We must stop ugly brutalism ruining our glorious heritage
THE Glasgow climate change summit is full of talk about the importance of conservation. Yet so many of the politicians, campaigners and officials who love to pose as the protectors of our natural environment seem utterly indifferent to the destruction of our built environment. In contrast to the concerns about ecological degradation, there is nothing like the same fashionable anxiety about the ruination of our architectural heritage.
Such disdain for the past created by our forebears is robbing us of beauty, serenity and balance, as the juggernaut of development advances relentlessly. While tower blocks soar into the sky, estates sprawl across fields and cherished structures are demolished, ugly brutalism is triumphing over harmony.
This pattern is exemplified by the fate of one of the capital’s most iconic buildings. At the heart of Fleet Street, once the centre of the Britain’s newspaper industry, stands the magnificent edifice that served as the office of the Daily Express during the reign of its dynamic proprietor Lord Beaverbrook.
A masterpiece in darkened glass, with a spectacular artdeco lobby and a basement that housed the Express’s colossal printing presses, it was designed by the pioneering engineer Sir Owen Williams, creator of Britain’s first motorway.
DELIGHTED with Sir Owen’s striking work, Beaverbrook described it on its opening in 1932 as “Britain’s most modern building for Britain’s most modern paper.” Since the Express left Fleet Street in the 1980s, the building had a variety of occupiers. Yet throughout the recent decades, it has never lost its appeal as a landmark.
Sadly that is about to change. Plans have been approved by the City of London Corporation for a vast redevelopment of the site, which will see it engulfed by a 21-storey office block that will wrap around its walls on two sides. The developers talk grandly about the building’s “rejuvenation”, reflected in the proposed garden on its roof.
But the reality is that the former Express headquarters will be overwhelmed by its looming, gargantuan new neighbour. Grade II listed status has proved useless against this act of wilful anti-aesthetic damage.
That is why so many experts protested at the scheme. Historic England warned that the development would “fundamentally erode the character” of the site, while the City of London Conservation Area Committee said the planned monolith was “excessively large, out of proportion and denigrated the importance of the Express building.” Yet such words counted for nothing. The saga could almost be a metaphor for today’s urban fabric, where the old is contemptuously swallowed up by the new.
This is happening all over the country, making a mockery of the political rhetoric about safeguarding our world from ruthless commercial predation. In
London, the unique skyline is now being transformed by a relentless tsunami of skyscrapers, so that the world-famous capital increasingly resembles Dubai or Dallas.
The same is happening in Manchester, with approval for a 40-storey block near the city’s beautiful Victorian town hall under a £200million plan conceived by the ex-footballers Ryan Giggs and Gary Neville.
IN LIVERPOOL, redevelopment has proceeded so aggressively, especially on the historic waterfront, that the city has even lost its UNESCO World Heritage site status. One new scheme, described by the group Save Britain’s Heritage as “an arch piece of civic vandalism”, involves the demolition of an entire row of Georgian buildings and a 1912 cinema to make way for yet another concrete block.
Our land is deluged by housing to meet the demand from the growth in the population, with the Government – cheered on by developers – proclaiming that at least 300,000 homes have to be built every year.
Architectural butchery has a long history. In 1919, the majestic New Brighton Tower in Birkenhead, modelled on the Eiffel Tower and the tallest structure in Britain, was pulled down in an act of petty shortsightedness over repair costs.
The Sixties and Seventies saw an army of wrecking balls sweep across the urban landscape in the name of modernity, smashing gems like Sunderland town hall, the Royal Arcade in Newcastle and the Imperial Institute in Kensington.
Despite the introduction of supposedly tough planning controls, the same process goes on today, thanks to the greed of developers and the vanity of politicians, who see big developments as symbolic of their power. When it comes to architecture, restraint and respect for history would be better virtues.
‘An army of wrecking balls swept across the urban landscape’