Week 8: Design and critique – Presenting, promoting and launching

Weekly learning objectives

By the end of this week you should be able to:

1. 1. Analyse and evaluate appropriate production techniques to realise a publishing project to a professional standard.
   2. Analyse and evaluate potential markets and audiences to promote your project.
   3. Define and distil effective promotion methods to advertise a self-generated publishing project.
   4. Deliver your editorial synopsis as a professionally produced outcome.
   5. Manage your study time and personal work plan.

Please note, you will deliver the final draft of your 3,000-word visual culture article.

This week we want you to finalise and design your 3,000-word article, and to propose methods to fund and launch your publication. Please remember your launch proposal is speculative. Be brave and think laterally to propose a launch that is relevant, memorable and innovative. Take a look at previous Kickstarter campaigns and high profile product launches for inspiration.

Week 8: Lecture – Design and Critique

Lecture introduction

Lecture notes, handwritten this week…

Read Only Memory

Damien Conrad

Week 8: Resources

Read | Watch | Listen

Week 8: Workshop Challenge

The Challenge

This week we want you to bring together your writing and design into one holistic form and experiment with innovative ways to launch your project.

Please bear in mind that we are looking for original, innovative, exciting and appropriate design ideas. Be brave and ensure this is the focus and you do not attempt to implement a more pedestrian approach.

We accept the format of your publication may not be in a traditional book form. If using digital, performance or installation platforms, for example, please ensure you communicate this clearly within the final presentation.

1. Design a visual synopsis of your publication, to include the following:
   1. Front cover (with title)
   2. Chapter opener
   3. Two double page spreads
   4. Back cover (using your previously written short synopsis)
2. Your final design should include your full 3,000-word text and original, self generated images.
3. Write a short paragraph about the methods by which you might fund, promote and launch your project, if you were an independent author.

Words to date

Currently ‘The Virus’ is stopping my day-in-the-life experience and therefore a large section of the 3000 words is still to be written, the bulk of the essay and image content was planned to come from there.

100 word synopsis.

I’ve re-written the text from week seven to fit in better with this weeks’ task. Originally it was to describe the idea of the article to the group. This week needs it to describe it to anyone who cares to pick it up.

[Edit]

Over the last few years the Market Hall in Shrewsbury has become ever more popular, there’s a real community inside, it’s now a real ‘place to be’.

Completed in 1965, it is filled with a wide range of lifestyles, from traditional fruit and veg merchants, butchers, florists, many have traded there for over 30 years.

Now new traders have set up alongside; a coffeehouse, traditional barbers, organic wine merchant, even artists studios. This is an example of a day-in-the-life of the market, an observational essay with interviews and insights from the wide variety of tenants, backed up with candid images of their everyday goings on.

The Market Hall Shrewsbury. [Edit]

A large Victorian market hall was in a poor state of repair and was condemned as unhygienic, dingy and “no longer fit for purpose”. It was the 1960s post-war Britain, the country was looking to a new age.

Within the vista of medieval steeples stands a 240ft tall slender red brick clock tower. In the heart of Shrewsbury is the Market Hall, a indoor market and ground-floor shopping centre officially opened on September 16, 1965. It was hailed “the most modern building in Shropshire”, and “a prime example of cutting-edge modern architecture”. In post-war Britain, the country was looking to a new age.

Developed by the Second Covent Garden Property Company and designed by David du Rieu Aberdeen[1], a respected architect of his day having designed the former Swiss Centre in Leicester Square[2], the City offices of the Swiss Bank, the redevelopment of Paddington General Hospital and the City headquarters of the First National City Bank of New York.

(Insert Visual examples)

The new Market Hall cost £1 million to build, equal to £16.5m today[3]. (Really?!)

The Pevsner Architectural Guide pronounced the new Market Hall ‘a good example of modern architecture’. With modern building materials of concrete, glass and metal being used, Pevsner talks of the “clean lines and simple forms. The town’s timber-framed traditions are evoked – the upper storey is jettied out on a reinforced concrete structure and faced with vertical black fins in an echo of close studding.

