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City council approves plans for tower only metres shorter than iconic landmark

New York's skyline, already immortalised by King Kong and Woody Allen is set to sprout another skyscraper after the city council approved plans for a tower only 18 metres (60ft) shorter than the Empire State Building.

New York city council yesterday shrugged off objections from the owners of the 102-storey Empire State Building and gave the go-ahead for the construction of 15 Penn Plaza, a 67-storey building proposed by Vornado Realty Trust.

The new skyscraper, described by Vornado as "an outstanding addition to New York's skyline", will be built two blocks away from the Empire State Building, which has stood largely unobstructed in midtown Manhattan since 1931.

Building work on 15 Penn Plaza is unlikely to begin until it finds an anchor tenant.

Malkin Holdings, co-owners of the Empire State Building, said they respected the decision of the council, which approved the construction by a vote of 47-1.

"As the current stewards of the Empire State Building, the most iconic image on the skyline of New York, we thought that 15 Penn Plaza was too close to the Empire State Building for its height and design," said the company president, Anthony Malkin.

New York's mayor, Michael Bloomberg, had dismissed objections to the building.

"Anybody that builds a building in New York City changes its skyline. We don't have to run around to every other owner and apologise," he told a news conference on Tuesday.

"One guy owns a building and he'd like to have it be the only tall building. I'm sorry, that's not the real world."

David Greenbaum, the project developer for 15 Penn Plaza, told New York city council's zoning committee that the tower's height was determined by the needs of potential tenants – such as financial services firms that need large, uninterrupted floors to accommodate trading activities – as well as the additional space needed for "green" office design.

Vornado said the project would bring transport improvements, including a concourse linking Penn station to subways and commuter trains, new subway entrances and an expanded subway platform.

Penn Plaza will be 363 metres (1,190ft) tall. The Empire State Building's main structure is 381 metres but it has a 62 metre antenna that puts its total height at 443 metres.

Mitchell Moss, a New York University urban policy professor and an informal adviser to the mayor, told the New York Times that the city had long cherished its soaring towers.

"People don't come to New York to visit caves," Moss said. "They want the views, the height, the experience of tall buildings. Skyscrapers allow us to make the best use of a limited amount of land."

The Empire State Building won its place in popular culture in the 1933 film King Kong, when a giant, love-sick ape climbed the skyscraper, Fay Wray clutched in his paw, only to fall to earth in a hail of bullets from a bi-plane.

It was the city's tallest building until the construction of the World Trade Centre in 1970. After the twin towers were destroyed in the September 11 attacks, the Empire State Building again held the title of New York's tallest building, but will lose it when One World Trade Centre is completed.

The city's avant-garde masterpieces are falling into ruin. It seems only the oligarchs' wives can save them

From the pedestrian bridge that crosses the Moskva river towards the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour you normally have a clear view of the Kremlin. But for several days last week its fairytale towers had disappeared behind an acrid grey pall. With the thermometer stuck at a record-shattering 40C and the smog hidden by smoke from the burning marshes outside the city, this was a hellish Moscow that none of its residents had ever seen before.

I was in the city to give a talk at a new school, the Strelka Institute of Architecture, Media and Design. Located just across the river from the cathedral, the Strelka occupies the garages of the former Red October chocolate factory, which until two years ago had been producing chocolate on that site since the late 19th century. The school only opened earlier this summer but already it's one of the liveliest nightspots in the city, with film screenings, clubs and a restaurant frequented by Moscow's glamorous media set. If you're thinking that this doesn't sound much like a school, then you'd have a point, but we'll address that later. In all other senses the sight of a former industrial complex being turned into a cultural hotspot is one that we've been accustomed to in Europe and the US for several decades. In Russia, however, it's a more recent phenomenon.

One reason is that the gradual switch from an industrial to a services economy didn't begin until the Yeltsin years. And it was only around the turn of the millennium that developers started to speculate on factories (the more unscrupulous ones earned the description "raiders"). The other factor in the slow speed of the post-industrial project is that the Russians appear to value new things more than old ones.

