A Personal View of Winchester - TrustNews February 1990
"It would be a good thing if cities could develop an artistic pride leading them to mutual rivalry". Although Bertrand Russell seems so unfashionable today, this aspiration of his would be so apposite now. I remember reading this quote in the mid-1960's and I thought he had in mind cities like Winchester, Salisbury and Chichester. The statement had little relevance to the North of England where I was reading it. Many towns and cities there seem to have been absorbed into one vast monolithic conurbation. It was not only difficult to distinguish the boundaries of a town, but many were already losing an identifiable centre. As for having a pride, most of them seemed intent on tearing out the richest part of their heritage, because to them the 19th century was anathema standing for the worst institutional or exploitive associations. Concurrent with all this, that wonderful humanist, Lewis Mumford, in his City in History was forecasting the all consuming spread of what he called megalopolis, of which the conurbations either side of the Pennines were a prime example.
Winchester is Part of an International Heritage
None of this seems desperately relevant to a city like Winchester. This city remained sacrosanct, immune from the threat of the goings-on of the late 20th century; so rich is it in historic heritage, it is bound to remain a single entity, to retain its integrity and individuality surrounded by downland and green belt. Surely Winchester is not just a part of a national heritage but could with assurance claim an international status?
It came as a shock to me, therefore, when Martin Pawley, that well respected journalist (until recently architectural critic of The Guardian) and modernist, argued that Winchester was merely part of the South Hampshire conurbation. This seemed to turn the clock back to the 1960's when planners, architects and engineers were obsessed with the overriding importance of strategic infrastructure and nothing, not even Winchester, could avoid its simplications.
Functionalism; the Main Criteria for Design in the 1950's & 1960's
In the 1950's and 1960's the traditional values of city life, its hierarchy of spaces and buildings, its scale and texture, the distinction and subtlety between the private and public realms were either ignored or seen as secondary to the problems of making a city's infrastructure work. Functionalism was all, and there was a belief in absolute functional solutions. Objective assessments of traffic or of the factors affecting a city's accessibility were based on measured criteria and no one doubted the 'modernist' conviction that science and technology would solve all.
That was all very convincing at the time but because of the complexity of the problems, there was not one single professional who had a sufficiently large enough overview to encompass all the issues. Engineers had one perception, architects another, and planners another. Design method fragmented the constituent parts of a problem for separate analysis and this generated the growth of specialist advisers. Each part of the analysis assumed an importance in accordance with the success of the advocacy behind it. Distortions were inevitable. There was a genuine search for integrated, well balanced solutions that would respect traditional values and historical continuity, but so frequently the answers provided were weighted in favour of the most recent fashionable cause, of which Colin Buchanan's was much the most overwhelming, as expressed in his book, Traffic in Towns, published in 1963.
His use of cost benefit analysis, a technique for finding the preferred option amongst several, was discredited because of its dependence on questionable value judgements. The lay politician was quite right to distrust the blinkered perception of professionals and specialists who seemed incapable of seeing the wider qualitative environmental subtleties. To him, it was a technique daft enough to find a route for the M3 through the Cathedral Close.
During all these attempts to reconcile the competing and conflicting issues of city life, there has been the continuing assumption that the basic values and attractions of city and urban life would remain permanent and unimpaired. So, 30 years on, it is just dawning on the collective consciousness that this might not be the case.
Exceptional Quality of Life can be found in Winchester ...
Winchester is one of the few cities in this country that has almost continuously retained all the traditional values of city living. Of course, one can ask which community in Winchester has been most favoured - the residential community, the Chamber of Commerce, the County, the City, the Army, the Cathedral, the College, or the more transient - the commuter or the tourist. Each has been served. The good fortune of Winchester has to be appreciated in the late 1980's by an occasional visit to London, or a flight from Heathrow at rush hour via the M25. The trench warfare analogy of Martin Pawley, in his recent article in Blueprint, about the deterioration of urban life in London seems all too accurate. So those of us who live and work in Winchester have a very special gratitude and a vested interest in an exceptional quality of life.
... but Environmental Quality is at Risk
Winchester itself would be complacent if it did not recognise that its environmental quality is also in the balance. Having protected itself from the worst iniquities of the 1950's and 1960's, and after years of fending off the infidel, there must be some trepidation for Winchester citizens as they enter the 1990's with more building activity going on in the city in strategic places than has happened in the last three decades. And great changes are to come. The Army, having abandoned the Barracks for Flowerdown, leaves a site so rich in heritage and opportunity that no matter what is proposed, it will fall far short of people's expectations. The Brooks, also, is bound to be seen as an unnecessary aberration. Did we really need the mandatory arcade of the 1980's? Winchester was surely deserving of something more exceptional than a fashionable cliche. What was needed in this city was an urban space that would be a compositional foil to the High Street, not a second-hand, downgraded idea that will merely add to the problems of congestion.
Winchester, from a number of viewpoints, has been damaged by successive generations, Cromwell not the least. From other viewpoints it has also been improved. Winchester can claim that it works as a viable 20th century city and in consequence it has been prepared to accept that its historic environment has been and will be compromised. But surely Winchester can be more positive about its environment in its demand for quality? This is a city where Leon Krier, the Prince's architect, would no doubt have something to say and contribute. If we make a comparison with another medieval continental city, Siena, there would quite rightly be sighs of nostalgic regret. choose Siena because it is the model environment to which the two major protagonists in the architectural debate refer. Prince Charles and Richard Rogers unhesitatingly agree to use Siena as their prime reference and amazingly for the same reasons. I daresay they would also agree about parts of Winchester - the Cathedral Close, the College environs, St. Cross, the High Street, etc., are life enhancing environments. Winchester would be seen as this country's Siena but there is one major difference. The city walls of Winchester were breached and not only in reality but symbolically, psychologically. Vehicular traffic with all its infrastructure and 20th century demands enters this medieval city. Siena remains all one piece, some might say fossilised at a historic date in time. Winchester retains its heritage only in part but then claims the viability of the 20th century. Both cities have made their choice and there is no going back - except perhaps in one respect.
