My visits to London have their delights in visiting loved places and discovering new ones. They have also been touched with horror at the latest erections of prima donna architects. Among these nightmare products I place the view behind the City’s Royal Exchange with its discarded-fridge-like medley of high rises with the developing atrocities forming the background to the view from General Wolfe’s statue in Greenwich Park and the Thames embankment horrors which confront one on the visit to Battersea power station, an icon of architectural design.
Sadly these excoriations of decent urban design don’t stop at the capital’s prime spots. Suburbs ranging from Hendon in the north to Woolwich in the south are similarly being martyred by expanding egomaniacal excrescences. Comfy suburbs are being turned into small-town mini-manhattans with ever more floor space being squeezed out of the demolition of buildings considered redundant.
I just look at various Facebook Groups to see photos of townscapes of ‘before’ and ‘after’. Practically all their comments prefer the ‘before’.
Like these
Why has this philistinism happened? What reasons have caused large parts of our urban landscape to be turned into sheer ugliness? There are so many reasons of course: a reaction against a pre-war civilization that failed to foresee the disaster that was coming, the notions of architects and town planners that classicism, gothicism, ruralism, eclecticism were all to be done away with in favour of a language free from any previous stylistic inflections. However, the over-riding reason is the increasing land-values in cities forcing prices up and allowing exploiters to build practically whatever they like pushing their ego-trips through and above largely defenceless masses.
Of course, Mammon is generally clothed in seductive dress. Take the example I recently encountered with the ‘Marks and Spenser chain store.The company wished to demolish its flagship Art Deco store in London’s Oxford Street and replace it with a ghastly glass box. Originally M & S had been prevented from doing this by a court judgement which only a couple of days ago was overturned.
I wrote to M & S expressing my concern:
Dear sir or madam
regrettably we have decided not to frequent your stores anymore if your company decides to demolish your beautiful flagship store in London’s Oxford St.
We have always appreciated the good quality and taste of what M & S sell. However the disappearance of this wonderful art deco building shows utter disregard for the architectural heritage of our nation.
Yours sincerely
Francis Pettitt
Yesterday I received the following reply from them:
Dear Francis
Thank you for contacting us and sharing your views on our proposals to redevelop our store at Marble Arch.
Our redevelopment will bring one of London’s most sustainable and energy efficient buildings into the heart of the West End, creating 2000 new jobs, bringing much needed investment to Oxford Street and ensuring M&S has a flagship store in what should be London’s premier shopping district for the next century.
The judgement in the High Court will unlock the wide-ranging benefits of this significant investment and send a clear message to UK and global business that the government supports sustainable growth and the regeneration of our towns and cities.
Thanks again for your interest.
Kind regards etc.
I leave others to interpret this answer. I am sure there will be vastly different opinions. Although I am glad M & S have answered my letter I think it sucks.
Fortunately there is an architectural uprising against the needless and ecologically unsound destruction of so much good building in our towns and cities. On facebook for example there are the following main groups:
Architectural Uprising – the alternative to ugliness 🏰 | Facebook
ARCHITECTURAL CRIMES | Facebook
Architettura in Rivolta | Facebook (for Italy)
https://www.facebook.com/groups/revueltaarquitectonicahispana/?ref=share
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Back at school I campaigned with a classmate in trying to save West Dulwich station railway bridge designed by Charles Barry Junior, the son of the one who, together with Pugin was responsible for the Houses of Parliament (and whose son designed my school Dulwich College). This classmate became one of the most respected architectural historians of our age, one of its most persistent advocates for the preservation of buildings that form part of our heritage and a critic of the ugliness of so much contemporary architecture. Indeed one of his books is called ‘Anti-Ugly – Excursions in English Architecture and Design’. I refer, of course, to Gavin Stamp.
Last week saw the publication of Stamp’s new book ‘Interwar: British Architecture 1919-1939’
It’s a real page-turner with brilliant insights at every turn, a briskly vivid style, many superbly placed illustrations, much-needed reappraisals and astonishing discoveries. The author has done for the history of architecture literature what Alberti did for architecture itself. I’m sure Gavin be pleased, wherever he finds himself in the celestial pantheon, that his book has seen the light of day…and perhaps a new dawn.