Urban Design : Three Types of Continuity, Case Studies [1 ed.] 9781443867931, 9781443847018

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Urban Design

Urban Design: Three Types of Continuity, Case Studies

By

John Yarwood

Urban Design: Three Types of Continuity, Case Studies, by John Yarwood This book first published 2013 Cambridge Scholars Publishing 12 Back Chapman Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2XX, UK

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Copyright © 2013 by John Yarwood All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-4438-4701-1, ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-4701-8

CONTENTS

List of Figures............................................................................................ vii Foreword .................................................................................................... xi Rick Hall Preface ....................................................................................................... xv Chapter One ................................................................................................. 1 Introduction Chapter Two .............................................................................................. 21 Urban Conservation 1: St Petersburg Chapter Three ............................................................................................ 71 Urban Conservation 2: Greifswald and Banska Stiavnica Chapter Four .............................................................................................. 85 Cultural Tourism: Jamaica Chapter Five ............................................................................................ 115 Continuity of Form 1: Telford Chapter Six .............................................................................................. 151 Continuity of Form 2: Thamesmead, Tête Défense, Hérouville, Silvertown Bridge Bibliography ............................................................................................ 185

LIST OF FIGURES

Fig. 1.1. Christ Church college floor plan, Oxford. (From the Royal Commission on Historical Monuments, England. 1939.) Fig. 1.2. Plan of central part of Oxford. (From the Royal Commission on Historical Monuments, England. 1939.) Fig. 1.3. Piece Hall, Halifax, floor plan. (From P. Smithies. 1988.) Fig. 1.4. Aleppo commercial district plan. (From M. Cezar. 1983.) Fig. 1.5. Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, floor plan, (From Palacio P.N. 2004.). Fig. 1.6. Hôtel des Invalides floor plan. (From K Baedecker. 1904.) Fig. 1.7. Galleria Vittorio Emanuelle 11 block plan. (From Geist J.F. 1979.). Fig. 1.8. Galleria Vittorio Emanuelle 11 floor plan. (From Geist J.F. 1979.) Fig. 1.9. Ascoli Piceno town plan. (From F Mariano. 1995.) Fig. 1.10. Gota Square plan, Gothenberg. (From G Holmdahl, et al. 1950.) Fig. 1.11 La Plata town plan. (From Touring Club Italiano, 1934.) Fig. 1.12. Carnaervon, plan of castle and town. (From Anderson W. 1970). Fig. 2.1. St. Petersburg. Strategic Plan. Sieve Map and definition of Comprehensive Development Areas. Fig. 2.2. St. Petersburg. Strategic Plan. Land value contours. Fig. 2.3. St. Petersburg. Strategic Plan. Traffic management. Fig. 2.4. St. Petersburg. Strategic Plan. Rapid transit. Fig. 2.5. St. Petersburg. Strategic Plan. Diagram of orthogonal block layouts. Fig. 2.6. St. Petersburg. Strategic Plan. Diagram of axes and vistas. Fig. 2.7. St. Petersburg. Example of palimpsest of grids, forming rhomboidal sites. Fig. 2.8. St. Petersburg. Mariinski and New Holland CDA. Circulatory System Diagram. Fig. 2.9. St. Petersburg. Mariinski and New Holland CDA. St. Nicholas Cathedral Perspective. Fig. 2.10. St. Petersburg. Mariinski and New Holland CDA. Nikolski Market Perspective. Fig. 2.11. St. Petersburg. Mariinski and New Holland CDA. Theatre Square Upgrading Plan. Fig. 2.12. St. Petersburg. Mariinski and New Holland CDA. New Holland Perspective. Fig. 2.13. St. Petersburg. Extract from Chroniort (1698) map. Fig. 2.14. St. Petersburg. Extract from Unverzagt (1741) map. Fig. 2.15. St. Petersburg. Redrawn Eropkin map (1739) of Colomna district. Fig. 2.16. St. Petersburg. Extract from Schubert (1828) map. Fig. 2.17. St. Petersburg. Extract from Lavrov (1830) map. Fig. 2.18. St. Petersburg. Redrawn extract from Enakiev (1912) map.

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List of Figures

Fig. 2.19. St. Petersburg. Sadovaya Street CDA. Traffic management and pedestrianisation ideas. Fig. 2.20. St. Petersburg. Sadovaya Street CDA. Apraksin Market perspect. Option A Fig. 2.21 St. Petersburg. Sadovaya Street CDA. Apraksin Market perspect. Option B Fig. 2.22. St. Petersburg. Plan of Lomonossov Square: drawing by Rossi. Fig. 2.23. St. Petersburg. Rossi’s architectural vocabulary (from Taranovskaya 1980). Fig. 2.24. St. Petersburg. Early sketch by Rossi of Apraksin site. Fig. 2.25. St.Petersburg. Redrawn map by Lavrov (1830). Fig. 2.26. St. Petersburg. Sadovaya Street CDA. Gostiny Dvor perspective. Fig. 2.27. St. Petersburg. Sadovaya Street CDA. Sennaya Square projects. Fig. 2.28. St. Petersburg. Sadovaya Street CDA. Sennaya Square perspective. Fig. 2.29. St. Petersburg. Konyushennaya CDA. Circulation Plan. Fig. 2.30. St. Petersburg. Konyushennaya CDA. Aerial perspective. Fig. 2.31. St. Petersburg. Konyushennaya CDA. Dvortsovaya Square. Fig. 2.32. St. Petersburg. Konyushennaya CDA. Crescent and rotunda forms. Fig. 2.33. St. Petersburg Konyushennaya CDA. Extract from Academy of Sciences map (1753). Fig. 2.34 St. Petersburg. Konyushennaya CDA. Extract from Schubert (1828) map. Fig. 2.35. St. Petersburg. Konyushennaya CDA. Unbuilt proposal by Enakiev. Fig. 2.36. St. Petersburg. Preobrazhensky CDA. Barracks Site plan. Fig. 2.37. St. Petersburg. Preobrazhensky CDA. Barrack site perspective. Fig. 2.38. St. Petersburg. Preobrazhensky CDA. Stieglitz Area perspective. Fig. 2.39. St. Petersburg. Preobrazhensky CDA. Extract from Homann (1721) map. Fig. 2.40. St. Petersburg. Preobrazhensky CDA. Extract from Savinkov (1820) map Fig. 3.1. Banska Stiavnica. Infill building proposal: Krizovatka. Fig. 3.2. Banska Stiavnica. Infill building proposal: Tobacco factory area on Dolna. Fig. 3.3. Banska Stiavnica. Infill building proposal: Kammerhofska. Fig. 3.4. Nova Bana. Infill building proposal: St. Elizabeth Square plan. Fig. 3.5. Nova Bana. Infill building proposal: St. Elizabeth Square perspective. Fig. 3.6. Greifswald. Fleischer Vorstadt. Analytical chart of architectural styles and building forms. Fig. 3.7. Greifswald. Fleischer Vorstadt. Example of building analysis: Gutzkower Strasse 9. Fig. 3.8. Greifswald. Fleischer Vorstadt. Example of building analysis: Arndt Strasse 9. Fig. 3.9. Greifswald. Fleischer Vorstadt. Example of details record. Fig. 3.10. Greifswald. Fleischer Vorstadt. Example of street development record. Fig. 4.1. Jamaica. Site layout diagram. Fig. 4.2. Jamaica. Notional building layout, coastal area. Fig. 4.3. Jamaica. Notional building layout, Great House. Fig. 4.4. Jamaica. Site plan of New Seville project. Fig. 4.5. Jamaica. Example of measured drawing. (John Harrison).

Urban Design: Three Types of Continuity, Case Studies Fig. 4.6. Jamaica. Example of survey notes; doorway. (John Harrison). Fig. 4.7. Jamaica. Example of survey notes; Curing House. (John Harrison). Fig. 4.8. Jamaica. Possible layout of Sugar Works. (Ian Robinson). Fig. 4.9. Jamaica. Reconstruction of Trash House. (Ian Robinson). Fig. 4.10. Jamaica. Reconstruction of Cattle Mill. (Ian Robinson). Fig. 4.11. Jamaica. Photographs of Water Mill. Fig. 4.12. Jamaica. St. Annes Bay study: Sketches of Main St. (Oliver Cox). Fig. 4.13. Jamaica. St. Annes Bay study. Sketch of Main St. and Church St. (Oliver Cox). Fig. 5,1. Telford: Diagram: the land use mix principle. Fig. 5.2. Telford: Diagram: “stronghold”, etc. Fig. 5.3. Telford: Diagram: growth process. Fig. 5.4. Telford: Diagram: three examples of growth processes. Fig. 5.5. Telford: Diagram: system of pedestrian routes. Fig. 5.6. Telford: Diagram: outline of landscape survey. Fig. 5.7. Telford: Diagram: planting strategies. Fig. 5.8. Telford: Drawing: mews. Fig. 5.9. Telford. Site plan. Fig. 5.10. Telford. Perspective sketches of competition design. Fig. 5.11. Telford: Perspective sketches of competition design. Fig. 5.12. Telford: Perspective of main square (A). Fig. 5.13. Telford: Perspective of main square (B). Fig. 5.14. Telford: Plan of central part, including main square. Fig. 5.15. Telford: Aerial perspective. Fig. 5.16. Telford: Model of west part of centre. Fig. 5.17. Telford. Town centre. Urban design plan. Fig. 5.18. Telford. Town centre. Urban design plan, Central zone. Fig. 5.19. Telford, Town centre. Urban design plan, West zone. Fig. 5.20. Telford. Town centre. Elevation of Apartments. Fig. 5.21. Telford. Town centre. Urban design plan, Southern Zone. Fig. 5.22. Telford. Town centre. Urban design plan, Eastern Zone. Fig. 5.23. Telford. Town centre. Housing layout. Fig. 5.24. Telford. Town centre. Urban design plan, Northern Zone. Fig. 5.25. Telford. Old Park. Sketch of urban design layout. Fig. 5.26. Telford. Old Park. Housing layout (first version). Fig. 5.27. Telford. Old Park. Housing layout (revision). Fig. 6.1. Thamesmead. Spatial structure concept diagram. Fig. 6,2. Thamesmead. Road hierarchy of proposed town centre plan. Fig. 6.3. Thamesmead. Evocation drawing of the town centre. Fig. 6.4. Thamesmead. Exploratory sketch of retail area. Fig. 6.5. Thamesmead. Diagram of possible design of area between ELRC and Central Way. Fig. 6.6. Thamesmead. Aerial axonometric drawing of centre. Fig. 6.7. Silvertown. Vista to Canary Wharf. Fig. 6.8. Silvertown. Plan of land west of river. Fig. 6.9. Silvertown. Cross-section through road bridge.

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List of Figures

Fig. 6.10. Silvertown. Plan of land east of river. Fig. 6.11. Silvertown. Geometric structure of layout. Fig. 6.12. Silvertown. Aerial Pespective. Fig. 6.13. Dickleburgh. Village centre. Layout. Fig. 6.14. New Marston, Swindon. Proposed plan. Fig. 6.15. Tampere. Plan of city centre expansion area. Fig. 6.16. Herouville Saint Clair: Plan of Main Square with Town Hall around two sides. Fig. 6.17. Herouville Saint Clair: Elevation of Town Hall facing main square. Fig. 6.18. Herouville Saint Clair: Cross-section of Council Chamber. Fig. 6.19. Herouville Saint Clair: Campanile and Culture Centre elevation. Fig. 6.20. Herouville Saint Clair: Culture Centre plan. Fig. 6.21. Herouville Saint Clair. Axonometric drawing of centre. Fig. 6.22. Tete Defense: Axonometric view from the south. Fig. 6.23. Tête Défense: Sketch of project facing down the Champs Elysées. Fig. 6.24. Tête Défense: Perspective of proposal from north. Fig. 6.25. Tête Défense: View along Champs Elysées, with project in the foreground. Fig. 6.26. Tête Défense: Above: Longitudinal cross-section. Below: East-west section. Fig. 6.27. Tête Défense: Main ground level plan. Fig. 6.28. Tête Défense: Elevation of project facing central Paris.

FOREWORD RICK HALL

I first met John Yarwood when we were fellow post-graduate students at Sheffield University in the 1970s. We collaborated on an international Study and Ideas competition for the regeneration of central Glasgow. Although we only worked together on this and one other project (much later in Finland), I believe we have always shared a common belief in the importance of sustainable development through recognising and conserving the essential character of a place to inform the best way forward for its future development. This recognition of the importance of historic factors in pointing the way forward in the development process is the continuity that John refers to in this book. John’s considerable intellect and indefatigable enthusiasm for urban design has informed his life’s work since these early beginnings. The book brings together John’s very diverse work experiences in different parts of the world and considers three different forms of continuity relating to these very different locations. At first sight it is difficult to imagine what the common issues might be in the urban design of such contrasting locations as St. Petersburg, Jamaica and Telford. John employs continuity as his theme to analyse and understand the development process and evolution of urban form in these very different locations. Urban design involves various forms of intervention in the development process. The considerable challenges posed by the need to reconcile the sometimes conflicting aims of conserving character, promoting enhancement of property values, and generating additional funds to plough back into essential non-profitable development are tackled here head on. John’s passionately held view that sustainable development depends on having a mixed land use strategy avoiding large areas of single use zoning; a commitment to prioritised investment in public transport and minimising the impact of road and parking development; and employing a concept of ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ elements giving clear structure, but maintaining essential

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flexibility in order to be responsive to continually changing developmental needs, can be seen in each of these case studies. There are many drawings explaining the design proposals for each of these case studies, many of which have been individually drawn by John. His clear analysis of the issues and his articulation of appropriate strategies to address them filters down through conceptual diagrams and master plans to detailed three dimensional built form proposals for landscapes, townscapes and the buildings and spaces they define. This comprehensive approach from general strategies to detailed specific proposals demonstrates a confidence and understanding of the issues which is impressive. Inevitably, to show one’s complete hand in this way invites detailed criticism of the specific proposals, and how well they achieve the stated aims, and John doesn’t shy away from this. Design intervention in world cities such as St. Petersburg and Paris, in which conservation is the key issue, contrasts starkly with Jamaica in which highly sensitive cultural and historic identity is of paramount importance. Somewhere in between these examples are the two casestudies of Telford and Thamesmead, both products of the New Town movement in post-war Britain. The other case studies mentioned fit more loosely within these defined types. Architects and urban designers have a general tendency to prescribe solutions, in the form of concrete proposals, in response to development challenges. The need to have a more open-ended approach with a balance between prescribed built form and more ‘loose fit’ development, left open to various design interpretation, emerges in some of these case studies. John introduces the idea of ‘persistencies’ or ‘permanences’ into his thinking about the evolution of cities and urban form, continually enabling the designer to refer back to precedents as an indicator of the validity of one’s own design. This idea strikes me as central to John’s work both in terms of his intellectual approach to problem solving and also in the design vocabulary he employs as an urban designer. The common factors in his approach to developing design proposals for such different locations as we see here manifest themselves at every stage. The importance of the landmark, the street, the axis, the square and other historic elements in urban form; equally the importance of recognising the value of historical, cultural and economic factors in the evolution of development suggest that

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there are indeed these ‘Permanences’ that ultimately point the way to how we should intervene. I recommend this book both as a fascinating revelation of how such diverse locations continue to evolve and adapt to changing circumstances, and also as a real insight into the life’s work of a talented and highly experienced practitioner in the field of urban design. —Rick Hall Bradwell, Hope Valley, Derbyshire. December 2012

PREFACE

This book is about three forms of continuity in urban design; in other words, the perpetuation of historic precedents in one way or another. The three forms or types may be called briefly (i) urban conservation; (ii) cultural tourism; and (iii) the persistence of historic form. The book is recounted through ‘case studies’ of my own work in these fields. By urban conservation I mean the purposeful protection of the existing key characteristics of a town or district, (as opposed to the fabric of specific buildings of architectural merit and historic interest). One way of achieving this from a practical point of view is to create tourism activity, which I call here ‘cultural tourism’, from which an income flow can be spun off, as the basis for investment. The third channel is the ‘permanence of form’, which need not entail existing buildings or urban phenomena on the site (or otherwise available for copy). The idea of continuity is akin to that of memory. It is the opposite of modernism, or revolutionism, if I can call it that, which struck me as implausible—or, after Brutalism had begun to horrify me—as repulsive, even. This book expounds continuity in urban design through my own work as a designer. The study of history strikes me as the heart of the matter. Most drawings here are my own. They are by others if I mention their names. In chapter 2 several plans are historic examples, namely figs. 2.16 to 2.21; 2.25 to 2.28; 2.36, 2.37, 2.41 and 2.42. In Jamaica (chapter 4) John Harrison did several drawings of St. Ann’s estate (figs. 4.5 to 4.7); Oliver Cox did sketches of St. Ann’s town, (figs. 4.12 and 4.13), and Ian Robinson made several drawings of industrial archaeological ‘reconstructions’, (figs. 4.8 to 4.10). Bob Macdonald drew several perspectives of our Telford competition design in chapter 5; (figs. 5.8 and 5.10 to 5.15). I thought I might describe briefly some of the individuals who had been a vital influence on my work recounted in this book. Certainly I cannot claim all the credit for it, and one has to realise that things are down to a group or network of people and even institutions.

