Many towns and cities went for this 'look'. It reminds this writer of the
deeply unloved and unlovely Newgate Shopping Centre (demolished)
One of the forgotten parts of this country's modern history is the widespread destruction by aerial bombing known as the Blitz of the Second World War on our cities and towns. Many never recovered from a loss of heritage that still shocks to read and inwardly digest. Leicester in 1939 might well have been recognisable to Richard III in 1483. Canterbury saw its Chaucer era medieval centre flattened. Bath, Bristol, Belfast, Glasgow. Liverpool, London, Newcastle and more – ancient and modern together.
But what happened post war to these ruins is the subject of a debate among historians and architects to this day. Unlike Continental Europe, the idea that one might re-build as things had been occurred to no one in authority here in the United Kingdom. Town planners seized a 'once in a life time opportunity' and the peculiar anaemic styles of British Modernity flooded over the spaces created by high explosive. Few were pleased by the results but with so much else to do in a country that was functionally broke, shrugged and moved on. The audience for the competing arguments about heritage and modernity in built form was much smaller than it is today. Besides, the influential wanted a new start and put the past away – and much survived, so what was the problem?
The Guardian reports on one such planning response of the 50s in the iconic victimhood of Coventry, singled out in one infamous raid in 1940. The post war enthusiasm for concrete and motor cars – Coventry was England's 'motor city' at the time, helped polish off such fragments of medieval heritage* that the bombers missed.
How is this relevant to Newcastle? Planning in this city always has something waiting in the wings. The development (sic) of East Pilgrim Street anticipates more offices and retail space at a time when neither faces a rosey future. In Coventry, as the Guardian article explains, there has already been re-think for the mix of one part of its proposed dramatic 're-modelling'; a seventy thirty split of office and retail versus accommodation has been reversed, reflecting the changes brought about by as much else Covid-19 on the patterns of our lives and occupations. Newcastle already possesses – if that is the right expression – a massive over provision of office space, large parts of which have never had a commercial tenant since completion this century.
There is also a real threat hanging over the 'business models' of our three Universities. The Chinese turning in-house after Hong Kong and Covid-19 issues and an increasing froidure in their international relationships, plus student debt versus employment prospects, reflects badly on what it costs for a few years of 'uni' life. The pell-mell 'money for old rope' student dwellings racket is on the verge of bursting me thinks. What happens next? This city has, as it were, planned for a war that isn't going to happen and is soon to be stuck with its very own version of the Maginot Line.
It might have been so different as one comment beneath the Guardian article explains:
'Philosophaster writes –
- 'Travel all through Europe and every town has a centre largely made up of old buildings made of local materials in local styles that make them all unique, interesting and worth visiting. Even in Poland, which was mostly flattened in WW2, they've rebuilt their centres how they were. In the UK, however, with a few exceptions which are now the centres of our heritage tourism, every historical town centre has been destroyed, several times each, by our own town planners, building companies and corporations, replaced with generic style and materials, cheaply designed and constructed, and filled with the same shops and offices. If you were dropped into a high street, you would have no idea were you were, it could be Anytown. An industrial mill from the 20th century is often the best we can hope for by way of preserving architectural heritage. Simply, the UK has the ugliest towns in Europe.'
*This echoes the post war planning history of Canterbury. A severe attack late in the war destroyed much, but the then city council did the rest. A Town Hall that pre-dated Chaucer's classic tale of Pilgrims was allowed to deteriorate to the point that it was demolished post war. Other gems narrowly avoided destruction at the hands of 'butcher, baker and candlestick maker' councillors.
