Posts Tagged Letters
Letters: Opinion divided on Britain’s concrete ‘treasures’
Posted by The Sheet in Architecture News on October 9, 2011
It was distressing to read Maev Kennedy's article (Unloved brutalist buildings cited as international treasures, 6 October), which recycles the usual cliches about such buildings. Birmingham central library is "grey" because the council won't clean it. It should be creamy-white. It is not "uncompromising". Its architects, the John Madin Design Group, designed its seven storeys with great care to sit next to the town hall and a council building, which they do. It is only "harsh" if you refuse to look at it intelligently, and delight in the power of its concourse, and the magical flow of its internal spaces. But it is indeed made of concrete.
Ten years ago the library had only a few "passionate admirers", but now opinion in the city is at least evenly divided between its traditional opponents and people who will be very sad if it goes. The staff areas, specified 50 years ago, are inadequate, but the staff are unlikely to "dance on its grave". Many of them have just lost their jobs because of the cuts, including big service reductions, made by the coalition which wants to pull it down.
Andy Foster
Birmingham
• Jonathan Glancey refers to Preston bus station as "baroque" (Fashions change, but fine buildings must be saved, 6 October). On this we are as one, assuming his interpretation of baroque is as resembling a public convenience and a harbour for cutpurses. Methinks Mr Glancey does not catch any buses from there.
Andrew Swarbrick
Preston, Lancashire
• The purpose of a bus station is to provide bus users with a convenient waiting area to connect with their buses. Preston's station is dark and claustrophobic, and doesn't have very many seats. It would have been much more appropriate to accompany Glancey's article with images of the insides of the bus station as used by commuters, rather than a pretty image that shows the entrance to the multistorey car park which sits on top of the library.
Furthermore, the pedestrian underpass from the station to the city centre is so successful that when passengers alight from the buses, many walk along the dedicated bus exit road. Perhaps the kindest thing to be said about Preston bus station is that Steve Jobs didn't use it as a template for the iPhone.
Pascal Desmond
Lancaster
Letter: Imre Makovecz and the Prince of Wales
Posted by The Sheet in Architecture News on October 3, 2011
In his touching account of the life of that great builder-provocateur Imre Makovecz (Obituary, 29 September), Jonathan Glancey briefly mentions a visit Imre made to the Prince of Wales in the 1990s, but overlooks two noteworthy consequences of that contact. During the 1990s the Prince of Wales's Institute of Architecture was the only European school to collaborate with Imre's studio: institute students worked closely with his colleagues on the design and build of two sizable timber pavilions, one of which – at Spitalfields City Farm – is still in regular use.
In addition, Imre was encouraged by the prince to submit a proposal for the reconstruction of the rooms at Windsor Castle which had been damaged by the 1992 fire. His proposal – featuring massive angels, and brooding macintosh-clad figures straight out of Wim Wenders' film Wings of Desire – was hardly calculated to appeal to the judges, but could not have been more characteristic of the man. In connection with that competition, I introduced Imre to the hi-tech architect Nicholas Grimshaw – whose international terminal at Waterloo station had just opened to great acclaim – and the proposal was submitted under their joint names. It says a great deal for Imre's lack of dogmatism that he readily recognised the organic sensibility that lay beneath the hi-tech sheen of Grimshaw's work.
Brian Hanson
Director of the Prince of Wales's Institute of Architecture/Projects Office 1992-98
Letters: Scots architecture
Posted by The Sheet in Architecture News on September 16, 2011
The anglocentric tone of your guides to "British" architecture (10 September) is breathtaking. The years 476 to 1700 managed to avoid any reference to the very individual contribution of Scotland and Scottish architects. No mention of the unique Scots vernacular of tenements, tower houses or the Renaissance palaces of Stirling and Falkland, all so influenced by France and the near continent. Even the solitary tiny thumbnail of old and new in Edinburgh is anachronistic. The "old" is in fact a Victorian pastiche.
As for 1720 to the present, thanks for the photo of Robert Adam's Pulteney Bridge in Bath, but what happened to Macintosh and his contemporaries who electrified Glasgow and Europe at the start of the 20th century? This is not Caledonian girning and greeting. It's a complaint about you denying your readers the full texture of architecture in this "Britain" that you equate by and large with England. The ultimate irony is the brief, unillustrated mention of the extraordinary Alexander Greek Thomson as being "too little known outside his own country". No wonder, with guides like these.
Bill Paterson
London
• Every inch of Waterhouse's Manchester Town Hall, a building that Pevsner considered of international importance, would make a worthy photograph for your guide, so why choose E Vincent Harris's 1930s Town Hall extension? It's an old stock photo, too, as the extension and Harris's iconic Central Library are swathed in scaffolding and hoardings while their innards are being rearranged.
