“A monster sat down in Catford, and just what the place needed.” Ian Nairn, writing about Rodney Gordon’s Eros House in the late 1950s,
“…a staircase tower which is either afflicted with an astounding set of visual distortions or is actually leaning … the most craggy and uncompromising of new London buildings turns out to be full of firm gentleness.”
Rodney Gordon, then working for Owen Luder Associates, also sat two monsters down in Gateshead. Until this week, when the Trinity development in the addled town centre will finally be demolished after years in limbo, Gateshead could have boasted two of his few remaining buildings of the era and, in the Trinity Centre, arguably his best. His Derwent Tower in Dunston was also recently scheduled for demolition.
The gathering of artists into schools is a messy business, but ‘brutalism’ was particularly unfortunate. One wonders if this much-misunderstood style of building would have suffered the same architectural revisionism had a different name caught on to describe the style. Coined by architecture critic Reyner Banham (there’s a copy of his 1966 book ‘The New Brutalism’ in Newcastle’s Lit & Phil for further reading), the term is a poor play on the french terms for the raw concrete used in the construction of these buildings, beton brut, and art brut, Jean Debuffet’s ‘raw’ or outsider art. Perhaps ‘Brutism’ would have been a better choice, but Banham’s decision to anglicise ‘brut’ to good old-fashioned ‘brutal’ seems to have set the wrecking ball swinging on the later destruction of countless glorious buildings, many of which did not even see out the century of the their construction.
The Trinity Centre was certainly raw, but it was also liquid, dynamic, individualist, impossibly ambitious, thrilling. A quick trip to Sir John Vanbrugh’s Seaton Delaval hall, just north of Whitley Bay, confirms that Rodney Gordon’s work furthered a rich tradition of english architecture. A brutalist building if ever there was one, Seaton Delaval Hall was saved from destruction at the eleventh hour, and a National Trust banner now flaps proudly from its wall. Trinity Car Park will be levelled today, and a banner advertising the work of the Demolition company has been hoisted up, as appropriate as a funeral director signwriting his telephone number onto a coffin.
Rodney Gordon was in his late twenties when he designed his major brutalist work. In a discipline that considers ‘young’ architects to be in their forties, his genius becomes even more apparent. The Trinity Car Park was a building that confidently displayed his mastery: purposeful use of perspective distortion, angles that never quite look straight, perfectly balanced asymmetry, unflinching individualism. Propanganda novelist Ayn Rand had no idea when she wrote ‘The Fountainhead’ that a real person might ever come so close to her idealised architect Howard Rourke.
Unfortunately much of Gordon’s architecture was commissioned as Keynesian, civic ‘pump-priming’ exercises—the ‘regenerating’ of town centres under the fashionable auspices of the period. These plans were largely a failure, but nevertheless the ideology was taken up again by the New Labour government. Keynesians answering to the failures of Keynesianism will always claim that it was never more than a problem of management—if the managers got it wrong the first time, installing different managers will solve the problem the next time. And so the relics of these civic failures must be removed, lest we are reminded that these capers don’t actually work.
Rodney Gordon’s brutalist buildings always divided opinion, even featuring on popular TV shows where the public could vote which building they hated the most. Gateshead council blamed all of the problems of the town centre on Trinity (their wisdom in allowing the facing of Newcastle’s neoclassical splendour with the mooning, loading bay backside of the Wilkinsons / bus terminal building was never in question). But whatever your opinion of his buildings, the fact is that what replaces them—especially in a climate in which a local council is so desperate that they will grubbingly pander to the interests of supermarkets and major housebuilders—will not be as good as what they replace. There will be no film scene, ‘brutal’ or otherwise, taking place on the roof of the new Tesco. The notion that an economy fails because of a single building comes from the same incorrect social engineering ideology that proposed that it would save an economy in the first place. At least until today we had a masterpiece to show for all the squabbling.
Further reading:
Jonathan Meades’ superb obituary of Rodney Gordon
Obituary by Catherin Croft, director of the Twentieth Century Society
The New Brutalism: Ethic or Aesthetic? by Reyner Banham, The Architectural Press, 1966
ASIN: B0000CN9HJ
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Spot on – it’s a sad day for the architectural landscape of the North East, and this piece captures the value of the building well (although I’m not quite convinced that giving this architectural style a different name would have prevented the public disaffection for these buildings).
In fifty years’ time folk won’t be able to believe that our generation destroyed such monstrously magnificent buildings as this. There are real problems about the construction materials used in the car park, but it’s hard to believe that these make its preservation impossible – the heritage industry does a thorough job of preserving collapsing buildings when they’re considered part of our national heritage.