Any sightseers embarking on a tour of Moscow's avant-garde architecture from the early 20th century had better brace themselves for a catalogue of degradation. The more hallowed the building in the architectural history books, the greater its decrepitude. Take the Narkomfin building, designed by Moisei Ginzburg with Ignaty Milnis in 1928 to house the workers of the commissariat of finance. This radical apartment block, which spearheaded the idea of collective living, is one of the most important surviving constructivist buildings. And it is literally crumbling – indeed it's in such a sorry state that I was amazed to find that people still live in it. Then there is another constructivist masterpiece, Konstantin Melnikov's Rusakov workers' club of 1929, with its muscular geometric profile. It's still as dramatic as ever but empty now except for an Azerbaijani restaurant that has attached its own folksy timber entrance (with lurid neon signage) to the unforgettable facade.

But it is not just the early modernist heritage of Moscow that is unloved. Even the pride of a more recent Soviet past is going to seed. The All-Russia Exhibition Centre (VDNKh), the expo site in the north of the city that was a town-sized advertisement of Soviet achievements, is today a rather seedy theme park. None of its grandiose pavilions still contain anything worth seeing. The grandest, announced by a Tupolev rocket in the forecourt, is the 1966 Space Pavilion. It now houses a garden centre that would embarrass your average parish hall, let alone this vaulted cathedral to the Soviet space programme. Under the dome, the giant portrait of Yuri Gagarin has a sheet draped over it. I asked a local why and he answered simply: "Shame." It would dishonour the legendary cosmonaut to look out over this mess.

This is the climate in which the Russian post-industrial project is taking shape. Preservation is not a major preoccupation here, which is ironic considering that much of the post-communist architecture has been built to look old (it's known unofficially as the "Luzhkov style", after Moscow's long-serving mayor). And yet one fifth of Moscow is made up of industrial sites – think of the impact that Tate Modern had on London's cultural scene and then imagine how much potential Moscow has. But destroy-and-rebuild is the model favoured here, with over 1,000 historical buildings knocked down in the last decade. There's no pressure from heritage bodies and no incentives to convert industrial buildings. Indeed, there tend to be disincentives, such as the regulation that only new buildings can qualify for class A office status. It's no wonder that developers have been either demolishing the factories to build luxury apartment blocks or turning them into business parks.

In the last few years, however, things have started to change. For one thing, the recession has put the brakes on developers, allowing nimbler entrepreneurs to slip in. The Red October factory, for instance, was meant to be turned into a luxury residential zone called Golden Island, with buildings by Norman Foster (much beloved of Russia) and Jean Nouvel. Only the credit crunch enabled the Strelka's founders to lease their site. But there is also a new player on the Moscow property scene: the oligarch's wife, who knows only too well from the international circuit how to turn defunct industry into cultural prestige. One such is Dasha Zhukova, Roman Abramovich's wife, who two years ago turned Melnikov's temple-like Bakhmetevsky bus garage of 1927 into an art centre called Garage. Last week it was holding a Rothko retrospective, the kind of show that normally only major museums can handle.

On a grander scale, though less refined architecturally, are the cultural developments in the Kursky industrial area. Here there is Winzavod, a red-brick wine factory built in the 1860s. It was bought by Roman Trotsenko to turn into offices but again his wife, Sofia, saw the potential for a cultural centre. Today it's full of galleries, showrooms and creative studio spaces. And right next door to it is what used to be the Arma gasworks, which supplied the gas for Moscow's streetlights. Now its four brick gasometers are home to a clutch of nightclubs, creative agencies and publishing houses. In a strange hangover from Soviet bureaucracy, you have to show your passport to enter and you're not allowed to take photographs, which somehow is not quite in the spirit of the place.

