The Southbank’s Secret history, the Undercroft and the dawn of the ‘Reclaration’ movement in architecture.
This is a republish of an article originally written for long live Southbank in 2018 during the restoration of the Southbank undercroft.
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The ‘reclaration’ of the Southbank Undercroft is the tipping point of much larger shift; a whole new heritage movement in public space. The word ‘reclaration’ was coined in the Undercroft by a skateboarder called Domink to describe the process of restoring by reclaiming facilities that had been absorbed by the private sector. Heritage is a dusty, boring word, often associated with social or racial aggravation and the preservation of collonialist legacy.
But when approaching the restoration of a space designd my Archigram architects in the utopian 1960s, it is about freedom against oppression and is being led by the young community in London’s Skateboard community.
Intangible heritage and the invisible hand.
Intangible heritage is a sensitive art. The schema, cultural values and economics are all in a subtle balance, providing the shrine for the daily ceremonies within the space. In this instance, financial architecture is as important as the physical. The age of neoliberalism has skewed perceptions, but public means free. Only in a free setting can you truly have cross societal relationships devoid of a rigid class structure; social relations which are uncommon in private or consumerist settings. Public space is where people are citizens and not consumers.
In talking to Dennis Crompton, one of the last surviving architects and archigram member who worked on the scheme — he stated ‘we designed the spaces to be public spaces… the spaces that have been presumed to be non-spaces by many, are not “non-spaces”’. This throws former influence by Cedric Price into debate. Price is a contemporary of the group who coined the word ‘non-space’. It is a widely held assumption that ‘non-spaces’ are devoid of meaning to be interpreted, but they did have a clear use class, they were meant for public occupation. Perhaps the word ‘non space’ has been misunderstood to mean space that is irrelevant or that could be better used as shops.
But the Hayward gallery and the Queen Elizabeth Hall of the Southbank are more than a public facility; under the surface it is something particularly special. Dennis Crompton shared; ‘if you really want to understand the Southbank Centre, then you have to understand the Festival of Britain, which it was based on’. More than the immortalisation of the values of public space, it is also an immortalisation of a new architectural syntax of the values of a country emerging from war.
A secret history of the Southbank.
The Festival of Britain was a celebration of potential which laid out the language for a future of English architecture. Described by Neive Brown as ‘A public declaration of a belief in a different kind of future’, the festival focused primarily on Britain and its achievements. The festival can be seen as a departure from the forms and values of architecture experienced during the war, with the corresponding symbolism in the national consciousness. Likened to a fleeting military parade by Hugh Casson, the festival’s architecture director, the festival was a balancing of meaning.
Directly preceding the war it had a potentially critical audience at a national scale.The pursuit of a rigid monumentality or excess of the classicism was avoided, instead a cultural pursuit of a new English architecture with a new language was adopted. The intent was to boost morale and provide inspiration for the redesign of the english urban realm; a creative, inventive Britain.
Key principles that can be unearthed by looking at the festival in detail. Above all tolerance was celebrated, and the accommodation of different groups and values were key parts of the syntax. There was a nonlinear journey from place to place like ‘a series of surprises, now serious, now witty, now rather, vulgar, now even a little mad’. This architectural strategy embodied a departure from any kind of axial focus or uniformity associated with Albert Speer’s plans for Berlin’s architecture. A journey of contrast and rhythm, as well as free flowing and democratic rather than a dictatorial architecture. Each space referenced the last and introduced the one to come, showing an evolution from culture to culture, and an acceptance of difference and change.
Although the southbank centre does have it’s own narrative, Dennis revealed that the ideas of the festival were acting under the surface as cultural context. ‘The decisions of the festival acted influences the of logic and gave us the intricate and somewhat elusive organic forms of the Elizabeth hall and Hayward Gallery’. Similarly it was designed to become a space for tolerance, diversity, nonlinear creativity, expression, change and above all, freedom.
A particularly attractive design decision for the skateboarders to discover later was that all of the spaces were ramped, allowing radical freedom for pedestrians and the complete democratic accessibility of spaces. Dennis told me, ‘We wanted people to be able to walk all over it.’ to explore more levels of public space than the axial street alone. and following in the footsteps of the festival which came before, it was an architectural opportunity to transform England into a ‘more egalitarian society, a more equal one.’
The principals imbued in the architecture, the concrete landscape, lack of barriers, free spaces and rhythm were ideal for self-expression and interpretation in skateboarding; a community of interpretive dancers, misunderstood and shunned by society. The public space professionals who came as if from nowhere, resemble the nomadic people envisaged in the early Archigram drawings. With long hair, they could use the space every day, without disturbance or hatred, unlike the shopping malls or carparks. The culture attracted children and grown-ups, men and women, the west Londoners and the east Londoners.
Here they had a shared purpose. Public space enables public culture. Skateboarders are defenders of public space but also of egalitarian values and the culture promotes an open mind to others. Rather than judging each other on financial means, the skateboard community judges by community merit such as character, personality, style and soul. Respect is earned through a firm grasp on reality and a groundedness in their own creative pursuit.
But not everybody was impressed with the Festival of Britain’s values and the centre which followed its principles, ‘it stinks of socialism’ the more conservative thinkers said. When Thatcher got into power, the Southbank Centre was one of the first buildings transferred to private hands, and so the intangible heritage began to become eroded.
The cycle of privatisation.
