Sex, Sheffield and the politics of Brutalism

I've been reading Owen Hatherley's 'Militant Modernism' (from the excellent zero books), described on the back cover by Simon Reynolds - one of the music journalists I admired in my teenage years - as 'slim and shapely, ideas-packed and intensely-felt'. There are indeed lots of fascinating (and very political) ideas, including about post-war Brutalist architecture and social housing.

A key idea is that social democracy after 1945 found expression in new programmes of house building; particular styles of architecture - versions of continental interwar Modernism - came to be associated with these developments.

The 'cities in the skies' are one of the very few legacies of the 'municipal socialism' of the 1950s and 1960s. Styles like Brutalism were distinctively British mutations of the often radical and politically conscious European modernism of an earlier era.

The author seeks to reclaim and resuscitate much of this creative work - which has often been patronised, spurned or neglected - and also the impulses and aspirations behind it. As the blurb on the back aptly puts it, the book 'attempts to reclaim a revolutionary modernism against its absorption into the heritage industry and the aesthetics of the luxury flat'.

Here's a short section from the chapter titled 'The Brutishness of British Modernism':

'Brutalism was still in some definable relation to pop and the sexual revolution, or the 'permissive society' as it was more coyly described. One of the most admired early brutalist buildings was the Owen Luder Partnership's Eros House, a mixed-use concrete and glass arrangement of geometric conflicts, its name a reminder of the strangely lubricious tone that occasionally creeps into this aesthetic.     

The most remarkable testament to the sexuality of the Streets in the Sky is on Pulp's 1993 singles collection Intro. Therein a 10-minute fantasia called 'Sheffield: Sex City', in which every contour and line of the industrial city is filled with eroticism.

It begins with a deadpan Yorkshire voice (keyboardist Candida Doyle), reading out a Nancy Friday tale about an adolescent girl living in a block of flats, who would 'lie there mesmerised' as the entire tower seemed to come on heat.




Then, to a metronomic disco pulse, Jarvis Cocker recites a list of Sheffield suburbs with luridly sensual relish, then finds himself searching Sheffield for his love, driven to 'making love to every crack in the pavement'.

The whole ludicrous, astonishing construction eventually comes to a climax of utopian urbanist carnality, as 'everyone on Park Hill came in unison at 4.13am, and the whole block fell down'.

Also see Owen Hatherley's recent photo-essay on Sheffield architecture.



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D-Day for the 'Get Carter' multi-storey

I see the iconic 'Get Carter' car park whenever I look out of my bedroom window. I live in a riverside flat, but there's no view of the Tyne or its seven much-photographed bridges. I'm on the side of the block with Britain's most famous multi-storey car park looming over it (which helps keep the rent down, of course).

I can't complain, really - the modern architectural gems that are the Sage, Baltic and Millennium Bridge are all in easy walking distance. Newcastle city centre is only slightly further away.

I mention this because they started knocking the car park down yesterday. The 8-week demolition job is big news on local TV and radio: the brutalist landmark is one of those defining images for Gateshead and, to a lesser extent, Tyneside.

It's odd to think it won't be there any more, but this has been in the pipeline for a a very long time - and, for all the understandable sentiment, it is admittedly rather ugly. It's Michael Caine and the 1970s Brit gangster flick which gave the car park its fame, rather than any aesthetic gifts.

I pass it most days on the way to the Metro station, I see it close up whenever I go to the Tesco store next door. It's therefore poignant to witness it being dismantled, though seemingly few people around here consider its demolition a controversial decision.

My local landscape is an appealing mix of the historic - a lot of it industrial heritage - and modern developments. The High Level Bridge (pictured), which gives magnificent views of the other bridges and of the Quayside, captures the juxtaposition itself: Owen Hatherley once described the bridge, built in the mid-1800s, as 'proto-Constructivist', evoking sturdy tradition and (to our eyes) post-1917 modernism at one and the same time.

The street in which I live is encircled by railway tracks, a constant reminder of industrial legacy, but a decidely upmarket new kitchen showroom has just opened at the end of the street. The old railway social club is still fairly busy, but there are swish apartment blocks springing up next door to it; the nearby Baltic gallery is a home of contemporary art yet retains the old 'flour mill' exterior; the ultra-modern Sage and the 12th-century Castle Keep are equal distances away.

Newcastle central station (pictured) is an outstanding achievement from an earlier era, but marred slightly by the very commercial 21st century installing of ticket barriers (meaning only passengers can access large parts of one of our best 'public' spaces). This is quite jarring, as one of Newcastle city centre's great attractions is that the best built spaces are generally visible (and often accessible), from the Georgian-era golden sandstone buildings on Grey Street, or the Lit and Phil, to recent additions like the popular new City Library.

I expect the era of austerity we're entering - if the government gets its way - will squeeze out anything considered non-essential in new public building developments, bringing a utilitarian mindset which frowns at such fripperies as aesthetic pleasure or spaces to relish and enjoy. Michael Gove's dismal cancellation of Building Schools for the Future projects, devastating for both architects and schools, is perhaps an indicator of what is to come. Of course the private, upmarket developments will continue, as long as a layer of society can afford them, while for many there is a housing crisis, here as everywhere.

The struggle for good and affordable social housing, the protection of public space, the creative flourishing of our built environment, the defence of jobs in architecture and construction - all these, it seems to me, are both necessary and interlinked.


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