Here's the question: is it to be left to the oligarchs' wives to deliver on all this potential cultural programming? One Muscovite I met referred to Garage and Vinzavod rather dismissively as "toys for rich people". "Still," he added, "they could just be buying more yachts."

Perhaps the Strelka offers a different model. The founders of this postgraduate design school, with a curriculum designed by Rem Koolhaas, are at least using their wealth to invest in the next generation. And one way that they are making the school's name (while recouping some funds) is as a social hotspot. In fact, the Strelka is the kind of hybrid that could probably only exist in the turbo-capitalist experiment of Moscow: one part ideology, one part philanthropy (the education will be free) and one part the place to be seen. If the school succeeds, then while Russia may have come late to the post-industrial party, it will have contributed something new to the rather predictable formats we know so well in Europe. Meanwhile, locals are paying it a classic Muscovite compliment: "It's so not like Moscow."

If you want olde worlde style, this probably isn't for you. But everyone else will fall in love with this stylish St Ives outpost

The usual suspects (sun, sea, surfing) are all present and correct on this Cornish B&B's website. There the stereotypes end. While the sky is predictably azure, the house is a big white concrete rectangle, and the rooms wouldn't look out of place in a Design Hotels handbook.

Someone has clearly decided to do things their way – and since such a website rarely comes my way, I'm itching to get past the westbound caravans and in to St Ives. I turn off the main thoroughfare into a street of predominantly inter-war houses in plum positions looking across to Carbis Bay. There it is – the cube – looking slightly out of place but intriguing. It faces the sea, on an elevated road; only a beachfront location could beat it.

Alan Spencer opens the door and, from a narrow lobby, takes me up one floor to a landing. Unobtrusive etched glass panels riveted to the wall tell me that one room is called North, and the one beside it, South.

We go North. At this point I should advise anyone who prefers ye olde worlde bedde and breakfaste to go and mow the lawn. Everyone else, come with me.

North is an open-plan expanse of whiteness and glass. Through sliding glass doors is my own private balcony and a seascape beyond.

As with all minimal but well conceived interiors (rather than the places which stick one dodgy print of a gerbera on the wall and furnish from flatpacks), it is all about the detail. The floor is solid oak. A walnut (Conran) sideboard bears a selection of ground coffees, Orla Kiely mugs, and Jing teas (new B&B fad) in a Perspex box.

Grey wool BoConcept easy chairs swivel so I can watch sky or screen – Samsung's latest LED HD.

At the opposite end to the glass windows is a solid sliding door which rolls back to reveal what can only be described as a destination bathroom, of the kind more often found at five-star resorts in the Maldives. The Kurv bath is shaped like an ostrich egg.

So what's the story, I ask Alan and his wife Sharon, later. Now, here's a niggle – there is no guest sitting room, which means conversations must take place in hallways or in my room.

The house started life as a "quite ugly, boring 70s detached", Sharon says. Luckily planners took their modern eco-development (solar panels and a living green roof are next on the cards) seriously.

It is a spectacular place to stay. I'd prefer to make tea in a pot than a cup, and perhaps, when a lone female is staying, breakfast (from a stylish menu, with options such as Greek yoghurt with honey, and boiled eggs with soldiers) could be brought in by Sharon, rather than Alan. But waking enfolded in cotton from one of the White Company's most expensive ranges to watch the mist lift over the Monterey pine, chestnut and mimosa trees, is heavenly. Cornish cubism is about to take off in St Ives.

• Try the Blas Burgerworks on The Warren in St Ives (01736 797272, blasburgerworks.co.uk, booking advised) for unexpected brilliance at dinner

You don't have to go abroad to find beautiful art and architecture. Much of what you see in Italy and France is mirrored right here in Britain

The ideology of art today, according to most artists, curators and critics, is one that values the familiar. Ordinary objects, everyday pictures, and accessible artists who seem not that different from ourselves are praised, endlessly. The artist next door whose work portrays the average life in the average town is what we are told to admire.

