No-one likes it, we don't care
Brutalist architecture - loved by dead town planners, the deans of post-war universities, Sotonian men of letters, 1960s social engineers and fans of Hibernian F.C. See: this thread - '1960s architecture in Edinburgh...is good for the city'. If only it were Millwall...
posted by owen hatherley at 11:07 pm
25 Comments:
Nasty stuff Owen and think what was demolished to build them all.The reflections in the glass boxes are sometimes interesting but could I live or work in one...no thanks!
I would give my right arm to live and/or work in one, but never mind...
I was mid-blog drafting and referring to that thread (I think I Twittered it last week) when you posted, so maybe I'll have to refer to you referring instead!
Argyle House seems to draw mixed emotions
http://nemesisrepublic.blogspot.com/2009/11/things-they-say-royal-commonwealth-pool.html
and Malcolm Fraser is keen to see it re-used, although as far as the St James's Centre is concerned, I don't think there are many who will weep to see it go. However, there's no guarantee anything a great deal better will be built.
It is sad, though, what was demolished to make way for some of the more recent buildings in Edinburgh, and indeed Bath, in the days when Georgian and Victorian was seen as bad, so I hope similar mistakes aren't made in rushing to get rid of everything from the past half century (ref the RMJM building which was demolished for the ghastly Missoni)simply because it's unfashionable.
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I add - I think the Basil Spence Canongate development (your pic) is universally admired though!
http://www.basilspence.org.uk/living/buildings/canongate
http://www.scotlandsplaces.gov.uk/search_item/index.php?service=RCAHMS&id=281994
Basil Spence was canny enough in his dealings with the old Edinburgh corporation to make sure that the beton brut staircase tower - which gives the Canongate project some brutalist cred - is tucked away facing the courtyard.
The blocks facing the Canongate (part of the Royal Mile ceremonial route) are mostly harled or rough stonework with concrete confined to the piloti and balconies.
Owen - Is there another Sotonian Brutalist man of letters apart from you???
Nemesis - are you a Hibbie yourself?
I was pondering that sadly I'm not aware of fansites for any Scottish team that have half the creativity of the bogpaper fanzines of twenty-five years ago.
Me? Good grief no! The only sport I have any time for is architect baiting... but that is a whole other game ;-)
The Scottish Provident building is one of my all time favourites, yet finds itself in the bizarre position of lying empty and (despite its listing) under threat of demolition whilst obvious pastiches spring up literally around the corner.
St. James is a stinker though, make no mistake. Nought to do with the concrete, but with the fact it combines the styling of the era's most insipid spec-developer dross with one of the most arrogant-yet-illiterate impositions on the urban form I've seen in any city. When the Buchanan Galleries was built in Glasgow, a commentator remarked that we had learnt nothing from St. James. The lesson, if anyone was prepared to learn it, is that it doesn't matter a damn if the facade of the building is covered with precast concrete platte or yellow brick and mockeries of classical detailing if it fucks up the urban form, inhibits the ability of pedestrians to traverse the city, draws action away from the public realm into the privately-owned and governed interior space, and subsumes all human need to the developer's profit margins.
A long overdue reflection on your Glasgow piece should be with you shortly, Owen.
I don't think that the Scot Prov is in danger of demolition, that was refused.
Gareth Hoskins development:
http://www.garethhoskinsarchitects.co.uk/projects/commercial/st-andrew-square
http://www.edinburgharchitecture.co.uk/scottish_provident_building.htm
Latest Edinburgh WHS news:
http://nemesisrepublic.blogspot.com/2009/11/edinburgh-old-town-development-trust.html
owen - i was one of those very interested by your talk at UEL the week before last and wanted to contact you with an invitation to take part in a project in dublin in february - wondered if you could send me a contact, and i can forward the blurb to you.. you can get hold of me at d.jewesbury (at) gmail.com.
cheers
daniel jewesbury
Agree with Fr Finto Stack regarding Buchanan Galleries, its got all the hallmarks of something Speer, Troost or Poppe would have churned out.
What follow is probably a damnable heresy, perhaps occasioned by overexposure to W Benjamin's Passagenwerk!
However meretricious the architecture of the Buchanan Galleries undoubtedly is (and the "bridge" over Bath Street is particularly weak), I have to confess that the occasional meanders I have made through the Buchanan Galleries over the last decade have been far preferable to my recollection of walking through the desolate, empty and windswept area of dereliction that preceded it.
And I think it is possible to say - unlike far too many Glasgow sites - that the previous conditions were not directly attributable to deliberate blight by land owners hoping for redevelopment.
That said, from what I have seen of [BDP(?)'s] plans for doubling the size of the shopping centre and rebuilding Buchanan bus station, there were some real questions about the quality of proposed townscape (and the level of 24 hour pedestrian accessibility).
Has a final design now been agreed on?
Finton Stack, as I live and breathe! Good to have you back. Alas as I have yet to visit the Scottish capital, and did not visit the Buchanan Galleries when in the Scottish metropolis, I cannot comment on these matters. However I do generally think Arndale Centres were crap, whether 60s Arndales or 90s pomo post-Arndales. It's the same typology.
I would live here because the inner order of the objects I own would reflect the walls that enclose them and thus provide a neutral site for thought.
Классный кино на кинозоуне.
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