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Posts from the ‘Analysis’ Category

Aug 23

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Rapidly diminishing heritage

This is a sort of short follow up to the most recent blog post on the Futurist cinema, which was demolished against the wishes of a vocal number of Liverpool’s citizens.

Another planning application raising eyebrows is one put in to demolish parts of the Rapid Hardware building on Renshaw Street. This is a well known landmark for anyone who’s spent any time in the city. It also happens to be where I first bought a lot of archaeological health and safety kit! Read more

Aug 3

The future and the Futurist

And so the Futurist cinema is coming down.

It’s been on the cards for a few months, and now people are generally coming to the opinion that it was inevitable (for which read ‘the Council pretended it wouldn’t be demolished, but always intended to demolish it anyway’). But I’m not here to debate conspiracies, because you get nowhere, and what’s done is done (by the time you read this). Read more

Jul 12

Zen and the Art of Heritage Protection

Heritage Protection is a controversial field at the best of times. There are almost as many different opinions on a given listing, say, as there are people offering said opinions. It’s difficult for the likes of English Heritage to decide what to protect and what to let go, and it’s certainly not a scientific process. But should we stop getting confused between the things we should be saving, and the events they merely represent?

Read more

Mar 23

Refurbishing old buildings in the historic landscape

English Heritage have released a new volume of their ‘Constructive Conservation’ series, this one entitled Sustainable Growth for Historic Places. It’s all about the benefits of re-using historic buildings for new purposes, and the effects not only on the bottom line of the developer, but also the ability of these buildings to attract customers and tourists, and the benefits of creating an attractive and enjoyable place to work in. Read more

Mar 15

Peel Waters and the New Liverpool Landscape

As you’ll no doubt be aware, the planning application for Peel Waters was recently waved through by Eric Pickles, Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, and there will be no public enquiry. Regular readers will remember previous posts, where I’ve come down against the scheme. But now that it looks like going ahead, it’s time to move on and consider how the development will unfold. Read more

Jun 27

Liverpool Maritime Mercantile City World Heritage Site in Danger

Well, it happened. UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee, arbiters of the World Heritage Site list, met this week (as they do annually) and Liverpool was on the agenda. A decision was made to place the Maritime Mercantile City on the ‘In Danger’ list, which means that the “outstanding universal value” for which the area earned the title in 2004 (see my map of the historic sites of Liverpool for an outline of the WHS) is under threat.

It had been on the cards since Peel proposed their Liverpool Waters scheme, but the decision was finally taken in the wake of Liverpool City Council’s decision to grant that scheme planning permission in March of this year. Read more

Nov 17

The Albert Dock warehouses in 1956, before sensitive redevelopment in the 1980s

UNESCO visit to Liverpool: the future vs the past?

UNESCO this week are visiting Liverpool to assess the threat to the World Heritage Site (WHS) posed by the Peel Waters plans. Surrounding the visit there has been a lot of debate on the role of the WHS in a modern and changing city. Read more

Mar 24

Liverpool Industrial Heritage at Risk

Plan of the Herculaneum Docks, South Liverpool, from the World War I Document Archive

The Herculaneum Docks, South Liverpool - industrial heritage no longer with us (from the World War I Document Archive)

Industrial Heritage at Risk is this year’s Heritage at Risk theme, launched today by English Heritage in conjunction with the Council for British Archaeology (CBA) and the Association for Industrial Archaeology (AIA). The annual Heritage at Risk survey launch is in October.

Liverpool is not always closely associated with ‘industry’ in the same sense as the wool industry of Manchester and Lancashire, or the coal industry of Yorkshire. Liverpool’s World Heritage Site is the ‘Maritime Mercantile City‘, and even though the Exchange buildings and the Customs house are closely linked with industry on a wider scale, it’s more accurate to class it as ‘commerce’.

However, commerce is difficult to see embodied in archaeology or buildings, and the buildings English Heritage are talking about are as often as not a product of industry, made possible by the Industrial Revolution, rather than playing a part in industrial production itself.

In fact, much of Liverpool’s built heritage fits this bill rather well.