This is why I never can content myself with the modern British art scene. I want art to be elsewhere, I want to travel in search of it. I need it to be exotic, and to show me other worlds, other lives, other times and places. The first exhibitions I saw were in France and Italy, on childhood holidays. Maybe that's why I associate the best art experiences with travel. But what happens in times like these, when many people can't afford to travel abroad? Can there be an art staycation?

I recently heard a talk about John Piper by art historian Frances Spalding . This British painter started as a fully paid up international modernist before turning inward, to the English landscape. In the 1940s he portrayed, eloquently, the ruins of Coventry Cathedral and other bombed churches . Spalding illuminated the reasons – at a time of national crisis, with war blazing overhead – for Piper's choice of a consciously parochial art.

As a journalist I can see Piper's point. Britain is full of hidden beauties. The talk I heard about Piper was at Dartington Hall in Devon, an amazingly well-preserved medieval hall. It would also be possible to argue that much of what you see in Venice can be mirrored in Britain. The glories of Venetian Gothic are much-praised – but what about the English perpendicular? I mean, you can go to Canterbury, visit the cathedral, see all the gothic and Romanesque you like, and then go to the beach in Broadstairs – what more could anyone want?

A stretch of elevated railway track along New York's west side has been transformed into a park in the sky. Paul Owen photographs one of New York's most intriguing new attractions

£51m has rebuilt the Grand Pier at Weston-super-Mare 'bigger and better' after the pavilion burned down two years ago

In the cafes and tattoo parlours, at the crazy golf course and on the promenade, there is growing excitement. Even the laconic donkey ride supremo, who has seen it all in the 58 years he has made a living on the sandy beach, is looking forward to the reopening of the Grand Pier at Weston-super-Mare.

"We were all upset when it burned down and everyone has suffered," says Terry Vincent, who started working on the donkeys aged eight, in the days when they made the animals gallop and made most of their money by picking up the change that jingled out of customers' pockets. "It's a big part of Weston. We've all been missing it."

Any week now the pier, which caused headlines across the world two years ago when its pavilion burned down, will be open for business again after a £51m rebuild and refit. An opening date has not been set, but 400 men and women are working round the clock to get it ready for the summer season. And in a period of financial gloom, locals are fervently hoping that the pier will come to be seen as a rare economic good-news story.

More than 300 jobs are being created – three times the number who were employed in 2008 – and revenue is expected to rise fivefold. The hope is that the Grand Pier will revive the fortunes of a resort that has become shabby and tired over the last few decades, and that it will encourage other businesspeople in the town to spruce up their hotels, cafes and restaurants.

The most optimistic wonder if the structure's renaissance could spell a new era of greatness for Britain's piers. The National Piers Society counts 55 surviving piers in England and Wales; while some are in a sad state, a number of major renovation projects are under way.

"Everyone is looking at Weston with huge interest," said John Bollom, the chairman of the British Association of Leisure Parks and Piers. "We've seen nothing like it in recent years in terms of scale and quality. People have a huge soft spot for piers and if Weston works, who's to say we won't get more ambitious projects in its wake?"

The idea is that the Grand Pier will become a year-round attraction. The traditional seaside crowd will be catered for with a much-improved amusement park in the new pavilion, while a new clientele should be drawn by new conference facilities and a hall space large enough to stage concerts for 3,000 people, banquets for 1,000 and events ranging from weddings to boxing matches.

Kerry Michael, the co-owner of the pier with his sister, Michelle, admits that some people thought he was "foolish" to rebuild the pavilion. After watching the fire from a holiday home in Spain he flew back and immediately began to plan its replacement. "I'm a Westonian," he said. "It burned down on my watch and I couldn't just leave it. The pier is the town's heartbeat."

But, of course, Michael has also done the maths. The pier used to attract 3m people a year, who spent an average of £1.10 a head. He now needs to get 3.5m people to spend £4.60 each.

"It doesn't sound impossible," said Michael. "And a thriving pier will help the whole town and the whole economy of the south-west."