Alternative Solutions for Traffic and Cars must be Tried and Tested
There must be a point when the pressures and intensity of traffic, of remaining a traffic confluence and providing parking for several thousands of motor cars, will damage irreparably the environment of a city of the quality of Winchester. The point must already have been passed when alternatives such as 'Park and Ride' have to be tried and tested. The County Council's responsibility for solving its own traffic and parking has already been acknowledged, but this would only be part of the solution. What has never been tested are the positive environmental improvements that could be made if traffic entry and accessibility were more severely restricted. These improvements should not be stated in a generalised way but in detail, and designed to demonstrate the holistic environmental opportunities.
In the past three decades we have always respected the design sequence of solving the civil engineering first before considering what we want in detailed design terms from our cities as environments; the latter is only seen as a residual problem rather than a primary. Whatever the merits or demerits of widening North Walls were in the mid-1980's, it was ludicrous to expect the City to be convinced without a detailed demonstration of environmental improvements in its centre, rather than just offering vague promises.
Public Space in Winchester
In the late 1970's, I set a programme for architectural students with the help of the City planners to design a public space in front of Barclays Bank. This would be an extension of the High Street and would be a wonderful exercise for historical research, but it was only a student exercise. The students were asked to assume that the traffic would be diverted right at the top of St George's Street and left from Southgate Street as it joins the High Street. The space would respond to the existing buildings that form the enclosure, and would be designed formally with a terrace as a neo-classical space relating to the Bank, or it could be considered as an informal, almost Gothic extension to the pedestrianised High Street, taking advantage of the difference in levels from one end of the space to the other. The restaurants would be permitted to use this space in a typically European manner, and it would form an event on the tourist route from the Cathedral to the Great Hall and be a major pedestrian confluence for the City.
The students at first were very disparaging of the programme because they felt that they should consider the implications of the traffic problems first. I have set this programme subsequently, and students in the mid-1980's were prepared to take it much more seriously and began to understand the reversal of the design sequence - to consider the urban spaces first and the traffic consequences second. Let us hope that consideration of this space will be given a priority in the 1990's.
Public Spaces in a City are like Living-Rooms in a House
I have invariably used the simple analogy of how one designs a house - do we design the engineering first and then fit the living spaces to the engineering, or do we consider the aspects and prospect of the major rooms and then relate the engineering services? The public spaces in a city are like the rooms of a house - they are where the events and life of a city are celebrated - rather than treat them as residual, they are the major design ingredients demanding primary design focus.
Exceptional Cities
With these thoughts in mind, we decided as an office to visit Barcelona - a city where its leaders, both professional and political, seem to be putting the theories of the 1950's and 1960's in reverse. Here is a city that has demoted traffic engineers and has concentrated on improving spaces and enclosures. It has carefully listed all the built treasures and public artefacts, and is determined to create a setting for each. But more than that, it has been prepared to recreate new squares and enclosures and to redefine some of the hierarchies of public and private spaces.
This has involved major public intervention - derelict industrial land around the railway station has been totally refurbished into a public garden, and an outside auditorium which is spectacular in the way it now contributes to the well-being of the city. Like several European cities, it has been presented with the development opportunity of redundant docklands and has discovered the potential of a new found coastline by creating a maritime museum with linkages and glimpses of the sea through new axes and from places previously bereft of any aspect.
Here is a city that is making new traditions in the context of the old, and is demonstrating a pride in its urban environments by celebrating its treasures, artefacts and buildings by providing a setting for each. Gaudi, Picasso and Miro are an everyday experience in that city and they are shown off to the advantage of resident and tourist alike. This city creates a pride for itself without a conceit but with convincing self-confidence. Its public transport system has been improved and perhaps the only casualty is the private car owner but not overwhelmingly.
The priorities here are European in a very acceptable sense, and of course its impetus hus been prompted by the Olympics in 1992 and the Celebration of Columbus' voyage. Barcelona, of course, is not the only city demonstrating a pride in itself - there are other obvious examples of which Paris, under Chirac, must claim a place, but Glasgow, Nimes, Stuttgart and, surprisingly, Liverpool, all show an amazing transformation from the 1970's.
Long-term Vision - not just Commercial Investment
I would like also to make a case for including Hampshire. Few counties in this country have shown such conviction about its environments and its heritage. In the 1980's there has been the mistaken belief that commercial investment alone can guarantee an acceptable environment and that public interventions are unnecessary.
City environments and the quality of urban life depend on a longterm vision. Cities are too complex to be thought of in terms of a commercial balance sheet. 'Urban regeneration' is now a strategic factor in the County's policies. The public realm in Hampshire has been neglected as in other parts of the country, but is now showing signs of new life. The setting of the Great Hall, Durngate, and I hope an improvement to Tower Street, the concern for the Barracks, are merely indications of a strategy that generates enthusiasm through its various trusts - historic, gardens, sculpture.
The current polarisation of the styles in the great architectural debate are unhelpful. Neoclassicists,modernists, traditionalists, alike have a responsibility to help the public understand the complexity of the issues involved. The next fashionable cause looks as though it is going to be orchestrated by Leon Krier with the Prince in support. Let us be careful that he is heard within the wider context of real understanding.
NB: The Editor would welcome correspondence from Members on the above article, with a view to publishing a selection of letters in the next Newsletter.