Ever since the 1980’s, public facilities have followed a similar story, from the Southbank to Park-Hill and now even NHS buildings. An innately ideological structure that depends on a long period of public investment is left undercooked because of timely budget cuts. This is followed by the removal of essential maintenance and managerial works as they become under-cared for and consequently daubed as troublesome and in a prime position to be saved. They are absorbed by a private entity rather than remaining in the public ownership and developing in a public way. This common pattern repeats itself over and over as it both strengthens the narrative of the right wing while transferring assets into the private sector.
In Southbank Centre we saw a succession of interventions over the years that made the spaces progressively more private. Imagine if investments were made in the spaces which were made for the public from the start. Imagine if the public enclaves all strictly hosted public art and culture; imagine if they promoted free, open socialisation to reflect the festival’s ambitions. Some parts do do this very well indeed, but many spaces have transformed into single entrance coffee shops, sandwich shops and gift shops. The spaces’ delicate pattern of public space is rendered illegible because of commercial infill. When does a true public space become a shop garden? Various homogenized, disconnected spaces were squeezed in which are squarely aimed at newly arrived upper middle class out-of-towners and tourists.
The non-listing.
This happened because, unlike other architecture of its importance, there is no historic listing for the The Hayward gallery and Elizabeth hall, fittingly so; ‘It was planned as a growing building, a listing would stop this’ said Dennis. But the prevailing ideology and economic pressure since the 1960s has changed; while it intended to grow left, it has begun to grow right. Historic England now daub Queen Elizabeth Hall and the Hayward Gallery as one of the most difficult heritage issues in the UK today. What we have is a heritage category to be coined; it is our first example in UK history of a ‘non-listing’. The Hayward gallery and Elizabeth Hall Is a building so forward with its ideas that a historic listing would contradict its initial values. It must always remain forward thinking and fresh. Yet to remain unlisted is leading to its original schema and values to be compromised.
Society’s prevailing values have changed, the question is now, “how do we deal with a ‘non-listing?’”. Perhaps we have to broaden our understanding of heritage moving away physical fabric alone. Arguably we could change the physical fabric completely but retain circulation routes and space use class as long as they resonate with the values of the 1960’s welfare state. Or perhaps we develop in whatever way we want but we maintain the fundamental ratios of open public to closed private space throughout. Looking at what the initial intended ratios of these were. This is all now up for discussion.
The SBC staff, like most organisations of our day, are the victims of political pressures and the economic climate.The structure, cued up by Thatcher, condones neoliberalism. With such severe public funding cuts, every arts organisation is forced to squeeze finance wherever they can to pay staff. This can often come at the compromise of the central missions and values of a public arts organisation.
Homogenization.
The plan to remove the skateboarders must be reframed as a plan to remove the public. The skateboard community engaged with the space continuously, and this continuity gives us an insight into how long the struggle has really been. It reveals how other members of the public would perhaps be treated, and pressured if they tried to defend a space themselves.
To begin with there were spatial interventions. It started with pebbles to stop skateboarders which were removed by the community. Later there were spikes, and then barriers were placed in the small banks. As traffic on the Queen’s Walk became more prominent, the strategy became more sophisticated. The management divided the space in two, making a “pop up shop” in one half of the Undercroft against the communities’ will. The space then became a workshop for the maintenance work on site which it remains to date.
The Undercroft promoted cross societal interaction, but the barriers were placed between the ‘skateboarders’ and the wider world creating an “us and them” situation. The barrier was shown to be a sign that skateboarders were a homogenous community, along with putting a further emphasis on the axiality of the Queen’s Walk as a sort of high street. Early renditions of the scheme from the archigram archives show that this was never the intent, instead there are plans showing the exact opposite with the scheme actually blocking the queen’s walk. Forcing a promenade either through or over the building, and a more dynamic public engagement with the building.
This set the stage for the great unveil of the plan to remove the skateboarders, and with it open access, once and for all. Southbank Centre threw down the gauntlet for a political media battle. The community galvanised and the biggest petition in UK land-law history saved the spot.
The beginning of the reclaration movement.
Pronunciation: /rɛkləˈreɪʃ(ə)n/
noun
‘a self-initiated restoration of tangible and intangible aspects of the built environment by its resident/s, with the aim to reclaim and develop an eroded atmosphere’.
The team at Long Live Southbank are now working in partnership with Southbank Centre, galvanising energy to restore the space that was closed off for maintenance works in 2004, more than doubling the space available to be used. Ideally, Long Live Southbank would want it to be publicly funded and are open to all support. The internet makes civic funding on this scale feasible in a way only taxation could do previously. What is more, the entire scheme is being pushed forward by members of the community itself and has been have been putting on exhibitions, panel discussions and community engagement events to help promote the restoration effort towards a more democratic architecture. A new way of carrying out public restoration has begun, hopefully, this will lead to a greater understanding of what is important to restore in a postwar scheme, namely its inherent values.
Most people in the SBC are spirited, wholehearted creatives who were the victims of financial pressures. But, now with a renewed understanding the cultural context they. And Fielden Clegg Bradley, An architecture practice working on the scheme must be intelligent, with not just the undercroft, but the entire building if they are to do the scheme properly. The project has a historic and social schema that must be considered with every intervention, nothing less than a history of postwar england and the welfare state. An entire public space culture has developed over 60 years. As Limited Liability Company, they need to be particularly sensitive, without commercialism dictating their approach. They need to work as the GLC would have done, with clear, public values foremost.
My focus here is not really Southbank Centre or the Undercroft, but the physical bodies of the people in the Undercroft who created a structure that stopped the integrity of the space being diminished. The human body is the ultimate architecture for social good, because public space only truly exists with the public in it. The people are the pillars of the Southbank.
LLSB are calling for all architecture practices, all architects and people who wish to promote, support and value public space to join the movement.
