Liverpool's Mighty Minger!

Congratulations / commiserations to Liverpool, whose World Heritage Site is now officially blighted by the Building Design Carbuncle Cup Winner 2009, the Ferry Terminal and Beatles Museum by Hamilton Architects, Belfast.

“It is such an amazing site, directly in front of the Three Graces, but the architects seem barely to have noticed. It is like letting a bad second-year student build next to St Peter’s,” said the judges despairingly.

“This is bad patronage by an ignorant council which thinks having jazzy architecture is putting the city on the map again.”

Completed this summer by Hamilton Architects (not to be confused with Hamiltons) the £9.5 million building incorporates ferry operations, a Beatles museum and a rooftop restaurant. It is cantilevered on two sides and clad in limestone to complement the new Liverpool Museum next door.

“The architect evidently once looked at a Zaha building in a magazine,” said the judges. “It is essentially a horrible sectional idea that has been extruded like a stick of rock. The long elevations couldn’t be more tedious, the Dr Caligari end facades no more grotesque. When you go there you think: oh no, I can’t believe they’ve done that.”

Above are photos taken by me in February this year, when it was still under construction.

For the full report and the ten shortlisted buildings, all of them grim in their own way, read more here:

http://www.bdonline.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=430&storycode=3147432&channel=783&c=2&encCode=0000000001a0836c

In my view Liverpool is now such an architectural mess, particularly the waterfront, that all involved at the council and English Heritics, which surely could have tried to protect this UNESCO World Heritage Site from the worst of the aesthetic awfulness, should now be pushed into the Mersey with boots of the concrete of which they are so fond.

Carbuncles in Liverpool 2009

A web album of shots from a misty morning in February 2009 - click on pic to open.

More pictures here, putting the building in its context (yikes):

http://www.architectsjournal.co.uk/attachments.aspx?js=yes&height=auto&width=572fit&storycode=5204487&attype=P&atcode=1206148

BD Podcast, including discussion of the Carbuncle Cup:

http://www.bdonline.co.uk/story.asp?storycode=3147639&origin=BDweeklydigest

Nem

SEE ALSO

http://nemesisrepublic.blogspot.com/2009/03/hacked-off-about-liverpool.html

MV Wincham - pay back time?

MV Wincham - now

and then...

The sale of the historic vessel MV Wincham by its Trustees for scrap has reached the columns of Private Eye. Piloti's Nooks and Corners, in the newest issue (May 15th), decribes this most sad of sagas.

Why indeed was it scrapped, and not mothballed?

Well, as it seems the vessel cannot now be brought back into use, as the Trustees literally have sold her down the river, Piloti reports, as many of us hoped might be the case, that the Lottery fund, which stumped up forty seven and a half grand for work to the Wincham not so long ago, is now asking for its money back.

Sounds as though the five grand received for the scrap value won't go far. This will be an interesting one to watch. Will the Trustees of the Wincham Preservation Society have to stump up from their own pockets? I think we should be told!

As Piloti says:

Until recently the society received most of its funds from the Friends of National Museums Liverpool as the Wincham, as an historic Mersey vessel, was a suitable ornament to the Albert Dock, home of the Merseyside Maritime Museum. But the Friends were disbanded last year ...

...Given the hype around Liverpool and its history, the Maritime Museum might have been expected to rescue the boat; but no. And now the Heritage Lottery Fund, not unreasonably, wants its money back. Yet again Liverpool has shot itself in the foot.

 

Nem

Damned if you do, damned if you don't

In fact, just damn.

Sad news yesterday from Caius Plinius http://caiusplinius.blogspot.com/2009/02/suitable-case.html about the loss of so much grant aid for conservation. As I said in the comments section of his blog: when it's boom time, conservation gets it in the neck as developers claim such ideas as 'heritage' and 'conservation' stand in the way of 'economic development' and 'regeneration'. When it's bust, there are always other things to spend the cash on.

