Historical architecture stolen by The Blitz 1940

[Falls 10]

Hi,

 

As a young child (WWII and later) I would often go into town with my father on Saturday mornings. We would walk up Castle Green to Castle Street and facing across the street was the burnt-out structural remains of a restaurant that I believe was called Stephenson's. It must have been all wrought iron work with some kind of glass atrium (and most likely potted palms). According to my father, the food was excellent but it was the kind of place families like ours only went to on very special occasions.

 

It was never rebuilt, in fact the black granite-faced B & C Co-op building was eventually built on roughly the same site.

 

Regards

[hillsbro 32]

Hi Falls - this was "Stephenson's Exchange Restaurant" at 20 Castle Street - here is a 1930s advertisement from The Star.

Edited April 18, 2017 by hillsbro

[stpetre 12]

Hi Falls - this was "Stephenson's Exchange Restaurant" at 20 Castle Street - here is a 1930s advertisement from The Star.

 

You have 'The Star' delivered to your Lincolnshire abode Mr.H. ?

[Falls 10]

Hi Falls - this was "Stephenson's Exchange Restaurant" at 20 Castle Street - here is a 1930s advertisement from The Star.

 

Hello hillsbro,

 

Thanks for the notice. That must have been the place. All a long time ago.

 

Another old shop/restaurant that Town Hall crowd let be demolished would be Tuckwood's This was on Fargate, close to where M & S are now. If my memory is not playing tricks, I seem to recall you entered this place form Fargate by a wide passageway section with counters on each side and this eventually opened-up in to a larger/higher section with a glass roof.

 

An old aunt of my father's religiously bought Tuckwood's cakes and pastries. If you were invited to tea, you were sure to be offered some kind pastry: "Do have piece of this cake", She would say "its from Tuckwood's"

 

Her husband used to comment:

 

"She would offer you bloody paving slabs instead of cake if Tuckwood's sold e'm."

 

Regards

[hillsbro 32]

You have 'The Star' delivered to your Lincolnshire abode Mr.H. ?

I wish it could be delivered, but I have to be content with viewing it online.

...Another old shop/restaurant that Town Hall crowd let be demolished would be Tuckwood's This was on Fargate, close to where M & S are now...

Yes, Tuckwood's at 29 Fargate closed in the late 1940s, though their "Montgomery Restaurant" continued for many years just around the corner on Surrey Street.

[Dannyno 19]

(To Dannyno )

 

Most Edwardian buildings ARE still standing. Earlier styles were evolved gradually from the foregoing styles, not totally unconnected with a shock effect.

 

Unfortunately it seems you haven't understood my point. I think I was as clear as I could be, but let's have another go.

 

My key point is that style and building quality are not necessarily connected. There was rubbish Edwardian building, and there is modernist building which will last a reasonable time.

 

I distinguished between modernism and modern.

 

Why are Edwardian buildings still standing, in the cases where they are? Because they used materials and methods which lasted.

 

There is no reason whatsoever why buildings built in modernist styles could not also last 100 years.

 

Edwardian buildings were 'traditional' in as much as they were gradual trends which were popular and aesthetically acceptable. *Who wouldn't want to live in Victorian / Edwardian Fullwood or Hallam still today, check the prices ?*]

 

I live in an Edwardian terraced house. The walls are filled with dust.

 

You object to shocking stylistic innovations. I don't. We're not going to agree on that.

 

Why should modern buildings with , as you say, a shortish expected life-span be sensible, given the cost and disruption caused when they are built then soon demolished, the 'Egg Box' for just one example of many ? Wood and brick buildings seem to have 'lasted longer' when we look around.

 

Now you've shifted from modernism to modern. There is no reason why the "Egg Box" could not have been built to last. Concrete - which is often used in modernist as well as modern buildings - can be used in way which will last 100+ years, but often isn't. I thought the Egg Box was ugly, by the way.

 

In saying we should understand the reasons why buildings are not being built to last, I specifically made it clear that I did not approve. My point was to distinguish between style and method.

 

Your accepting that modern buildings have the 'shortest expected life-span', and that they are 'un-sustainable' sounds to be the economics of frivolousness, do you work for a developer ? You are entitled to think that 'some Brutalism looks great', but I think the majority opinion is the opposite.*

 

I think it is clear from my post that I did not "accept" it. I said "my opinion is that it's not good for sustainability". I think it's a bad thing, and I said it was a bad thing.

 

Why, then, are you trying to paint me as an apologist for cheap but unsustainable building methods?

 

You then move on to the different point that most people probably don't like Brutalism. I don't know whether this is true or not, but if it is, then i don't know what that's got to do with my particular aesthetic preferences.

 

I'm not sure you understand the difference between modern and modernism.

Let me say again: modernism and brutalism are styles of architecture. There is no reason why they have to be built cheaply and with unsustainable materials/methods.

 

Build an Edwardian-style building today, and it will probably last 30 years, unless good quality materials and methods are used.

 

This isn't too difficult a point to understand, surely?

 

 

As you say, it's a 'problem of style', modern buildings being in a style that doesn't last or please !

 

So now I know that you aren't really taking the time to read and understand what I said.

 

What I said was that "it's not a problem of style." that's "not".

 

You've attributed the opposite position to me.

