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Reviews
| Gateshead: Architecture in a Changing English Urban Landscape. By Simon Taylor and David B. Lovie. London: English Heritage, 2004. vi+82 pp., illus., maps, diags., plans, bibl. 7.99 (ISBN 1-873592-76-0).
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This modest book is attractive and useful, not only for the story it tells but also for the efficiency and effectiveness with which the story is told. Gateshead, a community in northeastern England on the south bank of the River Tyne, dates from the 14th century. For most of its history, it has been overshadowed by Newcastle, a much larger neighbor to the north. Prior to the industrial revolution, Gateshead was a "small and obscure river and roadside town" (p. 3), but over the last two centuries, Gateshead has evolved from an industrial revolution boomtown into a modern and diverse community. That evolution is described here with straightforward prose and a variety of excellent images, including color photographs, maps and plans, archival drawings, and architectural renderings. The work was produced by English Heritage, whose mission is to make "neglected elements" of the built environment comprehensible and accessible to the general public.
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The authors immediately establish Gateshead's 19th-century industrial context in chapter 1, and this is the point of departure from which their story is told. Gateshead sat atop coal deposits that had been mined for centuries, but it was not until the industrial revolution that the city was transformed by a variety of new industries (chemicals, iron founding, and locomotive manufacturing), and its population grew from about 8,600 in 1801 to nearly 86,000 in 1891.
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Industrial decline began in the late-19th century when iron foundries became uncompetitive and closed. The locomotive manufacturing industry lingered until 1910, evolving into a repair facility that remained, in different forms, until the end of the 20th century. Along with industrial land uses in the region came environmental degradation that left the landscape "extensively scarred by the detritus of mining" and "crisscrossed by mineral railways taking coal from the pits to the river" (p. 3). With industrial decline, World War I, and economic hard times came social issues, including widespread unemployment and housing concerns. In the mid 1930s, for the first time ever, the English government addressed these regional issues by pumping nearly £2 million into economic regeneration through emphasis on "light industry, diversification and, for once, a clean, pleasant and well-planned industrial environment" (p. 6).
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This initiative, known in Gateshead as the Team Valley Trading Estate (TVTE), resulted in a landscaped "estate" planned for up to 15,000 workers. It included a central headquarters with a bank and post office, modestly scaled industrial buildings, blocks of "nursery" factories intended to nurture small ventures without capital, and open recreation areas, all laid out horizontally along a wide central artery almost two miles long. Initial results were promising. Although 110 tenant firms, employing almost 5,000 people, had signed up by 1939, the onset of World War II brought new economic and political priorities, and the project did not reach the target population of 15,000 workers until the 1960s. In retrospect TVTE was successful; today much of the original development exists with new additions, industrial diversity has been achieved, several original tenants remain, and the emphasis has shifted from manufacturing to high-tech industries.
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Chapters 2 and 3 concern the evolution of public buildings (including government offices, hospitals and schools, and cultural and library facilities) and public housing over the 19th and 20th centuries, making liberal use of archival and contemporary images. