Kentish Gazette Canterbury & District
‘City streets have lost
TV architect says new developments should be prize-winning
High-profile architect Ptolemy Dean has made an impassioned plea to city planners to ensure new developments are “the listed buildings of tomorrow”.
The BBC Restoration presenter says urban planning of the 1980s and 1990s “lost its way” and that golden opportunities have been missed.
Speaking to the Gazette, Dean, who grew up in the city and is president of the Canterbury Society, insists he is no enemy of modern architecture.
But he says it is imperative that new development within the ancient city walls is of “prize-winning quality” and sits on the old medieval street lines.
He is now calling on Canterbury City Council to get tough on developers and demand higher standards.
“We want great new buildings on the historic street pattern so that the character of the city can be preserved and enhanced,” he said.
“There’s a great opportunity to make good development which harmonises and complements and respects the town. It’s worth fighting for and getting right.”
Dean says the city’s medieval street layout – as typified by the northern sections which survived the Blitz – are what gives Canterbury its character. “There are subtle curves and framed views which make Canterbury unique,” he said. “It’s that quality that gives it this intense quality. It’s very difficult to reproduce that.
“When you’ve got it, you need to cherish it. Before the war what was amazing about Canterbury was that it was complete. We could have recreated that street line throughout.”
In the late 1980s urban planning in the city went awry, suggests Dean, a former Kent College pupil.
Initially the city council suggested recreating the Longmarket area according to its pre-war layout, which would have included a covered shopping arcade.
“Where I think things went wrong after 1945 is that, unlike in London after the fire of 1666, instead of rebuilding on the medieval street line they replanned it,” he said.
“In 1987 there was this great opportunity to try and reinstate medieval street lines. Of course the council recognised that and issued their planning brief.
“But for whatever reason at a certain point it was not pursued.
“They stayed on piste with Butchery Lane. However, they went off piste and abandoned putting back the old Longmarket arcade.”
Dean says this mistake heralded the onset of city centre development – in particular the subsequent Whitefriars shopping area – which failed to restore the character of the old city.
“What happened subsequently was large commercial development gently cloaked in loosely historic forms and materials which, unfortunately, are neither historically authentic nor architecturally satisfying,” he said.
“If they had rigidly stuck to historic street lines that would have retained the old character. It fell away. Since we have lost the authenticity of what we are doing we lost our way. It’s difficult to invent an architecture for a historic street where we have lost the street line.”
Dean says sites such as the Rose Lane car park and Iron Bar Lane car park could accommodate innovative new buildings set to the ancient street patterns.
“Go to City of London – you have modern buildings on a medieval street pattern. It’s the most thrilling urban experience,” he said. I’ve nothing at all against modern buildings, but the standard must be: ‘are these the listed buildings of tomorrow?’.
“Do the new buildings of the last 20 years make the grade? I would imagine that they don’t. And that’s such a shame. A wasted opportunity.”
Dean’s message to urban planners is that it is not too late to regain the old character within new developments. “Is it too late? No. There are areas still to be redeveloped. Lots of gap sites. It’s not worth getting into a polarised argument between historicist or modern. We need to make the new developments prize-winning.
“If you insist on high-quality innovative development, that sets an exemplar for towns and cities across the country – Canterbury could become a beacon of quality.”