Urban planning and the long legacy of brutalism

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2024/nov/01/urban-planning-and-the-long-legacy-of-brutalism

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Readers respond to Simon Jenkins’ analysis of shifting architectural trends

Simon Jenkins provides a timely account of how, from the 1960s onwards, plans for wholesale demolition of large parts of urban areas began to be challenged (The ransacking of Britain: why the people finally rose up against ‘sod you architecture’, 28 October). He cites the 1974 Covent Garden revolt, which saw citizens, enlightened planners such as Ian Robert Christie – whose legacy is to be honoured by a new award for planning achievement at the University of Liverpool – and eventually politicians questioning the previously axiomatic tenets of comprehensive redevelopment. Christie’s work made some then rather novel proposals such as that the whole area should be designated a conservation area, the existing street pattern should be retained, and housing policy should ensure that low-income residents were not displaced.

Such suggestions illustrate that while, as Jenkins argues, better plans and cities may not be realised until Britons “learn to speak architecture”, there are also other matters to consider, if as a society we are to get better urban places to live in. These include a wider appreciation of townscape, how different forms of development deliver or hinder sought-after social, economic, environmental, or cultural goals, and how citizens can engage in the planning process.

All this also requires recruitment into the planning profession, proper resourcing of the planning service to reverse the post-2010 decline in its capacity, and greater attention to planning in citizenship education. The outcome of such measures would hopefully be a citizenry and planning practice better placed to resist and positively reshape present and future proposals for “sod you” development across our cities and urban areas.Olivier SykesUniversity of Liverpool

Simon Jenkins recounts meeting Liverpool’s planning consultant Graeme Shankland in the 1960s, who he compares to “Bomber” Harris. There are certainly aspects of Shankland’s Liverpool plan, not least the urban motorway, that were swept up in the neophilia of the 1960s, but Shankland was not influenced by Le Corbusier, who he was vocally critical of. His professed influences were current Swedish architecture, William Morris, and contemporary sociologists, many of whom were his friends. Shankland prophetically envisioned Liverpool as a tourist destination, and collaborated with the Liverpudlian architectural historian Quentin Hughes, whose guidance on architectural preservation became official policy in 1967. Dr Otto Saumarez SmithUniversity of Warwick

Simon Jenkins says T Dan Smith “began to demolish the city’s Georgian Grainger Town”. Smith was actually the saviour of Georgian Newcastle. One of his earliest actions on becoming council leader in 1959 was to revoke planning permission for a bank to construct a modern office block on Grey Street, in the heart of Grainger Town. The 1963 city development plan drawn up by Newcastle’s chief planning officer Wilfred Burns under Smith’s leadership pioneered the concept of conservation districts to protect historic areas of the city – such as Grainger Town – from inappropriate development. This influenced government policy, and legislation enabling conservation areas was passed in 1967.John GriffithsNewcastle upon Tyne

In the mid-60s, as a young married student with two children, I worked the long summer holidays labouring on building sites. One was Manchester’s Hulme development mentioned in Simon Jenkins’ fine polemic. The Hulme Crescents were constructed from pre-cast slabs which included window and door openings; they were craned in and stacked like dominos one on top of the other – the second fixers then came with the doors, windows, cables etc to finish the job. They were built in a horseshoe curve with a critical degree of bend so that if they collapsed they would only go so far before the angle would be great enough to stop further collapse. The rats and cockroaches moved in as we were working, and it was obvious that with no insulation the concrete would cause condensation once the first kettle went on the boil.

I pointed this out to the ganger. I will never forget his answer – he was a Mayo man and not frightened of speaking his mind: “Sure, I know that and you know that, and the site foreman knows that, and the town planner knows that, and the lord mayor knows that, and even the fucken’ lord mayor’s cat and budgie knows that, but it’s like a steamroller going’ downhill – there’s too much money and influence involved. It’ll be finished – and it’ll be knocked down in 30 years.”

If my memory is right, he was about two years out – and the people of Manchester only stopped paying off the cost of the experiment a few years ago. There has never to my knowledge been any inquiry – and Manchester is now throwing up a forest of foreign money mega-towers in Manhattan on Irwell.Mike HardingManchester

Simon Jenkins’ article about the brutalist “sod you architecture” imposed on British cities in the 1960s reminded me of something mMy father was told: that the crane being used to demolish those disastrous tower blocks in Hulme in the 1990s was the same one that had put them up. Catherine McLoughlin London

Contrary to popular belief, brutalism doesn’t mean that the architecture is brutal. In fact it refers to béton brut, or raw concrete. Typically it means concrete where the marks of the shuttering are left visible, as a surface design. One of the best examples is the National Theatre. Not all concrete is brutalist, but all brutalism is béton brut. In fact you could build anything out of béton brut, although we now know it would be better not to, largely because of its very high environmental footprint, lack of breathability etc.

Now that we understand embodied carbon (some of us, at least), it becomes clear that we should be trying to prolong the lives and livability of many of the buildings Simon Jenkins excoriates. French architects Lacaton & Vassal showed this could be done with the blocks of social housing they saved in Paris, winning the Pritzker prize in the process. Most of the failed blocks anywhere have failed because of lack of maintenance and social inequality. Almost invariably they are social housing. The Barbican, which Simon Jenkins mentions, remains popular, successful and mostly pretty exclusive. In Marseille the Unité d’Habitation by the hated Le Corbusier is well-maintained and highly sought-after.Judith MartinWinchester

I would say that, as far as Plymouth was concerned – and it had suffered much from the Blitz– we avoided most of that shabby brutalism of the 60s, and most would consider Patrick Abercrombie’s plan for Plymouth a success. We grew up in one of his out-of-centre satellite estates of semi-detached council houses, which had large gardens, good transport, modern schools, local shops and plenty of green space between them where we played; growing up there was a delight. They are more than a match for the matchbox-sized estate houses of today.

The centre of Plymouth, with its wide streets, sweeping tree-lined vistas and gleaming white Portland stone facades, I remember in the 50s glowing in the August sunshine. Its beauty only faded with the coming of Margaret Thatcher, who destroyed the notion of civic pride. Aged 11, we moved to Oxford. I remember catching the bus from the railway station as a December dusk descended over our new home. My sister and I looked out of the windows and then at each other. What a dump, we both agreed!Paul WhiteleyBittaford, Devon

I would love to think that Simon Jenkins is right. But he need only travel to Brentford, west London, to see how powerless ordinary people are against the idiocy of local authorities and the abusive power of “developers”. Brentford has been ruined by umpteen tower blocks, overlooking the M4 and now starting to march down towards Chiswick.

This view is not nimbyism. It is an awareness that stuffing people, families, children into high-rise blocks is inhuman and causes far more problems than it solves. Time and again, socially responsible architects have shown that conventional housing can offer the same if not more density than high-rise – think Norwich. With ready access to fresh air, gardens, allotments, play areas. The foundations and building costs of safe towers far exceeds that of low-rise housing. All that concrete is highly damaging to the environment. I don’t see much evidence that ordinary citizens have any clout compared to the likes of Willmott Dixon and Ballymore.Pamela MayorcasLondon

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