Despite the credentials of its architect the Market Hall’s design was controversial from the start. Its contemporary critics were opposed to the demolition of the old Victorian market hall and predicted the new building would be a ‘white elephant’. The new market stood for progress and the previous ‘Victorian monstrosity’ stood for 96 years.

The building was officially opened by the Lord Lieutenant of Shropshire Viscount Bridgeman whilst the Mayor of Shrewsbury Henry Rhodes Beckett, R.A.F. (retired), claimed: “We have erected something I think we can all be proud of”.

The inside of the Market Hall is two-tier, with permanent stalls around the perimeter of the market floor and gallery and in the centre, the traditional Victorian method of trading on benches was still found to be the best, and this method continued for well over two decades. But around 25 years ago the current canopied stalls replaced the benches, and more permanent market businesses took their places.

Over the years the fortunes of the market have fluctuated.

(WAITING INFO ON HOW)

(Compare how good things are now with slumps in the past?)

The market was being managed by two sets of agents on behalf of the building’s owner, the Scottish Widows Pension Fund, and both sets seemed to be leaving any duty of management to the other.

In 2006, a vacancy was advertised for a new Facilities Manager. Kate Gittins took over. Kate lived locally and had used and championed the market for more than twenty years so when the job for the manager came up, the stallholders insisted she applied. “When I first started, it was running at about 40% occupancy. There was nothing here [on the gallery], it had the cafe in that corner, the cakes in this, maybe another stall along from there. Nobody knew what was going on, the maintenance men were being given the rents by the stalls, the owners where nowhere to be seen”.

Her vision was to make the Market central to life in the town, to make it so diverse and untraditionally traditional. They now enjoy 100% occupancy, there’s even a waiting list. It’s thanks to some significant turning points over the years, one of them being a champagne bar. That certainly aroused interest. That gave the fishmonger the idea to set up his own seafood bar and so it went on…

Then came the Bird’s Nest Cafe, creating a fabulous seating area out of willow creating a giant nest. Again, this inspired others to follow…

Now more cafés, artisan producers, vintage sellers, quality gift boutiques, artists and craftspeople are all busy alongside the traditional fresh fruit and veg stalls, family butchers, the florist and the baker. People don’t just come to buy goods, it’s a place to meet, a place to hang out. A new Gin bar has added yet another dimension to the place, and given it the confidence to launch a series of regular Late Night openings which have been an overwhelming success, raising the profile and introducing the Market Hall to a whole new audience.

—-

A Day-in-the-life of the Market Hall

(Don’t want to say ‘We or I’, so? Just narrate what happens, not ‘I/We spent a day with…)

(Start as a story: It’s (time) and outside the hall…)

—-

SIGN OFF

—-

The core offering – the butchers, fruit and veg, florist, baker – all the things that say “market”, hasn’t been forgotten, but it’s what else has been woven into this market that gives it its diversity and vitality.

The overwhelming sentiment for the future again is optimism.

---

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Aberdeen

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_Centre,_London

[3] https://www.inflationtool.com/british-pound/1965-to-present-value?amount=1000000

Feedback: Tutorial

Images of the Victorian market

Visual Outcome

Interior

A welcome message would be applied to the main staircase from the Barker St entrance in such as way that it would appear flat-on when at the right viewpoint.

Quotes would be applied to the walls of the stairwells and texts to the floors which would tell stories of the Market.

Along with the outside projections, during the late night openings the projections would be shown inside the hall also. Using our favourite method; algorithms, we would encourage visitors to post using a hashtag so the we can show (vetted) Tweets as projections at random.

A way to represent the popularity of the market would be to use audio levels inside to control illustrated sound waves at one end of the halls exterior, people outside would be able to see how busy the hall is inside to encourage them to enter.

Currently Coronavirus and the lockdown has prevented my day-in-the-life experience and therefore a large section of the intended 3000 words is still to be written, the bulk of the essay and image content was planned to come from there.

To fulfil the brief, I’ve changed the approach to the writing and instead, I’ve written an article which looks into Brutalist architecture, with a focus on the Shrewsbury Market Hall and how it is perceived by Shrewsbury residents.

