Member's forum
The members forum will allow WMF Britain members to discuss, debate and share ideas on various discussion topics.
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Heritage debate
Q. Is London, or any other city in the world, being served well by its contemporary architects?
A. The WMF Britain view
New projects are often sited within the centre of London and in the City where there is a desire to build tall buildings, where space is limited and land prices are high. Contemporary architects are encouraged to design “landmark” buildings that make a statement in order to win competitions and “put them on the map”. These additions to London must walk a fine line between enhancing the historic skyline and overwhelming it and their design often divides opinion. This is a subject that has been highlighted as a risk to our historic buildings by ICOMOS (UK) in relation to the capitals World Heritage Sites in Westminster and at The Tower of London.
A WMF (New York) staff member attended a recent World Heritage Convention in New Zealand, and commented:
“The World Heritage Centre reported that it was concerned about planned developments around the Tower of London, with particular emphasis on the issue of protecting historic settings and views. There are plans for the construction of new tall buildings in the area and many think that this will irrevocably mar the historic skyline and character of this part of London. The World Heritage Centre noted that there have been few or no visual impact studies to go along with development plans and that the view from the Thames, which is still unobstructed, was at risk. A mission to London (November 2006) resulted in recommendations about protection of these views and the finalization of a management plan. Since that mission, the English government issued a "heritage protection paper for the 21st century," which included statutory protections for World Heritage Sites. The centre also mentioned a London View Management Framework, which was described as a tool that would help to protect important views, and which as approved and effective starting July 13 (2007). A management plan for the site has been published and revised guidelines about tall buildings in historic London are available for public comment now. A visual impact study is also in preparation. The main outstanding issue is the "shard of glass" building, proposed for a location about 1km from the Tower. Its construction is planned, although a final approval has not been issued. Similar threats are posed to Westminster Abbey.”
(WMF Britain is currently developing a project at Westminster Abbey to consolidate a medieval sedilia in the abbey (a decorated bench for clergy), supported with a Kress grant.)
The London View Management Framework is a 388 page long document that aims to provide a strategic framework for the management of identified protected views around London. It acts as a “Special Planning Guidance” and replaces previous guidance on Strategic Views, RPG3a.
It would be interesting to see if other readers had a view on this new planning guidance, and anything else I’ve mentioned above, but our initial thoughts on it are that whilst it does offer real protection for the strategic views identified the protected corridors of these views are extremely tight and limited. It would seem to offer less protection to the areas outside these corridors but which would certainly affect the views in question; after all, a view is a panorama not a single line of sight.
A. From Keith Fletcher, Penzance
Modern architecture is recovering from the poor reputation it garnered in the mid twentieth century, and in general, I believe modern architects are producing work of a lot higher standard than they were fifty years ago. Of course, it wasn’t all bad- Mies Van der Rohe, Louis Kahn, Le Corbusier, Saarinen and many others created masterpieces of architectural form and function into the much-maligned 1960s, whilst the uncompromising expressivity of the best brutalist architecture in the 1960s and ‘70s is now widely regarded as occupying the cusp of sculpture and architecture. The problem fifty years ago was twofold: a lack of post-war money conflicting with the desire to rebuild cities quickly, coincident with the hegemony of the International Style, which seemed to be satisfied with the indiscriminate imposition of concrete-framed slabs without imagination, responsiveness to context and permanence. Money isn’t the sole answer to architectural quality- the 1980s fad of Postmodernism epitomises the Loadsamoney era but transpires not to have been particularly significant or acclaimed amongst artistic movements. It is very interesting that there seems to be no widely-held shorthand for the style in which architects build today, I suppose because imagination and sensitivity to planning, materials and usage create a stylistic pluralism. In an industrialised age, bereft of the handicraft that enlivened the sparest identikit Georgian terrace, this variety must be healthy if architecture is to go beyond reinforcing a design fashion or embodying economy, and is intended to surprise and delight us.
Q. Is it realistic to attempt to save our parish churches in the UK?
A. The WMF Britain view
It has been reported that it would cost at least several hundred million pounds to repair all our parish churches. English Heritage has severely limited funds, the government provides no state support for Church of England buildings and often HLF grants are unsuitable for these types of building because the ability to provide extensive community access programmes, interpretive centres, local exhibitions etc are severely limited by the fabric and their primary use as religious spaces. All this, and many other reasons, would indicate that it was not feasible to save all parish churches.
However these are certainly one of our greatest legacies for world heritage and so we certainly must try to save the best or as many as we can that do have potential to be reused. So often local communities do need spaces for all to use and the local church should be able to play that role rather than searching out or even building community halls right next to the local church. The planning laws have a role to play in sensitively assisting the reuse of parish churches and certainly the government could do a lot to make it financially easier to save these buildings simply by changing the VAT laws to make it favourable to repair these buildings rather than alter or even rebuild them.
Maybe it simply comes down to funds and a desire to save these spaces because we should which we can if the will is there. The government should recognise the role they play as part of our landscape, the sense of place, our communities, as the location of much of our national art and in our tourist economy to name just a few reasons. More funds should be made available. Look at the Olympics (£9Billions) or Wembley Football Stadium (£750Millions) or any other major project like that – the money does exist. The only thing that would really hold us back would be the lack of skills (no doubt rectified over a period of years as the project continues) and the near exponential rise of the cost of doing the work if the Olympics are anything to go by.