 

I'll say it *again*: not all modern buildings are built in the same style. Not all of them are brutalist or modernist.

 

There is no stylistic reason why a brutalist or modernist building cannot be built to last (let's leave aside whether you like them or not).

 

Where there is a problem, it's because of the building materials and methods, and they would be a problem regardless of style, for the reasons explained.

 

In other words, "brutalist style" does not say "build cheaply out of materials that won't last 30 years".

 

You say that 'building being done in that ( Brutalist ) style is clearly about budgets', that again contradicts the Wiki article which states that 'many architects chose the Brutalist style even when they had large budgets.'.

 

Once again you have not understood my very simple point.

 

What I said was "it helps to understand why building is being done that way, which is clearly about budgets".

 

"That way", referred, as I said, to the cheap methods being used in much modern building. I had already distinguished between style and method/materials, so there is no excuse for this lack of basic comprehension.

 

I've repeated this simple point already in this post, so hopefully I don't have to do so again.

 

Suffice it to say, that I precisely was not confusing Brutalist style with the problems caused by the desire to build cheap buildings out of inferior materials.

 

Which is why your attempt to refute what I said by referring to the wikipedia article fails.

 

You may be too young to remember but, as an example, one steel works in Sheffield, Shardlow's, was notorious for its communist domination

 

Obviously I wasn't saying that there were no communists. There were communists. The idea that the City Council was dominated by them is not true.

 

Did you never hear the Right Wing Press once call the city 'The Soviet Republic of Sheffield' then ?

 

"Socialist Republic", not "Soviet".

 

Your memory is as bad as your comprehension of simple distinctions.

Edited April 15, 2017 by Dannyno

[Yorkshire 53 10]

Dannyno, I accept some misunderstanding of your more knowledgeable points, and I will admit that I am being subjective and basing my opinions on emotion to a large extent. However, you have spurred me on to check further and I came up with the following:-

 

On the distinction between 'Modern' and 'Modernist'. 2blowhards.com is worth a read :

Modern vs. Modernist....' Modern = current or recent , Modernism is an IDEOLOGY' Modernism is also called 'The international style', bearing out my point that it is not a natural progression of British ( or other countries ) accepted and identifiable national styles. Internationalism again being associated with left wing ideology.

 

Lara Fiegel in the Guardian of 11.9.2011. " When Berthold Lubetkin arrived in London in 1931, Classicism prevailed, interrupted by the odd flourish of Art Deco. British architects did use steel and concrete, but covered them over with Portland stone."

"Art Deco sprang up in Britain in the 1920's, but as a decorative style RATHER THAN A TEMPLATE FOR A NEW SOCIETY.*In the 1930's, the white concrete boxes morphed into a more British version of Modernism,clad in brick and timber. For all the lofty dreams of two generations of Utopian architects and planners,much of Britain remained ensconced in earthbound homes,gratefully burrowed in provincial sleep." ( My 'tradition soul' kicking in ? Lubetkin, btw, who "pioneered Modernist design in Britain in the 1930's", studied in Moscow at the time of the Russian revolution and served in the Red Army.)

 

Reading up on Le Corbusier, probably the High Priest of Modernism, I found his earlier, traditional work quite pleasing e.g. Villa Fallet and the Villa Favre-Jacot in Switzerland and the Maison Blanche in France, as they are in those countries traditional, national styles, whilst allowing experimentation with his inner space theories. However, he later progressed to stating "The religion of beautiful materials is in its final death agony." In 1928, he took a major step to establishing Modernist architecture as the DOMINANT European style. He proposed to demolish a large part of central Paris (!) and replace it with a group of 60 story cruciform office towers." This idea SHOCKED most, as it was certainly INTENDED to do."

 

I do like some modern/ist examples. Charles Holden's London Transport architecture being one example ( Arnos Grove tube station etc.), and Thos. Bilbow's Stockwell bus garage, they fit in well. I agree with you that there was 'rubbish' Edwardian building, particularly in lower grade housing, but the majority of all Edwardian buildings have lasted over 100 years now, and still enduring well.

 

I'm coming at this not just from the fact that most ( I agree not all ) Modernist buildings are ugly, but that it is rooted in the Left's internationalist ideology and linked to their failed, or failing, social engineering. As two examples of the saying that 'those who push such policies as this and 'Diversity' usually 'don't live the dream' themselves, the Smithsons' who designed the hideous Robin Hood Gardens in London " didn't give up their Victorian house." , and didn't you say you were still living in an Edwardian terraced house ?

 

My stating 'Soviet republic' instead of 'Socialist' is nit-picking when they actually flew the Red flag from the Town Hall. I also mistakenly said 'of Sheffield' instead 'of South Yorkshire'. Yes, my memory is bad, but I think most would understand my meaning.

[Ridgehill1 10]

Many fine comments for and against modern and old architecture displayed here and I'm gratified to read them.

One of my main gripes are the planners. Who in their right mind allowed the, to be Chines Centre, tower to overshadow St Mary's Church tower. Whatever happened to symmetry.

[TORONTONY 10]

Many fine comments for and against modern and old architecture displayed here and I'm gratified to read them.

One of my main gripes are the planners. Who in their right mind allowed the, to be Chines Centre, tower to overshadow St Mary's Church tower. Whatever happened to symmetry.

 

It probably went the way of monetary