The20thcentury landscape: heritageorhorror? CONSERVING TWENTIETH CENTURY BUILDINGS Peter Wake/in explores the many aspects of the 20th centu1y which we may one day come to cherish. It went out with a whimper, not a bang. The whole history of the 20th centu1y might have led us to expect enormity and excitement as it careered to its encl. We had instead the risible, invisible, 'River of Fire'. But what a century it was! It was the century of total war, environmental crisis, democracy; of mass transport, the world economy, the electronic revolution. If it seems time stretches out according to the amount one does each day, surely this was the longest century there has ever been. We are still too close to the events to evaluate their true importance, especially as regards the last few decades, but there is no doubt that the twentieth century brought a greater impact on the landscape than any other historical era. Increasing wealth, population growth, and our towering confidence that we know how to shape the future have exploded levels of development, while the tools at our disposal have changed beyond all recognition. We have the power of the bulldozer and explosives, concrete, steel and tarmac, and sophisticated economic organisations. Look at almost any British town on the map or from the air, and you can see the characteristic patterns of the 20th centmy dwarfing all that went before. Nearly eve1ything which meets the eye is of 20th centu1y origin: even solid commercial high streets, well-established Edwardian suburbs and ancient-seeming trees in public parks, let alone the mass of post-war housing estates, the redeveloped city centre, the retail parks, the motorway, the industrial estate, the airport. Certainly, there are areas in Britain where relatively little has changed, notably the rocky coasts and uplands and some patches of the deepest countryside, but almost eve1ywhere there has been a landscape revolution. What a fascinating moment it would be if one could hijack a Victorian farm labourer and drop him into his home neighbourhood in the year 2000. His cottage has been long demolished, a new tarmaced road built across his vegetable patch. All the tidy hedgerows Context65March2000 Above: Cardington airship hangerin Bedfordshire.Only thepick-uptruckat bottomleftrevealstheastonishing scaleof suchearly 20th-centuryendeavour.Photo:BarrieTrinder,fromtheforthcoming TwentiethCentury IndustrialArchaeology. Below: SwanseaCity Centre:TheSwanseaBlitzcleared mostof theold town, and thefree flowing traffic systems, avenuesand departmentstoreswhich followed adopted all thelatestprinciplesof post-warplanning. Thishaslong beenconsideredbadly scaledand inhuman,butnow itsarchitecturalqualitiesore beginning to beappreciated, iustasdemolitionand redevelopmentare planned. Photo:Crown Copyright, Royal CommissionontheAncientand HistoricalMonumentsof Wales. 31
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