They have a love/hate relationship

The Rise and Rise of Brutalism.

The style is simple: love it or hate it. Brutalist architecture is recognised by the ideology that the basic building materials should be left on show – the most notable material being concrete. In fact, the term ‘Brutalism’ is comes from the French phrase ‘béton brut’, which means raw concrete. Therefore most Brutalist structures will appear with a solid, and undecorated flat concrete exterior, though some do show a textured finish as can be seen in the work of Denys Lasdun, where the aggregate is bush or pick-hammered, one example showing this finishing is the Barbican Estate in London.

Brutalism is an architectural style that was in vogue between the 1950’s and the 1980’s. A form of modernism, it stressed the exposure of a building’s basic elements and materials, it follows the modernist cry that form should follow function, that architects should pay less attention to decorative façades and let buildings simply show what they are.

Origins of Brutalism

The origins of Brutalism can be traced back to French-Swiss architect Le Corbusier. Corbusier is perhaps the best known modernist architect of the 20th century. He worked extensively in unadorned raw materials, which was praised by many as pure honesty in architecture. His love of concrete translated into a building that many consider the birth of Brutalism; the Unité d’Habitation in Marseilles, France. Completed in 1952 as housing for the working classes. The huge complex, which could house up to 1,600 people, was largely devoid of decorative elements and laid the framework for future Brutalist projects.

The word Brutalism in relation to architecture was first coined by a Swedish architect, Hans Asplund, to describe a square brick Swedish home called the Villa Göth in 1949, and was first used in England by the architectural historian Reyner Banham, in 1954. He referred to the work of Husband-and-wife duo Alison and Peter Smithson’s school at Hunstanton in Norfolk because of its uncompromising approach to the display of structure and services, albeit in a steel building rather than the reinforced concrete structure we would assume today. The Smithson’s are also well known for Robin Hood Gardens, East London’s council housing complex completed in 1972, built around the Smithsons’ “streets in the skies,” idea for ‘ideal living’.

A new era

With the need for construction after World War II, many of the UK’s examples were provided as housing on the basis of public need, a core component of the welfare state established in post-war Britain. Associated with schools, churches, libraries, theatres, and social housing projects, pre-cast buildings were both quick and economic to build, bringing affordable housing that looked toward socialist ideals and seen as the way to a modern utopia by the then Labour government. But unlike these other high-rise estates of the postwar decades, one of the most assumed-to-be developments; the Barbican, was built for well-off residents right from the start and not people on council waiting lists.

The combination of high forty-three storey apartment blocks, the tallest in Europe at the time, and enjoyable, usable open space really seemed to work, the public spaces and linking walkways remained well maintained, likely due to the residents being there because they wanted to be, not because there was nowhere else to put them.

It was an estate, in short, on which the architects and town planners themselves would have been prepared to live.

London’s South Bank was redeveloped in the ‘60s and ‘70s. The first of two projects was the Queen Elizabeth Hall, which opened in 1967, followed by the Hayward Gallery. With its war bunker-like blocks it was voted the ugliest building in Britain by Daily Mail readers of the day.

Though many of these developments were solving problems in the inner cities, some smaller towns saw the style as a pure aesthetic and a way of breaking away from a preconceived lack of progress. History was old-fashioned and Brutalism was a line in the sand.

Indeed, in post-war Britain much of the country was looking to this new age, many cities across the UK followed suit. Redevelopment in many towns a cities throughout Britain used this new style for landmark buildings: Preston, Blackburn, Sheffield, Leeds, York and Birmingham all still show examples of Brutalist public buildings.

In the heart of my now home town of Shrewsbury, Shropshire is the Market Hall, officially opened on September 16, 1965. It was hailed “the most modern building in Shropshire”, and “a prime example of cutting-edge modern architecture”.

Developed by the Second Covent Garden Property Company and designed by David du Rieu Aberdeen, a respected architect of his day having designed the former Swiss Centre in Leicester Square, the City offices of the Swiss Bank, the redevelopment of Paddington General Hospital and the City headquarters of the First National City Bank of New York. The new Market Hall cost £1 million to build, equal to £16.5m today.

