​

​

Hello, i’ve been working on an essay to summarize my anger at the architectual designs of today and how our heritage has in part been destroyed during the architectual movements of the last 70 or so years. Its not entirely done yet, but I feel in myself a desire just to get it out to begin with, and then maybe expand it and refine it, i have so many ideas for different avenues to explore, but its time i put this out there and see what You lot think of it.

Architecture and its downfall in england.

First version out of a possible series.

In 1942, the medieval city of exeter, the jewel of the west, a city filled with heritage buildings from over 500 years of history was bombed by the germans, in retaliation to the bombing of Lubeck.

Needless to say, the caused innumerable damage, they claimed that they had broken the jewel.

They had not.

But the local council was happy to finish the job, In a series of  horrifying mistakes which can be categorized under that misbegotten term ‘late century town planning’ which appears in the recent histories of cities up and down the country. Even before the war, they had been working at destroying the cities identity, paving the way for a ‘modernisation’ that would age horribly. Buildings which had survived the blast were pulled down, each a reminder of the history of the area and instead erected mindless brick  buildings that the architects probaly thought of in an afternoon.

Cities are but an extension of who we are, although in the process we become a extension of what they are, a sought of symbiosis in which one brings life to the other.  Beautiful cities inspire, they make us happy, and they inspire generations.

Old cities give us an insight into the lives of our forebears. What will our Grand children learn of us? Might they learn that we are boring? That we lack complexity? That we are the same on the next viewing as the first?

Or, might they learn that we are complex, that although we are not perfect, we tried to look after the planet for them? Might they also learn that we respect the past, that we kept for them their heritage, while building magnificent works of our own? Might we also ensure that they will exist in the first place?

Buildings from the 50s onwards- you know the type of which I speak, those shapeless brick anomalies- seem to speak that we had become poor in imagination, that we no longer cared for beauty, and that we were only concerned about keeping things cheap.

This was, needless to say not true. So why does it appear that way?

It seems this is largely down to a function before substance attitude that didn’t allow for the idea of heritage, if something new was more of use then the old was destroyed. A souless and artless approach that lead to where we are now.

Where we live is who we are, so perhaps we can afford to make who we are beautiful.

First of course, we must make where we live affordable to all, but that is a different  topic and one iam not qualified to speak of. Indeed, I am only qualified to speak on this topic as someone who lives somewhere.

Beauty is subjective, but the first place we should go in quantifying beauty is to the people. For cities are nothing without the people, they have no use, so let us the people build for the people. Let us be guided by their and thus our own hand.

All iam suggesting is that we should continue to preserve the past where it still stands, and to build what we can be proud of. Let us say ‘ yes that is us. We exist here and we build for nature and for ourselves and we respect the past and hope for the future’.

This destruction could have been avoided, indeed the reinvention of the bombed section of our  cities into bland misery pits could have been avoided also and we need look no further than the germans, after the fall of communism, for example Neumarket in dresden was rebuilt to his pre war look. Perhaps this is a  guide we can and should follow. We were not under any communist regime, but our heritage was destroyed just like the Germans was  and they rebuilt. Why can’t we?

Coventry,  a city described by my dad as a concrete shithole  serves as almost a mirror to the fate of Exeter. It two was bombed heavily, and it too then had its extensive heritage almost completely demolished.  Nobody looks at coventry and says ‘what a beautiful city’ in Coventry your eyes might be better served angled towards the ground. There are, of course, some nuggets left, but hardly enough compared with its age.

There is a obsession in cities with building higher and higher in order to cramp more people into a small space. In this Iam reminded of the slums of days past, where the poor were herded into unsafe and cramed dwellings. The sheer verticality of this means that it is more likely that the residents will perish in the event of a fire. I don’t think I need to remind anyone of Grenfell.