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I should first mention two professors at Sheffield university where I studied Planning, namely David Gosling and John (‘Jimmy’) James. David, as the Professor of Architecture at Sheffield University, was a minor historical figure. He had been Deputy Chief Architect at Runcorn Development Corporation and then Chief Architect at Irvine Development Corporation. Subsequent to a mildly stormy period at Sheffield, he went to Cincinnati University in the USA. He had been a significant figure in the post-war New Towns movement in Britain, and then a substantial figure in university education. When Rick Hall and I went in for a design competition in Glasgow, David was a great moral support and source of encouragement. On many occasions he invited me to be an external critic for his thesis students. Rick Hall and I have worked together on many occasions since then. He subsequently pioneered computer-aided architectural design in David’s department before setting up a private company doing the same thing. David was my last connection with the old new towns ethos of the post-war period in Britain. After that, the entire culture of planning and the public sector went into something of a decline, consequent perhaps on the rise of Thatcher-Reaganism. Jimmy James, the Professor of Urban and Regional Planning, was or is ironically also a reminder of the glory days of English state-sector planning. He was a geographer by background, and rose to become the Chief Planner (and Joint Under-secretary) of the then Ministry of Housing and Local Government—reformed later as the Department of the Environment. He resigned from the civil service over the reform of local government which the new right-wing government was intent on, because he believed strongly in the contrasting recommendations of the Redcliffe Maude Commission (on which he had been the leading light). He was a pragmatist but also a man of rare principle. But what had been a loss to the government became a great gain for Sheffield University. His ineffable elegance and charm of manner swept the opposition of the provincial obscurantists away, and he became the de facto vice-chancellor. This saved the university from decline, I suspect. In any event, he was a great support to Rick and me, and we can never forget his devotion to our inadequate work. When I did a competition entry for Telford Town Centre, for which I won Joint First Prize, (see Chapter 5) I worked with two of David’s final-year students of architecture, Bob Macdonald and Dave Lees. Bob executed several of the sketches in this book, and I was greatly impressed by their flair. I particularly recall that I was a follower of brutalism in architecture

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and structuralism in planning; for example, the Smithsons and Candilis, Josic and Woods. Working with Bob changed my view, however. I came to appreciate the later work of Leon Krier and that of Gordon Cullen, who were both more interested in urban design than in the architecture of separate buildings. I was taken with the ‘new urbanism’. I recall getting to know Gordon in connection with the Telford competition. He worked with another practice that was also a joint first prize winner. We used to go out for a pint in the Dover Castle, behind the old office of Lyons Israel and Ellis in Portland Place where I used to work. Oddly enough, he was also a close friend of David Gosling. Some time after my work in Bahrain, I was asked to work as a project manager in Jamaica by Donald (Lord) Hankey. See Chapter 4. I worked there with John Harrison, a conservation architect who was a very straight, self-sufficient and simple, modest person who did not have the characteristics of most consultants. He restored beautifully a small barn up a remote hillside in North Wales—not far from me in Shropshire. When not there, he worked for the University of Vienna as an architectural restorer in the remote corners of the Himalayas. He was an inspired architectural sketcher and a fine preparer of measured drawings: several sketches in this book are his1. Another reason for recalling my time in Jamaica with fondness was working with Oliver2 and Jean Cox, who had great experience of the island. Oliver was also a stylish sketcher and several of his works on St. Ann’s Bay are included here.3 After my time in Mostar (Bosnia), I was asked to go to St. Petersburg (see Chapter 2) by John Kirk, also a senior partner in Gilmore Hankey Kirk (GHK). I was there with Nick Miles, an economist with GHK. In those days, GHK had the excitingly complex flavour of a genuinely multidisciplinary practice. In other words, civil engineering, architectural and urban design and social science were synthesised. Certainly, Nick was superb thinker about urbanism in all aspects, and not merely an economist. I look back on my time with GHK with great fondness for this reason. In other words, it was a genuine thrill to be in a team of people from diverse backgrounds, all of whom were trying to empathise with each other in an intellectual and cultural sense. In St. Petersburg, during the Boris Yeltsin 1

See figs. 4.5 to 4.7. Oliver had set up the firm of architect-planners, Shankland Cox, with Graeme Shankland in the 1960s. All the GHK founding partners had worked for it long before, and that, indeed, was where they had met in the first place. 3 See figs. 4.12 and 4.13. 2

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era, we worked as a sub-consultant to an enormous American consultancy which was closely allied with certain key Russians. Now years later, GHK has been taken over by another American mega-firm—as has Halcrow, indeed—and so the tsunami of ‘cultural/commercial change’ rolls ever onward. Lastly, let me mention Fred Lesche. He was the founder of a small practice in Greifswald, a small town in the former East Germany, in the land of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, near the Polish border. I went there for a few visits lasting roughly three months each in order to undertake professional commissions (see Chapter 3 for one case). It was a big help with my German, because in those days in the East few adults could speak English and I had no choice but to try out what I had excelled at whilst at school. Fred and colleagues were immensely friendly, and I lived with him and his family as well as working for him. I found that the Brit, along with the Danes, in those days were quite popular in the East—the Wessis much less so. The Lesche family remained very important to us as the years went by. —John Yarwood. Egremont House, Edgmond, Shropshire TF10 8JW

CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION

Continuity This book is about three forms of continuity in urban design; in other words, the perpetuation of historic precedents in one way or another. The three forms or types may be called briefly (i) urban conservation; (ii) cultural tourism; and (iii) the persistence of historic form. The book is recounted through ‘case studies’ of my own work in these fields. By urban conservation I mean the purposeful protection of the existing key characteristics of a town or district (as opposed to the fabric of specific buildings of architectural merit and historic interest). One way of achieving this from a practical point of view is to create tourism activity, which I call here ‘cultural tourism’, from which an income flow can be spun off, as the basis for investment. The third channel is the ‘permanence of form’, which need not entail existing buildings or urban phenomena on the site (or otherwise available for copy).

Urban conservation I draw a distinction between architectural conservation on the one hand and urban conservation on the other. The former deals with the conservation of buildings (or building complexes, meaning small areas of closely related buildings). The latter deals with towns or districts within towns, however, and concerns conserving urban character even if relatively few actual historic architectural structures were themselves to be involved in preservation action. At the same time it also concerns changing the functionality of the town in such a way as to make it work better. In chapters two and three I describe several urban conservation strategic plans. The first case is St. Petersburg during the period of Boris Yeltsin. The fundamental ideas of this project were to (a) use public finance (based

2

Chapter One

on a World Bank loan) in order to restructure the city so as to enhance the potential value of property assets; (b) remove institutional, legal and other ‘soft’ obstacles to the efficient functioning of the property market; and (c) use private finance to invest in commercially sound property development projects in historic areas which would release profit flows and to redirect these into necessary but non-profitable projects. The first aim included pedestrianisation schemes, the removal of objectionable traffic congestion and the building of new parking projects, as well as pedestrian canal bridges and similar new linkages. Other examples might be road and infrastructure repair (plus some new links), including sewers, water mains, and so on. This would also entail creating a good functional system for issuing and collecting consumer bills so that costs could be recovered. The second aim addressed the failure to occupy and use many properties and to collect rents. This failure was very common, and discouraged landlords from spending money to maintain and manage assets, of course. There was not a very good property market, because assets were not always very well documented, and the law was rather rigid. As a result, the idea of a ‘market price’ had insufficient meaning. There were some legal obstacles to our ideas, such as cross-subsidy by ‘packaging’, i.e. transferring profits from one investment into another non-profitable project. A lot of creative legal-administrative thinking was needed. The third aim involved defining (i) suitable commercial-historic investment projects, and (ii) suitable non-commercial cultural-historic projects. The first and third aims are most relevant to this chapter, and we describe some concrete examples in chapter two below. In Chapter Three I describe two other urban conservation strategy projects, namely (i) Fleischer Vorstadt, a nineteenth century suburb in the town of Greifswald, on the Baltic sea, north of Berlin, near the Polish border, and (ii) the baroque core of Banska Stiavnica in western Slovakia. Banska Stiavnica is a small town with a wonderful Baroque heritage, now a “World Heritage Site”, but expanded considerably by unfortunate prefabricated concrete housing during the Communist period. The client

Introduction

3

was the E.C. and I was employed by the London consultancy GHK,1 (for whom I had also worked in Jamaica and St. Petersburg—see below). The strategic aim, not unlike that for St. Petersburg, was to strengthen the economy of the area, capture some of the surplus and deploy it to conserve and enrich the environment. In the case of Fleischer Vorstadt, an area of decaying neo-classical, nineteenth century and turn of the century housing, I was employed by a local architect, Fred Lesche, who was preparing a housing renewal strategy for the housing association Neue Heimat Mecklenberg-Vorpommern. My task was to make a survey and analyse (catalogue) the grammar of the architecture in terms of form and style.

Cultural tourism In Chapter Four, I describe the cultural tourism conceptual plan for a countryside area near the town of St. Ann’s Bay, (on the north coast of Jamaica). The area comprised a Spanish settlement, an African village, an English ‘Great House’, and an agricultural estate, etc., which were seen as a palimpsest of Jamaican history. There was a certain amount of archaeology involved, and the York Archaeological Trust (and their consultancy arm2), was subcontracted to GHK, who were working for the IADB (Inter-American Development Bank) to prepare a proposal for St. Ann’s. Tourism in Jamaica was quite well developed, of course, in terms of sun, sea and sand themes. There were already some notable luxury resorts, but the cultural dimension had not been much exploited. Now the IADB wanted to move in a different direction, and we proposed not only to rehabilitate the Great House and the agricultural industry works, and water wheel, etc., but also recreate the African and slave housing, plantations and orchards. We also proposed to build a Visitor Centre akin to the Jorvik Viking centre in York, with full-scale models viewed by visitors from a railway. The point here was that sufficient paying visitors should be attracted to finance the necessary investment, and this meant that the commodification of history was inevitably an issue for debate. 1 2

Gilmore Hankey Kirke. Heritage Projects Ltd.

4

Chapter One

Persistences or Permanences The urban phenomenon of permanences was first posited by Marcel Poete3 and Pierre Lavedan4—according to Aldo Rossi, although his own writings on the subject are probably more widely known than those of the first two. He attributes to Poete the discovery that: Cities tend to remain on their axes of development, maintaining the position of their original layout and growing according to the direction and meaning of their older artefacts, which often appear remote from present day ones. Sometimes these artefacts persist virtually unchanged, endowed with continuous vitality; other times they exhaust themselves, and then only the permanence of their form, their physical sign, their locus remains.5

In the former case, Rossi regards them as monuments, which are the ‘propelling elements’, whilst the latter are ‘pathological’. The most valid part of Poete’s theory, says Rossi, is that the streets and the plan are the most meaningful permanences in any town. Rossi then takes one example of a monument6 which has changed function whilst retaining all its other physical characteristics. Rossi observes that “this proves its vitality”. He goes further than this, by arguing that function is not critically significant because it can change, whilst form remains the same: this flies in the face of naïve functionalism, in other words, ‘modernism’, which identifies form with function. Rossi is identifying monuments, building, landscape, memory and place with art, which Rossi (quoting Victor Hugo), sees as arising from society not from individuals: The greatest works of architecture are not so much individual as they are social works; rather the works of nations in labour than the inspired efforts of men of genius; the legacy of a race; the accumulated wealth of centuries, the residuum of successive evaporations of human society—in a word, a species of formation.7

One might see this as a somewhat nationalistic, rightist perspective these days, of course. But it is a corrective, nonetheless, to excessive individualism. 3

See C.N. Terranova, Marcel Poete’s Bergsonian urbanism: vitalism, time and the city. Journal of Urban History. Sept. 2008 34; 919-943. 4 See Pierre Lavedan 1956 Penguin. 5 A. Rossi (1984). p59. 6 Palazzo della Ragione in Padua. 7 Victor Hugo, Notre Dame de Paris, quoted in Rossi 1984, p107

Introduction

5

Similarly, it draws our attention to the relevance also of history as permanent paradigm: All the great eras of architecture have reproposed the architecture of antiquity anew, as if it were a paradigm established forever: but each time it is reproposed differently. Because this same idea has been manifested in different places, we can understand our own cities by measuring this standard against the actuality of the individual experience of each particular place.8

Rossi drew attention to a variety of cases, of course, such as the Palazzo della Ragione, Padua.9 There are thousands of relevant such examples, no doubt, but here we will mention only ten. They are not organised in any deliberate sequence. (i) Christ Church Oxford.10 See fig.1.1. which shows four quadrangles leading from St. Aldate’s Street and identifies construction within a consistent but effortlessly unified spatial framework dating from the twelfth to the eighteenth centuries. See also fig. 1.2, a smallscale plan of all the colleges at Oxford.11 (ii) Piece Hall, Halifax. See fig. 1.3, which shows the floor plan.12 RCHM 1939 also shows other piece halls (i.e. cloth markets), some on circular layouts which are strikingly similar to the Foro Bonoparto, Milan, shown in Rossi 1984. They are similar to the Sferisterio or forum in Macerata and the various Roman fora shown in Rossi. (iii) Aleppo commercial district. See fig. 1.4.13 This contains eight hans in the form of squares, (redolent of the Halifax Piece Hall), as well as the Ulu Jami and covered streets of the bazaar, dating from the thirteenth century.

8

Rossi 1984, p107. See Rossi, op. cit., p29-30. 10 See Royal Commission on Historical Monuments, England (RCHM) 1939. Opposite p32. 11 See RCHM, op. cit., opposite p136 12 See Philip Smithies 1988. 13 M. Cezar 1983, p73. 9

Chapter One

6

(iv) Floor plan of cathedral of Santiago de Compostela. See fig. 1.5.14 This plan, and numerous other similar ones, inspired the Tête Défense plan which had similarly a cruciform plan, expanded outwards to encompass the cloisters etc. within a single unified system. (v) Hôtel des Invalides, Paris. See fig. 1.6.15 This includes the Dome des Invalides, a secondary church including the tomb of Napoleon Bonaparte. It also includes several museums of vast length, forming fifteen courtyards in an orthogonal structure. (vi) Galleria Vittorio Emanuele 11, Milan; block plan. See fig. 1.7.16 This shows the cruciform plan in relationship to the cathedral. The floor plan of the galleria is shown in fig. 1.8. (vii) Ascoli Piceno, plan of the Piazza del Popolo, showing the church of S. Francesco, the colonnades fronting shops with housing behind and above them; the palazzo of the Capitano dei Popolo, etc. See fig. 1.9.17 (viii) Gota square, Gothenburg. Plan proposal by Gunnar Asplund. See fig. 1018 This shows a square on rising ground, rather like the Court square in the Telford scheme. (ix) La Plata town plan, Argentina. See fig. 1.11.19 This remarkable, perfectly symmetrical, orthogonal grid, with diagonals and piazzas / parks at intersections, was planned as a provincial capital and begun around 1880. It was based on identical blocks and superblocks. The architect was Pedro Benoit. (x)

14

Carnaervon; floor plan of castle and town. See fig. 1.12.20 This illustrates a fortified town which was an inspiration for the central portion of the Telford town centre design shown below, in which

See P.N. Palacio, 2004 p67. See K. Baedecker. 1904. Opposite p296. 16 See J.F. Geist, 1979, p224 17 See F. Mariano, 1995, Fig.351. 18 See G. Holmdahl, et al 1950. p34 19 See Touring Club Italiano, 1932, opposite p134 20 See W. Anderson, 1970, p144. 15

Introduction

7

the existing road box was similar to the river-system inasmuch as it defined the ‘wall-building’ which bounded the layout as a whole. In chapters 5 and 6 of this book, I refer to several cases of this manifestation of continuity at Tête Défense, Hérouville Saint Clair, Telford—all three competitions—and Thamesmead Town, Silvertown Bridge in London, and Tampere in Finland. In all six cases, there were certainly contextual landscapes, but more or less no existing towns at the outset, so in urban terms one had to design something largely or entirely new. In all cases, however, I tried to create something that emerged from either the landscape (or, better to say, the genus loci) or my appreciation of the historical background—what Victor Hugo called ‘a species of formation’. In Telford I recall in particular the idea of a huge ‘citadel’ of buildings, a wall—so to speak—wrapping round the existing square ‘box road’, defining the boundary of the inner area and differentiating its inside and outside. See figs. 5.9. I also proposed an outer ring of geometrically ramped earthen embankments that ran alongside a proposed outer box road and enclosed future multi-storey car parks, and would be analogous to a mediaeval city wall. In the urban design competition for the new town centre of Hérouville Saint-Clair, the similar notion of a ‘wall’ was used, with points of entry, on a gate analogy, through it. I remember being transfixed by the town plans I found in Baedecker guides of the late nineteenth century. Camillo Sitte would have been inspired by them, I think. In the case of the Tête Défense competition, there was a clear invitation to consider the site as the termination of the tremendous axis from the Jardin des Tuilleries via the Champs Elysee and the Arc de Triomphe. It seemed to me obvious that a monument was called for, not only because the notion of Communication in the brief implied a grand projet, but also because its locus was to be the culmination of Haussmann’s most remarkable axis. The monument, to me, was akin to a cathedral in form. The main front would face east along the Champs Élysées to the Arc de Triomphe, inviting entrance, so to speak, whilst the west front would echo the semi-circular form of the ring road/motorway.

8

Chapter One

Fig.1.1. Christ Church college floor plan, Oxford. (From the Royal Commission on Historical Monuments, England. 1939.)

Introduction

9

Fig.1.2. Plan of central part of Oxford. (From the Royal Commission on Historical Monuments, England. 1939.)

10

Chapter One

Fig.1.3. Piece Hall, Halifax, floor plan. (From P. Smithies. 1988.)

Introduction

Fig.1.4. Aleppo commercial district plan. (From M. Cezar. 1983.)

11

12

Chapter One

Fig. 1.5. Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, floor plan, (From Palacio P.N. 2004.).

Introduction

Fig. 1.6. Hôtel des Invalides floor plan. (From K Baedecker. 1904.)

13

14

Chapter One

Fig. 1.7. Galleria Vittorio Emanuelle 11 block plan. (From Geist J.F. 1979.).

Introduction

Fig. 1.8. Galleria Vittorio Emanuelle 11 floor plan. (From Geist J.F. 1979.)

15

16

Chapter One

Fig. 1.9. Ascoli Piceno town plan. (From F Mariano. 1995.)

Introduction

Fig. 1.10. Gota Square plan, Gothenberg. (From G Holmdahl, et al. 1950.)

17

18

Chapter One

Fig. 1.11 La Plata town plan. (From Touring Club Italiano, 1934.)

Introduction

Fig. 1.12. Carnaervon, plan of castle and town. (From Anderson W. 1970).

19

CHAPTER TWO URBAN CONSERVATION 1: ST PETERSBURG

Introduction Soon after coming back to Britain after my work in Bosnia1, I was contacted by John Kirk and invited to work on an urban conservation project in St. Petersburg in 1998-89. It had World Bank funding. John was a partner in the consultancy firm of Gilmore Hankey Kirk (GHK) in London, which had grown out of Shankland Cox thirty years earlier. I had worked for the firm before—for example, in Jamaica with Donald Hankey (see chapter 4). The city of St. Petersburg, (founded by Peter the Great in 1703) is one of the greatest urban and architectural masterpieces of Europe, and to work on its conservation promised to be a supremely exciting experience. It was also a great musical and theatrical city, of course—not to mention its great visual arts resources. It had been one of the most important capitals in the world until the Revolution. The postSoviet government had decided to arrange a loan from the Bank to undertake an urban renewal or rehabilitation project for the historic core. I think that GHK was one of the Bank’s favourite firms, and I imagined it might succeed in winning the consultancy contract. However, it was not to be so simple.2

1

For details of work in Bosnia, see Yarwood 2010, Chapter 3, and Yarwood 1999. An American firm, which had become involved in various military construction contracts with both the US government and the new Russian government, made a strong commercial pitch to get this contract. I suspect that the Bank wanted GHK to be involved in some way, whilst some key Russians wanted to team up with the American defence-related sector. I have no idea if jiggery-pokery went on, but some of my Russian colleagues (who were architects, not businessmen or aparatchiks) certainly assumed it had. This American firm was not well placed from a professional point of view, and so it arranged to subcontract the job to GHK, and that is how I came to be involved.