The Pevsner Architectural Guide pronounced the new Market Hall ‘a good example of modern architecture’. With modern building materials of concrete, glass and metal being used, Pevsner talks of the “clean lines and simple forms. The town’s timber-framed traditions are evoked – the upper storey is jettied out on a reinforced concrete structure and faced with vertical black fins in an echo of close studding.

Despite the credentials of its architect the Market Hall’s design was controversial from the start. Its contemporary critics were opposed to the demolition of the old Victorian market hall and predicted the new building would be a ‘white elephant’, with many residents still saying the exterior of the building is ugly.

The Fall of Brutalism

From the late 1970s and into the 80s, Brutalism fell out of favour, partly due to the cold, austere nature of the architecture, and it being seen as a monument to totalitarianism and not the socialist ideal they were intended to be. Instead it became to represent urban decay and hardship that were out in the open for world to see. Residents felt disenfranchised and ignored as councils failed in their upkeep through a lack of maintenance and many of the estates fell into disrepair.

Council housing and violence became synonymous with one another, and social prejudices around post-war developments grew. Feelings of anti-establishment strongly resonated with the youth at the time and was evidence of the general population’s sentiment.

Many called the reinforced concrete of Brutalism “monstrous,” pointing out that it “does not age gracefully but instead crumbles, stains, and decays.”

The raw concrete used in construction showed signs of water damage and decay that brought down the once revered aesthetic, and the surface of the concrete made the perfect canvas for graffiti artists and vandalism which contributed more to the decline of these structures.

The Smithson’s afore-mentioned Robin Hood Gardens never quite lived up to its goals. Its eastern block was demolished and housing estates such as this were seen as ‘failed experiments of left-wing social engineering’. Originally intended to promote interaction between the residents, the run-down corridors turned into unattractive areas where people would dump whatever they didn’t want in their own apartment.

Trellick Tower in London, by Ernö Goldfinger: The building’s 217 generously planned flats, once seen as a defiant and distinctive local authority tower block, was sinking into social decline. In the 1970s it had an extremely bad reputation for crime, with tabloids nicknaming it the “Tower of Terror”. All that remains of the Stifford Estate in Stepney is Henry Moore’s sculpture: ‘Draped Seated Woman (1957–58)’, popularly known as ‘Old Flo’.

A key factor in the contemporary slum clearance, perhaps, was outlined by Lord Andrew Adonis’s influential report for the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), where he championed the mass destruction of London’s council estates, revealingly describing them as sitting ‘on some of the most expensive land in the world’, with a list of horrors that culminates in describing these estates as, ‘…raised walkways and deserts of patchy grass [where] nameless but horrible crimes probably took place almost constantly’.

The future was in the ground on which they stood, they were being left to become uninhabitable so the valuable real-estate could be redeveloped sold to the highest bidder.

Visionary, or monstrous architecture?

Brutalist buildings are like Marmite, they’re either loved or hated but (unlike Marmite) can never be ignored. The style reached its peak in the mid-1970s, when considered as eyesores for decades, it came crashing down as a model of bad taste. But that’s all changing again, with a renewed interest and appreciation for this once derided architectural style.

To show how highly regarded Brutalism has become, the Victoria & Albert Museum acquired three stories of Robin Hood Gardens and according to the Royal Academy’s Owen Hopkins, Brutalist builds are “the most visible manifestation and embodiment … of the post war belief in the common good, and progress towards a country that’s more comfortable and affluent for all, irrespective of wealth or class.”

Trellick Tower became fashionable among young architects, designers and writers who saw in it a sublime grandeur rather than concrete horror. In 1998, with Brutalism fashionable again, Trellick Tower was listed.

An observation from the National Trust stated: ‘[Balfron] Tower … stands as testament to a particular historical moment; when a vision of a utopian post-war Britain, coincided with an architectural movement, Brutalism, and a material, concrete.  … Balfron Tower is the welfare state in concrete’. Balfron Tower has been a Grade II listed building since 1996.

