They paved paradise, and pulled down a parking lot
Posted on April 29, 2008
Cameras everywhere… by Sam Judson, on Flickr
The Trinity Centre was a building for a future that never happened; one which would see Gateshead as a major shopping and leisure destination, where people could spend the day at the shops, finish it off with drinks at the top level restaurant, maybe have a little dance, then walk a short distance to the car and drive home drunk.
It was a flawed plan and one of many urban redevelopment projects in the Sixties that tried to eliminate the disorder of the past and enforce modern living through the clean lines of Le Corbusier inspired architecture.
Then it was fashionable to cover up that ugly Victorian fireplace with plaster board a nice modern gas fire, and the desire for modernity was such that it allowed us to destroy many fine pre-war streets and displace local communities without batting an eyelid. This is something that’s both difficult to comprehend and fascinating at the same time.
Architects are still designing radical buildings, but these days it’s not the car parks and shoppings centres that tend to be radical. Both the Metro Centre and Eldon Square Shopping Centre are sprawling American-style malls which are architecturally anonymous and visually dull.
When I was walking around the top level of the car park on Saturday, I was aware that the architect had put a great deal of effort in designing the shapes I saw around me. The building may be considered ugly by many, and certainly there are many things about its design and construction that haven’t stood the test of time, but we must appreciate that there is something unique about this building that will be lost when it is demolished.
I suspect that there will be nothing unique about what will replace it, and the lyrics to Joni Mitchell’s Big Yellow Taxi will be as relevant as ever.
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