Context 155 - July 2018

C O N T E X T 1 5 5 : J U L Y 2 0 1 8 5 ‘THE NORTH pier is right on the doorstep of the town hall, so sitting back and watching it fall into the sea was not an option. Our piers are a core part of the history of the Victorian holiday, but if we don’t act now we could lose them all.’ Carl Carrington, Blackpool Council’s built heritage and conservation manager, welcoming a grant from theWorld Monuments Fund to help save the town’s three piers ‘AS I WRITE this, two days after a huge fire swept through the – thankfully unoccupied – building, a mere four years since a previous fire at the 2014 degree show, there is no indication if anything of the building can be salvaged: it is clear that the entire interior is lost, and the walls now perch precariously without restraint, and may well need to be pulled down... ‘It was an incredible architectural environment: the sudden passages from dark into light, the “Glasgow Marble” polished-cement render, the odd references to castles throughout, like the portcullis-like ironwork at the top of the staircases; it was all bizarre, fascinating, and wonderful. Besides the main studios to the front there was a remarkable variety of other spaces, from cavernous top-lit studios on the upper floors, to a tiny greenhouse room that cantilevered out precipitously... ‘The sheer idiosyncrasy of the building, Mackintosh’s care and attention to detail, and its rich intellectual subtexts and simple vital presence gave it more personality – its own and its creator’s – than almost any building I’ve ever experienced… ‘It seems likely it will have to be demolished, in which case there will be very difficult decisions to be made… If the facade can be restored, then a new building could be built within to contemporary specifications, with perhaps a few very specific moments, such as the library, rebuilt faithfully (for the third time). ‘On the one hand this could be an incredible opportunity, with ruin projects such as David Chipperfield’s new-old restoration of the Neues Museum in Berlin as guiding lights. However, considering local procurement practices, such a project is more likely to end up as one of those hideous examples of “facadism”, with something completely banal slotted in behind skin-deep historic character, a farcical travesty of a homage.’ Douglas Murphy writing in Apollo about Glasgow School of Art ‘CRITICS think that the V&A has no place acquiring such an ugly display of brutalist modernism. What is more, they argue, Robin Hood Gardens was part of a failed social experiment of inhuman modernism, which we should not be using public funds to embalm. ‘However, our role is to think beyond fashion and to preserve that which has significant design merit, and with which future generations will seek to engage... ‘I see the role of the museum not as a political force, but as a civic exchange: curating shared space for unsafe ideas. And in an era of absolutist, righteous identity politics, these places for pluralism are more important than ever.’ V&A director Tristram Hunt on the museum’s purchase of part of the demolished Robin Hood Gardens, social housing designed by Alison and Peter Smithson, quoted in Dezeen ‘EVEN AS this latest batch of postmodern buildings has won protected status, it is worth noting that important brutalist buildings are still excluded from the roster. The Southbank Centre, a brutalist building of world renown, has just been turned down for listing for the fourth time, despite its triumphant refurbishment... ‘What’s missing from the new listings are commercial buildings, while the trickle-down effect of intellectual PoMo remains uncertain.Will we ever come to love the effect the style has had on mass housing and shopping centres? Postmodernism is often associated with 1980s “loadsamoney” culture and American imports, but that’s not overly reflected in this latest list. There’s room for a bit more brash vulgarity, if we want to reflect these decades accurately.’ Catherine Croft, director of the Twentieth Century Society, writing in the Guardian on the listing of 17 postmodern buildings