The trend has spread beyond London. Sheffield’s Park Hill council estate, was given Grade II listed building status in 1998 and after two unsuccessful attempts, Preston’s bus station by Keith Ingham and Charles Wilson of Building Design Partnership, was granted Grade II listed building status in September 2013.

But the ‘threat’ of becoming a listed building is a concern to Kate Gittins, the facilities manager at the Market Hall in Shrewsbury. Other buildings designed by David du Rieu Aberdeen have been given Grade II listed status (Congress House is one of the earliest post-war buildings to be listed in 1988). Her concern is that if the Market Hall were to receive the same accolade “before it was ready”, bureaucracy would take over, making her work on improving the building “almost impossible”.

The Lloyd’s Bank building on Shrewsbury’s Pride Hill, built in 1967-8 by the Percy Thomas Partnership, although not recommended for listing, has been described as a good example of a Brutalist building which blends into a historic context, and a relative rarity as a bank premises of this date and type. It won the 50 Year New Build award, being what judges called arguably Shrewsbury’s “brutalist masterpiece”.

A New Appreciation for Brutalism

A re-realisation and understanding of the principals of Brutalism has emerged in the last few years. Renewed interest has brought both good and bad results, ranging from academic studies and photography, to coffee table-books and architecture-emblazoned dinner sets. The architectural style closely associated with UK post-war social housing has now been refashioned and ‘class-cleansed’, but I think that’s only in an upwards direction. The class-cleansing hasn’t brought with it the original intended residents, buildings are now seen with a new appreciation as architectural masterpieces, now way beyond the financial reach of most citizens.

Books on Soviet Bus Stops and ‘How to Love Brutalism’, the ‘Brutalist London Map’, all celebrate the artistry of the architectural style, there is a renewed interest in Brutalism on Instagram, and on Facebook the “Brutalism Appreciation Society” has attracted nearly 40,000 members (of which I am one).

These things all champion the style for the good, but some make me think that they’re there to tell people what they should like and why; to try and explain why now it should be liked rather than simply to show it for what it is.

‘Soviet Bus Stops’ published by Fuel, is a collection of images by Christopher Herwig. The remarkable structures, which, because of their extremely remote locations, are seen locally as ‘insignificant functional buildings’. I think the locals’ indifference is likely to be the reason why they are still there.

“Brutalism represents an anti-attitude, an anti-idyll,” says Philip Kurz, of the Wüstenrot Foundation. Perhaps that’s where its new favour comes from? Enough people are seeing these buildings as anti-fashion and therefore rebooting the idea of ‘unfashionable style’, making them fashionable again by default, rather than inspirational by design.

Brad Dunning of GQ magazine theorised: “Brutalism is the techno music of architecture, stark and menacing. Brutalist buildings are expensive to maintain and difficult to destroy. They can’t be easily remodelled or changed, so they tend to stay the way the architect intended. Maybe the movement has come roaring back into style because permanence is particularly attractive in our chaotic and crumbling world.”

Despite this second coming the fight to save these buildings still goes on, there are still many examples which continue to disappear from our towns and cities. Examples get labelled at some time or other as: “The ugliest building in…”, while others are lauded by architects and societies as being landmarks for change and a vision of the (then) future.

But as most buildings were constructed for use in a social capacity; local authority housing and public buildings, they tended to become a burden on local authorities, along with the majority of the occupants, as the economy began to fail in the 1970s. The buildings became expensive to maintain and so if the opportunity to demolish these building came along, council’s were only too happy to allow it.

Tricorn shopping centre, Portsmouth: 1964 – 2004

Another structure voted as one of Britain’s ugliest but described by its creator Owen Luder as: a “gee whiz” building, not a “so what” building’, whilst Prince Charles famously condemned it as a ‘mildewed lump of elephant droppings’.

The government refused requests to list the Tricorn centre, and it was demolished in 2004.

Birmingham Central Library: 1974 – 2016

The library was specifically designed to be a sustainable building and to stand hard wear whilst producing low maintenance costs.