I visited Liverpool last weekend, for the opening of the SAVE Britain's Heritage excellent exhibition (see: http://nemesisrepublic.blogspot.com/2009/02/saving-britains-heritage.html)TRIUMPH,DISASTER AND DECAY: The SAVE survey of Liverpool's Heritage


Frankly, rather too much 'regeneration' has been going on there and too little note taken of saving 'heritage' for my taste. What is happening adjacent to the magnificent Albert Dock defies description, the hemming in of the Three Graces with 'iconic' lumps unbelievable, I will in the near future post links and pictures. Some of the most crass development I have ever viewed is crammed into a tiny area along the waterfront in and adjacent to the World Heritage Site. However, don't miss the exhibition, if you can't make it call SAVE and order the catalogue. Now.

http://www.savebritainsheritage.org/news/article.php?id=56

The pic top of me blog is of SAVE President Marcus Binney and exhibition curator for SAVE Robert Hradsky smiling through. The other above is of Will Palin, SAVE Secretary, modelling the SAVE publication, also baring his gnashers. Maybe it was the free wine wot did it, as certainly a great deal of the exhibition was tearjerking stuff.

One piece of good news from Liverpool is that at last the Lutyens crypt under 'Paddy's Wigwam' is now open to the public for the first time, although I have reservations about the architectural merit of the new addition. Judge for yourselves, see the pictures here:

http://www.architectsjournal.co.uk/news/dailynews/2009/02/nightingale_finalises_liverpool_cathedral_redevelopment.html
Crypt pics:

http://www.architectsjournal.co.uk/news/dailynews/2008/03/liverpool_crypt_readied_for_corb.html

I also note that the government has now published its draft strategy for saving the planet, as reported in the AJ:

"Energy-saving refurb planned for all UK homes

Green campaigners have welcomed plans to give every UK home a green refit by 2030 – but the source of funding remains undecided

The government's draft Heat and Energy Saving Strategy, released for consultation (12 February 2009), sets out a framework to bring existing houses to a level 'approaching zero carbon' by 2050.

It admits further financial support may be needed 'to encourage people to act now', but offers a series of suggestions in place of firm commitments. These include changes to the building regulations requiring energy saving measures to be fitted, and loans and grants funded by further levies on energy suppliers...

The strategy proposes fitting cavity wall and loft insulation in all suitable properties by 2015. Solid wall insulation and further energy saving measures will be added to another seven million properties by 2020, cutting household energy emissions by a third.

By 2030, all properties will have received a 'whole house' package including, where possible, the addition of renewable heat and power equipment such as biomass boilers and geothermal heating..."

http://www.architectsjournal.co.uk/news/dailynews/2009/02/energy_saving_refurb_for_all_uk_homes.html

So no new cash then. Oh well.

However, I ponder, how many of these measures will in a wider sense use more energy than they save? Keep it simple and suitable where period buildings are concerned, is my view. Interior cladding may well not allow the building to breathe, and no doubt the uPVC double glazing purveyors (see: http://nemesisrepublic.blogspot.com/2009/02/breathing-deeply-trash-plastic.html) are rubbing hands with yet more glee. I read a comment on a recent national newspaper site by a homeowner crowing how she had replaced a small number of small windows in a Conservation Area with double glazing to 'save the planet', at a cost of around twelve thousand pounds. The cash might have been better spent on some simple secondary glazing, or roller blinds. I wonder how many years it will take to recoup that outlay?

Here's the government blurb and the documentation:

http://www.decc.gov.uk/consultations/hes.html

No doubt those whose gravy train is running dry developing 'iconic' buildings and 'regenerating' historic areas will simply shift focus to 'greening the planet'. After all, as the government states, one of its aims in introducing these measures is:

"to take advantage of the economic opportunities presented by the shift to a low carbon economy in the UK and in the rest of the world, helping us during the current economic downturn and over the long term"


Read this and be afraid:

http://markbrinkley.blogspot.com/2009/02/eco-bollocks-award-heat-and-energy.html

Nem