An interesting observation on the demise of the much debated car park, which sadly witnessed relatively few cars taking up the opportunity to park within its brutalist corridors. There were of course no diners at all feasting at the table of its high rise restaurant, where it seemed initially we were all destined to alight after disengaging our jet packs and spraying on a little of the great smell of brut. Maybe the piece is subtle and ironic in its celebration of a ‘masterpiece’ and its slightly unsettling reference to the thoughts of Ayn Rand. Who knows. Just a couple of observations. The multi-story in question has no remaining functional value (that much is agreed) and thus must be judged on its archtectural, aesthetic and historical importance. It has little of lasting value in any of these categories. It could, as some argue, be preserved as part of a North East theme park for cultural commentators, to be viewed and admired on the skyline from Newcastle’s Grey Street. But the people and families livng and working in central Gatsehead deserve something better than this absurd monument to an overrated film of a previous generation. It’s their daily life, not an exhibition piece for critics. I hope those who delight in its demolition will be judged favourably.
Thanks for the comments.
John F:
I agree with you entirely that there is no sense arguing a building’s significance based on it having appeared in a film. This is pure kitsch, and people peddling that line did not do the building any favours. It’s a genuinely brilliant film by the way.
There is no irony here, the building is an incredible piece of architecture. Viewed from either the east side flyovers or the Gateshead end of Bensham road reveals the designer’s mastery of his trade much more so than the view from Newcastle.
Many buildings remain important long after their direct functions cease. Arguments for demolishing Seaton Deleval Hall were based on the damage it suffered during fires—its architectural merit (despite its uselessness) was never in question. Although I’d quite happily make a similar argument for the Trinity Centre, there is no need. The Trinity Centre was a centre, whereas you seem to regard it only as a car park. As Grace McCombie, author of the new Pevsner guide on Newcastle and Gateshead points out, the ground level retail/business areas of the development were very good indeed. As you correctly point out, the top floor was never even used (a restaurant and, according to Owen Luder, a nightclub too was planned), but this is hardly a fault of the building, and hardly something irreversible. That you regard a space-efficient car park in the middle of a town centre as ‘functionless’ is not completely ridiculous given its context, but the functionlessness is that of the town centre itself as a failed commercial district, not of the perfectly useful car park that would serve it otherwise. The same can be said of the retail spaces—the logic of your argument that these have no function would suggest that we demolish the 130+ retail spaces in Newcastle city centre that are currently unoccupied. And keep in mind that many fantastic buildings that we would now regard as part of ‘Grainger Town’ in Newcastlewere actually levelled, when our last great social engineer pal T Dan Smith took it upon himself to rip the guts out of the city centre for Eldon Square (an almost criminally bad piece of building, permitted criminally).
The war against private transportation is also tied up in this (your snark about jet packs does not go unnoticed), but then Gateshead Council were only too happy to allow countless square miles of ground-level car parking to serve out-of-town retail developments like the Metrocentre and Retail World. And actually, right there is one of the biggest factors in the failure of the town centre. Preference of the car will usually trump preference of shopping venue.
I’m glad the Ayn Rand reference hit its target. For reference, this is the first time I’ve ever written a piece of ‘cultural criticism’. I’m a gas man from Gateshead, who was taken to the indoor market (also inside the ‘car park’, where we parked the car) as a child to buy second hand games for my Atari. I make no presumptions about ‘the people and families’ of Gateshead, and blame the failures of local economic and social policy on people like yourself, who do, and presume that they speak on their behalf.
AG:
Thanks for your responses. On a number of the points you raise, there are no issues in dispute. The ‘architectural value’ vs ‘use’ debate in relation to, for instance, Seaton Deleval (sic) Hall is clear enough, and reminiscent of the line about ‘what shall we do with all this useless beauty’. The implicit point is taken that maybe this sort of beauty resides in less obvious places where the same arguments, with a bit of imagination, might apply. I think that’s what you were saying anyway.
As for T Dan Smith and Eldon Square and such like, of course, who could disagree. I’m glad there isn’t a campaign to give bits of Eldon Square listed status. However, it would, in some appalling nightmare sense, have almost been worth seeing what the East-West Newcastle undergound motorway would have looked like.
As for Ayn Rand – that’s another debate, but be aware her writings are used to give credence to some deeply illiberal vews – people will make up their own minds about whether they find that edifying.
These are all topics of healthy and I hope constructive debate. But two things I find troubling.
