Paradise is more than a few shops
DEAR Editor, I read with interest the extensive quote from Councillor Ward’s latest pronouncement, but has this new building in Chamberlain Square really delivered “growth, skills and jobs”? (‘New Paradise block topped out’, Post, December 21)
It seems only to have relocated a large business from one part of the city to another. Oh, and added a few more shops and restaurants. Councillor Ward asserts it to be “quality architecture”. Well, it isn’t.
It is the kind of undistinguished run-of-themill building you will find in cities across the globe, devoid of imagination or innovation and expressible only in terms of square footage of office space. If it were “quality architecture”, it would have been designed to harmonise with its location, which it doesn’t, and to be an example of innovative design, which it isn’t.
Compared to the world-class building it replaces it is of “no architectural significance”, a phrase which should come in handy a few years hence when the case is being made for its demolition.
Places succeed not by being the same but by being different and interesting and exciting, attractive places where people want to be.
But we continue to express everything in terms of “successful private/public partnerships”. What does it achieve?
What does it do to make our city an attractive relocation proposition? Being cheap is of no importance if no one wants to be here.
John Bell , by email