Revaluing Modern Architecture, Changing Conservation Culture
Kate Macintosh
1st February 2023
John Allan’s latest book “Revaluing Modern Architecture” should be required reading for all staff working in Heritage England and for all conservation officers in local government. It provides a forensic guidebook for negotiating the hidden shoals, sandbanks and obstacles which beset the complex archipelago of the listing and conservation of modern movement buildings which are subject to additional criteria to demonstrate “special interest”, over and beyond those applied to older buildings.
This puts at especial risk the large portfolio of buildings constructed during “les trente glorieux”, as the French have dubbed the thirty post World War II years, when public expenditure on making good the promises of the Beveridge Report on rebuilding the country after 1945, was at its height. That enormous endeavour to improve living standards across all social strata and all regions, was not exclusive to the UK but what is a solely British phenomenon is the strength of the rebound, with what seems a malign intent to erase all reminders of the idealism & optimism that drove the endeavour to achieve equal chances for all. One indicator of reluctance to retain more recent additions to our national heritage is that only 0.2% of all listed building were completed post 1945 and only sixty-two of the total listed Grade l are dated post 1901.
That attitudes in UK are sluggish in expanding their range of appreciation of our architectural heritage is shown by the near loss of two noted Victorian examples. Giles Gilbert Scott’s St Pancras Chambers, now a hotel, was threatened with demolition in the early 1960s but was listed grade l in 1967. Also Norman Shaw’s former New Scotland Yard buildings were threatened in the ‘60s but in 1970 both were listed, the North Block grade l, the South Block ll*. If the the criterion of “functionality”, introduced 2018, following the long dispute over Robin Hood Gardens, (progressively demolished from 2017) were required of buildings of that era, these listing applications would surely have failed.
Finsbury Health Centre (1938) Grade I listed
That the Finsbury Health Centre (1938), listed grade I, widely seen as a precursor to the welfare state, should stand in a precarious state of disrepair, despite maintaining its original function, stands as a symbol of a covert policy of deliberate neglect where outright destruction has been thwarted. This suspicion is not levelled at either the owners, the NHS, or the London Borough of Islington, both of which have been increasingly starved of funds since 2010.
The book give case studies of where, even when the criteria of special significance have demonstrably been met, extraneous arguments are advanced for refusal to list, on the whim of the individual in post as Secretary of State at the time of decision.
One such case is Pimlico School where Jack Straw was chair of governors while sitting in Blair’s cabinet. Though the criteria of “special architectural interest” was arguably met, the buildings undoubted technical problems of solar gain and leaking roofs which were common to other innovative buildings, such at the Smithsons’ Hunstanton school had not prevented its listing grade ll*. Futhermore another criterion of “fulfilment of the original brief” was introduced 1990. Allan points out that the original brief may not always have survived and in the case of this school, when the Inner London Education Authority was abolished and Pimlico became the first of the new generation of academies, funded directly by central government, the education trust deemed the classroom sizes too small, as they sought to increase class-numbers. i.e. the brief was changed post factum.
Dunelm House, listed Grade II
The story is not entirely gloomy. One remarkable triumph is the listing of the student union of Durham University, Dunelm House, grade ll in 2021, following a long campaign by 20th Century Soc supported by Docomomo UK. Only after the ministerial reasons for refusal were revealed, following a Freedom of Information request, was it possible to challenge these as falling outside the statuary criteria of the 1990 Act for assessment and eventually the ministerial decision was overturned.
Examining the manifold weaknesses and inconsistencies in the listing system, the book calls for greater transparency in the reasons for rejections of listing. It further sees danger in the application, for listed building consent to alterations under the fig leaf of “less than substantial harm” either before or after such interventions have been made, particularly when cut-backs to funding have deprived local authorities of expert staff.
Lacaton & Vassal: Cité du Grand Parc, Bordeaux
The book concludes with a plea that the training of architects shift focus from concentration on new-build to adaptation and reuse of the existing stock, as articulated in the Docomomo Rehabilitation Award (DRAW) launched 2021 “From Social Optimism to Social Responsibility”. It is hoped that the Pritzker Prize awarded to Lacaton and Vassal for their transformation of the 530 dwellings in Grand Parc Bordeaux heralds a new attitude in valuing what is already there as the starting point.