John Penrose, Weston's MP and the tourism minister in the coalition government, said the loss of the pier in the fire, thought to have been caused by an electrical fault, was a huge blow.

"Weston is more than a pier," Penrose said. "We have managed, but it's great to see the pier being reinvigorated. The new version is bigger and better, a pier for the 21st century. This shows that piers aren't relics from the 19th century – just kiss-me-quick hats, sticks of rock and slot machines. They can be a key part of the town."

Among those who have new jobs at the pier is Danielle Parker, another Westonian born and bred. She felt "devastated" as she watched the pavilion burn down. "It had always been part of my life. It was so strange when it suddenly just disappeared like that."

Parker is the new executive head chef at the pier. "It feels exciting to be part of something new and alive. There's a real buzz about the town – everyone is talking about it."

Enjoying a tub of whelks on the beach, Joyce Davies, from the West Midlands, said she and her family had been coming to Weston for half a century. "We always visited the pier, of course. Everyone did. It was somewhere to go when it rained. I know people have stayed away since it burned down because there's not so much to do when the weather's not good. I'm delighted to see it back."

At the newsagents and rock shop opposite the pier, owners Pete and Jean Swaysland reveal their top seller. Not their black pudding-flavoured rock, but a fridge magnet featuring an image of flames and smoke pouring out of the pavilion. That aside, it has been a rotten year for the Swayslands. "Our worst in the 21 years we've been here. It was like a ghost town when the weather was bad," said Mr Swaysland. Soon, if all goes to plan, the toffee-apple-eating hordes will be back.

Peer review

The future's bright for some piers …

Grand pier, Weston-super-Mare

£51m spent. Includes 18 rides, and 26 food outlets and shops. Conference facilities and a concert hall for 3,000 people. 200 jobs created, 100 full-time.

Boscombe pier, Dorset

Pier of the Year, says the National Piers Society. £2.4m spent on structural repairs includes construction of artificial surfing reef.Mumbles Pier, south WalesAs well as restoring the pier, its owners are planning to build a hotel and apartments at the approaches — the pier is the draw but the hope is that new development around it will make it more viable.

... less certain for others ...

Colwyn Bay, north Wales

Hunks of cast iron have been falling on the beach, sparking safety fears.

Hastings pier, East Sussex

Shut in 2006 but local campaigners have battled hard to save it. Owned by a Panamanian-registered company. Councillors want to buy it by compulsory purchase so it can be saved.ends

London Festival Of Architecture, London

This family-friendly, cerebral celebration of the built environment in the capital encourages everyone to uncover new city nooks and dig out fascinating facts about the buildings they might simply walk past most days. The event begins with a paean to London's very own Ramblas, which, in case you did not realise, is John Nash's Regent Street. You can download an iPhone guide to the area, though further afield you can also find out a huge amount by attending special events in Stratford, the City and even on the Thames. Walks and talks are to the fore in this informative festival and you may even discover a new urban forest as you traverse a new artistic route through Bankside.

Various venues, Sat to 4 Jul, visit lfa2010.org

Iain Aitch

CREATE10, London

This six-week long event could provide a distraction from sport this summer, even if it is set in London's five Olympic boroughs. CREATE10 starts today with Young London: Into Music, an eight-week course for aspiring young musicians, culminating in live sets from artists including Rising Tide. Other highlights include Roam (5-21 Jul), set in a renovated library van. With presentations on bird watching and map-making during the day and acoustic and DJ sets in the evening, this should be the smallest, most diverse attraction in the East End. Also featured are numerous FutureHistories events, where two strangers are given "conversational menus" of 25 popular topics.