2

22

Chapter Two

The firm of GHK was well placed to do such work since they had a track record of both architectural conservation and the economic regeneration of impoverished cities or regions. There are few firms which focus competently on both these quite distinct themes, but in this case they had been integrated as well as they ever are. The project brief cleverly linked the two components. At this time and place we had an unusual coincidence of two problems or opportunities. In the first place, we had a city of unsurpassed richness from an architectural and (more generally) cultural point of view. There were numerous historic buildings of the most glittering quality imaginable, which were on the verge of a serious decline due to a lack of finance and effective management. In the second place, there was a declining urban economy and, particularly a more or less dead service sector. The first point one sees as an opportunity to be seized and the second as a problem to be faced. The strategy was obviously to use the first as the means to deliver the second. The interesting question was how to formulate a sensible strategy for urban conservation as a contribution to the regeneration of the urban economy. There seemed to be a split between the Russo-American consultant leadership on the one hand, and the City Architect and Planner, his deputy and certain local consultants (who were “on their side”) on the other.3 At one point I was invited to work directly for the City Architecture and Planning Department to further develop the ideas mentioned here. This might have been rather risky, but I found the prospect enticing. They could only offer me a local municipal salary, and so I asked the ODA4—as it still was—to subsidise this for a couple of years. But by then my old boss, Linda Chalker—the former Minister—had just left and Claire Short had taken over. She had a new vision of priorities, and urban conservation in Russia was not seen as particularly urgent for DfID. The fundamental ideas of this project were to (a) use public finance (based on the World Bank loan) in order to restructure the city so as to enhance the potential value of property assets; (b) remove institutional, legal and other ‘soft’ obstacles to the efficient functioning of the property market; and (c) use private finance to invest in commercially-sound property 3

The City Architect was Oleg Kharchenko and his deputy was Viktor Polychuk. There was a member of the consultant team called Tatyana Slavina, who was an architect, historian and academic. She was the head of the Society of Historic Investigators of St. Petersburg. 4 The Overseas Development Administration was predecessor of the Department of International Development (DfID).

Urban Conservation 1: St Petersburg

23

development projects in historic areas which would release profit flows and to redirect these into necessary but non-profitable projects. The first aim was to upgrade infrastructure, including pedestrianisation schemes, the removal of objectionable traffic congestion and the building of new parking projects, as well as pedestrian canal bridges and similar new linkages. Other examples were road repair (plus some new links), including sewers, and water mains, and so on. This would also entail creating a good functional system for issuing and collecting consumer bills so that costs could be recovered. The second aim might address the failure to rent many properties and to collect rents. This failure was very common, and discouraged landlords from spending money to maintain and manage assets, of course, as I pointed out above. The third aim involved defining (i) suitable commercial-historic building investment projects and (ii) suitable non-commercial cultural-historic building projects. The first and third aims are most relevant to this chapter, and we describe some concrete examples below.

Strategic Plan It seemed to me that a strategic plan needed to identify Comprehensive Development Areas or CDAs, for which local plans would be prepared. These CDAs would include several “Investment Areas” which would be funded mainly by the private sector to provide retail centres, office suites, and multi-storey car parks, and so on. See fig. 2.1. To define these areas we mapped four types of spatial data, and then “sieved” it. The four data sets were as follows. x x x x

Historical and Cultural Quality; Land Values by block (US dollars per sq. metre). Fig. 2.2; Accessibility by public transport (qualitative judgement); Physical Condition (including “soft” areas; i.e. derelict, unoccupied, low density, etc.);

The sieved data was the fifth map. From this we defined CDAs and Investment Sites. The investments on these sites might be new buildings (including infill or extension wings) or converted and rehabilitated historic buildings. In such cases, the property ownership rights would have to be

24

Chapter Two

transferred to the new investor(s). Many of these buildings were still owned by inactive organisations and leased/occupied by other derelict organisations that were paying no rent, but had not formally relinquished them. At the time, it would have been unhelpful to ‘upset the apple-cart’, because it might have worsened unemployment and reduced social wellbeing for no corresponding benefit. But in any event, the main practical obstacle to progress was to resolve the politico-legal minefield surrounding property rights, ownership and documentation, which was part of the more widespread issue of privatisation of state assets in postrevolutionary Russia. The plan differentiated “flagship” projects from “slipstream” projects; in other words, lead projects from induced projects. The latter would be fuelled by private investment. The first type would aim to change the area’s nature and reputation, whilst the latter would be smaller and less formative—stimulated or precipitated by the first. There would also be an overt distinction between public sector and private sector investment. The two sectors should play quite different roles, which should not be blurred or confused. The public sector (including NGO and regulatory agencies) should deliver “public goods”, most obviously access roads and repaired roads or infrastructure; parks, streetscaping and landscaping; and certain social buildings which would be unprofitable by nature, etc. Private sector buildings would include commercial uses that pay a rent for space out of the profit of their business activities. The capitalised rent minus the interest on payments (such as the cost of land and building) would deliver net profit, and that should be substantial enough to attract investment. The strategic plan had an agenda of four interconnected points. x x x x

Traffic Management. Excessive traffic was damaging the commerciality of business areas and degrading historic areas. See fig. 2.3; Rapid Transit. See fig. 2.4. Some areas were remote or disconnected, (such as Mariinsky or Smolny), and it was hard to move around on the surface; Marketing of area “images”. There was little “recognition” of area character or image, so that the marketing of it was difficult. Types of activity were spread out and mixed up; Bad Image. Tatty surroundings, a hostile pedestrian environment, the absence of walking environments all failed to provide “delight”.

Urban Conservation 1: St Petersburg

25

On the first point, we proposed a framework for traffic management. This did not require major new roads, but it did require the more efficient use of existing road space. The investment sites (and especially new multi-storey parking at those sites) would become more accessible. This would entail a “road hierarchy” and the closing of short cuts through “environmental zones”. Many junctions would be redesigned. There would be car parking controls and a pricing regime. The second point dealt with maximising the use of public transport, particularly to and from investment sites. The third point concerns marketing, or—concretely—‘activity themes’ in different areas. Retail areas were subdivided into prime, secondary, speciality and satellite areas. Business areas were subdivided into the Central Business District (CBD), satellites and research parks. Arts and leisure areas (including offices, workshops, retail and services) have four types of theme: (a) theatre, cinema, nightclubs, etc. (e.g. Soho); (b) visual, applied and fine arts, crafts (e.g. Montmartre); (c) music and video, publishing, film (e.g. Covent Garden); (d) entertainment and sport. Residential district boundaries were defined and also the “Imperial Belt”. In the case of St. Petersburg, we suggested the existing “Theatreland” (immediately west of Nevsky Prospect) for item (a); the Eastern area for item (b); New Holland for item (c) and so on. The final theme is the environmental network, requiring us to put all environmental actions together so as to form a coherent network. It involves (a) pedestrian-priority and streetscaping works on key retail (and other) axes; (b) social animation of squares and streets so as to enliven “street life”; (c) enhancing linkage between parkland and other landscapes; (d) creating ‘central places’ to give an “address” to nodal investments, and so on. Our studies of the area as a whole should perhaps have been discussed first. But now I will mention fig. 2.6, which shows the pattern of axes which structure streets and other routes; and also fig. 2.5, which shows the pattern of orthogonal grids in each suburb; and fig. 2.7, showing an example of a palimpsest of street grids and the rhomboidal blocks they form. These illustrate what is also obvious on the ground, namely the geometric, classical spirit of the historic city. I have now described the strategic plan for the whole historic core, and within this framework fit several sites or locales for intervention and investment. I describe some of these next.

26

Chapter Two

Comprehensive Development Areas Mariinski and New Holland CDA We begin by describing Comprehensive Development Areas that are north of the Fontanka Canal and south of the River Neva. At the western end is a cluster of three Investment Areas, namely x x x

Nikolski Market Mariinski Theatre area, and New Holland

These three areas constitute a “western axis” of the city that has never been fully realised. See fig. 2.18, which is a plan by F.E.Enakiev in 1912, (from Savarensky T.F. et al pp. 351-2). One can see the Lieutenant Krukov Bridge over the River Neva at the top of the map, with the triangular form of New Holland below it. A new road is proposed over the (existing) Krukov Canal, and a new design of Theatre Square is shown. In the south, one can see a proposed avenue going just west of the Nikolsky Market and leading to a new railway station at Izmailovsky. This is a most interesting idea, which was interrupted by the First World War and the Revolution. One can see the 1739 plan by Eropkin (fig.2.15) of the area now known as Colomna (from Gulyaniskovo N.F. 1995, p.181), which shows Sadovaya Street, Dekabristov Street, the site of the market and the site of Nikolsky Cathedral. The plan of Major Schubert (of 1828), fig. 2.16, shows the Krukov Canal and all the sites discussed here. It illustrates the initial vision of a “western axis”, although it was obscured as a result of later compromises. We proposed a circulation system, which incorporated a principal road loop along the Fontanka to the south, Dekabristov Street plus a new link to the River Neva to the west, the embankment to the north and Vozhnesensky Prospect to the east—see fig. 2.8. The Nikolski Market, with its long arcade and steep roof, was built between 1788 and 1789. On the north side, it fronts Sadovaya Steet and Griboedov Canal. Behind this is a partly derelict area, fronting the Fontanka Canal. The aim is to regenerate a strong retail node. The plan proposes (a) the upgrading of the historic market; (b) the extension of the

Urban Conservation 1: St Petersburg

27

retail centre by a new building in the courtyard; (c) a new multi-storey car park; and (d) a new office block for service suites, etc. See fig. 2.10. The Mariinski Theatre (named after Empress Maria Alexandrovna, wife of Tsar Alexander II, but called the Kirov during Soviet times), and the Conservatoire opposite it, are located north from there. Between them and the market is the St. Nicholas Marine Cathedral, a baroque masterpiece built between 1753 and 1762 by Tchevakinsky. See fig. 2.11 for the upgrading plan of Theatre Square and fig. 2.9 for the perspective of cathedral. The central axis of the area passes between the two theatres, the nave of the cathedral, the market and a small street along which the tramway goes, whilst the gilt domes of the cathedral form a stunning vista But notwithstanding the great architecture, the area is rather dull and dirty. The plan envisages the creation of a square between the theatres with a great monument: fig. 2.11. Frontages around the square should be animated by bookshops, music shops, cafes, small boutique hotels, antique shops, and instrument makers, etc. Pavements should be widened to allow cafes, whilst surface material should differentiate function. Dekabristov Street (which is very wide as far as Repin Square) should form the inner ring road by turning northwards to the river and cross on the existing Lieutenant Schmidt Bridge to the island. This would need a new road link past New Holland leading to the river (Angliyskaya Naberezhnaya, or English Embankment), and Konnogvardeysky Boulevard (and thence to the Admiralty). This could be built only by demolishing the unattractive former Naval Complement Barracks built in the 1840s. New Holland (it reminded Peter the Great of Holland, of which he was very fond) arose from the shipyard stores around 1710. It is surrounded by canals and includes the Naval Prison (Staubert, 1829). The structures were disused and we envisaged conversion to a hotel with bars, club and retail; a media arts centre, with studios; offices and a new multistorey car park. Just east of here, across Truda square, the former Nicholas Palace (Stakenschneider, 1853-1861) could be converted to an hotel. We envisaged that the tramway would follow the ring road across the Moyka canal and turn right at New Holland, along the Boulevard to the centre of the city at the Admiralty, (as described elsewhere). See fig. 2.12.

Sadovaya Street CDA Sadovaya Street runs east and west one block north of the Fontanka Canal as far east as Nevsky Prospect. On the northern edge is Moika Canal and it

Chapter Two

28

lies east of the previously mentioned CDA. There are four Investment Areas: x x x x

Gostiny Dvor; Apraksin Market; Sennaya Square; and Morskaya Street.

We proposed a network for traffic management in the wider area, which would allow Sadovaya Street to be pedestrianised and groundscaped along its whole length. The quality and continuity of the retail frontage would be strengthened. The “magnetism” at both ends of the street (i.e. Gostiny Dvor and Sennaya Square) would be increased, whilst metro stations would be upgraded, and tramways renewed. The roads at right angles to Sennaya Street would access several new multi-storey car parks. See fig.2.27. Gostiny Dvor (a department store capable of improvement in a commercial sense) would be upgraded, and new retail floor space added. The architect of this was Vallin de la Mothe, 1761 to 1785.5 It is a kilometre long. Upgrading suggests additional floor space in the courtyards. Nearby there are two small shopping buildings in Dumskaya Street which can be upgraded. See fig. 2.26. The Apraksin Market, which has a frontage on Sennaya Street, can be rehabilitated and upgraded. Behind this is a large semi-derelict area which should be selectively demolished and rebuilt as a new shopping centre. An access road can be built from Lomonnosov Square to access a new multistorey car park. See fig. 2.20 for plan option A, and fig. 2.21 for option B. Interestingly, there are several historic precedents for such thoughts. In particular, Karl Rossi envisaged the creation of a large space with a crescent on its southern edge, as part of a symmetrical layout based on Lomonnosov Square. See Taranovskaya M.Z.1980, pp128-9 and 131. This illustrates a second diagonal in Rossi’s mind, which was never actually built.

5

Although Vallin is credited with the design, the original design was by Rastrelli—in other words it was high baroque.

Urban Conservation 1: St Petersburg

29

Further to the west is Sennaya Square. A new retail centre6 and two rehabilitated retail buildings can be built on the south side of the square. There are vacant sites behind them, and here a new access and service road is necessary to access both the retail projects, but also new multi-storey car parks, two new office blocks and one office block—new, but uncompleted. The metro works under the square should be completed, and within the square, landscaping works should be undertaken. See figs. 2.27 and 2.28. Northwards from Gostiny Dvor is the Kazan Cathedral, and on the north side of the cathedral is a large area of underdeveloped land behind the Stroganov Palace (Rastrelli 1753). The design (Voronikhin, 1801-11) had a proposed colonnade on the south side (as well as the north side) but this was never built. This design had a large semi-circle leading to the public garden on the north side. Our plan foresaw that the blocks between Nevski Prospect, Vozhnesensky Avenue and the Admiralty would be regenerated as a new Central Business District, including Bolshaya and Malaya Morskaya Streets, with new footbridges linking to Gostiny Dvor and Sadovaya Street

Konyushennaya CDA This area lies on the other side of Kazan cathedral, east of Nevsky Prospect. There are four Investment Areas: x x x x

Konyushennaya or Imperial Stables area; Former Carriage Museum area; Capella Passages; Dvortsovaya or Winter Palace Square.

The strategic plan envisaged the management of traffic so as to create a large zone of pedestrian movement: see fig. 2.29. Konyushennaya Square is linked to Nevsky Prospect by four parallel roads, namely Bolshaya and Malaya Konyushennaya Streets and the Griboyedov Canal Embankments. Nevsky Prospect has a massive pedestrian flow, and the plan was to draw some of the flow along these four side streets by creating an attractive retail magnet in the converted 6 There were retail buildings (now demolished) and a fine church at Sennaya Square, which were very interesting, judging from old photographs.

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Chapter Two

Konyushennaya Stables (Stasov 1817-23). See fig. 2.30 and State Monuments, etc. 1976, pp. 424-27. The four side streets would be lined with continuous frontages of speciality shops and services, pedestrianised and streetscaped. The view along Griboyedov Canal eastwards to the Resurrection Cathedral (1883-1907) is world famous. The Carriage Museum is surrounded by a block of buildings fronting the adjacent streets. The collection was rehoused long ago and the building is a charmless nineteenth century effort. The plan was to convert it into it a modern retail centre with a central plaza and four malls leading to the adjacent streets. See fig. 2.30. The block west of the Carriage Museum is not very distinguished, but it contains many vacant buildings arranged around pedestrian passages, including the Capella or royal chapel. The plan envisaged these buildings be rehabilitated as a speciality shopping centre, with linkages for pedestrians between the first two projects mentioned above and the Winter Palace Square. It is interesting that in 1912 Enakiev proposed a new road which connected Dvortsovaya Square through the Capella area to the Russian Museum. This was not carried out, but Enakiev was recognising perhaps the disconnection between these two areas which motivated us here. See Fig. 2.35. The final project was the conversion of the redundant General Staff Building and the upgrading of Winter Palace Square. Karl Rossi’s amazing General Staff Building would be converted to an hotel and related facilities as well as an annexe for the Hermitage museum. The existing lane, which links Bolshaya Konyushennaya Street with the Moika Canal (Volynsky Pereulok), would be extended by a new pedestrian bridge to enter the General Staff Building and the square. The character of the square is that of a military parade ground, and the challenge is to make it civil. Hard landscaping of the square should create a more humane character, and the frontages of Rossi’s building might contain high quality shops and services. The margins might be raised by one or two steps to create a territory for this, and a carriageway created for occasional parking and carefully managed access. There could be many stone seats (for “people-watching”) and low alcoves for artists and musicians. The remarkable Alexander Column must continue to define the formal style, of course, but agoraphobia should be avoided by filling the square with life. See figs. 2.31 and 2.34

Urban Conservation 1: St Petersburg

31

This may be controversial. I tended to take it for granted that the authoritarian urban aesthetic would be thought inappropriate in this day and age, but I found that some (otherwise very sound) British people of my acquaintance loved St. Petersburg above all other cities for precisely that quality.

