Following on from this BBC article, take a look at the Save Britain’s Heritage site and also the Farnborough Air Sciences Trust Association site.
It’s good to see that some of these landmark sites are being talked about and preserved, but a lot of lesser and minor places are not. In Chichester, there has been much talk in recent years about demolishing the bus station and bus garage to make way for redevelopment. Whilst neither building is conventionally attractive, both have a certain charm – they are heavy, brick-built 1950s buildings, the bus garage notable for its concrete wavy roofline – a familiar landmark as you arrive in Chichester by train from the east. Another is the railway station ticket hall, about which I’ve written here before – an elegant late 50s "White Heat" structure that is slowly decaying through lack of care and misguided attempts at maintenance. The trouble is, because they are not romantic buidings or classically beautiful, and because they were built within the lifetime of many of the people that are responsible for their preservation, few people care about them. But they are distinctive, emblematic of the period and have been a feature of the lives of local people and people passing through the city for half a century.
Just how do you balance the need for modernity with the need to preserve?
separating the wanted from the unwanted