Paula Moorhouse
Manchester
More letters online at gu.com/letters: Getting the right balance between town and country planning
Bunker mentality
Posted by The Sheet in Architecture News on August 29, 2011
Jonathan Glancy (Hell holes, 27 August) describes the use of bunkers in fact and fiction. Our best-preserved equivalent to that "used" by Dr Strangelove is the battle command centre at the former USAF air base at Upper Heyford in north Oxfordshire on the unsinkable aircraft carrier USS Great Britain. The base was sold by the MoD for development, and access to what English Heritage describe as the best-preserved cold war remains in the country is currently at the convenience of the new owners.
In time public access to the base should improve, but all the authorities involved in its redevelopment (ministries of defence, culture and communities, English Heritage, Cherwell district council or Oxfordshire county council) believe that one day a week should sufficient to meet the minority interest of those curious to see where doomsday or mutually assured destruction would have been carried out.
Daniel Scharf
Oxford Trust for Contemporary History
Letter: Preston bus station is no St Pancras
Posted by The Sheet in Architecture News on August 8, 2011
If eyesores like Preston bus station are all that pass to make a town unique, it is a sad day indeed (Unthinkable? JK Rowling at Preston bus station, 6 August). When it opened in 1971 it may well have been bold and uncompromising. Also bold and uncompromising are the stenches of urine and skunk cannabis that fill its many nooks and crannies in 2011. The stark exterior is covered in the same dirt-white tiles found in the toilets. The only permanent access is via intimidating, low-lit subways. The rubber floor covering is alarmingly dangerous in wet weather. There is no comfortable seating for travellers waiting for buses. The surrounding surface is in a constant state of disrepair. For elderly and vulnerable users it can be a frightening place, especially at night. It is a monument to social and economic decay, an asbo magnet, not a place to linger and be awed. St Pancras it ain't.
Preston is not a museum. It is a living city – the newest British city in fact – with a justifiably proud transport history: an important west coast mainline railway station, the first motorway in Britain (M6 Preston bypass) and the erstwhile Leyland Trucks just down the road – and, yes, when this building was built it was the largest bus station in Europe. It is now an architectural dinosaur. For this city to have a large bus station is crucial, but it should be a functioning building fit for purpose – not a museum of grot of which its inhabitants are expected to feel proud! Its problems are so inextricably linked with its design that to earmark it for preservation would be folly. The only solution is to tear it down and replace it with a vital heart of infrastructure which is clean, comfortable and safe to use.
How patronising the sentimentality that monstrosities such as Preston bus station elicit from people who live nowhere near them. I live and work in the Preston area and can testify that its regular users would not lament its passing. If JK Rowling has ever laid eyes on Preston bus station, she would agree.
John Rodgers
Preston
Notes and queries
Posted by The Sheet in Architecture News on August 2, 2011
The wonders of medieval architecture; Parking problems where they really shouldn't exist; When life gives you lemons and limes
How did they manage to produce so many wonderful buildings in the middle ages when the rest of the culture was so primitive?
Because they lacked DVD technology to record how wonderful the performing arts were? I think the problem here is an observation bias – the buildings have generally survived in much better shape than most other objects/culture from the period.
To take one example, the interior of most British churches is very drab compared to the interior of pre-Reformation churches, because the rich decorations of the time were destroyed as part of the Protestant reforming zeal of the time. So, apart from the structure of the building, much of the physical evidence for the culture that existed at the time was lost.
The second thing to point out is time. An awful lot of effort was put into large medieval buildings over long periods of time, so this enables something out of proportion to their other efforts to be achieved. For example, the newish Gherkin tower in London took less than three years to build, whereas the original Norman cathedral in Exeter took about 60 years to build.
ThermoStat
Chaucer, Gower, Langland, Dante, Petrarch, Hildegard von Bingen, Guillaume de Machaut . . . and that's just a tiny roll-call of literature and music greats in western Europe. Not primitive, not "dark ages", just less accessible perhaps, thanks to the 600 or more years that separate us from them.
Catherine Bakhshi, Twickenham, Middx
The "wonderful buildings" of the middle ages were built by masons. Masons understood the wonder and mysteries of building and in the spiritual dimensions in the act of building. The masons of the middle ages were taught the skills of masonry but more, they were given the opportunity to understand the ancient mysteries that make good men better.
