John Grindrod: 'Concretopia'

Whilst thinking a lot about concrete, as I am right now, I want to mention John Grindrod’sexcellent tome, ‘Concretopia: A Journey Around The Rebuilding Of Postwar Britain’ [1.].  In passing, I’ve illustrated the post with a number of my recent photographic attempts to document examples of crumbling 20th Century architectural ‘heritage’ from my own neck of the woods.

John Grindrod.  (Photo: 'Croydon Advertiser')

I finished reading Grindrod’s book some weeks ago, finding it an enjoyable and informative survey of Britain’s rebuilding, and attempted reinvention, in the decades following the Second World War.  Architecturally, this period is, of course, one in which not only were architectural styles and building methods demonstrating a dramatic break with the past, but wider assumptions about societal priorities, and the very ways that British life would be organised, were being questioned.

Crown House, Central Leicester, November 2014

If the impulse of planners and architects, (if not necessarily, developers), of the period, was often distinctly utopian, the results, and the Modernist styles they generally represent, very quickly came to represent bleakness and alienation in the minds of some people.   As Grindrod’s book demonstrates, the merits, or otherwise, of all this are still open to debate. It’s striking how quickly many of the buildings and developments he discusses, passed in the view of many, from tokens of an optimistic, high-minded attempt to shape the future, to despised evidence of a failed, misguided experiment, and then to items of a heritage to be re-examined, and even treasured anew, in the space of just a few decades.

Redeveloped Telephone Exchange Building With Newer, Cardinal Exchange Tower Beyond, 
Central Leicester, November 2014

Actually, this does make me wonder if there isn’t something in the British psyche that can only really appreciate things once they’ve receded in time sufficiently to be reinterpreted through the filter of nostalgia.  The whole idea of past visions of the future, or indeed, of misguided utopianism, has received a lot of currency in recent years, not least within the cultural genre labeled Hauntology or the aesthetic yearning that exudes from ‘The Modernist’ Magazine, thisbrutalhouse.com and the like.  To someone of my age, who remembers, at first hand, both the excitement and revulsion elicited by the erection of such buildings, it feels distinctly odd to see the angular monuments of Brutalist design treated with the same quaint affection as those British clichés, the stately pile and the country cottage.

Multi-Story Car Park, Lee Circle, Central Leicester, October 2014

I often question my own fascination with the remnant edifices of the period, and my love of multi-story car-parks, low grade tower blocks, elevated road systems, subways, and the like.  I‘m certainly drawn to such places for their intrinsic, bleak glamour.  However, it would be disingenuous to pretend that part of me doesn’t also seek some slight return to my own mid-century childhood, coincident as it was, with the fag end of Modernism as both a stylistic trope and a set of cultural assumptions.  Everyone must witness incredible change over the span of a life, but when such self conscious Futurism is involved, as with the mindset of the mid-twentieth century, the sense of looking back down a telescope is felt all the more keenly, perhaps.

Multi-Story Car Park, Lee Circle, Central Leicester, October 2014

At this point, it would be short sighted to ignore the fact that, for many cultural commentators on the Left, a hankering for Modernism is far more than mere nostalgia.  In many such cases, it appears more like an attempt to recalibrate history away from the perceived aberrations of Post Modernism, the horrors of Late Capitalism, and the associated Debordian Spectacle, in general.

Multi-Story Car Park, Lee Circle, Central Leicester, October 2014

Either way, Grindrod’s own motivations for writing ‘Concretopia’ are clearly rooted in autobiography.  It opens with a description of his childhood home in New Addlington – a suburban offshoot of Croydon, (which might itself, be regarded as the archetypal Modernist suburb).  In this respect it reminds me of Lynsey Hanley’s ‘Estates: An Intimate History’ [2.], - another highly recommended read, which covers much of the same historical span and discusses mass housing from the informed perspective of someone who hailed from a council estate herself.

Multi-Story Car Park, Lee Circle, Central Leicester.  View of Upper Decks From Central Well.
November 2014

Having set out his own stall, Grindrod follows a broadly chronological course, identifying the prevailing themes that typify his chosen period.  Along the way, he discusses the pre war Garden City movement, post war prefabricated architecture, the Festival of Britain, New Towns, whole-scale slum clearance and urban redevelopment schemes, the growth of the purpose built shopping centre and the tower block, The GPO Tower, The South Bank Centre and Barbican complexes, and much else besides.  He takes in the stylistic fashions and technological advances that made all this possible, but is just as informative about the social, political and philosophical influences behind it all.

