‘Our gracious Civic Centre isn’t cut out for the high life’

Park Place. Judged by the usual modulated tones of Design Commission reports, the tone of the report of the second design review meeting is considerably more outspoken.

“Careful consideration should be given to what makes the building ‘belong’ to Cardiff and expressive of the culture and values of the modern Capital City. This is not easy, as there is no predominant style or material. The proposal presented at the review had an ‘American’ feel to it and many such precedents were drawn upon in the presentation.

“Further studies of key buildings in the locality and the architectural language they use may usefully inform material selection and composition and provide a better narrative for the building.”

On May 30 the plans were back at a third meeting, with one storey having been shaved off the proposed building. The review panel was clearly not impressed.

“The Design and Access Statement should provide confidence that all options for delivering a building of exceptional quality have been fully explored and exhausted. The material presented at this meeting and in previous reviews did not provide this level of justification or confidence and didn’t tell the full story of how that proposal has been arrived at.”

Just in case these nuanced views are lost in translation, let us be plain that the Design Commission is telling the council and the Welsh public that, however nicely clad, this proposal is a dreary, lumpen building inappropriate for this site. A building that could not only accelerate the erosion of what remains of Victorian Cardiff, but would also detract from one of the great civic centres of the world. And all to provide cheap student accommodation that could easily be provided slightly further afield.

This month the new leadership at Cardiff council published its Cardiff Ambition document. I applaud it. But the best marker the council can put down is to reject a building plan that would pull the rug from under civic rhetoric for decades to come.

Geraint Talfan Davies is former chairman of the Institute of Welsh Affairs and of Welsh National Opera.