Preobrazhensky or Eastern CDA This area lies further east of the previous one. The Fontanka Canal and the Summer Garden lie on its west side, the Tauride Palace to the north and the Moscow Railway Station and Vosstaniya Square to the south. There are three Investment Sites: x x x

Preobrazensky Barracks; Transfiguration Area; Stieglitz Area;

The main task was to link this rather disconnected or isolated area into the city as a whole, which would release its potential value. From the release of this value the investments could be financed. We felt that Smolny was too far east to have the necessary gravity to generate strong activity axes to the south and west. However, the Preobrazhensky area (see below) was in a sufficiently central location for this purpose, and this is the basic idea behind our plan. The plan envisages a pedestrian and streetscape link along Pestelya Street / Ryleeva Street between the barracks, the Transfiguration Area and the Stieglitz Area, and also a similar link along Ligovsky Avenue between the barracks, and southwards to Vosstaniya Square—in other words, the south end of Nevsky Prospect. These axes form an L-shape around the proposed central square of the barracks. The plan would set up a traffic management system to enable such pedestrianisation to be carried out. See figs. 2.36 and 2.37. I start by considering the historical evolution of the area. First, a growth axis occurred on the southern bank of the River Neva from the Admiralty towards a fortress, as the Homann (1721) and Chroniart (1698) maps show. See fig. 2.39 and 2.40. Then Peter levelled the fortress and built the Tar Yard (Smolny Dvor) for shipbuilding, and the Artillery Yard (Liteny Dvor) in 1748. And then the Smolny Nunnery (1748 Rastrelli on the Tar Yard site), the Alexander Institute (Velten 1775) and the Smolny Nunnery

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(Quarenghi 1806), as well as a number of aristocratic palaces (such as the Tauride Palace) were constructed. The southern limit of this axis was Saltykov-Shchedrin Street. After this west-east axis, the second phase was a southwards axis along the Liteny Prospect. This axis was bounded by the Liteny Canal (draining a swampy area shown on Homann 1721), which led to a basin at the Preobrazhensky Barracks. (See Unversagt, 1741, which shows the canal). There was a civil shipyard on the east bank of the Fontanka Canal opposite the Summer Gardens (see Academy of Sciences map, 1753). East of the shipyard, the Cathedral of the Transfiguration—the Preobrazhensky regimental church—was shown on the Police Dept map 1792. This was the structure prior to Stasov’s structure, which was rebuilt after a fire. The Salt Works was built on the site of the civil shipyard during 1760-80. On this site St. Pantaleimon’s church was built, and later the Applied Arts School and the museum (1881 and 1885). The barracks of the Preobrazhensky regiment were initiated by Volkov in 1802-07, but since then other less distinguished buildings around three storeys or more were built covering a large site. Now it is mainly abandoned. Our plan was to rehabilitate this as a business centre and add an office tower block next to a square in the centre of the site, which also closes the two vistas mentioned above. See fig. 2.36 and fig. 2.37. The Transfiguration Cathedral (Zemtsov and Trezzini 1743-1754, restored by Stasov 1828-29) lies in an oval-shaped piazza, with two small derelict buildings to the north side. South of here is a semi-derelict area where we proposed a new multi-storey car park and two new office blocks as well as the rehabilitation and extension of the Rus Hotel. The pedestrian axis reminds one of Montmartre, albeit in an admittedly degenerate form. We therefore wonder whether reanimation of the street involving a rive gauche atmosphere, with student bars, galleries and studios, shops, and so on, can occur. This rive gauche idea could draw on the School of Applied Arts and the magnificent Stieglitz Museum, which are further west along the road, next to the Summer Garden. See Kozyrev, 1994. The plan envisages works to the school and the museum, rehabilitation of the church of St. Pantaleimon (Korobov 1735-39), and the conversion of buildings on the west of the school to an “Arts Plaza” including arts retail, studios, offices and dwellings, plus a boutique hotel to the north. See fig. 2.38. The school and

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museum have a dramatic glazed roof covering an internal court, which looks exciting from a distance, but is in poor condition. Pestelya Street leads onward over a bridge across the Fontanka Canal to the Summer Garden, Field of Mars, Engineers’ Castle and the Russian Museum.

Conclusion In this chapter, we have tried to transmit the idea that in historic cities all interventions can only be designed on the basis of historical evolution. And this can only be discovered by the study of history—probably through historic maps and other such evidence. In this sense, St. Petersburg is singularly fortunate. For one thing, the Russians (whatever else) are bureaucrats, and often scholarly ones. They never throw any piece of paper away, and so they have a large number of plans still in the correct drawer. The second point was impressed on me by going into the City Architects’ Department (in one of Rossi’s great buildings in Lomonossov Square) in the late 1990s, and seeing the awesome Soviet period plans covering whole walls – more beautifully designed and drawn than one can see in a town hall in western Europe. Of course, it is ironic that the stunning skill of these drawings contrasts so sharply with the mindless banality of the new city you see around you. I remember going into architecture schools with my St. Petersburg colleague Pavel Denisov, and I was most impressed by the quality and flair of the work, even in those days of disintegration. At the same time, the quality of ordinary buildings and environments around the town was poor, (although I think it has since improved a little in the private sector). This suggests a level of intellectual quality that far outstrips the capacity to organise and manage practical things.

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Fig. 2.1. St Petersburg. Strategic Plan. Sieve Map and definition of Comprehensive Development Areas.

Fig. 2.2. St Petersburg. Strategic Plan. Land value contours.

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Fig. 2.3. St Petersburg. Strategic Plan. Traffic management.

Fig. 2.4. St Petersburg. Strategic Plan. Rapid transit routes.

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Fig. 2.5. St Petersburg. Strategic Plan. Diagram of orthogonal block layouts.

Fig. 2.6. St Petersburg. Strategic Plan. Diagram of axes and vistas.

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Fig. 2.7. St Petersburg. Example of palimpsest of grids, forming rhomboidal sites.

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Fig. 2.8. St Petersburg. Mariinski and New Holland CDA. Circulatory System Diagram.

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Fig. 2.9. St Petersburg. Mariinski and New Holland CDA. St. Nicholas Cathedral Perspective.

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Fig. 2.10. St Petersburg. Mariinski and New Holland CDA. Nikolski Market Perspective.

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Fig. 2.11. St Petersburg. Mariinski and New Holland CDA. Theatre Square Upgrading Plan.

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Fig. 2.12. St Petersburg. Mariinski and New Holland CDA. New Holland Perspective.

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Fig. 2.13. St Petersburg. Extract from Chroniort (1698) map. A; Moyka water course. B; Griboyedov water course.

Fig. 2.14. St Petersburg. Extract from Unverzagt (1741) map. A; Admiralty. B; New Holland.

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Fig. 2.15. St Petersburg. Redrawn Eropkin map (1739) of Colomna district. A; Sadovaya Street. B; Dekabristov Street.C; Site of Nikolsky Cathedral. D; Site of market.

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Fig. 2.16. St Petersburg. Extract from Schubert (1828) map. A; Theatre Square. B; Nikolsky Cathedral. C; New Holland. D; Military buildings, demolished 1840s.

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Fig. 2.17. St Petersburg. Extract from Lavrov (1830) map. Unbuilt. Shows bridge over Neva moved one block to west, and a major new road from there to Sadovaya Street – west of New Holland (shown here as solid black).

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Fig. 2.18. St Petersburg. Redrawn extract from Enakiev (1912) map. Unrealised. Layout (above) and aerial perspective (below). A; State Mariinsky Academic Theatre. B; New road built over Krukov canal. C; Nikolski Cathedral. D; Proposed railway station (unbuilt).

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Fig. 2.19. St Petersburg. Sadovaya Street CDA. pedestrianisation ideas.

Traffic management and

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Fig. 2.20. St Petersburg. Sadovaya Street CDA. Apraksin Market perspective Option A. A; Retail. B; Offices. C; Car park. D; Public square. E; Lomonnsov Square.

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Fig. 2.21 St Petersburg. Sadovaya Street CDA. Apraksin Market perspective Option B.

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Fig. 2.22. St Petersburg. Plan of Lomonossov Square: drawing by Rossi. .

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Fig. 2.23. St Petersburg. Rossi’s architectural vocabulary (from Taranovskaya 1980).

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Fig. 2.24. St Petersburg. Early sketch by Rossi of Apraksin site.

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Fig. 2.25. St.Petersburg. Redrawn map by Lavrov (1830)

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Fig. 2.26. St Petersburg. Sadovaya Street CDA. Gostiny Dvor perspective.

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Fig. 2.27. St Petersburg. Sadovaya Street CDA. Sennaya Square projects.

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Fig. 2.28. St Petersburg. Sadovaya Street CDA. Sennaya Square perspective. A; Proposed new market. B; Completed office block. C;New offices/apartments. D; New car parks. E; Landscape of Sennaya Square. F; Landscape link to park. G; New passage.

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Fig. 2.29. St Petersburg. Konyushennaya CDA. Circulation Plan. Note: Pedestrian priority zone shown hatched. Access roads shown dotted.

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Fig. 2.30. St Petersburg. Konyushennaya CDA. Aerial perspective.

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Fig. 2.31. St Petersburg. Konyushennaya CDA. Dvortsovaya Square. Key aim is to humanise the square. Stone seats for ‘people watching’ and low alcoves for musicians and artists. Avoid agoraphobia by creating small ‘territories’. Allow restaurants and high quality shops etc. to colonise the south and east frontages. Fill the square with life but do not compromise its formality and dignity.

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Fig. 2.32. St Petersburg. Konyushennaya CDA. Crescent and rotunda forms. Upper left; Kazan Cathedral plan showing southern apsidal colonnade (unbuilt). Upper right; Unbuilt scheme for Dvortsovaya Square. Lower; General Staff building and elevation.

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Fig. 2.33. St Petersburg. Konyushennaya Square CDA. Extract from Academy of Sciences (1753). Note that orientation is reversed.

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Fig. 2.34. St Petersburg. Konyushennaya CDA. Extract from Schubert (1828). map. Key: A; St Isaacs Cathedral. B; Dvortsovaya Square. C; Razumovsky Palace. D; Kazan Cathedral. E; Mihailovsky palace (Russian Museum). F; Engineers’ Castle.

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Fig. 2.35. St Petersburg. Konyushennaya CDA. Unbuilt proposal by Enakiev (1912). A; New road link to Dvortsovaya Square. B; New road links across Field of Mars. C; Cathedral of The Resurrection.

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Fig. 2.36. St Petersburg. Preobrazhensky CDA. Barracks site plan.

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Fig. 2.37. St Petersburg. Preobrazhensky CDA. Barrack site perspective

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Fig. 2.38 St Petersburg. Preobrazhensky CDA. Stieglitz Area perspective. A; Repair Church of St Pantaleimon. B; Works to Academy of Applied Arts & Stieglitz Museum. C; New Hotel. D; Building conversion to arts retailing, studios, offices, dwellings

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Fig. 2.39. St Petersburg. Preobrazhensky CDA. Extract from Homann (1721) map.

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Fig. 2.40. St Petersburg. Preobrazhensky CDA. Extract from Savinkov (1820) map. A; Tauride gardens and palace. B; Preobrazhensky Barracks. C; Liteny canal basin. D; Flood line. E; Summer Garden.

CHAPTER THREE URBAN CONSERVATION 2: GREIFSWALD AND BANSKA STIAVNICA

Banska Stiavnica Soon after the St. Petersburg job (late 1998), GHK asked me to spend several months working in Slovakia on the Regional Development and Institutional Strengthening Project, funded by the Know-How Fund of the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office. This project was focused on improving the organisation and management of local government, particularly municipalities and their role in promoting economic growth. Most colleagues were economists, public administration experts and other “soft” technicians, but I was asked to examine the capability of local town planners to support economic growth in a typical small, remote historic town. This was the town of Banska Stiavnica. Like St. Petersburg, it is a “World Heritage Site”. It is much smaller than St. Petersburg, however. It is notably a baroque and a neo-classical town in architectural terms. However, it does not have a classical plan—the contrary is the case, as its form was laid down in the Middle Ages. In the seventeenth century it had a spectacularly successful silver mining industry, which—in those days—laid the foundations of an unusually wealthy local economy. Architecturally, it is quite remarkable, although the recent development (during the Communist period) has created an adjacent new town of dullness or at worst ugliness. I stayed at the only hotel in town—remarkable for its diminutive scale and depressing ordinariness—named the Grand Hotel. The perception was that the history that endowed its architecture was the main contemporary asset (along with other “unique selling properties” such as culture, education, etc.) upon which future economic growth could be based. The main single point here concerned tourism—mainly cultural tourism but also winter sports, walking and so on.

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The project had five aims: to identify and tackle physical and economic problems and opportunities; to indicate the sites, buildings and infrastructure needed to address them; to show the types of plan needed to guide that; to indicate the methodology and organisation necessary to implement such plans; and to identify the “software” defects which may obstruct such actions—meaning legal, administrative, financial and similar problems. The survey base included in particular an inventory of historic buildings. The key topic was how to use this inventory as an action management tool. It would also help market investment opportunities nationally and internationally. To make concrete progress here, one needed to tackle important legal and administrative issues, such as rent control (which keeps rents so low that investment in repairs etc. is impossible); privatisation or sale of rented properties; and the condominium system for buildings that contain several dwellings. Lastly, the question of finance of historic repair works should be debated. The use of charitable funds and public subsidy should be targeted at intrinsically non-viable projects. This may entail tax breaks and low-interest loans from a new local development bank to be funded by the EBRD.1 Without such reforms, urban renewal would be unlikely to occur. We prepared a general town plan, which defined issues (problems and opportunities), strategic goals and actions for several areas, including the historic town regeneration, historic town traffic management and environment, modern centre, the university, business parks, tourism and sport, transport and movement, landscape, and so on. Within this plan were six separate “Action Areas” for which local plans were prepared. These covered systems such as traffic management, but also the sites for investment in historic building repair and new buildings. An example of a traffic management scheme is shown in figs. 3.1 and. 3.2. These local plans also indicate building actions, such as historic buildings to be rehabilitated; buildings needing a “facelift”; public housing to be repaired; demolition of buildings; new development sites; and landscape projects and buildings which have some other potential, to be specified.

1

European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

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We mention two examples of public square design. We proposed that the disused Tobacco Factory be converted to a new university building, and that two small derelict buildings (on Dolna street) in front of it be demolished. They would be rebuilt as wings (with colonnades) on either side of a square on an axis between the cupola of the factory and a tower on the opposite hillside: see fig. 3.2. The second example shows a new square on Kammerhofska Street. There are two existing footpaths from the road up the hillside and an empty or void space on the street frontage. We envisaged a square with the street on one side, two existing decayed buildings rehabilitated as restaurants, bars etc on either side, and on the fourth side a new building—perhaps a pension—with a terrace overlooking the square. See fig. 3.3. In figs. 3.4 and 3.5 I show a plan and a perspective of an infill proposal for St. Elizabeth square in Nova Bana, a similar small historic town near Banska Stiavnica.

Greifswald I found myself unemployed for quite a long period around the time of German reunification, and I sought a sympathetic architect in the former East Germany to employ me briefly for no salary. I went to Greifswald, a small town in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, and worked for Fred Lesche for a few weeks. After that I returned for short periods, not always to work, but rather for social visits or holidays. Fred is a very engaging character. He kept his head down during Communism, and worked as an architect for the (remnants of) the church. At reunification, he set up a private practice, which has been quite small, but most successful. He has a great interest in foreign places and likes to employ foreign architects. Whilst I was working in Albania he insisted on coming out to see me. His great passion, apart from architecture, is photography. I particularly admired his photographs of Albania. I recall Greifswald first as semi-ruined town, although now it looks as prosperous and elegant as most other western environments. It is a notable mediæval city, with a dour, large modern extension of the East German type. The communists had a distaste for historic places, and old buildings fell into general disrepair. Apparently any authentic son of the party wanted to live only in a new block of flats. Fred, however, built himself a nice little house in the old town, but I am sure that (prior to the fall of Communism) this was regarded as eccentric. The shops were dreadful at

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the start, but soon there was a burst of luxury items, particularly chocolate, perfume, patisserie and whatnot. Greifswald was the home-town of the great Romantic painter Caspar David Friedrich, who was celebrated in the collection of the city’s art gallery. Fred also took me to see the nearby former studio of the great sculptor Emil Barlach. We also went to cultural occasions at the little local University. At that time, most people did not want to go on holiday to the west of Germany, even though the border was opened. The “Wessis” were unpopular, being regarded as arrogant and materialistic. Germans went from Mecklenberg on holiday to Denmark or Sweden, whose inhabitants were regarded as “more like us”. They also had more regard for the British and other non-West Germans. There was some cultural diplomacy engineered by the Swedish and Danish consulates, with exhibitions and concerts to propagandise amongst the locals. Sweden had been the imperial power before the end of the Napoleonic Wars, and I noticed that church memorials prior to 1820, if not inscribed in Latin, were in Swedish. Greifswald University was at that period a refuge for radical intellectuals expelled from the Swedish mainland. I did several things for Fred, but here I mention only the planning of the rehabilitation of Fleischer Vorstadt, an inner suburb of houses built mainly in the Neo-Classical and Jugendstil periods, coinciding with the rise of Prussia locally. The Housing Association, Neue Heimat Niedersachsen, was the employer, and the task was to repair the dwellings that were in semi-ruinous condition. In about six weeks, I made sketches of the architecture with brief notes on condition for all structures. I proposed a systematic vocabulary which cross-tabulated six building styles against six basic forms: see fig. 3.6. This formulation provided a basis for drawing out the striking unity or visual coherence of the area.

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Fig. 3.1. Banska Stiavnica. Infill building proposal: Krizovatka..

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Fig. 3.2. Banska Stiavnica. Infill building proposal: Tobacco factory area on Dolna.

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Fig. 3.3. Banska Stiavnica. Infill building proposal: Kammerhofska.

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Fig. 3.4. Nova Bana. Infill building proposal: St.Elisabeth Square plan.

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Fig. 3.5. Nova Bana. Infill building proposal: St Elisabeth Sq. perspective.

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Fig. 3.6. Greifswald. Fleischer Vorstadt.. Analytical chart of architectural styles and building forms.

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Fig. 3.7. Greifswald. Gutzkower Strasse 9.

Fleischer

Vorstadt.

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analysis:

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Fig. 3.8. Greifswald. Fleischer Vorstadt. Example of building analysis. Arndt Strasse 9.

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Fig. 3.9. Greifswald, Fleischer Vorstadt. Example of details record.

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Fig. 3.10. Greifswald. Fleischer Vorstadt. Example of street development record.

CHAPTER FOUR CULTURAL TOURISM: JAMAICA

Introduction I spent most of 1991 in Jamaica, working as project manager on the New Seville National Heritage Project. Most of the team lived in a luxurious villa on the coast near the site, which was the country house of the Jamaican architect/partner, Evan Williams. Our office was in suburban Kingston, almost two hours away by car. After we had been working for several months, the house was invaded one day in the early morning by five armed robbers, who tied up the servants. They threatened us room by room and silence was maintained so as to guarantee surprise. My memory is that the chief robber, (with a mask made from upside-down light-blue underpants,) jabbed his shiny pistol at my throat, shouting, “Where’s the gold, man?” A robber raped one of the team on the nearby beach. This left us understandably traumatised, and the team came close to falling apart, but happily it did not, as we were fortunate enough to be able to arrange counselling with a Canadian lady, the Jamaican Prison Service’s psychiatrist. Later, I learned that the report had been circulating in the slums that we (or at least our marine archaeologists) had discovered Columbus’s rumoured treasure, and we were storing it in the house. This explained the chief robber’s question about the ‘gold’: I said that I was only an architect, and people like me never got their hands on gold. This chapter describes the New Seville National Heritage Project, and draws out lessons relevant to other cultural heritage projects. This site (of 380 hectares) on the north coast of Jamaica includes important remains of the Arawak (or Taino), Spanish and British periods. They represent the whole sweep of Jamaican history, and are associated with events of crucial importance for the whole world, including the history of slavery and imperialism.