Multi-Story Car Park, Lee Circle, Central Leicester.   Interior, November 2014

What really leavens the whole study is his recourse to the first-hand experiences and reminiscences of the people who lived amongst all this change, set against his accounts of the often eccentric, (and even criminal), egos and big personalities who often instigated it.  Ultimately, he’s generally balanced in his judgments, and, despite a clear affection for some of his subjects, is just as open about the failings, compromises and downright short sightedness that characterise many others.  This balanced viewpoint is typified by his willingness to give both pro and anti sentiment equal voice, (for instance when interviewing the inhabitants of Glasgow’s tower blocks), and to carefully examine both good and bad aspects of a particular development.

In keeping with its subject matter, ‘Concretopia’ is a moderately weighty tome and I could discuss its many and varied topics at length.  Instead, I recommend you read it for yourself, whilst I content myself by highlighting a couple of small details from the text both of which have some specific personal resonance for me.

Multi-Story Car Park, Lee Circle, Central Leicester, October 2014

The first is a reference to Leicester, the city where I dwell and whose buildings, subways and road systems I have spent so much time exploring and photographing in recent times.  Grindrod touches on the problems of post war planners in facilitating the movement of traffic around their re-imagined cities as car use exploded exponentially in the 1960s.  Some of the suggested solutions now sound startlingly audacious and I read with amusement of planning consultant, W. Konrad Smigielski’s proposals for Leicester, in which pedestrians would be moved around the city centre via a network of travelators, elevated walkways and a monorail.  Part of me secretly wishes that had come into being.  Another part wonders how quickly it would have become a massive white elephant, given the dilapidation of many of Leicester’s actual edifices of the period.  Amongst these is another attempt to deal with traffic congestion, - Lee Circle Multti-Story Car Park, (pictured here).  It was, reputedly, the first fully automated multi-story example in Britain, and also the site of the first Tesco supermarket outside of London.  The building has been the cause of some local controversy in recent months, between those who see it as a monstrous eyesore, ripe for demolition [3.], and those who would like its heritage status confirmed.

Lee Circle, Central Leicester With Multi-Story Car Park (Centre), Crown House (Bottom R),
And Telephone Exchange Building (Top L),  Present Day.  (Photo: 'Leicester Mercury')

Multi-Story Car Park, Incorporating Tesco Supermarket, Lee Circle, Central Leicester,
1963.  (Photo: 'Leicester Mercury')

Newspaper Advertisment For Opening Of Tesco Supermarket & Multi-Story Car Park,
1961.  ('Leicester Mercury')

The second is a reference amongst a catalogue of spectacular constructional failures of the period, to the inferno that consumed half of Lincoln’s Yarborough High School, in September 1975.  Grindrod’s reason for mentioning this is to highlight the failings of the CLASP system of pre-fabrication, used in the construction of many buildings of the period.  The voids incorporated into its walls and roofs acted as flues in the event of fires, as was spectacularly demonstrated at Yarborough.  I, however, recall the event particularly vividly, as I had just started my second year at the school when the fire occurred.

Yarborough High School, Lincoln, 1971:  My Alma Mater

Yarborough itself was a purpose-built Comprehensive, self consciously forward-looking and very much in the spirit of Shirley William’s egalitarian education reforms, having been opened just five years earlier.  In a surprisingly early flowering of Left-leaning idealism I had actually written to the local Education Authority asking to be placed there in preference to the old local Grammar, itself recently converted to a Comp. - but to which a certain air of snobbery still adhered.  I don’t remember regretting the decision as I surveyed the twisted mass of smoking steelwork the morning after the fire, but I do clearly recall mourning the lost Art rooms and the dramatic, elevated library that once projected from one side of our torched building.

In surprisingly short order, we were back at school and studying from distinctly smoked textbooks in temporary classrooms.  It’s testament to the dedication of the staff, and to the good spirit of the institution as a whole, that I’ve never felt my education was adversely affected by those events.  By 1980, when I left Yarborough, a newer, stylistically conservative brick built block had grown on the site of the old CLASP structure and Mrs. Thatcher’s first Tory Government was getting into its stride.  Britain, would never be the same and Modernism, along with the Post War Socialist Consensus it epitomised, was already passing from favour.  The rest, as they say, is history.

Multi-Story Car Park, Lee Circle, Central Leicester.  Interior, November 2014

[1.]:  John Grindrod, ‘Concretopia: A Journey Around The Rebuilding Of Postwar Britain’, Brecon, Old Street Publishing Ltd., 2013.

[2.]:  Lynsey Hanley, ‘Estates: An Intimate History’, London, Granta Books, 2012.

[3.];  Regular followers may be interested to know that Lee Circle is just a stone’s throw from the chosen territory of my, currently parked, ‘Belgrave Gate Project’.