Visions of Winchester - TrustNews Summer 1992
Report of the 1992 Lecture Series
People Matter; Little by Little; Links - Spaces; Subtle Shocks; Historical Context; City Grain; People Contact; Quality of Environment; People Enjoyment
These are some of the quotations taken from the various discourses and used in the 1992 urban planning lectures entitled 'Visions of Winchester' to emphasise underlying attitudes and planning philosophy.
The series was organised by the Urban Studies Committee as an attempt to indicate how an historical environment is evaluated by the experts as well as some idea of how visitors to Winchester view the city. The series was completed by Jack Thompson, until recently Director of Planning in Winchester, who summarised many of the ideas and thoughts emanating from the previous talks and relating them to Winchester.
Bob Cox, an American economist commenced the series as a first time visitor to Winchester and provided us with an encouraging note to the effect that from his viewpoint Winchester was alive, thriving, full of interest and as yet comparatively unspoilt. He was optimistic about the future but felt that with the certain large increase in tourism Winchester was bound to attract, the city authorities ought now to start thinking how they were going to market themselves and decide what sort of tourist they wanted to encourage. Now was the time to consider these aspects not later when tourism would cause logistical problems.
Bob Cox considered the access routes into Winchester and what sort of visual impact they had on a visitor, his general feeling was that as an introduction to Winchester the centre still dominated so that the image of the outskirts tended to fade from the mind. However in his opinion Winchester was not so bad and nowhere near as bad as the average American city he was used to. Certainly he recognised that if he lived in Winchester then no doubt he could become conscious of this aspect, just as he was very aware of the shortcomings of his own home town.
Not only was Bob Cox intrigued by the ambience, the buildings and the beauty of some areas of Winchester, but was impressed and surprised at the wealth of talent that had resided in and around the city.
David Brock was our next lecturer and represented his viewpoint as an historian responsible for evaluating historical buildings and alterations to historical buildings throughout much of the south of England on behalf of English Heritage. There were many aspects of making judgements about buildings that he felt should be used when coming to a decision about how a structure should be restored, altered, saved or even pulled down. Some of the criteria he used were, the environmental quality that the building was situated in or was part of, the building's history, including notable characters that were associated with a building, its contribution as a building to the surroundings, the degree of restoration required to make the building sound, and so on.
The lecture was illustrated by some very interesting before and after photographs of buildings which had been both successful and unsuccessful after restoration and some which were perhaps philosophically questionable. Many people in the audience were surprised by the stance that David Brock took when evaluating buildings and found his attitude enlightened which in general they felt was contrary to the image that English Heritage projected. Unfortunately this lecture was marred by the projection equipment which was constantly breaking down so David Brock was naturally upset that his flow was frequently interrupted. However it would appear that everybody recognised that this was an in depth talk by an expert articulating his philosophy with a logical confidence.
Tony Scott tackled the problems of historical town centres from a town planners point of view. On the whole urban environments to him were spaces, delightful alleyways, linkages that lead the eye and the body from space to space. The buildings were a backdrop to the enjoyment of those spaces and should be considered as such. However one did from time to time require buildings to startle the senses or the whole urban mix could be bland. Tony Scott punctuated his lecture by using the phrase "Little by Little," in other words introduce new elements into the urban environment little by little, assimilate them and then move on. One of the strands of the lecture that came across strongly was the importance of people to the philosophy of his planning ideals, providing spaces for enjoyment and contact. Providing the means of contact between people was in his opinion a most important element of town planning. Tony completed his lecture with the poignant image of an elderly lady reaching out to contact a child. It is interesting that some of the most sensitive town planners are often architects who are the unsung heroes of the development scene, urban planning is not an easy option to try and control or manipulate for the better. Unfortunately fewer and fewer architects bother to qualify as town planners to the detriment of town planning as a whole, therefore much of the visionary quality seems to be missing.
Our penultimate lecturer was David Rock, an architect who specialised in advising councils with historic centres to govern on how to plan and evolve their towns and cities. David Rock indicated ways in which one could manipulate developers against a background of a well understood and a well thought out strategic town plan which was critical to controlling the way forward for any historical centre.
The final lecture was by Jack Thompson who had the unenviable task of trying to summarise the lectures and relate them to Winchester. It is interesting that Jack is both an architect and a town planner and it was obvious that people, spaces, and the links were, as for Tony Scott, the most important elements of urban design. Jack was concerned that the pressures of governmental direction and the way in which developers have been forced to maximise their plots, were in danger of soaking up those all too precious spatial qualities. There were no longer benefactors able or wanting to provide that fundamental quality of space for people to enjoy.
The County too came in for some criticism for much in his opinion of what had been built and continues to be built within the city boundary was overbearing architecture which was destroying the city scale. The development was not integrated and failed to measure up to good urban planning. Jack also had a look at the gaps in the city setting indicating the importance of spaces, the links from tree lined slopes surrounding Winchester through to the inner city open areas.
A discussion followed the talk and it was interesting to note the degree of concern over vehicles and vehicle movement which in fact had not been touched on to any great degree by any of the lecturers perhaps because they all recognise that it is a highly emotive subject and very difficult to resolve. Much of the discussion that followed rather underlined the point!
The series bridged the gap that so often separates, planners, architects and citizens and a sense of common purpose and responsibility for the future of an urban environment was evident throughout.
The Urban Studies Committee would like to thank all the lecturers for the obvious hard work that they undertook to provide a series which was both interesting and thought provoking. In particular Jack Thompson who not only gave the final lecture but attended all the talks specifically to provide us with a comprehensive summary together with some of his own thoughts on Winchester.
We should also like to thank all those who attended, and we do hope that everybody managed to gain further knowledge about their urban environment, and to recognise how difficult it is to steer such a complicated cellular structure and how important it is to have a clear positive view on how the city should evolve, for evolve it will.