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The aims of this project were to facilitate archaeological excavation and historical research; present their history to Jamaicans in a positive and exciting way; diversify tourist attractions into the cultural field; and enhance foreign currency earnings potential. Unfortunately, this project was compromised by disagreements between the funder, the InterAmerican Development Bank, and the client, the Jamaica National Heritage Trust. However, some continuity was established in the form of the Maima-New Seville National Heritage Park (Maima was the Arawak name for the nearby village). The main consultant was Gilmore Hankey Kirk, and I was project manager. The York Archaeology Trust had spun-off a consultancy called ‘Heritage Projects’, which specialised in commercially viable heritage management, aiming to create an income flow from which scholarly activity could be funded. Both organisations were members of the team, and whilst the trust is still firmly in action. H.P. has ceased trading. There were other specialists in finance and economics, archiving, infrastructure engineering, landscape architecture, marine archaeology, etc., and the local architects were Design Collaborative. Their boss was Evan Williams, a Kingston-based Architect, tourism expert and a most creative person. See Urban Development Corporation 1992. The stimulus for the project was the quincentennial of the Columbus voyages. It was conceived by UNESCO, which undertook a feasibility study. See UNESCO. 1987.

Overview of the Site The site (of 380 hectares) was on the coast, immediately west of the town of St. Ann’s Bay, about 20 minutes’ drive from Ocho Rios, and 15 minutes from Runaway Bay. It was rural in character, pleasantly treed, forested in parts, and sloping gently to the coast. The remains were in three periods: Arawak Jamaica, Spanish Jamaica and Afro/British Jamaica. There were several Arawak villages, and possibly the site of the town of Maima (to which Fernando Colon refers). The Indians had a pacific and ecologically sustainable lifestyle; there are no Arawak architectural remains. Columbus landed here twice (in 1494 and 1503/4) and stayed for a year on his second visit—longer than anywhere else in the Americas. The first Spanish capital was built here, including the third Christian church in the hemisphere. This town was not large and has minor architectural remains. The abbot was Pedro Martyr d’Angheria, colleague of Las Casas, and one of the great humanists of the age.

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The British invaded Jamaica in 1655 during the Anglo-Spanish war, as part of Oliver Cromwell’s “western design”. The country gained independence in 1962. A major sugar plantation was established, with extensive agro-industrial processes, of which ruins remain. There was a ‘Slave Village’ and thereafter a ‘Free Village’. The Great House is in good repair and is mentioned at length in Lady Nugent’s Diary (published by the Institute of Jamaica in 1980 and The University of the West Indies Press in 2002). The history of the site is extraordinarily dramatic. Columbus visited it on his first and fourth voyages, naming it Santa Gloria on account of its beauty. His last visit was the worst time of his life. He was shipwrecked and very ill. The Arawaks (Indians, also known as Taino) refused to supply food, and the party was in danger of starvation. It was then that the famous eclipse occurred. He threatened to cause the moon to appear “red and full of wrath” if the indians did not supply food. Two of Columbus’s most trusted lieutenants, Mendez and Fieschi, made a perilous journey by canoe to Hispaniola to fetch help, but were delayed by Columbus’s enemies for almost a year. During this time the Porras brothers (who were probably spies planted by his enemies) organised a rebellion. Sevilla la Nueva was founded in 1509 by Juan de Esquivel, the governor sent by Columbus. The Governor’s House dates from this time, and included exquisitely carved stonework in the Mudejar Style, which Iniguez thought was the best work in the New World at that time. These were recovered by Cotter in 1937, and are now in the National Gallery in Kingston. There is also a Sugar Mill nearby. The Arawaks migrated from South America by ‘island hopping’ 2,000 years ago. Their predecessors discovered Jamaica 6,000 years ago. They were practically naked except for feathers and brilliant paint. They lived in round huts made from wattle-and-daub; slept in hammocks; ate at communal barbeques; inhaled tobacco through nose-pipes and vomited as an aid to meditation; worshipped an invisible God (Jocahuma) who spoke through small idols (Zemis) which the priests, in reality, used to transmit instructions. They were excellent traders and navigators, using canoes to travel great distances. They led peaceful, communal lives. Their religion and ethics made them defenceless in the face of Christian barbarism, which Bartolomeo de las Casas describes so movingly. Originally numbering perhaps a hundred thousand souls, they were all but wiped out in a hundred years.

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The British period was just as horrific in its own way. The demands of production turned plantations into armed camps based on the psychology of terror. Extreme forms of resistance were practiced by the slaves. The Anglo-Jamaicans lived profligate and often debauched lives. Attacks by pirates were frequent, and hurricanes regularly devastated the coast in the eighteenth century. The cultural life of the slave communities, drawing on African origins, involved much dancing and singing on Saturday nights, Harvest Festival and Christmas, as well as religions—Myal and Obeah— dealing with the spirit world. Black American Baptist missionaries began to effect large-scale conversion to Christianity in the 1780s, but they opposed slavery and clashed with many plantation owners. After abolition in 1834, the main priority became land acquisition. In St. Ann’s parish alone, by 1840 some 3,000 acres had been bought by these new citizens. The local historians on the consultant’s team produced a comprehensive bibliography, assembled a reference library, and wrote several summary papers that provided a crucial input to the work of the rest of us. Several archaeologists had been working on the site in recent years: most notably Professor Lopez y Sebastian (University of Madrid) on the Spanish city; Professor Douglas Armstrong (Syracuse University) on the African villages; and Dr Jim Parrent (Texas A and M University) searching for Columbus’s caravels. Other archaeologists had worked there in the past, and a review of reports together with discussions between our archaeologists, Lopez, Armstrong and Parrent allowed them to prepare a comprehensive archaeological map, with zones for various types of protection or excavation. The Conservation Architect, John Harrison (after excavation of the English period buildings by the industrial archaeologist, Ian Robinson), was able to prepare full ‘reconstructions’ of the dam and aqueduct, sugar mills, boiling house, copra kiln, lime kiln, trash house, and cattle mill, etc. See figs. 4.8 to 4.11. The team’s ecologists produced a detailed assessment of the site, as a result of which a landscape design and environmental protection measures were produced. The site itself is ecologically interesting and varied, although it was quite ruined by many years of neglect. Ecosystems include woodlands on the hills, with pimento trees, riverine woodlands, open pastures, coastal woodlands, mangroves, herbaceous marsh, turtle grass

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beds, a deep channel and coral reefs. There were few rare species, but many were showy, hardy and attractive, well able to form the basis of an attractive landscape. There were many abuses on the site, such as theft of materials from historic buildings, charcoal burning, overgrazing, rubbish tipping and squatting. Environmental issues included pests, (such as ticks, mosquitoes and sand flies,) water pollution and degradation of watersheds, erosion, risk of tsunamis, and so on.

Master Plan The site was divided by the main road running east-west (between Montego Bay and Ochos Rios) along the coast. See fig.4.1 for the diagrammatic layout concept proposed in the inception report. The notional building layout of the coastal area from the inception report is shown in fig.4.2., and that of the Great House area in fig. 4.3. The master plan from the main report is shown as fig.4.4. The visitors’ arrival point would be the Visitor Centre complex, including the car park, located near the entry point on the eastern site boundary, next to the coast road. This land is not visible from the most important areas. The main building, the so-called Seville Experience, would have included the arrivals hall and ticketing area and the high-tech exhibitions. These exhibitions would have given a dramatic and entertaining overview of the history and ethnography of the site. From there, the visitor would walk through an ‘Archaeology Park’ to the church, including a memorial to the Arawaks, and thence to the Visitor Amenity Building. This would have included restaurants, shops and galleries. From here, the visitor would have taken a ‘jitney’ ride on one of the tours. A jitney might be a tractor-drawn sugar-cane cart. At each stop, there would be a small seating area with a thatched roof. Jitneys would run at 10-minute intervals. A music and dance area would be located nearby, in which a regular programme of displays and concerts would occur. Our first sketch designs assembled all these elements into a single building. However, by breaking this down into several separate buildings, it was possible to create a richer experience. For example, a relationship to a beautiful landscape could be established. The main building exit led onto a riverside terrace and the Amenity Building is set in a dramatic and

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beautiful quarry. The old Spanish church introduces a meditative dimension, and so on. There would have been three jitney tour routes, all returning to the same point so as to allow the visitor to take another. Each tour would take two hours. The northern tour goes round the Spanish-Arawak Area. A narrow track goes round the reconstructed Arawak fishing village and thence to a new coastal resort; the Wharf and Warehouse; the Spanish Governor’s Castle and the Spanish Sugar Mill (returning then to the Visitor Amenity Building.) In a similar manner, the southern tour would go to the Great House, reconstructed African Villages, Overseer’s House, English Industrial Area, and then back to the Visitors’ Centre. In figs. 4.5 and 4.6. are a measured drawing and survey notes of the Great house, and in figs. 4.7. to 4.10 are reconstructions of various buildings of the English period agricultural industry area. The third tour would go to the nearby town of St. Ann’s Bay. It would include visits to two museums: the Marcus Garvey Printing Works and the English Jail (which could be an Archaeology Centre modelled on that in St. Peter’s church, York.) Visits to a Craft Market and a shopping trip might also be included. I was fortunate to have Oliver Cox1 on the team. He and his wife Jean prepared a study of St. Ann’s Bay, with some splendid diagrams and sketches: see figs. 4.12 and 4.13. An important part of the master plan concept was the ecologically-based landscape projects. There were six opportunities: (a) enhancement of existing ecosystems, such as riverine forests, pimento woodlands, mangroves, etc.; (b) creation of new habitats, such as shallow pools to attract shore birds and waterfowl; (c) semi-natural display areas, such as a butterfly garden, a reptile house and a nocturnal house; (d) agricultural areas demonstrating Arawak, African, Spanish and English crops and techniques, the products of which could be featured in restaurants and shops; (e) displays focusing on the relationship between environment and culture in Jamaica, including folk medicine, myth, introduction of plants and animals from abroad, etc.; and (f) nature trails with small interpretation centres and picnic sites.

1

Oliver Cox had been much involved in Jamaica, (most recently in Port Royal), as had Shankland Cox during their glory days.

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The master plan also incorporated several specific landscape projects. Some of these were related to building visits: for example, the Spanish Agricultural Demonstration Area would be visited in relationship to the Sugar Mill. The archaeology park could be visited in association with the Spanish Governor’s House. The Arawak Agricultural and Fishing Display could be visited in association with the Arawak Village, and so on. Other projects would require a walk along a footpath loop, leading from one jitney stop to another. For example, the Coastal Eco-Park path could lead via the Spanish Tree-Crop Display, the Coastal Vegetation Display, the Mangrove Swamp, the Coastal Animal House and the Logwood/Red Birch Area, etc. The Hillside Eco-Park path would lead via the AfroBritish Agricultural Display Area (including displays of Pimento, Annatto, Cocoa, Coffee, Fruit, Coconut, Banana, Tobacco and Sugar), African Provision Grounds, Nocturnal House and English Rose Garden. The Church River Eco-Park path would present the ecology of the jungle. The Central Servicing Building was proposed in a remote corner of the site. It included changing lockers, rest room and canteen; vehicle garage and equipment stores; lorry and workers’ car park; workshops, central storage and warehousing. The location of the elements described above is shown in the master plan drawing, fig. 4.4. We tried to create an imageable form for the site as a whole, without imposing an arbitrary (or preconceived) layout. The arbitrariness was avoided by allowing the form to emerge logically from existing ‘site factors’ and other realities. The starting point was the spine road, which is shown on the seventeenth-century map of the plantation. This axis has been retained and reinforced in the design. Other similar axial devices have also been suggested, and the Spanish Governor’s House has emerged as a focal point. The layout is based on the interplay of a fluid, curvilinear form, (based in particular on the curves of the jitney tracks and the structure planting,) and formal, symmetrical, axial layout, (with hierarchy, poche, enfilade, etc.).

Buildings The main new building was to be the Visitor Centre, and in particular a multi-media state-of-the-art exhibition telling the history of the Seville site. The detailed design work here was done by the sub-consultants, Heritage Projects. This would have been split into three parts:

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x x x

The “Encounter Hall”: an introduction to the ethnography of the site and the identity of Jamaica, seen as an “encounter” between European and African civilisations; The Ride: a tour through ‘scenarios’ presenting the history of New Seville, with visitors sitting in electronically guided cars; The Audio-Visual Show, which goes into more detail about the cultural influences and characters from the history of the area;

This would introduce people to the site as a whole in a memorable and interesting way. The topics and messages would be interpreted using seven techniques: x x x x x x x

Artefact displays: key objects seen under suitable environmental conditions; Reconstructions such as models describing characteristics of Jamaican people and environments in which they lived throughout this period; Graphics giving clear explanations of complex issues such as chronology; Computers, including interactive displays for exploration of themes in detail; Sounds, such as push-button or independently triggered technology developing the themes of language and song; Live shows: such as the history of Jamaican dance performed in a separate arena; Audio-visual show: a show about culture, dance, music, ceremony, art, Arawak arietos, African work songs, carnivals, reggae, etc.

The Arawak Village Seven houses would be replicated along with exterior and interior props and fittings. Each hut would provide a setting for one topic, namely: cooking, weaving, pottery, dyeing and painting, and jewellery. Agricultural demonstrations would be dispersed between the huts. Next to the river, the techniques of canoe building and fishing would be described. The chief’s hut (or bohio) would be the focal point of the village. In front of this, events based on recreation, hunting or outdoor religious rituals would be demonstrated at regular intervals. To one side, the Worship House would be located. Finally, to help the interpreters, the village would be populated with models and sculpted figures.

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The Caravel Project The caravel would have been an accurate full-size replica of one of Columbus’s ships, (the Capitano or the Santiago.) It would not be seaworthy, but would be held in a submerged cradle near the shore, and accessed by a short pier. The masts would be visible along the main site axis. The ship would form the focal point for theatrical events, including son et lumière. Normally it would function as a museum of fifteenthcentury seafaring in general, and Columbus’s journeys in particular.

Spanish Governor’s House The excavations of the house would be the centrepiece of the site north of the road. Next to the remains, there would be four enclosed display areas, with lively presentations on: x x x x

Columbus’s 1494 visit; New Seville and Esquivel; The Arawaks under Spanish rule, including genocide; The first Africans.

The visitors could view the remains from a slightly elevated balcony below a light roof. There would be four exhibition areas. As an example, I describe the first display concept. Visitors enter through a short corridor lined with angled tattered canvas, with dramatic lighting suggesting a storm. The set portrays a wrecked deck with a thatched hut. Columbus stands on deck addressing a group of Indians. Video projection on the cyclorama describes his experience on the island, the mutinies and the rescue. The eclipse of the moon, which he predicted to quell and deceive the Indians, is also shown. Visitors leave through a hatch in the side.

The Great House The existing Great House would be used as a museum to show the story of plantation life during the slavery period. The contents of the various rooms are summarised below: x

Room 1. Reception. A guide welcomes visitors and answers general questions;

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Room 2. In a period room, an actor portrays a house slave, laying the table for a meal. Any questions asked would relate to his/her knowledge of Seville in 1802; Room 5. Period reconstruction drawing room where sculpted figures of Lady Nugent sits with her husband and the house owners. Tea is served; Room 7. The Slave Trade audio-visual presentation about methods used to capture, transport and discipline Africans, as well as the economic advantages of the system to Europe and the United States; Room 10. Period reconstruction of the kitchen with actors portraying food preparation.

African Villages Seville is a good setting to present definitive examples of early slave housing and village life. Two rows of house-yard compounds would be constructed in the area between Seville Great House and the archaeological ruins of the early slave housing. Three of these dwellings would be designed and furnished for interpretation. The remainder would be façades acting as a backdrop depicting the village which once existed. In the Free African Settlement one house would illustrate postemancipation era material, culture and folkways. House groupings reflect internal social affiliations. Construction includes examples of wattle and daub with either thatch or cedar shingles. A small provision plot placed next to the house would show the relation of houses to the provision grounds.

English Industrial Area The Overseer’s House would have been restored and used as a display of work and working conditions on the plantation. The site and buildings of the English Industrial complex would have demonstrated the techniques of sugar production at Seville in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and also the processing of later crops—pimento, lime and copra—after the decline of sugar. The various industrial processes would have been explained in sequence to the visitor as he passed through the site, so he gains a picture of the power employed, the purpose and function of the machinery, the raw materials

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and the final products. The elements of the industrial complex are listed below: x x x x x x x x

Aqueduct; Water wheel and sugar mill; Boiling House; Copra Kiln (originally the Still House); Pimento Barbeques; Lime Kiln and store; Trash House; Artisan Workshops (e.g. blacksmith, wheelwright, sawyer, stone mason, etc.).

See figs. 4.7 to 4.11. We proposed reconstructing the aqueduct to carry water to the water wheel, and to repair the wheel and the gears.

Economic Appraisal We began by projecting the site visitor numbers. We assumed that 85 per cent of cruise ship visitors (196,000 people), a certain proportion of tourist visitors to Jamaica (371,000 persons), one primary school grade per year, and all secondary level history students (72,000 persons), 40 per cent of overseas Jamaican visitors, and 10 per cent of the professional, clerical and managerial group (127,000 persons), would visit the site once a year. This totalled 767,000 visitors per annum. The consultants argued that the UNESCO estimate of 40,000 visitors annually was a gross underestimate. The argument was that this concept was neither pro-active nor market-led, and that this elitist perspective would lead to a dry and unattractive product. We proposed to rely on very effective marketing and lively management, for which strategies and budgets were proposed. Visitor charges or gate receipts, rental charges for concessions and the disposal of the three parts of the site as housing and resort uses (not required for the project) allowed annual income to be estimated (at 1991 values) as J$65 million, rising to J$160 million by year 10, namely 2001. Construction costs were estimated, and foreign exchange costs were 47 per cent of the total. Annual operating costs covered the fee of the operating company, staffing costs, maintenance costs, utility charges, taxes, education and training.

