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Rod McPhee: Don't cut down our concrete jungle
THEY'VE always been an architectural elephant in the room. Awkward. Bulky. Grey.
Concrete buildings have become a lightning rod for traditionalists who see them as blots on the blandscape, a scar on the otherwise unblemished heritage of our great towns and cities.
To be fair, they're rarely what you'd call pretty. Some are barely aesthetically pleasing. But adore or despise them they're an important part of our urban environment and a vestige of post-war Britain. (Plus, the annoyance factor they provide to the old guard is almost reason enough to preserve them.)
Leeds has its fair share of concrete constructions and they've taken their fair share of criticism over the years. As a result they've either been condemned or, inevitably, are likely to be at some point in the future, which is a real tragedy.
Take, for example, Leeds International Swimming Pool, which is scheduled for demolition imminently. It may look like some kind of giant bomb shelter from the outside but inside it boasts a vast cathedral-like space lined by giant windows which illuminate spectacularly.
Interestingly, one of the last major concrete buildings to disappear was the comparatively poor Post Office Regional HQ on Wellington Street. I say interesting because a modern 90s-style apartment block replaced it – it may look a little more 'contemporary', but isn't it now instantly forgettable and somehow dated?
Landmark
Still in use (obviously) is the Yorkshire Evening Post Building whose merits externally could be debated (hasn't the concrete clock tower become something of a landmark in the city?) but internally our central newsroom is a vast hall which, like the swimming pool, is flooded with natural light – not as a result of conventional windows but thanks to a vast panel of skylights.
And perhaps some of the greatest examples of this distinctive brand of architecture can be found at Leeds University's campus in Woodhouse which was designed by the same architects who created its concrete cousin, the Barbican, In London.
The latter Leeds building is celebrated in a new exhibition which this week opened at the Henry Moore Institute in Leeds entitled The New Monumentality. But it's about time we celebrated the best of all our concrete architecture.
None of it offers a chocolate box image of ye olde England, thank God, but what they do offer is something bold, distinctive and a concept which remains courageously futuristic.
We may tut at the site of 'carbuncles' which punctuate thoroughfares otherwise lined with Victorian and Edwardian monoliths, but which building is it you remember? Or rather which buildings do you forget? Which disappear into a white noise of civic grandeur, the likes of which can be found in the heart of virtually any city.
Sure there are some stinkers, but there's also examples of iconic concrete buildings in various cities, from the Catholic Cathedral in Liverpool to Sydney Opera House and the Guggenheim Museum in New York.
Gems
So let's not forget our own gems in Leeds. Let's carefully consider what are the best examples of 60s architecture, how we might enhance them and, more importantly, have them listed if necessary.
Because if we're not careful we could nonchalantly wipe away great examples of an era of architecture which reflected a seachange in society and a crucial chapter of our history.
Unlike so many cities, Leeds never made the blunder of tearing down all of its greatest architecture, let's not start now.
Drink, drugs and reality
I'M not for one second suggesting we normalise drug taking but perhaps it's time we used some kind of objective comparison and reassess what we consider to be 'normal' behaviour when it comes to our choice of other vices.
This week it was revealed that the annual number of drink-related deaths had soared to 91 in Leeds alone. That's one person every four days in a city with a population of around 700,000.
Across a nation of some 60 million people there are somewhere between 10 and 70 ecstasy-related deaths every year.
That doesn't make ecstasy ok, it doesn't mean it's safe and I appreciate more people drink than take drugs. But it is food for thought when we think about where we place different drugs – and let's remember booze is considered to be a drug by many – on the sliding scale of acceptability and a threat to society.
Britain needs to wake up and realise the true dangers of whichever poison they pick based on hard facts rather than convention and myth – but that requires the government to take an open-minded lead.
For me the biggest scandal of MPs expenses saga was the terms 'glitzy' and 'glamorous' which were this week used to describe the photos of Julie Kirkbride which cost us taxpayers 1,000.
The publicity snaps featured the beaming Conservative MP standing in a cornfield up leaning up against a haystack looking every inch the well-scrubbed, rural, Tory wife she is.
But glitzy and glamorous? I don't think so. I wouldn't have minded footing the bill for them if they did.
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Weather for Leeds
Thursday 24 May 2012
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