Thom Cross, Carluke, South Lanarks
Go to the British Museum's Treasures of Heaven exhibition for more medieval culture. They weren't as primitive as we think they were. Mind you, I'm glad I wasn't around then.
marquisdespoissons
Does anybody else suffer from Empty Car Park Syndrome, whereby the time taken to park the car increases in relation to the number of spaces available?
This is a common affliction popularly known as "being spoilt for choice". Obviously the more spaces available, the more time you need to consider each one on its individual merits. Is it shaded? (No matter if it's the middle of January). Is it near the exit? (Those extra few yards will shorten the journey home.) Is the surface clear, smooth and even? (The price of tyres these days, inflated.) Are there puddles to step into? Are there cars either side that might threaten door-opening damage? Or is it too isolated and too far from the attendant's gaze? So many considerations and, unfortunately, choice is the mother of procrastinaton. Which incidentally is an anagram of "In car or P station".
Anthony Peacock, Liverpool
I have suffered from Empty Car Park Syndrome (ECPS) for most of my driving career. For sufferers like me the surfeit of choice simply makes it impossible to choose the first available space – there is always another (and another) that looks more alluring. The optimum car park occupancy rate is somewhere around 75-80%, which allows just enough choice in my experience.
I am also surprised at how difficult it is to park between the lines in an empty car park. I feel I need some parked cars to guide me into a space.
And do any fellow sufferers feel the urge to find a "through-er"? Two empty spaces in tandem, which allow you to drive through an empty space into the one behind, thus permitting an exit in forward gear.
Mark Williams, Skipton, North Yorks
My father was a severe sufferer, aggravated by Sociable Car Syndrome whereby, after the ritual "where should I go?" and cries from my mother and I, he would park beside the only other vehicle in the car park. At least, for me, the condition doesn't seem to be hereditary.
Graham Dodd, Cradley Heath, West Mids
Which are more sour, lemons or limes?
Neither. The tongue senses four main tastes in different areas – sweet at the tip, salt and sour at the sides and bitter at the back. Suck a lemon or lime and you'll find they are both bitter not sour.
Paul Byatt, Ellesmere, Shrops
dNeither, the answer is grapes.
Andy Cole, London E12
Any answers?
How did the strange expression "going commando" come to mean "not wearing underclothes"?
The Rev Richard Haggis, Oxford
How do rare birds always manage to land in the garden of someone with the experience and ability to recognise them?
Philip King, Oldham, Lancs
Stonecladding: why?
Ray Knight, Enfield, Middx
Letters: Architects who saved our heritage
Posted by The Sheet in Architecture News on July 8, 2011
Simon Jenkins is wrong to say no architects were active in the fight to save the St Pancras hotel (Comment, 8 July). I organised a well-attended debate at the Royal Institute of British Architects in the late 60s between Wayland Young (Lord Kennet) for the Victorian Society and the chief architect for British Rail. A motion for the retention of George Gilbert Scott's masterpiece was passed by a large majority. During the following week I was interviewed on BBC South with the chief architect, discussing the pros and cons of retention. I organised a further meeting at the Riba as part of the Victorian Society's campaign to save Norman Shaw's New Scotland Yard, which is also still standing. Such an appreciation of the great buildings of the past does not lead me to advocate the imitation of past styles. All great buildings are true to their time but the best embody eternal values.
Kate Macintosh
Winchester
• When Simon Jenkins was extolling the virtues of the proposed system-built tower blocks of Lisson Grove rising above the skyline of Regents Park in the sunset, some of us young architects and students in London formed "The Anti Ugly Society" to prevent the wanton destruction of many wonderful buildings. Where was he when we marched round Philip Hardwick's magnificent Euston Arch armed only with homemade cardboard placards to prevent it and Hardwick's booking hall from demolition? Some of us campaigned to save Sir George Gilbert Scott's St Pancras Hotel and Barlow's train shed. We thought it was all a cynical ploy to line the developers' and City bankers' pockets. But we weren't news. They were. The firm that brought us the 1960s Euston also brought us Ronan Point. I creatively demolished that one.
Sam Webb
Canterbury, Kent
Letters: Towering quality for Liverpool waterfront
Posted by The Sheet in Architecture News on May 17, 2011
Liverpool is twinned with Shanghai and was the only British city to have it's own pavilion at the recent World Expo. Investment from China is likely to play an important part in the further development of the city. It is against this background that the standoff between English Heritage and Peel Holdings over waterfront development should be viewed (Shanghai-style plan 'threatens Liverpool's world heritage status', 17 May). The big question is, or should be, quality. Unfortunately, the track record of English Heritage is that they don't seem to have the will or the expertise to engage in rigorous assessments of the intrinsic quality of new developments, and resort to a kneejerk opposition to any new high-rise proposals on the waterfront. Or, they force proposals to be reduced in height, as they did previously, to negative effect, in Liverpool One and on Lime Street.