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The total investment of J$275 million would be financed by a 60/40 ratio of debt to equity. The government would retain 49 per cent of the equity, which represented the land value. Disposal of surplus land would realise J$32 million as a contribution to working capital. Private sector equity would be raised from Jamaican commercial banks and tourism companies (such firms were already investing heavily in tourism ventures). The debt capital would include a foreign exchange component, which might have come from an international lending agency. The return on private sector equity was estimated at 25 per cent, which is higher than the historical returns on companies listed on the Jamaican Stock Exchange. The financial internal rate of return was estimated at 29 per cent. The financial net present value was positive, indicating that the project would be viable. The financial analysis indicated that the project would be profitable from year 4, and that early losses would be liquidated by year 6. The return on assets would exceed 37 per cent by year 9. The financing plan maintained an early cash surplus to avoid short-term bank borrowing at punitive rates. The socio-economic evaluation calculated the economic rate of return as 39 per cent, and the net present value (NPV) of the project benefits (at a discount rate of 20 per cent) was calculated to be J$ 190 million. The ratio of NPV of benefits to PV of costs was 1.7 to 1.0. The impact on balance of payments was favourable, in that the PV of dollar earnings was more than the twice the PV of dollar costs. There would be 1,264 jobs directly created, and 1,800 indirect and induced jobs. Parish unemployment at that time totalled 6,000.

Five Issues Ethnocentric bias in the presentation of history The concern, particularly among Jamaican intellectuals, was to avoid a Eurocentric perspective. The notion that Jamaica was ‘discovered’ by white conquistadors; that the course of American history subsequently determined by whites; that the experience of the slaves was a footnote— however horrific—to the main historical narrative… all these unspoken value-judgements were biased in a way which marginalised the experience and significance of non-European groups.

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America was ‘discovered’ long before Columbus: 26,000 years ago, as Granberry suggested. (Granberry, Julian. 2005.) The impact of the ‘New World’ (a questionable term) on the ‘Old World’ was as great as the impact of the ‘Old’ on the ‘New’. The idea of ‘encounter’ between two worlds is preferable to the idea of ‘discovery’ of one by the other. The central theme, (argued Rex Nettleford2) is that Jamaican society is an unprecedented cultural symbiosis or synthesis, in which the Africans altered the Europeans as much as the Europeans altered the Africans. In that sense, we can speak of an Anglo-Jamaican society which was more Jamaican than English. The great majority of Jamaicans are of African ancestry, and from their point of view the historical focus should be on the kidnapping, slavery and emancipation, and this story should be told objectively. The cause here may be the “nonchalance of the western mentality”, to borrow Norman Dennis’ phrase. In his address at the dedication of the Columbus monument at St. Ann’s Bay, S.E. Morison said: Another consequence of Columbus’s discovery was the spread of the English-speaking peoples across North America and into the Islands of the West Indies. To these wide and fruitful parts of the earth’s surface, the English brought their ideals and practice of liberty under law, the greatest boon to mankind since Christianity. What if liberty was denied to the Negroes for two centuries… (Morison. S.E. 1958.)

Morison then dismisses Peter Martyr’s account of Taino pacifism and declares them to have been violent, whilst mentioning or offering no evidence. One wonders how he viewed Huantanabey’s refusal to be converted to Christianity, because he could not bear to meet such bloodthirsty people in heaven? In 1991, Nettleford prepared a ‘Manifesto on the Fifth Centenary of the Encounter between Two Worlds’, which was presented in Caracas. The Manifesto will be Latin America’s contribution to the celebration of that transcendental date in man’s history. In this document, who we are and what we desire as a people will be established. We will travel the long and complex road which Latin America has travelled to become not only the land of contradictions but also the land of hope. The manifesto will allow us to dispel all doubts and myths which have been woven into the fabric of our reality, and release us from colonialism

2

Nettleford was one of the most significant thinkers in Jamaica at the time. He was an informal member of the team at one stage.

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Cultural values versus commercial values There are two models, which could be called the ‘museum’ and the ‘theme park’ (or scholarship versus entertainment.) The intellectuals, including Nettleford, feared that our proposal fell into the latter category. On the other hand, the traditional museological approach would fail to generate the visitor numbers and income flows needed to fund the works. This dilemma can be exemplified by the original UNESCO scheme concept, which was a traditional museum. It entailed static displays of artefacts. There were no ‘people movers’, and so one would be obliged to walk for several hours in the hot sun. The walking route did not follow a chronological sequence, and it involved several culs-de-sac. In other words, there were no round walks. The product was addressed to a minority of specialists. Research into the tastes and preferences of potential visitors threw the issue into sharp focus. The UNESCO study projected 40,000 visitors per year, and the total expenditure was very modest. We intuitively felt this was miserly relative to the size of the site and the scope of the potential. The project would be locked into a vicious circle of low attractiveness, low income and low investment. The aim was to find presentation techniques that would be popular with foreign (mainly U.S.) tourists, whilst also fulfilling a serious educational role and enhancing legitimate pride of Jamaicans in their own history. The educational level, motives and tastes of North American tourists were carefully researched, and we aimed at a synthesis of enjoyment and serious learning. This involved the techniques described above. The income from a little under 800,000 visitors a year was sufficient to finance a suitable investment and a major programme. Tourism marketing of Jamaica as a whole, and this project as part of that, should occur in North America, Europe, Japan, and emerging new economies. We needed to diversify the established ‘sun, sea and sand’ product of Jamaican tourism to incorporate different types of experience.

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Jamaicans were equally to be targeted, but different entry charges were proposed. This issue is an inescapable problem area. The aim was to use foreign tourist dollars to create a product tailored to attract Jamaicans at an affordable price. The early stress was to attract Jamaicans living abroad, and also students attracted by archaeology and research. A Schools Facility was envisaged, and a hands-on approach was important, as the York Archaeological Trust had developed at Jorvik. The involvement of the rising generation was seen as the best guarantee for the future.

New Architecture on Historic Sites We felt that new buildings with contemporary functions should not copy historic precursors at all. For example, the Visitor Centre would have had a high level of technological services. It would be ‘black box’ with large spaces, long spans and few windows. It would have a large throughput of visitors at relatively high speed. In short, there were no historic parallels. Moreover, much of the interest of the project is precisely the process of change since the fifteenth century, in which the heritage park would be merely the latest evolutionary or developmental stage. To try to stop the historical clock now would short-circuit that message. The environment of the past has become the art-object of today, as the layers of the Seville palimpsest are peeled back and displayed. This would be obscured if contemporary buildings were historicist/imitative. The visitor-observer changes the nature of the historical reality, and we must accept that the environment can only be made anew. Equally important is the continuity of the spirit of Jamaican architecture, which we saw as eclectic, polymorphous and exuberant, with overall unities between new and historic elements, between buildings and landscape as well as between aggressive vulgarity and emotional sensibility. We saw the new architecture here as a contribution to the site in its long evolution. The unity of building with environment is exemplified by the Amenity building. It would be located in an old quarry, screened by an existing bank and trees. The main walling material is stone, with large windows overlooking magnificent subtropical vegetation. The plan wraps around a greensward next to the stream. It steps up the quarry face and incorporates

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it (like a wall) into the building itself. The building is divided into several small volumes, each of which would be in scale with the historic buildings. Internal spaces flowed out through sliding doors into the external landscape.

Impact On The Local Community We suggested to the client that they extend the brief to include the nearby town of St. Ann’s Bay, which had a population of about 4,000 persons at the time. It had great historic charm and architectural quality, but had hardly been affected by tourism. It was also the hometown of Marcus Garvey. The site is a treed hillside sloping steeply to the sea. There was serious unemployment, dereliction and a housing shortage. Oliver and Jean Cox spent some time preparing a strategic plan for the town: It seemed plausible that the town could attract 100,000 visitors a year, as a result of the Seville project. Accordingly part of the strategy was to capture maximum economic and cultural spin-off for the existing population. There were five main elements. Two museums (the Garvey Printing Shop and the English Jail), the Archaeology Education Centre, the Archaeologists Hostel, and the Craft Workshops would be located in the town. Jitney rides would link the site to the town. Small hotels and restaurants could also be encouraged, but special care with quality control, marketing and reservation systems would be needed. Training should maximise the number of Seville-related jobs going to local people, as opposed to outsiders from Kingston and elsewhere. Training and business-support for the craft industries should facilitate the manufacture of items for sale in museum outlets, such as reproduction pottery, furniture, musical instruments, historic food and drinks, etc. Support to the local Parish Council should continue to facilitate conservation of historic buildings and planning control. Special attention should go to the supply of housing, so that the Seville project would not create an influx of migrants, drive up costs and increase housing scarcity. I noted in my records at the time that there were several local craft firms, run by imaginative, competent and educated people. The local secondary school was good and the head-teacher conscientious and imaginative. Vocational training in tourism-related trades was also good, but needed extension. The leadership of the Parish Council—in the person of the Parish Clerk—was excellent: far better than one might expect in so small a place. In short, the people on the ground were good. The weaknesses were

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firstly, the lack of marketing skills and secondly, over-centralisation in Kingston (from where everything was run—the usual story).

Public/Private Sector Teamwork The extent of the private-sector role was a controversial or uncertain matter at the time. The original intention had been that the Inter-American Development Bank would fund the project in its entirety. As planning work proceeded, a public sector/private sector cooperation model emerged, which reflected the growing trend. In Jamaica (and in many places) there was a deep suspicion between the sectors. In particular, business people were frankly suspicious about government programmes. They operated in very different ways, and the two sub-cultures were quite dissimilar. The consultants proposed a spread of funding sources in addition to the bank. Ideas included commercial sponsorship from hotel groups, travel companies, cruise lines, etc.; charitable support from cultural foundations; and private investment including share capital in the operating company, and so on. The principle would be that proposals be packaged for each type of funding source, so that each sub-project met appropriate criteria. For example, cultural foundations might support archaeological investigations and scholarly exhibits; towns in North America or Europe with associations with Columbus or Seville might support exhibits with a relevant link or theme; rum or sugar companies might support the reconstruction of the distillery or sugar works; fruit companies might sponsor orchards or fruit processing equipment. There were many such possibilities. The consultants suggested that the government transfer the assets to a Holding Company, to be owned 49 per cent by the government and 51 per cent by the private sector investors. They would contribute 40 per cent of the capital and raise 60 per cent by debt financing or other means. The major debt-financing institutions would also be represented on the holding company. The government’s contribution would be the value of the assets, particularly the land. Operation would be contracted out to an experienced heritage operating company via a tendering process. This arrangement would allow the expertise of the private sector to be brought to bear on a hitherto exclusively public sector area. The economic and financial IRRs made both sectors happy, and the principle of cooperation was fully accepted. What, then, was the difficulty?

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Private groups despaired at the slow working practices of large steering committees, whose participants had incompatible agendas and extra-mural hostilities. On the other hand, the lending agencies may take two years to validate a loan. The Seville project study began in January 1991, and required the first phase to be opened mid-1992 so as to capitalise on the Columbus Quincentennial. Civil Servants try to maintain public accountability and defend long-term public interests by consultative and consensual procedures; for their part, the private sector doubts the government’s grasp of marketing, financial and managerial imperatives. One can see that a common culture may not yet exist sufficient for a joint venture.

Conclusion The violence and genocide reported by historical studies is wholly plausible, of course. There is another type of struggle occurring now, about our reading of history and how that reading is transmitted by the ‘heritage industry’. This was Rex Nettleford’s concern, I think. Whilst it is not a sanguinary affair, that does not make it politically or academically less serious.

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Fig. 4.1. Jamaica. Site layout diagram, (from Inception Report).

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Fig. 4.2. Jamaica. Notional building layout, coastal area, (from Inception Report).

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Fig. 4.3. Jamaica. Notional building layout, Great House, (from Inception Report).

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Fig. 4.4. Jamaica. Site plan of New Seville project

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Fig. 4.5. Jamaica. Example of measured drawing. (John Harrison).

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Fig. 4.6. Jamaica. Example of survey notes; doorway. (John Harrison).

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Fig. 4.7. Jamaica. Example of survey notes; Curing House. (John Harrison).

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Fig. 4.8. Jamaica. Possible layout of Sugar Works. (Ian Robinson).

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Fig. 4.9. Jamaica. Reconstruction of Trash House (Ian Robinson)

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Fig. 4.10. Jamaica. Reconstruction of Cattle Mill.

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Fig. 4.11. Jamaica. Photographs of Water Mill.

Fig. 4.12. Jamaica. St Ann’s Bay study. Sketches of Church St. (O. Cox)

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Fig. 4.13. Jamaica. St Ann’s Bay study. Sketches of Main St and Church St. (O. Cox)

CHAPTER FIVE CONTINUITY OF FORM 1: TELFORD

Introduction This chapter and the next one describe my work on design of new urban areas in western Europe (excluding the Balkans, and excluding urban conservation). The Telford competition success led to my being employed at a senior level at too young an age by Telford Development Corporation, and this chapter concludes by telling the story of design work there. After work in Telford, two years’ work in Bahrain, and one year in Turkey, I taught for two years at the Glasgow School of Art and then worked at Thamesmead Town—a sort of private sector new town organisation in London—which I describe in the next chapter. I also prepared a plan for an expansion area of the historic town centre of Tampere in Finland and subsequently an area of inner east London. Chapter 6 describes the work in all four places—particularly as regards urban design. Of special interest in the present chapter is the ability (or rather, the inability) to carry out the ideas from the Telford competition in the real-world inhabited by the development corporation, property developers, investors and so on.

The Telford New Town Centre Competition After the Telford competition, the four first prize winners, myself included, were debated among key members of the client body, the chief man being Lord Northfield, the chairman. He was particularly enamoured of the presentation by Gordon Cullen, one of the other joint first prize winners, who was working with the firm of A G Sheperd Fidler on this job. They were awarded a one-year trial contract, but this was not extended because some kind of squabble arose. I am not quite sure what it was. But I subsequently got to know both Gordon and the Chairman, and I thought

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they were both (in their own special ways) difficult men. Gordon was a justly famous person, of course. Then I saw an advertisement in the papers for the job of Directing Architect South at Telford Development Corporation. I applied for this job, was interviewed and, to my astonishment, offered the job. I accepted the offer and worked there for six years. Working at Telford for Lord Northfield and dealing with him in the context of the competition contained some contradictions. The corporation was a conflictual environment. The chairman and the then general manager, Emyr Thomas, were like chalk and cheese, both in values and personality. Furthermore, the truth is that I was both too young, inexperienced (and perhaps insufficiently capable) for the job. My colleagues at the same level were all much older than I was. Things were further exacerbated by the simultaneous collapse of the new town corporation ethos, and also the ethos of public sector architecture, which coincidentally started to occur soon after my arrival. Another problem for me was the unrealistic basis of the competition submission, as I describe below. It was opposed by the commercial chiefs in the corporation, who saw no purpose in architecture and urban design except as a means towards the delivery of their commercial goals and values. Instead of declining to take the job—as I probably should have done—I tried to develop urban design ideas based on firstly the ‘pragmatic’ values of the commercial leaders, and secondly also based on the romantic expressionism of Lord Northfield, an autocratic, amateur would-be architect if ever there was one. But it led to plans that were quite different from those which had emerged from the competition. In fig. 5.1. I show first the explanatory diagram in the competition submission, which described the principle of ‘land use mix’. There was a normal idea of ‘single use complexes’ at that time, which the first sketch illustrates. An important road accesses several distinct complexes which might be, for example, a shopping centre, an industrial estate, a leisure and entertainment complex and so on. In the drawing, these are expressed by different symbols, such as squares, circles, etc. In the second diagram, I show the ‘impoverished street’ that results from this principle. Each complex is centred on itself, and turns its back on the street. In the third diagram, I advance another approach based on an urban network which accesses a mixed use area, where the symbols of squares, circles, pluses, dashes etc are mixed up. In the last diagram I show the idea

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of ‘social spaces’ lining the street, whilst in the second diagram each complex would have its social space buried within it. This principle was the foundation of the plan, and derived from the philosophy of Georges Candilis used in the scheme for the Berlin Free University (BFU).1 In fig. 5.2. I show sketches which illustrated the notion of a ‘citadel’ or ‘stronghold’, which we used to plan the town centre. It was based on the existing ‘road box’ of a one-kilometre square, which we lined with continuous buildings (as shown in fig. 5.11, sketched by Bob Macdonald, my partner on the competition). This was the template for the wider pattern, (and the radial paths then penetrated these concentric squares). This box was surrounded by earth banks planted with avenues of trees on the model of a city wall illustrated in fig. 5.10. In fig. 5.3. we describe the idea of ‘growth axes’. I was a bit worried by the tendency to phase complexes strictly, meaning that there were buildings scattered around for years, the gaps between them being filled in very slowly. I advocated a sequential-continuous growth pattern, and that is what this figure was illustrating. In fig. 5.4. I show four historic examples of urban growth processes, which occur within the framework of façades at the front of sites, and service roads at the rear. At the rear are ‘soft areas’ where the growth happens, and at the front are hard areas of formal, composed façades. In fig. 5.5. we show how this principle would be applied in the competition design so as to create a network of paths. I was attracted by the BFU plan. In fig. 5.8. I show the sketch of a mews, being the example of the access road to a soft area, with informal, (crammed) mixed use development. In fig. 5.6 we show the landscape survey sketch, which shows the hills and treed slopes, the mounds and the ‘citadel’, the form of which is very clear in the plan drawing itself (see fig. 5.9). I will now go on to the drawings prepared after I was appointed and began work at the New Town Development Corporation.

1

See J. Joedicke, 1978. See also discussion of Candilis, Josic and Woods in Chapter 6.

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Urban Design after Starting Work at T.D.C. I therefore begin by describing the plans I prepared for the town centre after starting work for TDC, which was, of course, the same area as that dealt with by the competition. The chairman was a quasi-romantic idealist whose visions intersected at no point with the practical realities in which Telford at that time was rooted. This led to the most horrific arguments between the chairman and the established staff. I recall one business meeting with property developers when the chairman engaged in hysterical screaming and became so beside himself with anger that he swept piles of files and drawings off the table with one hand and stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind him. This was perhaps the most dramatic single occasion, but there were very frequent storms, which meant that I (and many others) tried to avoid meeting or debating at all. His lordship came back from holidays in Texas thrilled by the corporate tower blocks he had seen in Houston or wherever—enormous fingers of glittering mirror-glass surrounded by huge motorways and car parks— whilst his commercial officers in Telford pointed out that there was a serious economic depression in England as a whole, but Telford was in any event a remote and disconnected area with a high (23 per cent male) unemployment rate, as well as rock-bottom rents and property values. They said we were lucky to attract even the smallest investments from the private sector, whilst public money for business purposes was ruled out by the new Thatcher government. The chairman found that the cool, all-toopragmatic general manager would not back up his romantic passions, and so—outrageously—asked the government to dismiss him. This did not happen, but it did lead to a very stormy atmosphere, as one can well imagine, made worse by the chairman’s inability to retreat, negotiate, debate, surrender (even without grace) or creatively compromise at all. This situation had arisen already before I arrived, and I suspected that the urban design competition had been a game to allow space for the chairman to manœuvre against his internal enemies, in which I had become an unwitting pawn, a useful idiot. I soon learned that my established commercial colleagues were suspicious of me—as of all architects—and some of them were spoiling for a fight with me the moment I arrived. I spent some of the first months trying to devise an urban design plan for the town centre which could be accepted simultaneously by the commercial

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staff and the chairman himself. I should have known that this was impossible, but I foolishly tried a compromise: see fig. 5.16 for the overall urban design plan for the centre. I suspect the commercial chaps and the chairman both hated it for their different reasons, but both parties preferred to keep their powder dry. Their tactics seemed to be not to argue immediately, but just allow attrition to take its course. I will describe this plan. The area can be divided into the centre, north, west, south and east portions.