Various venues, Sat to 1 Aug, visit createlondon.org

Euan L Davidson

Africa Oyé, Liverpool

Sefton Park's trees can fool you into thinking you're far away from Liverpool city centre, not to mention the aroma of African, Caribbean and Indian food. The country's largest free world music festival, Africa Oyé attracts a cross-section of society to its markets and huge outdoor stage that's replicated at too few summer festivals. Haitians Boukman Eksperyans and Latin-influenced folk-blues man Victor Démé are among today's live acts. You'll need a few quid to enjoy the masseurs and exotic instrument stalls but local teens can just as easily wander down and have a cracking free day out.

Sefton Park, Sat & Sun, 12.30pm-9.30pm, free, visit africaoye.com

Marc Rowlands

Out & About

Home Of Metal Open Day, Wolverhampton, Saturday

Get your photo taken in your favourite metal T-shirt by Steve Gerrard and bring memorabilia to add to the first digital archive of metal music.

City-10, Queen Square

Team Green Britain Bike Week, Nationwide, Saturday to 27 Jun

"The UK's biggest mass participation cycling event", with a massive list of events for cyclists of all ages and experience levels.

Various venues

Exhibition Road Music Day, London, Sunday

With English songwriter Emily Maguire, grime artists Manga and Target and DJ Rob Da Bank among the folk, electronica, funk and classical acts appearing at various cultural institutions.

Exhibition Road, SW7

Vauxhall UK Beatbox Championships Grand Final, London, Friday

Twelve finalists compete, plus PAs from judges Tyte, MC Zani and Bellatrix, and a showcase from all-female crew the Boxettes.

O2 Academy Islington, N1

The iconic pier is due to reopen in July following a multi-million rebuild after the original pavilion was destroyed by fire in 2008

Philosopher announces not-for-profit scheme to rent out five buildings designed by world-class architects

The philosopher Alain de Botton is to venture into holiday lettings in an attempt to cure the British public of what he believes is a widely held fear of modernist architecture.

The author of books including the Consolations of Philosophy and The Architecture of Happiness, has commissioned five houses by some of Europe's leading modern architects, which he plans to rent out on a not-for-profit basis. He said his purpose was "to help people get over the dichotomy that modernism equals awful and antiquated equals great".

The houses, designed so far by leading architects from Switzerland, the Netherlands, Norway, Scotland and London, are deliberately experimental. They set out to challenge preconceptions of what constitutes a holiday home in 21st-century Britain. Bookings are now being taken for the first two houses, which will be available from late October.

"The inspiration is the Landmark Trust [which lets interesting historical properties] – for people interested in a good holiday, but also an educational experience while they are in the property," said De Botton, who has called the initiative Living Architecture and is working with investors from the construction and property industries.

"You are more than just sleeping there – you are looking around and learning about modern architecture."

The first house, a contemporary take on a barn that appears to teeter precariously on the edge of a Suffolk hillside like the bus in The Italian Job, will be available for rent from 22 October. It has been designed by MVRDV, a cutting-edge Dutch architecture firm that was among 10 recently commissioned by Nicholas Sarkozy, the president of France, to produce a masterplan for Paris in 2030.

Nord Architecture in Glasgow, winners of the Young Architect of the Year award, are building a tar-black house with a concrete and timber interior on the shingle beach of Dungeness in Kent, which will be near the home of the late film-maker Derek Jarman.

Prices for a long weekend at the house, which sleeps up to eight people, range from £685 in late October to £1,365 next July.

Future houses include a "secular retreat" in south Devon designed by the award-winning Swiss minimalist Peter Zumthor, whose buildings are said to echo, in architectural terms, the writings of Martin Heidegger, the German philosopher. It will be made from rammed concrete and promises "the same sense of serenity and well-being as in an ancient monastery or abbey".

Sir Michael Hopkins, the designer of Portcullis House in Westminster, where MPs have their offices, and Glyndebourne opera house, has been commissioned to design a modern version of a medieval hall on the north Norfolk coast, which is due to be completed next spring.

De Botton said he was inspired to launch the project when he was researching the Architecture of Happiness, his book and TV series which is a tour through the philosophy and psychology of architecture aiming to change the way we think about our homes. Visitors will be given an information pack about each building's design, setting out what the architects hope to achieve, the historical precedents for the design and its influences.

