Improvisation at the Bus Station
August 3rd, 2009
Preston Bus Station is one of those modernist structures that condemned the pedestrian to the bridge or subway giving the surrounding ground plane or ‘apron’ to vehicles i.e. buses. The people of Preston are characterised by their disdain for motorised traffic and inevitably a number of people have been killed in the past forty years crossing the apron as buses reversed out of one of the eighty (yes eighty!) bus stands. The building has been neglected and unsecured throughout it’s existence and the bus drivers have resorted to improvisation in dealing with various antisocial problems. It is a routine procedure to position a double-decker bus to break the fall of a determined jumper (or attention seeker, see picture below).
Suddenly a revolution. For some unknown reason (perhaps prompted by threats under safety or DDA legislation?) the council have installed substantial, simple and useful temporary crossing points allowing pedestrians an easy route from the bus to the markets. Buses stop at zebra crossings, families amble across in the summer sunshine.
The alterations bode well for the continued survival of the building, due for demolition to make way for the always delayed Tithebarn town centre redevelopment (our Liverpool One). Listing has been refused once by EH but I believe the C20 Society are trying again. The temporary interventions, introducing discipline and civility to the environs of the building provide a simple vision of the ground plane reclaimed and the possibility of a rethinking of the building based on it’s relationship to public space.
Preston Bus Station under construction
Drinking in architecture
March 23rd, 2009
It is St Walburge’s Beer Festival time again. This is your opportunity to sample the ales of Britain alongside one of the country’s great buildings: Joseph Hansom’s St Walburge’s RC Church, Preston. We’ll be there Thursday night, Friday night and Saturday afternoon.
Beer Festival: 26-27-28 March 2009. Details/Location
Eamonn Canniffe of Manchester School of Architecture and Neil Stevenson of Sheffield Hallam School of Architecture, drinking under hammerbeams…
Bankers?
February 10th, 2009
The Crowd
November 9th, 2008
Preston, England 1926. The dedication of the Cenotaph funded by public subscription and designed by Giles Gilbert Scott. Scott, who was architect of the classic British red telephone box, Liverpool Anglican Cathedral and Tate Modern (Bankside power station), described his design as conforming to the ‘Greek feeling’ of the square, dominated by the Harris Museum. Note the orderly arrangement of military, civic leaders and churchmen around the monument and the crowd funnelled and shaped by the medieval road beyond. The sailors on the right are quite variable in stature compared to the soldiers on the left.
Ungraspable statistics dominate descriptions of the Great War. John Ptak has a number of excellent posts about crowds, and, through old photographs, is attempting to put a “fleshy face on an otherwise forensic statistic”. See 20,000 Soldiers & 1 Mule, 1918 and 100,000 People at the Dempsey-Carpentier Fight, 1921: a Remarkable Photograph.
The great gates of Preston
October 18th, 2008
Original detailed drawing of the gates to the Harris Museum, Preston 1882-1893. “The architect was the widely unknown James Hibbert”*. Compare the repeated star/sun motif with this house.
More pictures of the building…
* N. Pevsner in “The Buildings of England: North Lancashire”.
Unpopular Culture
July 28th, 2008
CIA recommends the strangely subdued exhibition at the Harris Museum in Preston. The Turner Prize winning artist Grayson Perry has selected pieces from the Arts Council Collection. This very restrained and slightly dark collection is predominantly modern and many of the pieces appear to have a curiously ominous quality. Definitely worth the trip.
On the one hand…
July 18th, 2008
Preston Modern
June 26th, 2008
Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.
No. 1, The Triangle, Fulwood, Preston. Finished: 1968. Architect: Francis Roberts
The house was constructed between 1962 and 1968 for a structural engineer at Building Design Partnership in Preston.
Council Works Dept.
June 6th, 2008
Always a delightful scene
April 26th, 2008
Architecture as uplifting spectacle: Moor Lane flats, Preston, November 2001.
Museum for hoarding
February 14th, 2008
Elegant temporary wrapping at the Harris Museum, Preston.
1968
February 5th, 2008
Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.
Something for transport/concrete enthusiasts: a set of discarded slides of Preston Bus Station during construction and soon after. The building is of course “about to be demolished” - perhaps the architects (BDP Preston) expected a forty year lifespan? What an extraordinary building though, photographed with extras borrowed from Get Carter. Thanks to Richard Brook for the tip-off.
See also: Love it or hate it… and Analogue & Digital
