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Thursday, 16 September, 1999, 17:01 GMT 18:01 UK
Junkitecture: Goodbye to all that?
![]() Birmingham's Bull Ring bites the dust
Sixties architecture: love it or loathe it, it is starting to disappear.
So the bulldozers moved in. In place of the anonymous slabs and geometric shapes will rise gleaming multi-million pound developments, bringing style to city centres for the new millennium. The future is now Birmingham traders' representative Simon Beddall has heralded the £800m market centre replacing the Bull Ring as a "fresh start".
"There's nothing quite like it in the world," said a 1964 promotional film over shots of snappily dressed Brummies experiencing the future of shopping. By the 1980s, the Bull Ring had been consigned to the bargain bin of junkitecture. "It has no charm, no human scale, no character except arrogance," said Prince Charles. "It is a planned mistake." Wish you weren't here The Bull Ring featured in photographer Martin Parr's exhibition Boring Postcards, a yawn-inducing collection of the UK's dullest sights.
When these monstrosities were brand-spanking new, they were regarded as novelties and icons of modern Britain. Many turned out to be expensive eyesores or failed social experiments such as the tower block housing estates in the Gorbals and the Cresents in Hulme in Manchester. Send in the bulldozers The common response has been to call in the demolition experts. The Royal Bank of Scotland plans to topple bulky Edinburgh office block New St Andrew's House, for which it paid £20m, and redevelop the site. 'Blame the planners' Ruth Slavid, deputy editor of The Architects' Journal, said bad urban planning was the prime sin in the 1960s. "The Bull Ring is a piece of very bad city planning, rather than anything else - the centre of Birmingham being cut off by roads. "Retail developments in general need to be changed quite frequently. Any retail building of that age would be out-dated - the food courts with a cinema plunked alongside. "It is just not the way people want to shop anymore." Cycles of fashion But not all cities have joined the rush to divest their streets of 60s junkitecture.
However, nostalgia for its distinctive 1960s' architecture soon surfaced among experts who wanted a lasting record of the centre as an historic monument. Ms Slavid said: "We have moved away from hating everything built in that time, and individual buildings are being assessed on their merits." Sixties office blocks which stood empty a decade ago have been given a new lease of life by the diminishing dimensions of modern technology. As computers get smaller and services such as lifts and air-conditioning systems more compact, the low-ceilinged buildings have come back into their own. "They have become more usable, and some have been converted for residential use." As part of Manchester's £500m project to rebuild in the wake of the IRA bombing, moribund 1960s office blocks are being converted into flats. Sought after A number of 60s buildings are now held up as shining examples of the architect's craft. West London's 31-storey Trellick Tower - once so infamous it inspired JG Ballard's novel High Rise, in which residents waged war on each other's floors - is now a listed building, populated by the upwardly mobile. "That period of fear and loathing is over now," Ms Slavid said. "People adore Trellick Tower now." E-cyclopedia can be contacted by e-mail at e-cyclopedia@bbc.co.uk |
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