Looking at a photo of a flat in china and one in London, isolated from the wider context it would be very difficult to tell one from t’other! It’s a real shame that such carelessness in building ignores our beautiful cultural diffrences and tries to tell us all that we are the same, but we are united by difference.

sites read by the author:

[http://demolition-exeter.blogspot.com/2010/10/destruction-of-exeter-in-20th-century.html](http://demolition-exeter.blogspot.com/2010/10/destruction-of-exeter-in-20th-century.html)

[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-coventry-warwickshire-24934919 https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2020/08/why-every-city-feels-same-now/615556/](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-coventry-warwickshire-24934919)

[https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/architect-explains-why-so-many-cities-now-look-similar-chip-cutter](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/architect-explains-why-so-many-cities-now-look-similar-chip-cutter)

12 comments

  2. I’ve spent quite a bit of time dealing with council planning officers, and in my opinion these type of people are to blame for the absolute lack of creativity and beauty in all british homes.

    Corrupt, petty, ugly people. That cannot appreciate beauty. And lack fairness and integrity.

  3. city planning based on “urban agglomeration”. soo many things play into this one simple term its disgusting.

  4. I read somewhere once that effort used to be put into cities because that’s where the rich lived, this changed with the car, the rich could now live outside of cities so they no longer exerted influence on designers.

  5. I think a big thing that is omited here is simply money.

    Go to extremely wealthy areas of London or Cambridge and the new construction is beautiful, there is fantastic design being made from proper materials by real craftsmen.

    Thats for “them” and the rest of us don’t get that as we can’t afford it.

    Back in the day the UK was built on the excess profits of the empire. We exploited the world and concentrated the money and “jewels” on our little island here. This meant people were making so much money they could afford to focus on things other than pure efficiency (see Victorian factories where owners took pride in them being beautiful) now if you make a beautiful factory you will be undercut but someone working out of a shed in China.

    Again that’s all gone now there’s no money to pay people, to buy materials etc.

    The country now is following the Tesco mantra of stack em high sell em low. Look at the old Victorian slums – yes the middle and upper classes had lovely properties but the Poor’s (see all of us) were living in slum housing that has since been demolished – now it’s gone people think oh the cities were all so lovely as all we have left from those times is the cream of the crops best stuff.

    The question now is where is the empire? Where are the ones with all their excess money who could build beauty – well look at Manhattan and the banks – the opulence in those towers is insane. Look at the san Fransisco and the tech billionaires properties – theyve hidden themselves away behind gates but the design is there. They’ve just stopped sharing.

    Just my 2c.

  6. I believe it has more to do with social class, as a result of common people gaining more agency and becoming wealthy something had to be done, and architecture was one of the ideas, make sure common people don’t have nice buildings like the elites to help them know their place, this was all tied in with selling off our industries, so rather than have native citizens getting paid good money ship it abroad where you can still rely on basically slave labour, and don’t have anything be nationalised. The rich just want normal people to be like cattle.

  7. It’s worth remembering the hopes that designers had for tower blocks. If you look at Le Corbusier’s idea for Cities in the Sky, you’ll see he thought he would be creating a utopia and improving conditions for the working classes. And you are also discounting the slum housing that was demolished before the residents were rehoused in tower blocks, in many ways they were a lot better with indoor toilets, central heating etc. etc. Now obviously in some ways the 1960s high rise is a failed experiment and we know that underpasses, that were thought to be desirable to protect pedestrians from cars, actually make people feel unsafe. But he wasn’t discounting the past, he was looking at what hadn’t worked previously and trying to find a way forward. We don’t want tenement slums coming back because they are traditional, anymore than we want more concrete high rises.

  8. I invite anyone who disagrees to go to google maps, pick a random city in any western european country and start dropping into streetview in completely random spots.

    An industrial area is an industrial area of course, but the ugliness of the average commercial and residential area in the UK is wild in comparison.

  9. Ah yes, the British really do love to fetishise their draughty, mouldy pre-war husks that were built without plumbing or insulation and with hallways wasting space to desperately keep heat in for the winter. Sure they had some nice external design elements. But that’s about where the benefits end. You have a very romanticised view of the british legacy housing stock.

