6 days ago
This disastrous development could threaten every great building in Britain
Not for the first time, I find myself thinking about London's Liverpool Street station, a great Victorian building that Network Rail seeks to destroy by putting a horrible skyscraper over the top of its concourse. The City of London's planning authorities have already vetoed one unsuitable idea; now a less radical, but still aesthetically destructive, blueprint by the architectural practice Acme has been prepared, and has passed the first hurdle with the City's planners. Largely because the leader of the campaign to save the station is Griff Rhys Jones, the celebrated comedian – and he is leading it superbly – some in the media have been keen to describe what is going on as a battle between him and a rapacious developer: a prism further distorted recently by the fact that the developers have hired a lobbying company run by a former adviser to Boris Johnson.
Given how ignominiously Johnson ended up, one might have thought they would have looked elsewhere; and it has been found that the lobbyist has resorted to using employees of the developer's architect to write on social media in support of the project. It is patently very hard to find members of the public who wish to profess their admiration for the swamping of this fine Victorian building by a vast skyscraper. The station is perfectly all right as it is – I use it two or three times a week for return journeys from Essex – and this proposal is mainly about the exploitation of real estate. The Eastern counties are becoming more populous and the station may well need more capacity; how this is achieved by putting a skyscraper over it is beyond most people.
In fact, the real issue about Liverpool Street is that if the latest plan were to go ahead, it could put every great building in the country at risk. The Victorian edifice and train shed at the station are Grade II listed: if a skyscraper is allowed to be built over the concourse between them, then what does that say about the protection of the country's architectural heritage? We are taken back to the relentless decision in 1961 to destroy the Euston Arch, and to an era in which little value was placed on fine 19th-century buildings.
Network Rail is preening itself about the contention that its new proposals do not impinge on the Victorian building. But what is now proposed would violate the environment of these great buildings, and it should be rejected to preserve the City's character. You wouldn't stick a skyscraper over the top of a fine Grade II-listed church or fine house, so why is it all right to stick one over Liverpool Street?
We as a people have become enormously protective of our architecture, perhaps in response to the ruthless and ignorant demolition of fine 18th- and 19th-century buildings in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. The listing process was meant to put a stop to that. More than 2,000 people and almost every relevant heritage body in the country objected to the last plan, and it was discarded. This new plan is in some respects worse than the first, because of some of its intrinsic silliness – i.e. its pastiche entrance arches. And one can intuit all one needs to know about it in a remark by a Network Rail official that the proposed development would create an 'accessible and inclusive space', whatever that means.
The logic of proceeding with these plans for Liverpool Street is that the City's planners allow such skyscrapers over and around every fine listed building in the Square Mile. A few minutes away on the Elizabeth Line is Canary Wharf, with so much free office space that some of it is being converted into flats. They want to build new retail space at Liverpool Street when all over the West End shops are empty. The increase in working from home and the ubiquity of online shopping have rendered plans such as Network Rail's utterly superfluous. The City authorities should reject it accordingly.