"We have got a group of world-class architects to do projects that they wouldn't normally do," said De Botton. "These are probably the smallest and cheapest buildings they have done. They are realistic buildings, but they try to push boundaries and explore things."

De Botton said the initiative would give people who couldn't afford to design and build their own contemporary dream home the chance to live in one for a week. It was, he said, an alternative to the dream of Grand Designs shown on Kevin McCloud's Channel 4 programme.

"It is great what Kevin McCloud does, but for most people a grand design will be way out of their reach and modern architecture is something you get at a train station, museum, airport or hotel," said De Botton. "Otherwise, people don't tend to encounter modern architecture. This is giving people a chance to eat, sleep and live in a purpose-designed modern house.

"I want to help people get over the dichotomy that modernism equals awful and antiquated equals great. There is still, in many people's minds, a fear around the words 'modern architecture'. Modern architecture has to some extent traumatised the UK population."

Dickon Robinson, the former director of development at the Peabody Trust who pioneered a renaissance in prefabricated affordable housing in the last decade, will be the project chairman, and Mark Robinson, the project manager for the programme of annual summer pavilions designed by the world's leading architects at the Serpentine gallery in London, will oversee design and construction.

Each year, the team hopes to add another new house to the portfolio.

Valencia has developed into one of Spain's coolest cities but, as bulldozers threaten one of its oldest and most atmospheric barrios, what is the price of such rapid progress?

"To be alone in Valencia," theatre critic Kenneth Tynan quoted an American as saying, "is to be permanently 20 minutes this side of suicide."

Spain's third-largest city has come a long way since Tynan himself dubbed it the "world capital of anti-tourism" 40 years ago. The old quarter has been tarted up, Santiago Calatrava's space-age fantasy, the Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias, has been virtually completed, the America's Cup sailed into town in 2007, and it hosted a Formula One grand prix a year later.

From being a slightly forlorn and forgotten sister in the Spanish family, it became a hot destination.

With so much new-found pride in their city, it was easy to imagine that Valencians would never again commit the architectural crimes of the past, that the knee-jerk cementing of the coastline and construction of characterless apartment blocks was a thing of painful memory.

We were wrong.

If you are in the Valencia area this year, be sure to visit the old fishermen's quarter, El Cabanyal. This working-class jewel of art-nouveau style – officially a "protected historical zone" – may not exist in its present form for much longer. If the city hall planners get their way, bulldozers will continue punching a large hole through the middle of it to extend a modern avenue from the city centre to the sea. Residents have protested vociferously, and the highest court in the country – the Tribunal Constitucional – has ordered a stop to the demolition, but Valencia's Mayor, Rita Barberá, has insisted she'll go ahead.

In existence since the 13th century, El Cabanyal has become the common term for what are in fact three neighbourhoods stretching north from the port – El Canyamelar, El Cabanyal and Cap de França – and owes its name to the rows of thatched fishermen's cabins, also known as barracas, that used to line the beachfront. The remains of some can be seen today, with their characteristic steep – formerly thatched – roofs.

A major fire in the late 1700s, and the growing affluence of the inhabitants as the port was expanded, meant that most barracas were replaced around the turn of the century by elegant two- and three-storey townhouses. The Moors first brought a ceramic industry to the Valencia area more than 1,000 years ago: drawing on an ancient local tradition of covering facades with brightly coloured tiles, residents finished off their new homes in the styles in fashion at the time.

Art nouveau may be the dominant flavour, but you'll find anything from baroque to eclecticism, and even a few examples of something approaching art deco. Residents will tell you that their grandparents weren't overly concerned with the purity of the design when they were building these houses – that they simply used whatever materials appealed to them. A Mediterranean sensibility to light and colour and a certain degree of keeping up with the Joneses means the area is unique, leading more than one visitor to describe it as "an open-air museum".

