- “You can't ever go wrong with pearls. ..."
Work on the 'Pilgrim Street Quarter' proceeds ... and proceeds. It seems an age since the old Commercial Union Building came down together with the Odeon cinema next door. In fact the entire block was pulverised.
The new offices for H.M. Government is taking shape. A phenomena I have noted before when a new building rises up in a dense urban space is how the newcomer makes one look at the surrounding buildings with a fresher eye. The truly dreadful Pearl Building facing the Ministry Building has assumed a sort of grandeur it never posessed before; a Brutalist quality that one either loathes (most people) or loves (a much smaller band of fans). Brutalism is a hard sell for building conservationists to make an arguement for, and a striking example of this stark style, the Trinity Square Gateshead Multi Storey car park, went to dust long ago, despite starring in famous, or notorious, British crime movie classic Get Carter.*
However, other buildings further down Pilgrim Street towards that 60s grotesque, Swan House, have had a renaissance. Instead of being knocked flat like so much else across the city in recent decades, these have been given a facelift and are being turned into 'apartments'. The superb facade of the former North Eastern Electricity Board building sweeping majestically down Market Street has been preserved, but the interior gutted. In Carliol Square a huge development is being given foundations that suggest something bigger still to overlook 'stunning views' – of the Central Motorway.
So the contrasts keep coming. This transformation of the inner city has had to take account a declining retail sector on our high street and a determination to get rid of motor cars **
It is too late to lament the planning disasters of the past, the continuing confusion as to purpose that finds it's outlet digging up Northumberland Street or Grey Street for the umpteenth times, shows nothing is really settled in the schizoid world of Newcastle's Planning Department – on pavement astro turf and potted skips, banners and gormless feature objets d'art – but hopeful the city will survive. It always does.
Photographic gallery here (off site link)
* Link to Wikipedia article on the film here.
** Ironically, the whole of the Pilgrim Street 'Quarter' was ear marked for credit card shopping in the ill fated era of corporative slush money ventures, namely 'High Street U.K.' The financial slump of 2007-8 did for that.
