I recently visited Sheffield for the first time ever, to see some friends who moved there about a year ago. When I mentioned that I was going there to my friend from Scunthorpe, he nodded and said, "Sheffield's proper". Note that this has to be said with a northern accent for the meaning to be apparent. Proper, meaning sound / good / cool. If you say "Sheffield's proper" in a southern accent, it sounds like you're saying proper, meaning posh / well-mannered. Which wouldn't really be apt... It's much more interesting than that.
Sheffield is of course famous for being the Steel City, booming in the Industrial Revolution as it supplied iron and steel products to the world. Stainless steel was developed here, the material which remains omnipresent in modern-day households. The prolific growth of the population and influx of wealth in the nineteenth century also gave the city some lovely Victorian public buildings.
Sheffield is of course famous for being the Steel City, booming in the Industrial Revolution as it supplied iron and steel products to the world. Stainless steel was developed here, the material which remains omnipresent in modern-day households. The prolific growth of the population and influx of wealth in the nineteenth century also gave the city some lovely Victorian public buildings.
It's also but a stone's throw from the Peak District and its pretty wee villages...
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| Country walks and sheep outside Castleton, Peak District |
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| Church of St Edmund, Castleton |
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| Castleton churchyard, with ruined castle on the hill behind |
But no self-respecting architectural historian with a penchant for twentieth-century buildings could possibly visit Sheffield without taking in Park Hill, the infamous brutalist council estate housing. The intention for this complex was to improve the living conditions of Sheffield's impoverished post-war residents by transposing them from streets of run-down terraces to modern blocks rising upwards, re-housing old neighbours alongside each other in an ambition to retain the sense of community. However, the well-meaning concept of "streets in the sky" didn't really come off. This mammoth complex, built between 1957 and 1961, just fell into its own state of decay and notoriety, and according to many accounts, destroyed much of the old community that had previously existed. So, as a social concept, it pretty much failed... But it does form an awesome backdrop in many views around the city, towering above the train station.
It is now being very controversially restored, going from this:
To this:
Why controversial? Well, some people just want it knocked down completely, some people think the restoration is over the top and fails to take account of the building's qualities and significance (it's a Grade II* listed building) ... and that's just the beginning of it. Far from being just an intellectual, architectural matter, the debate has many social and emotion facets for the people of Sheffield, with a great divide between those who love it and those who hate it.
So what do I think about it? Well, architecturally, I think it's an incredible building - exciting, impressive, and a fabulous landmark. What do I think about the reality of what it became and what do I think about its restoration? ... That, you will have to wait to hear, as I'm saving my treatise on it for another purpose. Yes, I am planning to start up another blog to run alongside this one - it will be my 'professional' blog, where this is my 'personal' blog. I intend to post links to my new blog here, so if you are interested in my architectural rants and want to learn some more about interesting buildings, you'll be able to check it out. Hopefully, I'll have the new blog up and running soon, and you'll be able to hear more about Park Hill, if you fancy it.
Until then...
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| Image source (this and below) |