One is to do with the whole modernist approach to town/city re-design and the Eldon Square/Trintiy Square/multi-storey/high-rise era – which parts do you judge ‘criminally bad’ – and which part do you judge to be ‘a masterpiece’ and – to use your vocabulary – on whose behalf, given that these judgements are not just abstract topics of debate, they directly affect the life of people living around/beneath/within them?
The second is to do with the elevated status you choose to give me in being personally responsible for the ‘failures of local economic and social policy’. I’m flattered. I just comment on these things, as you do. Speaking on people’s behalf? Pots…kettles…
Hi John. Thanks for your further conversation, especially your taking my little snarks in such good humour, and gently pointing out my recent inability to spell Delaval.
We are indeed in some agreement, although you might be surprised how many people on the left still stand up for ol’ T Dan (I mean, he was no Mao, and there are plenty of apologists for him still knocking about). We should all be giving daily thanks for the lack of East/West central motorway—what on earth would we do without Newcastle’s ‘Diamond Strip’ after all (it was planned to go down Moseley Street wasn’t it)?
My judgements are based partly on aesthetic grounds, and partly on function. Trinity seemed largely pretty good at the function it was designed for (poor maintenance, parts that weren’t used, and maybe stranger corners of the indoor market aside), and I happen to think it’s pretty incredible on aesthetic terms. Eldon Square functions as a tube to put shops in, but from what I can tell is an utter failure as a piece of architecture—the exterior seems to have ignored entirely as something that needed to be even designed. You get the feeling that if a student had handed in this building as a project they would be told to bring it back when the other half was finished. Actually, this building is a great example of lowest common denominator modernism—as if someone heard the term ‘functionalism’ and ran with it without finding out what it was. A building’s function (in an otherwise beautiful city centre) is partly aesthetic, and a fifty-foot high brick wall running the entire length of a street simply does not cut it.
By my elevating of your status (well put) I mean that you do not seem to have a problem with speaking on behalf of ‘the people of Gateshead’ as you put it. I suspect we probably part philosophically here. Although I am glad some of the building experiments of the 1950/60s (both because it is amazing that there was ever the will to go through with them, and because they have often left us with some great buildings), I detest the ‘social engineering’ ideology under which they were prosecuted, and especially the resurgence of the ideology so many years after the first experiments were so obviously falsified.
I think a distinction needs to be made here between a more general bit of social/economic engineering—let’s say ‘regeneration’ (which is done under exactly the same auspices as the failed socialist planning of the ’50/60s), and the Trinity redevelopment, which is actually more a bit of straight desperate corporatism in line with T Dan’s Eldon Square. I don’t think anybody is imagining that a big Tesco will make people better, but it is certainly blaming the problems of the past on buildings. ‘Negative-social-engineering’ could be our clumsy term. Anyways, your ‘the people of Gateshead deserve better’ makes me suspect that you do sympathise with people that think they know what is best for people.
Which brings us on to Ayn Rand and ‘illiberalism’. I regard myself as a liberal in the classical sense, and as such regard Ayn Rand as slightly potty yes, but certainly not illiberal. Indeed, I actually regard individualism as being the only actually liberal belief system out there, ‘social-liberalism’ to my mind seems to stem from a belief that some people know what is better for other people than they know themselves. This telling people what ‘they deserve’ is, as Frederich Hayek put it, the road to serfdom, and the actual cause of ‘illiberalism’.
Ah well, Adam, probably best to put this one to sleep now. Yes I knew I would regret that loose reference to ‘illiberal…’. Just the kind of thing I would pick someone else up on.
As for the whole issue of knowing what’s best for other people – that was indeed the presumptious sin of old-style social engineering (and the 60′s ideology of top-down planning etc). I see the subject of your original piece as a part of all that. You see it as something different, with a different worth. And the phrase about people deserving better – I will maintain that as a defensible position – I guess it’s something you would say yourself about Eldon Square? All the best, John
Hi again John. I agree, the Trinity Centre was certainly a product of the ’50s social engineering movement. My point is simply that the failure of these philosophies should not be taken out on a building (an entire building style no less) as I think it has been. As for Eldon Square, I honestly have no opinion on what a people do or do not ‘deserve’, as it is not in my makeup.
Goof talking to you and best regards.
Incidentally, did anyone see the BBC4 show on English Heritage on Sunday night that dealt with Park Hill estate in Sheffield (another project from the era)? Well worth a watch (it’s on iplayer), although predictably I take issue with the narrator’s use of the word ‘brutal’. Thanks to Sarah Hopwwod for pointing me towards it.