert Scott (or his progeny) because very few people have heard of any architect. And, yes – I realise that you (dear readers both) have heard of all the architects, but that’s because you’re special. Seriously, though, which Victorian architects are better known? I offer Charles Barry and Pugin, but only because they did this. Waterhouse, maybe. Butterfield? Blomfield? Street? Hardwick? I can barely remember what they built, and I actually care about these things. Sigh.

Of course, this is all due to a bicentenary and the trend-setting power of Google. More interesting to me than whether this man deserves a biography (what a dreckishly dull conceit to hang an article on!) is the architectural furore that Sir GGS provoked.

Normal service will be resumed soon

In the meantime, you might be vaguely interested to know that this reminds me of this, which I took (nearly two years ago) on my last visit to the hallowed land.

…

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dolls, exhibition, found type, house, Ionic, porcelain, Victorian

No time to write something meaningful at the moment I’m afraid: too busy participating in a “visual study” for The Course. Lots of badly produced maps of a certain part of Brighton. But it has given me a chance to take the camera out on a wander. Results contained herein: