1960s vision of Newcastle
HERE’S Newcastle’s famous Grey Street as you’ve never seen it before - but how it just might have looked.
The 1960s was a swinging period for architecture, with new ideas, materials, and economic confidence rejuvenating the industry.
All the same, Newcastle may seem an odd place to have become a ‘city in the sky’ – but it nearly happened.
In an effort to separate pedestrians from the growing blight of the motor car, Newcastle’s city planners looked upwards.
Designs were drawn and work began on a system of overhead walkways between raised buildings.
Searching for a modern equivalent, Professor Stephen Graham, who researches cities and urban life at Newcastle University, suggests that Hong Kong is one of the closest real-life ‘3D’ cities to use every dimension as Newcastle nearly did.
“There was this vision of an inspiring, modern, green and airy cityscape,” says Professor Graham of the sci-fi Toon that never was. “It was a brave new world.”
The 1960s concept of turning Newcastle into a ‘city in the sky’ was dreamed up by Newcastle City Council leader T Dan Smith and his chief planning officer Wilf Burns.
One goal was to separate the motor traffic from pedestrians, with raised decks and walkways between buildings and across motorways. New structures would be matched with existing structures.
While glimpses of semi-realised walkways can be spotted around town, the overall vision became lost as construction was delayed by corruption and the city’s economic woes.
This imagined view of Grey Street is part of a project conducted by the online lender QuickQuid.
The aim was to resurrect some of Britain’s most surprising unbuilt structures.
The archives were trawled for forgotten ‘might-have-beens’ and lost plans and schematics to bring them to life in a new series of digital renderings.
The study looked at how six British cities - London, Bristol, Liverpool, Manchester, Edinburgh and Newcastle - might have looked.