Beauty on the South Bank
Make Architects’ design for the former London Television Centre site in Lambeth.
It is a truth universally acknowledged that if the Guardian’s Simon Jenkins comes out violently against something, the thing can’t be all bad.
So what, pray tell, is Simon violently against this week? Ah yes - praise be - he has turned his award-winning wit back to our planning system: here. And, I am sorry to inform you reader, Simon’s cross.
Simon really, really, really doesn’t like Michael Gove’s decision this week to grant planning permission on the site of the former ITV studios on the River Thames in London for a new office-led development. He hates it so much he’s calling the new scheme the “Slab”. I mean. Ouch.
But hang on - you might be thinking - a Govian approval? After the M&S debacle on Oxford Street (a challenge to which is soon to be heard in the High Court) and the recently dismissed New City Court scheme next to the Shard, is Michael Gove really still in the business of granting planning permission for any major development in central London? Oh ye of little faith.
The ITV studios decision is interesting for lots of reasons (where oh where is that “strong presumption in favour of repurposing and reusing buildings” which was the downfall of the M&S scheme - which I mentioned here; is this permission “severable” - on which see Nicola Gooch here; and how on earth is anyone supposed to be able to anticipate the outcome of these public benefits vs. heritage harm exercises).
But I want to talk about one thing. And one thing only. It’s a perennial favourite. Your friend and mine:
B-E-A-U-T-Y.
To start at the very beginning:
This is why I thought that crow-barring concepts of beauty into planning decision-making wouldn’t work: here.
In a nutshell, it’s all very well “asking for beauty”. But if you ask for something as complicated as that without defining it - or even setting out the beginnings of a definition - and then you enshrine it at the heart of your national planning policy, that’s a recipe for two things: confusion and perpetuating subconscious prejudice. Focus on high quality design. Define design expectations. Reward high quality architecture. But, for what it’s worth, I’d leave beauty to the poets, the artists and the philosophers. Planners already have enough on our plates.
This is why I thought that our policies on beauty are making absolutely no difference in practice - with reference to two decisions for tall buildings in London: here.
This is why all of the national headlines to the effect that Michael Gove refused a residential scheme in Kent for not being beautiful enough were wrong: here. The same error, surprise surprise, that Simon Jenkins makes in the piece I link to above.
Why, then, is the ITV studios case such an interesting step in the debate on planning policies relating to beauty?
Well, most of all because… in the red corner, objecting to the scheme on behalf of a local action group, was none other than Mr Beautiful himself: Nicholas Boys Smith. NBS has been the preeminent advocate for a planning system that “asks for beauty” and “refuses ugliness” for many years now. He was co-chair of the Building Better Building Beautiful Commission. He founded Create Streets. He’s written books about beauty in place-making. He chairs the Government’s Office of Place. Which is - literally - the arm of DHLUC tasked with creating “beautiful” places. He’s top of the tree. NBS is our national beautician-in-chief. And here he is. Out in the wild. Objecting to a high-profile scheme on the grounds that it is not “beautiful” enough.
Come on. You’ve got to be at least a little interested in how all of this plays out, right? Right?
Let’s take a step back…
In the 2nd World War, the south bank of the River Thames in central London sustained heavy bombing damage, and after the war was partly cleared for redevelopment. In 1951, as part of a post-war “Festival of Britain”, a number of bold modern buildings designed by Sir Hugh Casson were unleased onto the south bank including the Royal Festival Hall, which of course still stands proud next to Waterloo Bridge. In 1963, Sir Denys Lasdun was appointed to design a Royal National Theatre which was completed on the other side of Waterloo Bridge in the early 1970s - a now-inconic piece of modernist architecture. Of course, then-Prince Charles didn’t like it - he thought it was a “clever way of building a nuclear power station in the middle of London without anyone objecting”. But what does he know. The National Theatre has been Grade II* listed since the early 1990s for the quality and importance of its design.
Later in the 1970s, Sir Denys designed a companion peice to the east of the National Theatre for IBM which was completed in the mid-1980s. That building too has become listed and recognised for its architectural importance. Notwithstanding that it was criticised in its early days as… and remember this bit… nothing more than a series of “slabs”. Ouch.
To the east of the IBM building, since the early 1970s, we’ve had the London Studios aka the 25-storey ITV Tower building which closed in 2018. Before which it had been ITV’s global HQ. A nifty website which gives you before and after 360 views of the existing situation, and the proposed scheme - is here.
So what was on offer to replace the defunct ITV Tower? An office-led development designed by a team led by Frank Filskow of Make Architects promoted by Mitsubishi, along with a range of bells and whistles (including riverfront/rooftop restaurants and cafes, a culture and innovation hub, some retail and two new public squares).
What did it look like? Again, check this website: here. More images are here. For the truly committed, you can read the architect’s justification of the design here, and an appraisal of its impacts of the local townscape from the developer’s consultant Robert Tavernor is here. Mr Tavernor thought the scheme would “successfully develop the architectural tradition of the South Bank by providing a new urban landscape of great distinction, and which provides architectural continuity with the South Bank as ‘an architectural showcase for the post-war period, promoting the public over the private; progressive, modern and innovative.”
What did Lambeth think as Local Planning Authority? They thought the scheme is “beautiful” and “grounded in a thorough understanding of context”.
NBS didn’t agree. You can see why here. In short, he said that good design is not subjective. It’s objective. And this was bad design.
How can we tell if we are in the presence of beauty [present company excepted, Ed.]? Well, said NBS to the Inspector, “it makes you feel a certain way”. We’re looking for, apparently, “coherence, complexity, identifiability and mystery”. Sounds easy enough?
The problem with suggesting vague criteria like that is that other people might actually apply them. And when they do, they might not end up agreeing with you.
The planning inspector - Christa Masters - set out her conclusions in section 14 of her report to the Secretary of State: here. And what did she think of the beauty debate?
The Inspector used NBS’s criteria, but decided that the criteria were met in the building’s favour. And, here’s the rub, she knocked out the relevance of the concept of beauty in a single sentence. In similar terms to the other inspectors I mentioned here. It remains the case that out there in the real world of development management, persistent references to “beauty” are - let’s call a spade a spade - a total waste of time.
And here’s where it gets even more juicy. The Secretary of State agreed with the Inspector’s recommendation overall, and so planning permission was granted. But he did not agree with all of her findings. Most of all, he disagreed with the Inspector on design:
But, having decided that the scheme would not be “attractive” - so siding with NBS - he goes onto grant permission anyway.
Yet another example - do we need any more? - of the beauty agenda taking us nowhere, doing nothing, and having no impact on the overall result.
Is there a lesson from all of this? When it comes to design, don’t be ruled by your gut. Architecture - particularly the kind of modernist archictecture on display here - isn’t always about reflecting back to us things we already love. It is - at least in part - a statement about our future.
Which takes us back to Simon Jenkins, and his slagging off the scheme’s design as a “Slab”. As Inspector Masters noted, exactly the same criticisms were made of the now-listed IBM Building and even the National Theatre in their day. And this is the great risk with the “beauty” debate - the level of subjectivity around the language leaves us floundering in a world of misguided, unexamined and often subconscious prejudice.
Let’s check back in with Simon J in 30 years when the buildings he’s railing against today are all listed by Historic England.
The one thing beyond any debate - as Christina Aguilera told us - you are beautiful, #planoraks. Thank you for pressing on with reading these meandering blog posts. I hope you’re all well #planoraks. And I leave you with a cheap - but, can we be honest - I thought pretty funny, tweet of the week:
