tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38548109.post4196972832427572559..comments2024-02-13T10:20:04.888+00:00Comments on David Hepworth's blog: You can't put your arms around a memoryDavid Hepworthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05973053694541321308noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38548109.post-87151275569852317872011-01-11T15:24:50.721+00:002011-01-11T15:24:50.721+00:00Problem is that listing buildings - as in, putting...Problem is that listing buildings - as in, putting them on the protected list, not buildings which list, like the Tower of Pisa - can and does make it a lot harder to renovate them, even sympathetically. The rules designed with all good intent to protect buildings can see them fall into disrepair and eventually decay. <br /><br />Perhaps the most notable example is Battersea Power Station. After closure in 1983 it was bought with the intention (again, well-meaning) of turning it into an industrial heritage theme park, but the owners ran out of cash – unhelpfully, after removing the roof. Twenty years of rain haven't helped, and now structural engineers have differing opinions as to whether the iconic towers can even be saved at all. There's another proposal on the table at the minute, but the costs are eye-watering (£4bn) and seem contingent on the construction of the first-ever privately-funded extension of the Tube, at costs approaching another half-billion. <br /><br />That's the most likely future for most at-risk buildings: receiving private funding, on the promise of making the backers their money back. If there's two ramshackle former beauties near you, the one more likely to be saved is the one which tempts Tesco. (The other will go to hell in a very slow handcart, perhaps until a lump of it falls onto a passer-by.) The public and the state still have the will and the wit to save buildings, but they don't have the wedge.Gary Parkinsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14975876300557119572noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38548109.post-45114005553326026462011-01-05T17:17:52.250+00:002011-01-05T17:17:52.250+00:00Backwards, I for one would be sad to see those mil...Backwards, I for one would be sad to see those mills go. My grandfather was a senior electrician there, responsible for all the mills' machinery.<br /><br />In the late 60s and early 70s, I was sometimes taken to pick him up from work if he had to do weekend shifts. He would take me round the buildings and the docks, proud of his workplace.<br /><br />Now this means that any flight I take to or from City airport are filled with a sense of nostalgia. And a real connection with the history of the place.Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01826512321840299199noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38548109.post-13518259886300492042011-01-04T11:24:50.522+00:002011-01-04T11:24:50.522+00:00Surely the most striking recent example of what w...Surely the most striking recent example of what we might term the Edmund Hillary preservation strategy ("Why? Because it's there) is the "fight" to "save" another "key piece of history"*- the <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/jan/02/postwar-prefab-houses-demolition-london" rel="nofollow">Catford prefabs</a>. Suddenly, buildings whose very reason for being there in the first place was an expedient, transient one are considered to be worthy of a pass into perpetuity.<br /><br />(*The vocabulary used in these instances is also probably worth a blog in itself.)Archie_Vhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04582569974503175543noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38548109.post-90777020618316973332011-01-03T22:36:25.686+00:002011-01-03T22:36:25.686+00:00There are buildings like this all over London. I r...There are buildings like this all over London. I remember, a few years ago, walking along some kind of arterial road on the outskirts of the city. All of a sudden I was in the grounds of an old manor house, except that now the house was a run-down cafe with graffiti on the walls, and the former gardens were ratty, beer can-strewn parkland. I thought: What is the point of this? It’s not valued. Conversely I don’t want to lose these places if the alternative is a block of flats that looks identical to the block of flats around the corner. <br /><br />The redevelopment of the east end of London has been an interesting combination of demolition and refurbishment, with warehouses re-purposed as apartments and docks transformed into nature reserves. I think that it works quite well in places, straddling the desire to preserve the past with the needs of contemporary Londoners. <br /><br />When I get up to the city on Friday I’ll probably take the DLR over to the Royal Victoria Docks. I like to look across the water at the derelict Spillers’ Millennium Mills and its relatively smaller brown brick sibling - The Hovis Premier Mill. The best case scenario for these enormous buildings, with their peeling paint and rows of blown-out windows, is partial demolition (the Hovis mill will definitely go) followed by redevelopment into luxury flats. It’s this compromise that will allow them to live on.backwards7https://www.blogger.com/profile/04902342759719621771noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38548109.post-10768425009544933052011-01-03T21:46:14.441+00:002011-01-03T21:46:14.441+00:00Ah yes, Broomfield House. As well as the stuffed b...Ah yes, Broomfield House. As well as the stuffed birds and the stuffed fock (as my 5-year-old son insisted with inexorable logic, one fock, two fox) there was a beehive inside the house behind glass, and the lad watched bees coming and going for ages. But they should probably knock it down nevertheless.MikePhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08589363260977274335noreply@blogger.com