Central Area I will first describe the central area. See fig. 5.17. The competition ideas of (a) the “citadel” wall-building around the box-road; (b) the market square, pedestrian street and housing mews, etc., all crowded into a denselypacked core, and (c) the surface car park surrounded by buildings so as to become a “square”—all these ideas were forgotten because they were unrealistic in the commercial spirit of the time. Instead, I assumed that a much more elementary arrangement would be entailed. First, the existing western car park would have a new phase of the retail centre built on it, with a roof-level service access road. This new phase of the existing retail centre would have a pedestrian mall connecting into the existing one, but it would lead westwards to the future courts area (i.e. the west area). Recently, the surface car park has been completely closed and the new retail building has therefore been much bigger than we foresaw a quarter of a century ago. The price paid has been that multi-storey car parks had to be built, and remaining surface car parks are no longer free of charge. None of us foresaw the immense reliance of retail on the motor car, upon which Telford was always predicated, but which has become more pervasive than anyone quite imagined or planned for. The central area also contained two office projects, with small retail units at ground level. The area concerned lay to the southeast corner of the central area, between the box road and the enclosed retail mall. The dilemma was that the ground fell away to the east, and so the mall-level would have been too high to cover just one basement storey. The plan was therefore to build separate secondary retail frontages, with two stories of office suites above them. These buildings were known as Hazeldine House and Brodie House. This created an awkward gap between the enclosed mall complex at high level and the secondary retail/office buildings down on the ground, which was filled in with landscape and surface parking

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areas. It does not look too bad in this case, but reminds us of the dilemma of handling the boundary of a ‘megastructure’, where the higher mall or deck level fails to link smoothly with the surrounding ground. At least, it could be worse—look at Cumbernauld New Town centre, for example, which is a fine example of a disconnection between high-level malls and the surrounding ground level footway system.

Western Area That concludes my discussion of the central area. To the west of the box road are the courts, the cinema, and three office complexes. These were built in the 1980s, and my original plan for the area is shown in fig. 5.18. The most important feature here is the large square rising up the contours. It begins with a wide underpass below the box road, which leads from the retail mall to the western square. The underpass is at the lowest point of the square. The square is marked by a couple of large octagonal pavilions, but these were never built. From here, it mounts a flight of grand steps, designed as a formal device between two pavilions. Beyond the steps is a large open square, with the magistrates’ courts and the police station defining the southern edge and an office complex defining the northern edge. These were both built, but I had also envisaged the end of the square being terminated by a three-storey crescent of apartment houses: see fig.5.19. In reality, the County Court was built there. Nonetheless, the general effect of this space was established quite successfully. The plan had been to establish a (loosely) symmetrical structure including four squares to the north, south, west and east of the central point. On the west, the landscape design of the square achieved this well. The landscape design, made by the Corporation, included a small, orthogonal lily-pond with a large sculpture. This became a well-known monument symbolic of the town, affectionately regarded and by no means entirely tasteless.

Southern Area I move now to the southern area: see fig. 5.20. The main feature here is a lake marking the entry point from the centre to the large ‘town park’, both of which had been envisaged long before in the structure plan of the town. The lake was artificial, based on an elevated ground level at the same elevation as the retail mall in the centre, which facilitated a pedestrian bridge-building linking the retail centre to the lakeside square, without any

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major change of level. The plan aimed to group buildings around the lake so as to define a large place. We also envisaged an axis that linked diagonally from the hill (Nedge Hill) west of the lake to the sports buildings on lower ground east of the lake. This axis or avenue would be given form by housing terraces of the same type as I described above, but this was not built. Nonetheless, to some degree the buildings that formed this area were built so as to fill in the layout envisaged. For example, we built the Tennis Centre, the Skating Rink, the Public Library and the social building, known as “Meeting Point House”, as well as the landscape and leisure projects such as gardens and adventure play areas, which linked them together into a (more or less) coherent whole. In addition to this, private sector projects included two orthogonal, single storey retail sheds on the western fringe of the lake that were built by W H Smith. I did try to ensure that these diverse buildings were lent unity by their shared lakeside address and its powerful landscape strategy, as well as the pedestrian flow from the retail core to the town park which constituted a backbone through the area.

Eastern Area Next I will mention the eastern area. The plan for the area is shown in fig. 5.21. My original proposal was to create an avenue-axis running eastwards from the central area, along a frontage of a number of shed buildings for retail or industrial activity, to the existing housing elevations at Malinslee, leading to a new housing octogonal terrace providing a terminal feature. This would define the boundary of a public square, similar to the terminal spaces on the other three axes. However, the opportunity to build a housing project occurred first, and a plan for this was detailed up earliest. The design for a footbridge from the centre to this axis was prepared and, indeed, built. In reality, other building projects were pursued here during the eighties, namely an office block for the Inland Revenue, and a multistorey car park. These were favoured by commercial colleagues.

Northern Area Finally, I mention the northern area: see fig. 5.23. This lies on falling ground with the M52 motorway, a local dual carriageway and the Shrewsbury railway line along the valley bottom in a zone almost bare of vegetation or other visual attractiveness. I proposed the creation of “ramparts” to create a boundary or edge image, and this was both built and

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planted. As I arrived, a ten-storey office block was about to start on site. This is a three-pointed star on plan, with angled batters on all elevations. It was designed by Shepherd Fidler and Associates. This is a powerful and very memorable visual image, whatever else may be thought about it, and so I felt there was no intelligent option but to give it a clear and central role in the layout of the adjacent area. The plan places this building at the centre of the layout, and the pedestrian footbridge was located next to it, linking the central area to the northern area and thence to the railway. We subsequently designed and built the bridge and the station. Around the building we planned a public garden, and defined this by other façades of commercial offices. I aimed to design sites for investment blocks of a size meeting demand or opportunity at the time. I envisaged that each such site would have a local road on one edge, and a car parking facility between the road and the building. I thought this should be the tallest building in the centre, and I proposed low-rise offices in future. This modest density facilitated the shaping of façades able to define streets and spaces. However, the chairman demanded the tallest possible buildings, and so the space taken up by surface car parking would have been so large that the towers would have been isolated in formless space. Streets (or other such spaces) could not then be defined, and the environment would not have been urban in any European tradition. The chairman’s pseudo-Texan vision was not really created, because Shropshire faced another reality, that of low demand, low rents and low land values, etc., not to mention a cold, wet climate.

Old Park The designs for this are given in fig. 5.24 (sketch of wider district), 5.25 (first version of housing area first phase), and 5.26 (revised version).

Conclusion Standing back from the distinct detail of each of these five areas, it is clear that there are several—arguably three—interconnected threads running through policy-principles. Perhaps the first issue concerns car use and parking. I argued in favour of good public transport and low parking provision, but this was rejected by most people (perhaps mindful of the

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Milton Keynes concept of the motor city vision of Llewelyn-Davies). This meant that the high-density of buildings demanded a large number of parking places and a lot of ground for them. I was unable therefore to form streets and spaces, much less social spaces, as shown on the imagined plan. Instead, we have a mono-use office park, empty in the evening, comprising “investments” surrounded by tarmac and grass—just what the competition entry was fighting against. My second point concerns the homogeneity of land-use and the consequent radical simplification of street-life. This “zoning” used to be a planning idea, but no longer. Now it arises mainly from the investors’ criteria. I wanted to bring housing communities into the centre in all its parts, as the drawings here illustrate. But that would have detracted from its required “performance” as an investment. The retail centre has to be closed at night, as does the leisure centre and the public building area. To implement this, gates must be locked and guards are needed to capture disruptive antisocial elements. Shrewsbury centre has not gone so far yet, and one hopes that its historic core will not be driven to it. It is still diverse and dynamic (even late at night), which no ‘modern’ area ever seems to capture. The third point is architectural. This ‘knocks on’ from the loss of urban space and the loss of street-life, all of which means that buildings, having no longer an urban context, must be self-referential. In other words, they must generate their own meaning and I think this leads naturally to the impoverishment, vacuity or inauthenticity of architecture, and the falsely expressionist drama which that provokes. One can see an aesthetic distance between a building and the city has opened up. I recall that as a young man I was always seized not by the individual building, but by the place around it. I think the sad thing is that buildings are now investment packages, not architecture, and they are exchangeable, tradable objects, not environments. The question is how the money tied up in them will perform. If that becomes unfavourable, they lose their worth, compared to other investments for which the market will then naturally exchange them. This concludes my discussion of the town centre, and now I will move on to the area to the west of the centre, known as Old Park. In fig. 5.24 I show my sketch of the Old Park area. Old Park is a very large area which was an opencast mining zone. I remember standing at the edge of the vast hole in

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the ground and seeing the big NCB2 trucks moving along the haul-ways far below. This was filled in and rolled for consolidation so that it could be built upon, (subject to controlled height and size). The challenge then was to create a topography and landscape that conveyed an attractive sense of authenticity and richness. This was a typical difficulty in Telford, of course, which contained many such excavation areas (with low bearing pressures) dating back to the eighteenth century. During my interview in 1978, Lord Northfield highlighted this issue, and asked me how one might create the sense of history and aesthetic complexity in such a potentially drab environment. This figure shows the general massing of topography and planting, with the form of building settlements—their edges and hearts—and finally the key visual axes or vistas which link the hillsides and settlements together In figs. 5.25 and 5.26 I show a typical area layout of two-storey houses with quite small ‘footprints’, both of which are necessary to minimise settlement and damage. The aim was to create the maximum diversity and uniqueness in the identity of every place, whilst also unifying them into coherent, grand systems. In other words, we wanted to balance the unique and the universal, which the mass-housing conventions exemplified in Birmingham at the time failed to do.3 This created dislike between some of our staff (who had done the Birmingham housing) and the chairman.

2

National Coal Board. Birmingham was not the only bête-noire. In Telford, the same modernists, notably Ceri Griffiths and Don Fenter, had built the estates of Woodside, Malinslee, Sutton Hill, Brookside, Stirchley, etc.

3

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Fig. 5.1. Telford: Diagram: the land use mix principle.

Fig. 5.2. Telford: Citadel or stronghold imagery.

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Fig. 5.3. Telford: Diagram: growth process.

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Fig. 5.4. Telford: Examples of the urban growth process.

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Fig. 5.5. Telford: Diagram: system of pedestrian routes.

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Fig. 5.6. Telford: Diagram: outline of landscape survey.

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Fig. 5.7. Telford: Diagram: planting strategies.

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Fig. 5.8. Telford: Drawing of mews.

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Fig. 5.9. Telford. Site plan of centre.

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Fig. 5.10. Telford. Perspective sketches of competition design.

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Fig. 5.10. continued. Telford. Perspective sketches of competition design.

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Fig. 5.11. Telford. Perspective sketches of competition design.

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Fig. 5.12. Telford: Main Square, perspective (A).

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Fig. 5.13. Telford: Main Square, perspective (B).

Fig. 5.14 Telford: Plan of central part, including main square.

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Fig. 5.15. Telford: Aerial perspective.

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Fig. 5.16. Telford; Model of west part of centre.

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Fig. 5.17. Telford. Town centre. Urban design plan

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Fig. 5.18. Telford. Town centre. Urban design plan. Central zone.

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Fig. 5.19. Telford, Town centre. Urban design plan. West zone.

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Fig. 5.20. Telford. Town centre. Elevation of proposed apartments.

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Fig. 5.21. Telford. Town centre. Urban design plan. Southern zone.

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Fig. 5.22. Telford. Town centre. Urban design plan. Eastern zone.

Fig. 5.23. Telford. Town centre. Eastern zone. Housing layout.

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Fig. 5.24. Telford. Town centre. Urban design plan. Northern zone. Office park.

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Fig. 5.25. Telford. Old Park district. Sketch of urban design layout.

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Fig. 5.26. Telford. Old Park. Sketch of housing layout, early version.

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Fig. 5.27. Telford. Old Park. Housing layout.

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CHAPTER SIX CONTINUITY OF FORM 2: THAMESMEAD, TÊTE DÉFENSE, HÉROUVILLE, SILVERTOWN BRIDGE

Thamesmead Thamesmead is a suburban new town on the western fringes of London. It lies on the south bank of the River Thames, just east of Woolwich and opposite the Royal Docks. It was planned by the Greater London Council as a public sector housing estate which was also part of the Brutalist period of the modern movement. It fell victim to Mrs Thatcher’s actions, led by Michael Heseltine, to wind up the GLC. The decision was taken to close the GLC planning and architecture department, as well as the housing department. This happened in 1986, and the state assets at Thamesmead were handed over to a new non-profit making NGO called Thamesmead Town (TT). The local authorities were and are Woolwich and Bexley. The Thamesmead Town board had nine residents elected locally, plus a chairman appointed by the government. This was granted a public sector budget for defined capital purposes, particularly infrastructure, but otherwise was intended to function as a business, charging break-even rents and using private capital investment resources. However, TT was wound up in 2000, and the housing assets were handed to a local housing association, whilst the undeveloped land assets were handed to a private firm called Tilfen Land. They both worked in partnership with other private firms such as Wates Construction. After leaving Turkey I worked at the Glasgow School of Art for two years as a lecturer, and then as a consultant for TT and the London Docklands Development Corporation. At that stage, the aim at Thamesmead seems to have been to retain some of the coherent, creative ethos and political dynamism of an old ‘development corporation’, whilst throwing out the

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newly unfashionable socialist vision. This does not seem to have worked—politically at least—and within 15 years the community-based partnership was ditched, and the whole thing was handed over to the private sector. Thamesmead contained some famous tower blocks around an artificial lake. This was a beautiful design, particularly if you like Brutalism, as it was known. The main environmental problem lay in the car parks under the buildings, and the reinforced concrete “deck” at the upper level. The area lay below river level, and drained into a canal system, which was pumped out over the river-wall into the river itself. One could therefore not dig down into the ground so as to bury car parking below ground level. This compelled the GLC to build an elevated deck above ground and put the garages on the ground. This (at the time) highly fashionable ‘futurist’ megastructure was a brave idea and has its place in history. This decklevel presented a set of fine lakeside views, but the garage level below it was quite shocking, (or even funny). It was used as a film set for Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange, as well as other less significant movies. I began working in County Hall, opposite the Houses of Parliament. Within a year, however, Thamesmead Town moved out of there into new premises (small, remote and bland) in Thamesmead itself. One obvious alternative would have been to hand the assets to one of the local authorities, but Conservative preconceptions about socialism ensured that this did not happen. In fig. 6.1 we show the structure concept; in fig.6.2 I show the form of the proposed town centre; in fig. 6.3 the diagram of places in the town centre; in fig. 6.4, the urban design plan at one stage, and in fig.6.5, the design of the area east of Central Way, the main road serving the centre, illustrating an idea for the layout of Woolwich polytechnic (which did not go ahead). In fig. 6.6, I show the axonometric of the proposed building form around the centre. We proposed to build the centre next to the two “tumps”, which had been part of the shell manufacturing works of the arsenal. The tumps were former islands, oval in shape, surrounded by canals and protective blastmounds. These mounds had been built for the storage and treatment of

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explosives. The explosives had been moved by train, pulled by fire-less1 locomotives, although the tracks had been long ago removed. The canal led into a lake, and an Archimedean screw had been built in recent years to pump the water into the river. The ground in the wider area had been poisoned by the old arsenal’s activities. In order to prepare it for house building, it was necessary to scrape off the poisoned earth and then cart it away for burial, (or to the extent that this was not possible, to cap it). I persuaded TT to hold a competition for developer-architect teams, for the design and development of the town centre. This was held, but resulted in a winner of no great interest, although John Lyall produced lovely pieces of architecture for a superstore within, nonetheless, a rather dreadful urban design and also a poor financial deal. The TT organisation seemed to me to be too weak (small, poorly funded), to tackle the kind of thorny matters which I mentioned above. Perhaps the point is that it lacked the political gravity (or seriousness, faith, vision, conviction, self-belief) which the old development corporations—even the minor ones—had enjoyed. It was at the fag-end of the game, at the margin of the development process from which the heart had gone. There was no ‘chemistry’, and you just cannot make reactions happen by command. In other words, society or the government had ceased to have any concern for or belief in the TT role within the development business, to be replaced by the view that it was just another moneymaking wheeze for businessmen and chartered surveyors. I had a lot of interest in the so-called ELRC (pronounced “Ellreck”) road, the East London River Crossing, which was a proposed, elevated motorway approach to a bridge, part of the principal road network of London. It passed through Thamesmead a kilometre west of the tumps. This elevated embankment sliced the whole site inconveniently in two, but linked the site to a vast catchment, and therefore to east London as a whole. I recall the excitement caused by Santiago Calatrava’s design for the ELRC bridge. As far as I know, this has been abandoned. Of course, the prior efforts of the GLC to create a great new town had gone awry, and so we should not easily scorn the Thatcher-Heseltine 1

The locomotives took on heated steam every few hours at a location well away from the explosives.

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developer-led policy by contrast. This technical-institutional-aesthetic failure was partly caused by Brutalism as a historical movement, and also by the whole ‘megastructure’ idea, exemplified here on a large scale by the upper-level deck system and the parking below it. In addition, the failure arose from the economic-political defect of an exclusively state-sector rental tenure, organised and constructed on a vast scale, which was unpopular at the time and sustained no electoral backing.

Silvertown Bridge Next I will describe my urban design work for the area of Silvertown Bridge. This concerns the Greenwich Peninsula (just east of Canary Wharf), and Silvertown (just west of the Royal Docks). It will be recalled that Thamesmead is on the south bank of the river, immediately opposite the east end of the Royal Docks: in other words, it is quite near the Silvertown area. I did this work before the construction of the “Millennium Dome” (now renamed the O2 Centre), but after its design. The Government Office for London (GoL)2 had a wish to build a bridge across the river from the so-called Greenwich Peninsula to Silvertown—immediately west of the Royal Docks—on the north bank, requiring a local plan to show the pattern of buildings, landscape and roads and how they would interlock with the bridge as part of a total urban environment. The intended bridge and its approach road interact with other major objects in the wider area, including the Canary Wharf towers, the Millennium dome, the dock basins, etc. This pattern is illustrated by a sketch: fig. 6.7. In the wider area are the axis of the Greenwich Observatory and park, the river itself, and the proposed ELRC bridge, of course. The layout on the peninsula side of the river, the south, is shown in fig. 6.8. The Millennium Dome is shown as a large circle. It is shown as a possible new project, to be rebuilt in a similar plan form after the dome was demolished. The planned underground station is west of this. The layout of the peninsula also included a landscape park down the centreline of the peninsula. At right angles to this is the proposed new elevated road which acts as an approach road to the bridge.