Unfortunately, the higher the profile of the architect, the greater the likelihood of drawing English Heritage firepower. Meanwhile, numerous mediocre new schemes and the ongoing demolition of swaths of fine Victorian housing seem to go through relatively unchallenged. Most of us recognise the value of Liverpool's outstanding architectural heritage and the need to safeguard it, but this is all the more reason for seeking high quality in new developments. Whatever the fate of the Clarence Dock site (formerly a power station with three enormous chimneys, known as the three sisters), it should be a development of landmark status and quality. A preconceived assumption against high towers is, at this stage, unhelpful and does not contribute to the debate over quality.
Trevor Skempton
President, Liverpool Architectural Society
Letters: A healthy interest in living monuments
Posted by The Sheet in Architecture News on April 18, 2011
If the funds as well as the determination really existed to recreate an entire Roman fort on Hadrian's Wall or a villa in Kent – as Simon Jenkins has so delightfully proposed (This cult of the ruin renders England's landscape soulless. Better to rebuild, 15 April) – then I would be fully persuaded that 21st-century Britain was unhealthily obsessed by the past. As it is, there is no cult of the ruin as he proposes it, nor any need to overthrow it so dramatically. Even my own new book, The English Castle, which he generously describes but cites as evidence of the cult, looks at much more than ruins. The fact is clearly advertised by its cover, which juxtaposes a view of Bodiam (a castle ruin held by the National Trust) with the great hall of Berkeley (an occupied and privately owned castle). I evidently love ruins more than Simon Jenkins, but I also relish the fact that many castles remain living monuments.
Dr John Goodall
London
• Simon Jenkins is concerned at the cult of the ruin, but it is not ruins that should demand our attention but our dwindling social housing stock. Housing minister Grant Shapps has made clear in his comprehensive spending review that funding for housing and regeneration is to be to cut by 75% by 2014-15, with the inevitable result that there will be fewer social, rented and affordable intermediate homes built over the next four years. As for his ruins, Jenkins might at least take some comfort from the Spanish anarchist Buenaventura Durruti, who in 1936 said: "We, the workers, can build others to take their place. And better ones! We are not in the least afraid of ruins."
Julian Futter
London
Letters: People who lived in glass houses and climate change
Posted by The Sheet in Architecture News on April 15, 2011
As the researcher on the 1972 BBC1 series Mistress of Hardwick, which recreated life inside the Countess of Shrewsbury's magnificent Elizabethan mansion, I was intrigued by Lucy Worsley's suggestion that we should "Live like Bess of Hardwick" (13 April) in order to help adapt to climate change and the loss of oil and other resources. While it's true that Bess was at times maternally generous to her staff, many of whom lived in close proximity within the household, it's misleading to present that way of life as in any way a model for modern times.
Of course it would be lovely to imagine some sort of mutually supportive, organic community living in such a beautiful building. But the truth is that it was a steeply hierarchical and authoritarian society, in which most people had few rights but many duties, with little or no scope for dissent.
Nor was the house energy efficient, being notoriously cold, buffeted by the cold winds of the Peak District, made worse by Bess's insistence on a spectacular number of large windows. It's no surprise that Bess's bed had to be piled high with quilts, three pairs of fustian blankets and six woollen blankets – which I suppose we may have to do when things get really bad.
Giles Oakley
London
• If our ancestors could plan and design their lives so well, how come they were so stupid as to have lives that were "smelly, cold, dirty and uncomfortable"? The answer is that they did not; they tried to avoid any such thing as far as was possible at the time. Like us, they preferred being fragrant, warm, clean and comfortable. There have been a lot of myths being peddled recently about filth in the past – particularly in Dan Snow's otherwise excellent Filthy City programmes – which are 50 years out of date. This was the sort of thing 19th-century historians liked to congratulate themselves about, and modern historians thought they had got rid of. It seems instead that "filthiness" has attained the status of a folk myth again.
Virginia Smith
London
• Lucy Worsley makes some interesting points. In my parish, Bess of Hardwick built, according to the age-old rhyme, "Hardwick Hall – more glass than wall".
Rev Tony Bell
Chesterfield, Derbyshire
• Simon Jenkins (This cult of the ruin, 15 April) calls Hardwick an "effete fantasy". I wish we could hear him explain that to Bess of Hardwick. He would be damn lucky to keep his ears!
Stewart Easton
London