I've used Owen Hatherley's awesome Guide To The New Ruins of Great Britain as a sort-of tour guide for unfamiliar places like Sheffield (which led me to get lost in a distant suburban nowhere of identical 30s semis). He's a lefty Modernist (I shall leave it to you, sweet reader, to determine for yourself whether or not that's a good thing) architecture writer. As a not-deliberate tribute to the imminent publication of his new book A New Kind of Bleak, I travelled down to Southampton, Hatherley's hometown, to look at the port from which the Titanic, and plausibly other ships, sailed.
With curious honesty, the history-facts-are-fun! plaque mounted by the original city walls noted that Southampton was once more than a collection of shops, a pair of Universities, and somewhere for Portsmouth to hate.
Once upon a time.
The massive late-90s West Quay shopping centre takes up much of the centre of town nowadays. Replete with fashionable PoMo ideas like context / reference / sympathy, it looks like a Cubist portrait of a steamliner, all bits of bows and prows and fragments of things that look like sails and rigging. And, because Southampton had a defensive wall, bits of rubble infill are packed into neat tidy panels at the bottom. Inside, it's white and bright (and hot, on a mild June day - apparently, geothermally-heated), anchored at either end by the Mummy-friendly twin bastions of Marks and Sparks and John Lewis.
For some reason, this looks a bit like the front of a big boat...
As might be expected, this sort of regeneration - a large new shopping centre - modestly expands, and yet also displaces the sustainable number of stores and jobs in the city. It take them away from the established precincts, rather than generating a boundless largess of new riches. And this, dear reader, is the site of seduction for this handsome author.
Just across from Above Bar (no one can tell me for sure whether its 'Above Bar Street' or just 'Above Bar') is the Bar Gate, a late Eighties covered shopping arcade. Bored-looking security guards patrol the inside, keenly protecting the four or five shops that haven't closed, and stopping Southampton's whole clan of Goths from loitering outside the (presumably only) alternative clothing store. I'm used to seeing disused Victorian high streets and 50s shopping precincts, but to see this failure, which in most other places would be the regeneration, is most odd.
On Above Bar Street is another white-and-escalators shopping centre, the Marlands (the website for which spouts the sort of irritating estate agent twaddle that makes me want to bite my own face off - 'enjoying direct access onto the main shopping street...'). Inside, a charmingly daft feature pretends to a Georgian terrace, presumably providing context / reference / sympathy for the Georgian streets flattened by the Luftwaffe in 1940. This precinct has got the T K Maxx, so it clearly a poor relative to West Quay.
But the most fun comes just past the colossal 50s department store (currently a Debenhams, after Allders went bust) to the east of the main drag. If approached from a wilfully perverse angle, the East Gate (natch) shopping centre begins as a large, brutal car park, and an office block plonked on top (with a stylish spine / DNA helix / fire escape).
Tripping gingerly down the (mmm) staircase, the broad-shouldered adventurer is treated to an amazing combination of depressingly-bright colours (cf Elephant and Castle / the balcony panels in cheap estates that copy the Golden Lane development).
As not a single shop remains occupied, it looks like this small enclosed precinct will soon be reduced to rubble / ’luxury’ apartments in render. It seems currently to be used as a cut-through from some unseen car park to the West Quay shops.
Elsewhere in the town, I caught a few other quality sights (/sites) during my swift extra-London sojourn. Next to the half-geniune Deco train station lurks the unloved hulk of Wyndham Court. To my eyes, the ooh-look-it’s-a-bit-like-a-boat is just as cheesey as the West Quay’s aping, but Hatherley seems to like it, so that's okay then. It's a pretty hardcore piece of Brutalism.
These holes provide lighting to the car park underneath, and much-needed gaiety and delight to the residents. Cough.
The estate is set in a sloping concrete-slab wonderland, enlivened by a single tree (but notably devoid of people, on a Saturday lunchtime). There is however an on-site curry house.
Another bit of PoMo (gosh, Southampton really does like the stuff) is the De Vere Grand Harbour hotel. The lump is described here, sublimely, as a 'shit-brown postmodern Brunswick Centre with a big glass pyramid fucked into it'.
I’m sad to report that I didn't get chance to see the what-Southampton-looked-like-before-the-Luftwaffe-and-concrete-ruined-it Oxford Street, or the interesting mash of University buildings. On the plus side, the Bar Gate is just 1 hr 15 from London on the fast trains.
Lovely PoMo detailing on the columns.
Someone's given the whole thing the same dirty-sky-blue paint job that concrete housing blocks are now often daubed when someone seeks to soften their appearance and demonstrate a bit of effort in maintenance / the existence of emulsion. The flooring is from Brown Tron.
Is 'The Cunard Queens' a transexual strip club or a maritime museum?
At the very bottom of the complex is a perfectly-nice-looking Philippine eatery with no-one in it, which in London one would call it a pop-up diner, if one were preposterously-inclined. Next to it, like a sulky 90s teenager locked in stasis, sits a magnificently-preserved and deserted Gamesmaster / Stargate-era gaming cafe, with fibreglass statues in the Egyptian Space Deco style. One can, a hoarding announces, play such recent games as CounterStrike: Source (2004). On the Bargate website, the What's On page is strangely blank.
He's holding teh internets in his hands!! Shame they're 14.4k hands.
On Above Bar Street is another white-and-escalators shopping centre, the Marlands (the website for which spouts the sort of irritating estate agent twaddle that makes me want to bite my own face off - 'enjoying direct access onto the main shopping street...'). Inside, a charmingly daft feature pretends to a Georgian terrace, presumably providing context / reference / sympathy for the Georgian streets flattened by the Luftwaffe in 1940. This precinct has got the T K Maxx, so it clearly a poor relative to West Quay.
Yes, this sits delicately on top of the car park and shops.
Tripping gingerly down the (mmm) staircase, the broad-shouldered adventurer is treated to an amazing combination of depressingly-bright colours (cf Elephant and Castle / the balcony panels in cheap estates that copy the Golden Lane development).
Welcoming.
As not a single shop remains occupied, it looks like this small enclosed precinct will soon be reduced to rubble / ’luxury’ apartments in render. It seems currently to be used as a cut-through from some unseen car park to the West Quay shops.
My eyes!
Elsewhere in the town, I caught a few other quality sights (/sites) during my swift extra-London sojourn. Next to the half-geniune Deco train station lurks the unloved hulk of Wyndham Court. To my eyes, the ooh-look-it’s-a-bit-like-a-boat is just as cheesey as the West Quay’s aping, but Hatherley seems to like it, so that's okay then. It's a pretty hardcore piece of Brutalism.
Can I steer the housing block please, Captain?
These holes provide lighting to the car park underneath, and much-needed gaiety and delight to the residents. Cough.
The estate is set in a sloping concrete-slab wonderland, enlivened by a single tree (but notably devoid of people, on a Saturday lunchtime). There is however an on-site curry house.
Cheap drinks. One also wonders whether that’s the entire menu.
Another bit of PoMo (gosh, Southampton really does like the stuff) is the De Vere Grand Harbour hotel. The lump is described here, sublimely, as a 'shit-brown postmodern Brunswick Centre with a big glass pyramid fucked into it'.
According to this review, this is just as lovely on the inside as it is out. Mmm.
I’m sad to report that I didn't get chance to see the what-Southampton-looked-like-before-the-Luftwaffe-and-concrete-ruined-it Oxford Street, or the interesting mash of University buildings. On the plus side, the Bar Gate is just 1 hr 15 from London on the fast trains.
