Stop The Bulldozer: "Bath and North East Somerset council are sponsoring a scheme to replace all the existing buildings with a pair of six storey glass and concrete constructions; a replacement campus for Bath Spa University and the Dyson Engineering School."
The architect who designed this building went on to design the parliament buidlings in Canada, and this is the only example of his work in the Bath area. Surely the new use that is planned for the site could incorporate the existing building, and not demolish it? The designs for the new buildings are utterly boring and trivial, with no distinguishing features whatsoever. Bath is a World Heritage Site and does not need any more crappy modern buildings ruining its character.
3 comments:
I couldn't agree more.
Despite it needing a little cleaning and tidying up it is a very attractive building. Just because the building isn't Georgian or Roman doesn't mean that it isn't historical. Bath's shopping area is aready being over run by new big shops and I think the result is a loss of character. If it happens to the surrounding buildings as well the pretty historial Bath will be lost in amongst a mondern city scape.
I do hope they don't ruin it, far too many of our city and town centres have been ruined by careless planners. Even here in Edinburgh in the city centre the council and some huge corporation want to pull down buildings on the Royal Mile for a new development then wonder why people, the heritage societies and others cry out (not to mention the UN making harumphing noises and explaining that World Heritage status can be withdrawn).
The trouble is, it would be even worse if they withdrew World Heritage status, as then the planners would be able to get away with even more destruction. Unfortunately the Newark Quay site is just outside the World Heritage area, but an argument can be made that you'd be able to see the new development from the World Heritage zone. Also the architect of this building went on to design Canada's parliament buildings and stuff, so he was quite prestigious.
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