Designed by architect John Madin, it was part of an ambitious development project creating a civic centre on Birmingham’s new Inner Ring Road system, but to save costs, significant parts of the plan were not implemented, and the quality in materials was reduced. However, the library still gained architectural praise and its style was a symbol of social progress.

Based on this, English Heritage applied twice for the building to be listed status but failed because of strong opposition from Birmingham City Council which meant the building had gained immunity from listing .

Dunelm House, Durham University: 1966 – hanging by its fingertips

Designed by Architects Co-Partnership, this a concrete building was completed in 1966 under the supervision of architect Sir Ove Arup. The building is noted for its main staircase linking all five floors in an entirely straight line, intended to create the feeling of an ‘interior street’. Described by students as “The ugliest building in Durham” it won a civic trust award in 1968 and was considered by Sir Nikolaus Pevsner to be, “Brutalist by tradition but not brutal to the landscape … the elements, though bold, [are] sensitively composed.”

I had intended only to detail and Brutalist buildings in the UK, but during my research I came across this example in Norway which is facing demolition. It stands out above the others because of the added threat in losing to two murals which are part of its structure.

After several years of delay, the 51-year-old governmental office block in Norway faces demolition, but this building is an especially significant one. Labelled as a “monument of European importance,” by British preservation group Twentieth Century Society (C20), the structure, designed in 1969 by modernist architect Erling Viksjø, features two murals by Pablo Picasso, one sandblasted onto an exterior concrete wall facing a bustling street, the second, a smaller work, located in the lobby.

A demolition-ready government has vowed to save and relocate the murals, but preservationists from around the globe believe that the building itself should also be saved and not just the artwork.

“The whole idea of the area is precisely that the art is incorporated into the body of the building,” Mari Hvattum, a professor of architectural history and theory at the Oslo School of Architecture and Design, told the New York Times in 2017.

Calling it: “an architecture with just astonishing qualities,” saying that separating the murals from the building would be like removing a painting displayed in a museum from its frame. “A completely atrocious idea”.

C20 believes that removing the murals would be “detrimental to the artistic integrity of the work’.

In conclusion, it seems that the reasons for both the success and failure of Brutalism are the same. Quick and cheap to build, with modern materials and a need for social housing after WWII. Those modern materials stopped being modern materials, taking more effort in their maintenance than originally suggested, and the sheer volume in numbers of dwellings left buildings impossible to mange in the downward economy which sat between then and now.

The social aspect failed as the inhabitants became antisocial because of the state their environment, they saw it as someone else’s problem to look after their homes. Any sense of pride in the buildings by owners and residents disappeared, and so it went on.

As city-living became undesirable and more people moved to the ever-emerging suburbs in the 1980s, the underclasses were left behind to fend for themselves. Nobody went to those estates unless they lived there and anyone who lived there wanted to leave.

Perhaps if these buildings had been finished with a white painted exterior, as a Corbusier, that may have made them more aesthetically pleasing and therefore consistently more acceptable and desirable.

———————————————

References:

https://www.huckmag.com/art-and-culture/brutalist-architecture/

https://www.shropshirestar.com/news/local-hubs/shrewsbury/2018/10/22/better-by-design-shrewsbury-civic-society-hails-towns-buildings-at-awards/

http://www.owenhopkins.co.uk/blog

Advisory designation documentation: Historic England (Designation). 2018-Feb-10. Case Number – 1452787: Lloyds Bank, 1 Pride Hill, Shrewsbury, Shropshire.

Roy Porter, ‘A History of London’

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Aberdeen

The Architect’s Newspaper: Norway will demolish Picasso-clad Oslo office building By MATT HICKMAN • March 2, 2020

http://www.sosbrutalism.org/

The Guardian. Brutalist buildings under threat. Nick Van Mead Wed 27 Feb 2019

Architects grieve as demolition starts on “design icon” Welbeck Street car park

Or, download a PDF from:

http://falmouth.severn.agency/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Visual-Culture-Article_Tony-Clarkson.pdf