Brutalism
I don’t know if anyone else saw the BBC News article on the redevelopment of the Broadmarsh Centre in Nottingham (above). This was a piece of typical 60/70’s comprehensive redevelopment in which a vast tract of historic Nottingham was demolished to make way for what architects might describe as an essay in Brutalism but what most normal people would describe as a pile of brick and concrete garbage. The image below shows the area of Nottingham city centre that was demolished to make way for it.
This kind of crass, arrogant and insensitive development is sadly hardly newsworthy as it happened across most of the UK during this period but what particularly interested me was that the City Council’s proposals originally faced a determined and very vocal campaign to stop them – to save both the original mediaeval street pattern of the area and its historic buildings. The campaign was led by a Miss Palmer, a retired schoolteacher, and she and a number of other retired or elderly women wrote to newspapers, objected to every stage of the proposal and engaged Nottingham’s local civic societies in their fight to save this part of their city.
They were successful to a degree in eventually achieving a public enquiry into the proposed development at which a representative of the London-based architects for the shopping centre, Ian Fraser & Associates, boldly claimed that “We believe our professional skill and sensitivity will make the new area just as interesting and attractive as the old” while the City Council, who were promoting the initiative, suggested that it was “ludicrous that a few old ladies should be allowed to spend time and money questioning the decisions of experts.”
Unfortunately, as we know and despite the efforts of the campaigners, it was the City Council and their ‘experts’ who succeeded in gaining planning approval, but the sad truth is that Miss Palmer, who was personally pilloried at the time as an architectural Mary Whitehouse, was the voice of wisdom; the Council, in their misguided arrogance, destroyed a vast tract of the fabric of the city which was in their care, and their architects, far from exhibiting “skill and sensitivity” were frankly, inept.
For most people, the Broadmarsh Centre in Nottingham is typical of their experience of Modern architecture. They’re not running out to Waterstones to buy one of the many books that have recently been published on ‘Brutalism’ – they’ve lived in the flats and tower blocks – they know that Robin Hood Gardens and the Parkhill Flats in Sheffield, far from being ‘Modern Classics’ were just grim working class mass storage units – they’ve never heard of Fallingwater, Ronchamp or the Lloyds Building and, surprise, surprise, they’re now rather suspicious of groups of highly articulate architects coming into their communities from outside and using phrases such as “skill and sensitivity”.
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John Stewart 