“Beauty” and the Thames

by with No Comment CommercialUK

Michael Gove, the Secretary of State, has finally approved a planning application for a new development on the South Bank of the Thames in London, by Make Architects, having delayed it 3 times.

The inspector for the planning noted “The Inquiry grappled with the concept of beauty. Unsurprisingly, this resulted in more than one approach to its definition. I have two brief points to make in this regard: Firstly, the concept of beauty is for some clearly a subjective one. Labelling the building as ‘ugly’ or ‘fat’ only goes to reinforce my view of the subjective nature of such a narrow definition. Secondly, assessing whether the building achieves a high-quality design is an objective process.”

Michael Gove also highlighted that beauty is included as a concept in the National Planning Policy Framework – but is entirely undefined and unexplained…

SOM completes restoration of New York’s historic Lever House

by with No Comment CommercialUnited States

Nice to see what a great job you can do with an old and maybe not so great looking building –

Classic slab on top of a podium slab. The green colour is distinctive, helps set it apart from other buildings around it.

A lot of modern buildings like to sit on top of posts – creates space underneath for people to circulate, as well as reveal the internal garden – I do like the reflective finish.

Bruce Hotel

by with No Comment Commercial
Bruce Hotel

The Bruce Hotel was designed by Glasgow architects Walter Underwood & partners and built in 1969, who also designed the Queen Margaret Union at the University of Glasgow.

It has six floors and includes a ballroom. It was briefly put up for sale in 2019 for £1.5 million but now serves mainly to house asylum seekers.

Glasgow College of Building and Printing

by with No Comment CommercialScotlandUK

The Herald has defended this prominent Glasgow tower block, currently a giant bill board in the city centre, from accusations that it is the “second ugliest building” in the UK.

Prof Alan Dunlop, architect of the Glasgow Radisson and award winning Hazelwood School, is quoted as saying it is one of the “finest and most elegant buildings built in the 1960s that Glasgow actually has.”

Yes, it has “brutalist elements” such as the roof top concrete structures, which are reminiscent of Le Corbusier (so too the piloti, the concrete legs) but he calls it “refined” and “with real elegance”.

It is actually one of a pair of striking buildings designed by Peter Williams for Wylie, Shanks & Partners.

Part of the problem of course is weathering and deterioration of the fabric, which is to be expected in a building from 1964.

The B-listed tower block is to be renovated as a space for expanding tech and digital businesses, but the partner podium building is to be demolished.

Norco House, Aberdeen

Twentieth Century Society at risk list

by with No Comment CommercialScotland

The Twentieth Century Society publish a list of the buildings they consider most at risk in the UK every 2 years.

With the most recent, most are in England, just 2 are in Scotland:

  • Norco house in Aberdeen (previously John Lewis)
  • Scottish Widows building in Edinburgh, which was designed by Spence, Glover and Ferguson and received the RIBA Award for Scotland in 1977. Currently subject to a £100m redevelopment planning application
Norco House, Aberdeen
Scottish Widows building, Edinburgh
Ad Meskens, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Cumbernauld town centre in 1960s

Cumbernauld centre sold

by with No Comment CommercialScotland

CUMBERNAULD’S town centre is to be demolished and replaced, according to North Lanarkshire Council’s plans, after agreeing a deal in principle to purchase the centre from its private owners.

The Herald cites Owen Hatherley’s comments about Cumbernauld in his new book, “Modern Buildings in Britain – A Gazetteer”,  where he calls it a “terrible mistake”. The vision was for the town centre to be a long spine of “buildings as constantly growing and morphing organisms,” but what actually happened was “shopping mall developers who didn’t care much for Copcutt’s sculptural Brutalism… inserted various kinds of tat into it before they decided to eat away at the original building, until all that was left was a tatty and gaunt fragment”.

Cumbernauld town centre in 1960s
[from the Big Issue]

This seems a very difficult time to plan a massive regeneration, given the uncertainty about the future of the British High Street.