Exercise in urban renaissance

Press, 22 June 1984, Page 17

Exercise in urban renaissance

By

STAN DARLING,

who recently visited London as a guest of

Air New Zealand.

When London’s wholesale fruit, vegetable, and flower market moved across the River Thames to Nine Elms 10 years ago, it left the Covent Garden Market buildings and their linking glass and steel roofs looking more than ever like a railway station without trains.

Now after years of restoration, the market has been transformed into something that looks more like a purpose built indoor-outdoor mall.

The Greater London Council bought about six acres in the abandoned area, including the central market’s parallel buildings, in 1975, then made itself open to suggestion about what should be done with the place. Among ideas not considered seriously were transformation of the Piazza into a helicopter landing pad, a bomb shelter, or an ice skating rink. Finally, a shopping centre that could attract neighbourhood as A

well as tourist trade was the plan, which included excavation of part of the market’s brick-vaulted basement to use as much space as possible for shops and restaurants.

Pavement cafes would reflect popular gallery eating places in Milan and Brussels.

Since the market is relatively isolated from surrounding major streets, the redevelopment work — still taking shape — also considers uses for the Covent Garden neighbourhood. A National Theatre Museum will tie in with the nearby theatre district, and planners are trying to double the neighbourhood’s 3000 population at the same time as renewed economic activity gives the area a lift. Vacant sites in the district have

been bought for mixed residential and commercial development. Community activities in the Piazza, such as street theatre, have been encouraged to keep the centre lively. The London Transport Museum, which also opened in 1980, is in a building — the former Flower Market — facing the Piazza. Opposite one side of the centre market is a temporary community garden that will be there until the nearby Royal Opera House expands.

Some of the old craftsmen remain in the neighbourhood, even though they have had to diversify. In a Drury Lane workshop is a man who still repairs and hires out barrows after 35 years. Porters no longer push them filled with

fruit and vegetables, but the barrows display goods sold in the shops, or are stacked for effect round the market. The man also makes miniature barrows.

A lively little community newspaper chronicles changes in the neighbourhood. Filled with advertising and promotions for the growing number of restaurants and specialty shops, it also tells the stories of businessmen in nearby streets.

The success of their work in attracting people down those streets, people looking for the unusual as well as the trendy, will help determine how successful the market itself becomes.

On the other side of the city, the magnificent Barbican Centre for Arts and Conferences is not a case of the new replacing the old, but

the new replacing the devastated. Formerly a thriving garment district centred on St Giles Church and remains of London’s old Roman wall, the area was bombed heavily during the war. A plaque opposite a block of flats shows where the first German bomb fell on London, in 1941.

Opened in 1982, the Barbican Centre was built around water features, such as a rectangular lake, that make it appear as if it rests on a floating pier from certain angles. Water spouts from the side of a connected block of flats, and along a lakeside terrace channel.

This latest blending of city living and the arts has not completely escaped criticism. Two 43-storey apartment towers were among flats already there when the centre was built. Recently, some complaints have come from nearby residents about the sounds wafting up from outdoor concerts held beside the lake.