2 I worked as an consultant urban designer for Halcrow engineers, for whom GoL was the client. Years before, I had joined Rock Townsend, a well-known consultant architect (at the suggestion of David Lees), to work as an urban designer for the preparation of their competitive proposal for the master plan of the Royal Docks. This is just east of Silvertown. Sadly, another firm won the competition.

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Below the road are shop units, which form the boundary of a public square, as shown in fig. 6.9. Immediately west of this elevated road there is a public square which leads down grand steps to the river. This place has a view across the river to the north bank, where a different layout establishes a corresponding urban form: see fig. 6.10. The layout is based on a pattern of geometry which is defined in Fig. 6.11, which clarifies the cross-river relationships. Also, in fig. 6.12 is a perspective sketch which shows the massing of the totality.

Dickleburgh I was asked by Anthony Goss to help in preparing a competition scheme for an expanded village at Dickleburgh, near Diss in Norfolk: see Fig. 6.13. There is a mediæval parish church at the southeast corner of the site. The stream on the north edge would be expanded to form a village pond as the focus of a green. The existing main street offers entry to the site two hundred metres to the north, and I proposed a collector road accessing it from there. The plan envisaged a north-south axis down the centre of the site from the church to the pond/green. A large square would be located at the crossing point of this axis and the collector road. This square would contain local shops, a market building and a cross or monument of some sort. This provided a structure to the area, and gave form to a network of ‘streets’ (i.e. roads and paths), which was used to provide the shape of house frontages. Behind them were private gardens and garage courts. The figure shows a form of roofs in terms of massing.

New Marston Around that time, Bill Brisbane asked me to propose the layout of a site in New Marston, an area on the fringe of Swindon. A new suburb was envisaged. The area was vacant, with a pleasant landscape of trees and hedgerows, with a main line railway on an embankment along the southern boundary: see fig. 6.14. The plan envisaged a distributor road north of the railway and parallel to it, linked back to the trunk road. Between this road and the railway there would be a business park and a district centre in the middle. North of the road would be a housing estate. There would be a circus in the form of a circular landscape park in the middle of the housing. An existing stream

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would form the spine of a linear park through the housing. In the middle of the housing would be a circus of circular landscape, from which roads and footpaths would fan out in a radial pattern.

Tampere My fourth major venture into urban design at this time was the plan for an expansion of the existing city centre of Tampere, Finland. I did the job with my friend Rick Hall for Arkitech, a firm of architects in Oulu who wanted some urban design inputs. There had been a zone of wood-pulp factories on the shore of a large lake, which constituted a barrier between the lake and the town centre. The proposal was to regenerate this area as a mixed-use area of housing, offices, leisure and so on, with conversion of some fine late nineteenthcentury/early twentieth-century industrial buildings, as well as the insertion of new buildings. See fig. 6.15. The road grid of the historic core could be extended or grown. In the centre of the site is an outcrop of rock, with afforested high ground, which the layout uses as a creatively stimulating input. Around the northern edge are a railway track and an urban motorway. These act as a barrier cutting of the site from the waterfront. My response to this was to create a wide landscaped bridge to a waterside development area with a powerful piazza.

Hérouville Saint Clair I decided to enter the competition for the design of a new town centre for Hérouville Saint Clair, France. I was working for Telford Development Corporation at the time, and was attracted by the topic of new town centres, for which I was, of course, responsible at Telford. When taking the entry to Hérouville, my father and I landed at Calais by ferry—there being no channel tunnel in those days—and drove west to Hérouville for three hours. After delivering the plans, we visited the nearby Second World War landing grounds of Normandy. Caen-Hérouville as it used to be called, is a small new town of the sixties and seventies on the northeast fringes of Caen, designed by the firm of Candilis, Josic and Woods.3 They were famous in the sixties as the 3

See Joedicke J (1968) and David N Kinsey (1976).

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designers of the new town of Toulouse Le Mirail, Berlin Free University and many other areas, as well as Hérouville Saint Clair, of course. I remember being thrilled by their work (seen only in books) as a young man, but more recently I came to feel that it was spookily abstract and rather oppressive. Certainly, Hérouville in the flesh, so to speak, seemed to me disappointingly bland and ‘modern’, like so much sixties output, and it spurred us on in the competition to create something richer and more complex. The site lay between two parallel principal roads. It was largely vacant, but contained several recent buildings, such as the church of Saint Francois, the ‘Café des Arts’ and library, and a six-storey hostel housing block, none of which were of particular note. In fig. 6.16, we show the proposed massing of the whole area. The buildings proposed by the competition form a continuous edge along the road box, so that the centre is given a scale and continuity of mass unique in the town. In fig. 6.17, we show the plan of the Town Hall Square, which is the centre of the town. The Town Hall lies on two sides of the square, and a terrace of apartments lies on the third side. The Town Brasserie closes the fourth side, with the market below. The square is a half octagon, and the floorscape emphasises the radial octagonal pattern, with a monumental fountain at the centre-point. The Town Hall is fronted by an arcaded pedestrian route which links together three internal volumes and connected staircases. These are articulated on the outside elevations, the elevation of the Town Hall facing the main square (fig. 6.18). One of the internal volumes is the largest and accesses the Council chamber, projecting into the square on the centre-line. See fig. 6.19 for a cross-section of the council chamber and the internal court. This square leads into the ‘Place du Theatre’, and where they connect is a campanile (fig. 6.20). In fig. 6.21.is the Culture Centre plan and in fig. 6.22 there is an axonometric of the entire ensemble.

Tête Défense A year later, I was attracted by the competition, (held in 1983), for the design of the ‘Centre for Communication’, so-called, proposed for the Tête Défense site in Paris. This site stood at the western end of the great axis from the Louvre, along the Champs Elysées, through the Etoile and on to the hitherto incomplete area on the inner edge of Neuilly. This was the last

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competition of the Grands Projets of the closing decades of the twentieth century, most of which were in Paris. My concept was to create a cruciform plan in the nature of a cathedral, with a dome on the axis of the Champs Elysées, above the crossing, which would house a spherical cinema. The nave and transepts, if I can use those terms, were formed by parallel buildings with tent structures covering the space between them, suspended from above so as to form atria. The elevation facing east towards central Paris is shown in fig. 6.23 and 6.26. The east elevation is akin to the main entrance to a cathedral, showing a majestic scale and addressing the dominant aspect. The Ring motorway curves around the western edge of the site, and there we proposed a semicircular building to terminate the western end and address the motorway (fig. 6.24). The cruciform wings comprise equidistant stair/service-towers from which tents are suspended to cover the atrium between the parallel buildings, as fig. 6.27 (longitudinal section through the atrium), shows. The briefing documents dealt with some care with the urban structure of Paris, especially as regards the nineteenth century work of Baron Haussman, and one was left in no doubt that the judges intended to evaluate the entries in terms of their contribution to the totality of the great ensemble of central Paris. This presumably includes, for example, the Champ de Mars, Hôtel des Invalides, Ecole Militaire, Palais du Trocadero, Tuilleries, Concorde and many others. We were given a not very good aerial perspective of central Paris on which to draw our proposal, and this is shown as fig. 6.24. This naturally set a certain ambition and a certain perspective before us. I did not win a prize unfortunately. The first prize, which was built, was won by Johan Otto Spreckelsen, also Danish, as was the winner of the Hérouville competition. 4 I think the pattern of towers, linking gantries, tents and cables etc expressed and characterised the structure in a rather mediæval manner, as did cast iron architecture—most often found in France—in the mid/late nineteenth century.

4

See Tête Défense Concours internationale d’Architecture. Monographes 1984 Paris. Electa Moniteur

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Conclusion If we look at the last two chapters, we can see the scope of urban designs on European sites in the early years of my career. By no means all of them were built, of course—even partly. But, in any case, there are several common points, and I will sum up what they seem to be. Urban design drawings mostly seek to evoke the physical form of objects and the space between the objects in the environment. There may also be diagrams which show the urban structures which underlie the objects (i.e. organise them into patterns). But the evocation drawings describe the physicality of the town including the roofscape in three-dimensional form, floorscape such as paving, pathways or gradients, the trees and vegetation such as lawns, and most importantly, the shadows which all these cast so as to dramatise or illustrate the third dimension. Such drawings may be perspectives or axonometrics, although most will be plans. The diagrams will exclude details and highlight a narrow range of elements (or a single element), such as pedestrian routes or vegetation. Additionally, they may simplify and exaggerate the element portrayed so as to enhance the clarity of the message (such as abstractions or relationships). In any event, an urban design drawing, (as opposed to an ‘urban plan’ or a development plan), stresses the relationship between physical objects such as buildings (including the spaces or axes, avenues etc. which unify or mediate those objects). In this book, we show such drawings. In practice, many urban design projects are a waste of time because the implementation agencies fail to carry them out. They may be very well conceived, drawn and communicated, and they may be fundamentally competent and realistic from a cultural, technical or economic point of view, but nonetheless there may not be the appropriate means to carry them out in reality. There are likely to be two basic causes for this lack of capability. Firstly, there may be no single authority able to control the process (even if they knew what should be the aim). Secondly, there may be no suitable common language (vocabulary, syntax) to be shared by the various organisations contributing their part to the whole, so that the separate designs do not add up to a coherent whole These are firstly a failure of institutional, political and legal development, and secondly, a failure of cultural and professional development.

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Fig. 6.1. Thamesmead. Layout of proposed town centre.

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Fig. 6.2. Thamesmead Centre; Local road layout.

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Fig. 6.3. Thamesmead Centre; Building form and spatial form

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Fig. 6.4. Thamesmead Centre; Urban design plan

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Fig. 6.5. Thamesmead Centre; Exploratory sketch for proposed new site of Woolwich Polytechnic

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Fig. 6.6. Thamesmead Centre; Axonometric.

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Fig. 6.7. Silvertown. Vista to Canary Wharf

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Fig. 6.8. Plan of land west of river.

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Fig. 6.9. Silvertown. Sketch of road bridge, public square and river.

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Fig. 6.10. Silvertown. Plan of land east of river.

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Fig. 6.11. Silvertown. Geometric structure of layout.

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Fig. 6.12. Silvertown. Aerial perspective of east bank.

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Fig. 6.13. Dickleburgh. Village centre. Layout.

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Fig. 6.14. New Marston, Swindon., proposed plan.

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Fig. 6.15. Tampere. Plan of city centre expansion area.

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Fig. 6.16. Herouville Saint Clair: Plan of Main Square with Town Hall around two sides.

Fig. 6.17. Herouville Saint Clair: Elevation of Town Hall facing main square.

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Fig. 6.18. Herouville Saint Clair: Cross-section of Council Chamber.

Fig. 6.19. Herouville Saint Clair: Campanile and Culture Centre elevation.

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Fig. 6.20. Herouville Saint Clair: Culture Centre plan.

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Fig. 6.21. Herouville Saint Clair. Axonometric drawing of centre.

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Fig. 6.22. Tete Defense: Axonometric view from the south.

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Fig. 6.23. Tete Defense: Sketch of project facing down the Champs Elysee

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Fig. 6.24. Tete Defense: Perspective view of proposal from north

Fig. 6.25. Tete Defense: Perspective sketch from the east.

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Fig. 6.26. Tete Defense: Above, longitudinal section. Below, east-west section.

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Fig. 6.27. Tete Defense: Main ground level plan.

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Fig. 6.28. Tete Defense: Elevation of project facing east towards central Paris.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Chapter One Anderson, W. Castles of Europe. London: Elek, 1970 Baedecker, Karl. Paris and its Environs. Leipzig: Baedecker, 1904 Cezar, Mustafa. Typical Commercial Buildings of the Ottoman Classical Period. Istanbul: Turkiye Is Bankasi Cultural Publications, 1983. Geist, J.F. Passagen. Munich. Prestel. Holmdahl, F., et al. Gunnar Asplund, Architect. Stockholm: AB Tidskriften Byggmastaren, 1950 . Mariano, Fabio. Architettura nelle Marche dall’eta Classica al Liberty. Firenze: Nardini Editore, 1995. Palacio, P.N. La Cathedral en Espana. Barcelona: Lunwerg, 2004. Royal Commission on Historic Monuments, England. An Inventory of the Historic Monuments in the City of Oxford. London: H.M.S.O., 1939 Smithies, Phillip. Architecture of the Piece Hall, Halifax (1775-79). Self published, 1988. Touring Club Italiano. Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay. Genova: Obsequio de “Italia”, 1934.

Chapter Two Brower, D.R. The Russian City between Tradition and Modernity 1850— 1900. University of California Press: Berkeley, 1990. Brumfield, W.C. The Origins of Modernism in Russian Architecture. University of California Press: Berkeley, 1991. Gordin, A. Pushkin’s St. Petersburg. St. Petersburg, 1991 Gulyaniskovo, N.F., ed. Russian Town Planning Art. St. Petersburg and Other Russian New Towns. C.18th and First Half of C.19th. Moscow: Russian Academy of Architecture and Construction Science. Stroyizdat. 1995. JPK Group. (A) City of St. Petersburg. Residential Rehabilitation Loan Fund. Operating Manual. St. Petersburg, 1998. —. (B) St. Petersburg Historic City Centre Rehabilitation Project. Inception Report. St. Petersburg, 1998. Leontief Centre. Strategic Plan for St. Petersburg. St. Petersburg, 1998.

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Kozyrev. V., et al. Baron Stieglitz Museum, The Past and the Present. Sezar. St. Petersburg: 1994. Savarenskaya. T.F, D.O. Shvidkovsky and F.A. Petrov. History of Town Planning Art. Late Feudalism and Capitalism. Moscow: 1989. State Monuments Guarding Inspection (sic). Architectural Monuments of Leningrad. Stroyizdat. Leningrad [St. Petersburg]: 1976 Taranovskaya, M.Z. Carl Rossi: Architect, Town Planner, Artist. Stroyizdat. Leningrad [St. Petersburg]: 1980

Chapter Four Atkinson, L.G. The Earliest Inhabitants: The Dynamics of the Jamaican Taino. Kingston: UWI Press. 2004. Black. C. History of Jamaica. London: Collins, 1965 Buisseret, D. Historic Architecture of the Caribbean. London: Heinemann, 1980. Cotter. C.. “Sevilla Nueva.” Jamaica Journal. Vol. 2. Kingston: Institute of Jamaica, 1970. Eladio, L. and Lopez y Sebastian, translated by G.A. Aarons. Report on the Sevilla la Nueva project. 1990 Floyd, Troy. The Columbus Dynasty in the Caribbean 1492—1526. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1973. Granberry, J. The Americas that Might Have Been: Native American Social Systems through Time. University of Alabama Press, 2005. Higman, B.W. Jamaica Surveyed: Plantation Maps of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries. Kingston: University of the West Indies Press, 2001. Morales, Padron F. “Jamaica Espanola. Escuola des Estudios HispanoAmericana de Sevilla.” Salamanca: Unpublished translation in typescript, 1952. Morison, Samuel E. “Address at the Dedication of the Columbus Monument, St. Ann’s Bay.” Unpublished typescript, 1958. Osborne, F.J. and D. Buisseret. “The Stones of New Seville.” The Jamaica Historical Society Bulletin, vol. 7, 3-4. Kingston. Parrent, James M. Columbus Caravel Project; St. Ann’s Bay, Jamaica. Institute of Nautical Archaeology, Texas A and M University, 1989. Tyndale, Biscoe J.S. (1947) “The Jamaican Arawak: his Origin, History and Culture.” Jamaica Historical Review, Vol. 3. No. 3. Urban Development Corporation, Government of Jamaica. New Seville Heritage Project, Final Report. Vol. 1. Main Report. Vol. 2. Appendices, 1992

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UNESCO. “Feasibility Study for the Conservation and Restoration of Cultural Heritage in Jamaica.” Final Report, Vol. 2, 1987. Wright, P., ed. Lady Nugent’s Journal of her Residence in Jamaica from 1801 to 1805. Kingston University of West Indies Press, 2002.

Chapter Five Alexander. C. 1964. Notes on the Synthesis of Form. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1964. Brook, Peter. The Empty Space. London: Penguin, 1990. Cantacuzino, S. New Uses for Old Buildings. London: Architectural Press, 1975. Dawley Development Corporation (John Madin and Partners). The Master Plan for Dawley. Dawley: 1965. de Saussure, Ferdinand. Edited by C. Bally and A. Sechelhaye. Translated by P. Harris. Course in General Linguistics. La Salle, IL: Open Court, 1983. de Soissons, M. Telford: the Making of Shropshire’s New Town. Shrewsbury: Swan Hill Press, 1991. van Eyck, Aldo Aldo van Eyck. London: National Gallery, 1983. Fenter, D.G. Papers: Building Developments Carried Out by the Development Corporation. Victoria County History Records, undated (ca 1990?). Fukuyama, Francis. The End of History and the Last Man. New York: Avon, 1993. Habraken, N.J. 1972. Supports: an Alternative to Mass Housing. London: Architectural Press, 1972. Jacobs, Jane. The Economy of Cities. Vintage, 1970. Kahn, L., et al. Essential Texts. New York: Norton, 2003 Lynch, Kevin. The Image of the City. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1960. March, L. and M. Trace. The Land Use Performance of Selected Arrays of Built Form. Cambridge: Land Use and Built Form Studies Unit. Cambridge University, 1968. Mumford, L. The Myth of the Machine: Technics and Human Development. London: Secker and Warburg, 1967. Pevsner, Nikolaus. Buildings of England: Shropshire. London: Penguin, 1958. Sennett, R. The Uses of Disorder: Personal Identity and City Life. New York: Norton, 1992. Venturi, R. Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture. New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1966.

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Portoghesi, P. Rome of the Renaissance. London: Phaidon, 1972. Ward, C. Tenants Take Over. London: Architectural Press, 1974.

Chapter Six Kinsey, David N. New Town in Normandy: Planning, Politics and Participation in Hérouville St. Clair. 1976 Joedicke, Jurgen. Candilis Josic and Woods: A Decade of Architecture. Tiranti. 1968 Unattributed. Tête Défense. Concours internationale d’architecture. Paris: Electa Moniteur, 1984.