Concentrating on maritime shades of blue, green and white, the tiles are often spaced to create a zigzag, or checkerboard pattern, and the effect is vibrant and harmonious. You may find the face of a sea god staring out at you from above a doorway, or a mosaic depiction of pesca dels bous – a kind of dragnet fishing that involved pulling laden boats back on to the beach using oxen, a scene local artist Joaquín Sorolla depicted in some of his impressionist paintings.

This is a barrio for taking a slow stroll through, criss-crossing from one street to another, and getting to know what is still a working community with a strong sense of identity. Although El Cabanyal has officially been part of the city for centuries, the people round here still talk about "going to Valencia" if they are travelling to the city centre.

Start near the port end and wander along Carrer de la Reina. This is the main artery running north to south; all the streets are on a grid system, with the houses oriented east to west to benefit from the cooling easterly winds off the sea in the summer. As you meander along, you'll eventually cross Avinguda Mediterrània, leading from the sea to the indoor market. This is where El Cabanyal proper begins, and the area most affected by the city's plans. It is also where you'll find some of the most enchanting houses.

Find Carrer Barraca, and the streets parallel to it, and let your eyes wander. On Carrer Progrès, look out for No 262, with its turquoise-and-white tiled facade, amphora designs above the windows in mosaic, and griffin-head drains running off the terrace roof. Opposite, No 279, finished in green and white, is more sedate, but no less spectacular. Around the corner on Carrer Padre Luís Navarro, the narrow fronting of No 309 has been covered in modernist tiles with delicate vegetable motifs in green and ochre.

Many of these houses run through from one street to the next. Get chatting with the locals and you may be invited inside for a peek. Large pitch-pine doors open up into living rooms tiled with more intricate designs, with elegantly carved window frames and arched ceilings. You can even stay in one of them: the B&B Cabanyal is on Carrer Josep Benlliure (+34 963 364521. Recently renovated, it is run by a friendly young couple who are more than happy to tell you all you want to know about the local area and its traditions, or they can put you in touch with a group who provide guided walks through the streets. It's also excellent value, starting at just €20pp a night, including breakfast.

(A quick word of warning – thanks to years of official neglect and degradation, this area has become a haven for drug dealers. You're almost certainly safe, but it's best to be aware.)

Good places to eat in the Cabanyal, particularly for fish, are not hard to find. The Casa Montaña (Carrer Josep Benlliure 69) is a former bodega that has become one of the best-known restaurants/tapas bars in the city, not least for its vast wine cellar (20,000 bottles). El Cabanyal, (Carrer de la Reina 128), which is right in the planner's line of fire, is known to be frequented by the very people who now want to tear it down. Meanwhile Casa Guillermo (Carrer Progrès 15) is famous as the home of the local "anchovy king".

But my favourite is the Bodega La Pascuala (on Carrer Eugènia Viñes 177), just a street away from the beach. Noisy, busy and a bit grimy, it's an authentic neighbourhood bar, with rows of dusty brandy bottles lining the walls, and it offers cheap, working-man-size sandwiches with names such as "The Republican" and the "Bribe-Giver", and delicious paella on Friday lunchtimes. Perfect for filling up after a dip in the sea.

Thankfully, Valencia is today far from being the suicide-inducing city that Tynan knew, but as you knock back a glass of brandy, it's hard not to reflect that the place you're sitting in may soon be a pile of rubble. The future of El Cabanyal looks uncertain, but while it's still standing, visitors have a last chance to explore this unpolished gem on the Mediterranean before it is destroyed for ever.

• The neighbourhood pressure group is Plataforma Salvem el Cabanyal; its members can organise guided walks through the area. Ryanair flies to Valencia from Bournemouth, Bristol, East Midlands, Liverpool and Stansted; easyJet flies from Gatwick

Jason Webster's detective novel set in Valencia, Or the Bull Kills You, will be published by Chatto & Windus in February 2011