CONTENTS DIARY OF EVENTS - The Urban Design Group

TOPIC
REVEALING STREETSCAPES
David McLaughlin explores how historic records put today’s
designs in context
‘A design does not
come from nothing,
but from a long
history of shapes,
functions and
sensations.’ Renzo Piano
18 | Urban Design | Spring 2005 | Issue 94
Local government planners and urban designers need to
understand the genesis of place - where it has come from, and
why it is the way it is. If you can explain why things are the way
they are, and demonstrate local knowledge, it strengthens the
negotiating position for change. Each officer needs to have an
understanding of local history, because without it one is applying
a veneer of the present which does not connect back to the past.
Two different Bath-based projects illustrate this well.
REALLOCATING ROAD SPACE
Bath & North East Somerset Council’s former City Initiative:
Transport & Environment team commissioned a streetscape
history before repaving Bath’s 1760s Milsom Street and
redesigning its southern junction with New Bond Street.
The history revealed that a group of mediaeval buildings
(with leases dating back to the 1320s) were severed in 1810
to form a new street - New Bond Street. The island group of
buildings - Old Bond Street - continued northwards leaving
only a very constricted way between the two ranks of buildings.
The narrow gap was gradually increased as the central island
buildings were removed in ones and twos. An 1855 map tellingly
has a heavy pencil line showing the desire for a new kerb line for
a significantly widened street, which in turn would result in the
demolition of yet more of the island buildings.
The new kerb line was implemented
and as Milsom Street was (and remains)
the best street for fashionable shopping
in Bath, it also had Bath’s very first traffic
signal at the junction with Quiet Street
and New Bond Street in the 1930s. At that
time, two-way traffic and parking was the
norm but by the end of the 20th century,
one-way traffic prevailed. Vehicles
completely dominated the vast expanse
of tarmac, leaving pedestrians to brave
their way across a heavily-trafficked but
vacuous space.
This history of change was amply
demonstrated by maps, engravings,
leases and photos, and proved influential.
Coupled with the need for traffic
calming, designs were developed for
a much broader area of paving for
pedestrians to use and enjoy. The letter
cutter Alec Peever was commissioned to
produce a piece of public art, cutting the
words of a poem specially commissioned
from Alyson Hallett into the natural
stone paving during 2001.
KEEPING RECORDS
By contrast, the bombing of Bath in
1942 in the Second World War caused
significant damage and loss of life. The
nights of the 25-27th of April 1942 mark
a harrowing chapter in the history of
Bath - the Baedeker raids. Artists and
photographers recorded the ravaged
city in a series of profoundly moving
paintings, drawings and photographs
that are to form the major exhibition
Paint bombs – recording Bath in wartime
to be held at Bath’s Victoria Art Gallery
from 30 April to 14 July 2005.
The painter, John Piper wrote to his
friend, the poet John Betjeman on 15
May 1942, “I went to Bath to paint bomb
damage. I never was sent to do anything
so sad before. I was miserable there
indeed to see that haunt of ancient waterdrinkers
besmirched with dust and blast.
Three houses burnt out in Royal Crescent,
bomb in middle of Circus, and two burnt
out there; Lansdown Chapel direct hit,
10 bombs in front of Lansdown Crescent,
Somerset Place, almost completely burnt
out: a shell …326 killed, 1,800 houses
uninhabitable …My God I did hate that
week…” 1
Among the bomb-damaged buildings
was Sir George Gilbert Scott’s Gothic
Revival 1870s St Andrew’s Church,
Julian Road. The 73 metre high spire was
the tallest landmark in Bath and was
considered to mar the view of the Royal