[There is a lot more detail about the development of Liverpool’s small-scale industries (potteries, mills and the like) in the Liverpool and Toxteth sections of the Historic Liverpool website (or search for ‘mill‘ or ‘pottery‘ to see a whole lot more).]

Liverpool’s industrial heritage at risk

All the sites at risk in Merseyside can be seen via a search on English Heritage’s Heritage at Risk microsite: . You can then break the list down into classes of ‘at risk’ heritage, including buildings, conservation areas, scheduled monuments and registered parks and gardens.

The industrial class of heritage is small but easy to spot: there’s the infamous case of the Stanley Dock tobacco warehouse as well as the Stanley Dock conservation area itself.

But English Heritage wants a wider debate on this, rather than just promoting the current list of at-risk buildings. So, start here if you want (in the comments!) or visit the Industrial Heritage at Risk Flickr group.

Alarmingly there’s a photo of Albert Dock in the photo pool, but as I say this discussion is about a wider appreciation of industrial heritage. Remember, the Albert Dock was once indeed at risk of demolition, and is one of the best reminders of how historic buildings can be brought back into use successfully as modern developments.

The aim of the Flickr group is to bring people together to discuss which parts of their industrial heritage are most-loved, and those which perhaps should be added to the list come October. You can, as with any Flickr group, add photos and comments of your own.

So this is a call from one Liverpool historian to others: get your photos on there and promote the best of Liverpool industrial archaeology! Here’s a few suggestions to get you thinking:

  • Albert dock (you can never have too much Albert Dock)
  • Stanley Dock and the tobacco warehouse
  • Liverpool Maritime Mercantil City World Heritage Site (plenty of room for discussion)
  • Lime Street Station and the railway and tunnels to Edge Hill and beyond
  • Former Bryant and May Match Factory
  • The Three Graces
  • Leeds-Liverpool Canal

Dec 5

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Liverpool Central Village – a lesson from history?

Nighttime aerial view of how Liverpool Central Park will look

Liverpool Central Village, development by Merepark

This week the developer Merepark unveiled a slick video showing the world what the new Liverpool Central Village will look like. Central Village is the name given to the array of shops and flats which is to be built to the north of Bold Street, and which will take in the vacant Lewis’s building on Ranelagh Street.

The thing which struck me was how similar Central Village will look to Liverpool One. The architecture is modern but not brutalist (much). Random colour schemes and harsh corners, but no 60s Piggery nightmare. The brands are all familiar too, with Odeon Cinemas being the most prominent.

But the question raised by the video is ‘Does Liverpool need another (mini) Liverpool One?’ Joe Anderson rightly hails the thousands of new jobs which this development will create (during and after construction), but what can history tell us about how this may pan out?

The last great wave of investment

During the Second World War Liverpool was seen as a great place to site Royal Ordnance Factories (ROF), where munitions were produced for the war effort. It was away from the dangers of bombing which London suffered from, and out of town sites like Speke, Aintree and Kirkby were away from the bombs falling on the docks, yet well connected to those docks by rail, so easing the transport of raw materials coming into the port.

When the War was over the ROF sites adapted to become part of the new economy of the mid 20th Century. Tax incentives encouraged large companies to site factories in these areas which were unrestricted in their growth – there were few neighbours in the area and the land was flat.

There was also a ready-made labour force in the form of the thousands of people who were being moved out of central slums into new council houses, maisonettes and high-rise flats.

There were many problems with these out-of-town estates, and none more famous than the layoffs during the 1970s and 80s. Even then Liverpool was starting to develop its reputation as a city of strikers and protesters, and of a self-pity growing from a feeling of victimisation. Liverpool often asked itself: ‘Why always us?’

Part of the answer presents an interesting dilemma to those who are championing this new development. The problem with the closing factories was that they were branches of multinational corporations. These corporations ‘always’ chose Liverpool because it was the easy choice. There were no vested interests in the city, no love for the place or its people. They were here for the money, and when that left, so did they.

I don’t blame Joe Anderson for celebrating the continued surge in development in the city he loves (and this blog isn’t going to turn into an anti-Anderson moan despite the tone of recent posts!). You certainly can’t take the jobs away from the people who will definitely be employed to build the Village, and who will be staffing the shops and shiny cinemas once it’s complete.

