26 C O N T E X T 1 2 5 : J U LY 2 0 1 2 Tim Morris Walking the tightrope Ambitious proposals to transform Halifax’s Piece Hall (opened in 1779 for the trading of ‘pieces’ of cloth) and its courtyard are being considered by the Heritage Lottery Fund. Chevalier Blondin crossed the gorge at Niagara Falls some 17 times on a tightrope. He crossed it blindfolded and he crossed it pushing a wheelbarrow. On one occasion he carried a stove, stopped half way across and cooked himself an omelette. In 1861 he edged his way across the courtyard 60 feet above the Piece Hall in Halifax. It is nearing decision time for the future of this magnificent building and its wonderful courtyard (considered to be in the top 40 public squares in the world) as the Heritage Lottery Fund considers an application from Calderdale Council for its transformation. The Piece Hall is one of a handful of significant buildings in a town where it is difficult to find your bearings. There is the Halifax Building Society to be admired or despised.Voted 13th in the favourite buildings designed by the Building Design Partnership and conceived in the same era as the brutally classical Preston Bus Station, the building society offices epitomise the culture of enterprise on which Halifax is based. The building is a great example of Burolandschaft open-plan working principles, and its private executive suites have their own roof gardens. The public space has been opened up at ground level by raising the building on gigantic stone legs in the manner of Le Corbusier. There is the town hall. Charles Barry was asked to judge an architectural design competition for a civic hall but persuaded the panel that all the other applicants were unsuitable, and that he was their man.Whatever the rights and wrongs of this public sector procurement strategy, the town hall was considered byArchitectureTodayas one of the 10 most spectacular buildings in Britain.This gem of a building was opened by the Prince ofWales, later to be King EdwardVII, in 1863, witnessed by some 70,000 people, with thousands of children singing hymns in the nearby Piece Hall. Where is the Piece Hall? Not knowing what to expect I followed the signs. Suddenly I found myself in the centre of the most magnificent quadrangle, surrounded by stone pilasters of varying orders.The mid-afternoon Impressions of how the new piazza for the Piece Hall will look following its planned reopening in 2015 Piece Hall in 2006 (Photo:Tony Grist)
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