tricorn

Whilst doing some research for my dissertation on Tuesday, I came across (what I consider) a really interesting planning document from Portsmouth City Council from 1965. In it they state:

Pedestrian links will penetrate through to the car parking areaa and also to a new precinct north of Charlotte Street. [...] On completion of this scheme it is not anticipated that there will be any further major extension of shopping facilities in this area, and every encouragement will be given to the expansion and redevelopment of district shopping facilities at Cosham which is considered better situated to serve the growing hinterland population of the mainland.

The new development in question is Portsmouth's notorious, late Tricorn shopping centre, demolished in 2004. At the time of its demolition it had been standing all but empty for a number of years and had become a bit of an eyesore. The people of Portsmouth wanted to get rid of it because it looked ugly.

I concede that the Tricorn was not the prettiest of buildings, but I wonder if maybe the Council itself was responsible for its demise.

In the document of 1965, the Council declare that they do not anticipate any further development in this area, yet in the 1980s they gave permission for the Cascades Shopping Centre, which opened in 1989, at the other end of Commercial Road. The result of this planning policy reversal (I imagine that the integrity of the planners was swayed by the developers' money) is that any trade that the Tricorn might have enjoyed became swallowed up by its more glamorous near-neighbour. It is almost universal enough to become a fundamental rule of life that a new shopping centre will always attract business away from existing centres.

By allowing the Cascades, Portsmouth City Council signed the death warrant for the Tricorn. As a result it became underused. This would have had a direct effect on the maintenance and upkeep of the Centre. Unloved by shoppers, the Tricorn's appearance would have suffered. If the Tricorn had stayed busy, then the relationship between the citizens of Portsmouth and the Tricorn would have been very different and it might have become a vibrant place, that people would have had fond feelings towards. For instance, there are no calls to redevelop the area around Southampton Central train station, despite it being routinely described as ugly. This is because the area works. There are shops, businesses and apartments that are occupied.

Surely a possible conclusion, therefore, must be that it was not the physical appearance of the Tricorn that got it demolished, but the mismanagement of the site. That other buildings of that era suffered similar fates, results in a psychological link betwen 1960/1970s architecture and buildings that just don't work. As such, the term "1970s monstrosity" has become something of a cliche. If these buildings worked, would we appreciate the bold statements of post-war stark concrete municipal construction?

Of course, as much as I enjoy defending such buildings, even I have to admit that the above is possibly not quite the way it works. After all, the Tricorn was never successful, even before Cascades was built. In 1970, the architectural critic Alan Balfour praised the bold vision of Owen Luder, the architect, but noted that four years after completion only 4 of the 48 commercial units were occupied.

It seems that the reputations of some examples of brutalist building are beyond saving.

PS: Cosham is still as unglamorous and uninviting as it was in 1965 (if not worse).
PPS: It seems like the Cascades is going to be superceded by the redevelopment of the Tricorn site, having already taken a hit from Gunwharf Quays.

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