But if history can tell us anything about our own time (and this is what this blog is about) then it’s that investment in an area is strongest when the investors have a stake in the place they’re coming to.

Having lived in places as diverse in beauty as Oxford and Swindon I’m well aware of the standard arguments against the effects of ‘clone towns’ on the quality of life in a place. One of the Liverpool’s strengths has always been its range of independent – and locally based – shops which make a trip into town an often rewarding one (think News from Nowhere, Hairy Records, Quiggins and even Wade Smith). The area around Bold Street is one of the best areas for this.

But the appearance and choice in clone towns is not the only issue, and the architecture is not in question here. The experience of those protesters at the gates of the automotive plants brings home the fact that, for long term success, a local economy must not be reliant on the continued interest of outside money.

What do you think? Will the new developments be unparalleled successes? Or is history doomed to repeat itself as Liverpool continues its transformation into a modern shopping destination?

Nov 4

Poor architecture, not heritage, is preventing investment in Liverpool

Photograph of Liverpool Pier Head looking north up the new canal extension

New development hand in hand with heritage, by Radar Communication via Flickr

Council Leader Joe Anderson has hit out at English Heritage for what he sees as the over-reaching influence and meddling of the ‘heritage lobbyists’ in the future development of Liverpool.

Anderson’s current gripe is related to the Liverpool Waters project, which English Heritage advised to be reduced. Since their input, the number of tall buildings has been reduced, and the centrepiece Shanghai Tower moved back from the waterfront.

The Daily Post has a balanced editorial stating that heritage matters should be considered hand in hand with development progress, and points out that many historic buildings have been brought back into use successfully in this and other cities. Coincidentally, part of the current Biennial art festival concentrates on the re-use of derelict buildings for public enjoyment.

So does heritage hold back development? As Naomi Peck, project manager of Peel’s Liverpool Waters development team said: “English Heritage would most probably be happy to see everything as it is, because that is what they do – they preserve old buildings… The scheme could have been perhaps a little more magnificent, but obviously we had to take into consideration it is a World Heritage Site.”

So, English Heritage preserve old buildings, and World Heritage Site = no magnificence, thank you very much.

Yes?

Developers preventing development

Looking at this from the other direction, is heritage really the stumbling block? Is the Albert Dock a less ‘magnificent’ development because of all the heritage? Or is the heritage key to its attraction? (OK, enough rhetorical questions.) The flats at the King’s Dock and in the former warehouses at the Waterloo Docks are massively successful examples of historic buildings reuse which have not harmed the historic environment. There are other developments – the very magnificent Great Court at the British Museum and World Museum Liverpool, for example – which have added modern architectural elements to historically important buildings.

However, Joe Anderson shouldn’t be surprised or dismayed when ‘heritage lobbyists’ kick up a fuss about wrecking a World Heritage Site with modern ‘ego architecture‘ (subscription required) – massive developments which are all about money and prestige, and nothing about quality of life in the long run. Anderson may have a different point of view, but I don’t want Liverpool to turn into the Shanghai/New York of the West/Europe. I want Liverpool to be The Liverpool.

The solution to Anderson’s problem is not to stop groups like English Heritage and the Civic Societies from airing their views. Rather it is for the architects to produce creative, attractive modern designs keeping in scale with the current landscape. Even completely new builds like Liverpool One can achieve this, and the Echo Arena for another great example: it’s unashamedly modern (and I’d say attractive), but it doesn’t try to take over the whole skyline.

Compare this imagined scenario to the original article:

He said: “The Wellington Rooms, in Mount Pleasant, and other listed buildings are lying derelict because of the poor designs by the architects would have trashed the building.

“The former Irish Centre was the subject of a planning application, which was even supported by the Bishop, to attach some sort of hotel on it. The architect, supported by the leader of the city council, stopped it going ahead by failing to produce a decent building, and now it is deteriorating in front of our eyes.”

OK, so that’s a bit of fun, but remember: it’s not investment that English Heritage are blocking, nor development. It’s poor architecture. There’s one easy way to get development going, and that’s to design something creative, with life-span and beauty, and which adds to, and doesn’t replace, the amazing architecture we have been left by those who came before us.

Note: all views in this post are my own.

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