    The population of the country grew rapidly post-war. Britain needed to build “good enough” housing quickly enough for everyone. Consider that *the post-war era is literally the only time in the last 200 years that Britain build enough affordable housing.*

    Aside from the homes which have had significant investment over time by their owners, the pre-war housing in Britain left today is largely not fit for purpose for anyone to live in – especially since so much of it has now been carved up into flats to stuff more people in to make up for the fact that we don’t build affordable, fit for purpose, housing at scale anymore.

    If anything, we need to build a lot more “mindless brick buildings” (concrete). Everywhere. Before most the country is living in literal squalor. They had it absolutely right in the 50s and after. Having a place to live is more important than aesthetics and historical romanticism.

  10. It’s worth considering the change and price point of how material usage as well as manufacturing has transitioned as time has progressed; another factor to consider would be how macroeconomic factors have effected building decisions being signed off and progressed such as:

    Political
    Economic
    Sociocultural
    Technological
    Legal
    Environmental

    impacting not just what construction methods and materials have been used to meet emergent and shifting demands within the construction sector.

    I.e residential requirements. Scale and height of construction as well as stressors not just from a mere risk standpoint but also why decisions have been made in light of profitability and delivery timescales etc.

    But also digging down into the what and why of current construction methods; ask yourself can this change? Would it be worth it? If I was an investor would I see a return on making use of more expensive construction methods that are aesthetically pleasing; how would this impact the price point and effect demand and potential revenue projections.

    In all honestly yes I agree with what your saying there seems to be less craft, care and skill when comparing your old cathedrals to churches but… if your 1st house cost an extra £30-50k because it looked great but also made use of energy efficient materials. how long would it take to pay back the return on investment? And would it warrant the difference in price?

    There is no reason we can’t take the advancement of materials and utilise the intrinsic properties in a more beautiful way ie letting in more light and better future proofing our to be, constructions and skylines.

  12. Couple things:

    1. selection bias

    The old buildings you see are not representative of the typical victorian/medieval building. There where a ton of wooden shacks and slums which no longer exist. Not every building looked like the british museum.

    2. beauty of buildings is subjective

    I’m sure you know exactly which building are ugly. So do I. But we probably disagree on a lot of buildings. Most people wouldn’t impose there subjective fashion choices on others, but somehow buildings are different?

    3. the cost of housing is by far the biggest cost for most people

    Put simply housing is expensive to build and not enough of it is being built. It is more expensive to build than in the past, in part due to the lack of the aforementioned slums. People complaining about new housing being ugly doesn’t help. Especially if they are calling for policies/laws banning ugly housing.

    4. density is more eco friendly, and frankly a better for many people

    I’m specifically addressing this:

    > There is a obsession in cities with building higher and higher in order to cramp more people into a small space.

    This isn’t an obsession, this is what people want. I want to live nearby to tons of other people, both for work and so that I’m more likely to live near people I know or places I want to be. Additionally people living in a dense area tend to have high quality public transit, simply because public transit needs a minimum density to be economically viable.

    > into unsafe and cramed dwellings. The sheer verticality of this means that it is more likely that the residents will perish in the event of a fire. I don’t think I need to remind anyone of Grenfell.

    First things first, very few people are killed by fire in the grand scheme of things. However a lot of people are killed by cars. A lot. All the time. Denser areas allow people to switch away from cars, greatly reducing deaths. Additionally cars are typically slower in denser areas, again saving lives.

    But if for some reason we only care about deaths from fire, higher density housing is not necessarily worse than low density housing(though if you can find higher quality data than me I’m all ears). There’s stuff like https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/fire-statistics-data-tables , FIRE0205, but I can’t find any data on what that means in terms of percentage of people housed(there is the english housing survey but that seems to have the categories low rise and high rise, while FIRE0205 has low and high rise only). If you compare single family housing to flats of all kinds flats are far safer. It also doesn’t help that it changes a lot every year so data over the long term is needed.

Leave a Reply