With the release of a new film starring Adrian Bodhis (appropriately called Brutalist), London's concrete landmark slab (South Bank Centre) has been revived as it is listed to prevent future changes and even demolition. Elsewhere around the world, Chicago's edgy city hall of the 1960s is equivalent to a listing in the US and offers similar protection.
With this explosion of publicity on such a divisive design, people are once again talking about the merits of brutalism. This is a more timely subject than ever for the fast-changing Bradford streetscape.
At Bradford, High Point now wins over the city centre. Its future fate was secured following delicate interior renovations to incorporate spacious apartments and rooftop terraces. There are also some tips on interesting new uses of the first floor unit. This will ultimately be in the heart of the new residential area.
It wasn't always that easy for High Point. Just a few decades later, residents of the original Building Association raised their sticks and moved to suburban “campus-style” headquarters, similar to the trends of the 1990s. What the new site lacked in character and architectural merits was parking spaces that made up for people to be as far away as possible from the city centre.
At one stage, High Point was to suffer from the insults of cladding, but pre-recession links with the Hilton Hotel chain may have given such a treatment a little more taste.
In 2019, the Bradford Civic Association advocated for an open debate on the role of High Point, an ostensibly Victorian city, and other brutal-type buildings. Such an acceptance of architecture is clearly heavily associated with the broader economic property. When such brutal structures are empty, they appear oppressive and unloved.
But when they're full of small waitrose and trendy cafes, like the Barbicans and Southbanks in London, they look charming, interesting and generally very cool. If you had a M&S, boutique cinema and high quality apartment at the head office of Bingley's former Bradford and Bingley, would it be so quick to give a good kick? That's apart from the fact that its end miise accelerated removal of hundreds of well-paid jobs from the town centre.
When such a building was designed, they clearly did it on the top of optimism, as demonstrated by a glance at the original architect's plans.
Many lament the loss of the (probably correct) urban swan arcade, but the sketch of that change (now known as Arundale House) makes Bradford want to be a mini-Manhattan It shows that. Clean skyscrapers, excellent office work, gorgeous materials inside and outside.
Optimism and ambition coincided with nearby rural homes, the gorgeous former central library and the “state-of-the-art” Kirkgate Center. The latter certainly proves to be Bradford's biggest building accident.
One thing that links many of these buildings is the element that is markedly lacking in almost all modern developments today: the presence of art, craft and civic pride. The building was designed to tell stories, promote cutting-edge creative techniques, and radiate local characters based on Bradford's unique heritage and growth.
Mercifully, many of the freezes and sculptures from various sites will be saved from scrap and hope that the Bradfordians will enjoy themselves again in the not too distant future. You can already see what is carefully restored and displayed with affection in the salt mill – the beautiful marriage of the old Bradford and the new Bradford.
Many people reading this know that they dislike “brutal” architecture, or at least their rise in popularity will be bewildered about what happened to Bradford in the old days. Honestly, I don't bother myself. I always do wool replacements on the West Riding House, and the flattening of the Kirkgate cannot come quickly enough for my preference. But at least such a building was not afraid to support anything. They were attracting attention and told the story. People actually put their thoughts on how they were designed and why. Interestingly, the Earndale House is the only British building designed by the same people as Seattle's world-famous space needles. They weren't thinking about the future of Bradford after the Industrial Revolution… they were aiming for the moon.
“We hope that the current public discourse of the brutality of the times and architectural style will help the way our cities are planned for decades to come. We now have a Victorian mind. It is very focused on renovations and recovery, but soon new buildings will be needed – especially in City Village, Jacob Swell, the so-called Southern Gateway. They should not repeat the mistakes of the past 1970s But I certainly could give some of that ambition and confidence a try.
As one of the slogans of the Cultural City go, “Be bold, be Bradford.”
* Si Cunningham is the chairman of the Bradford Civic Association.
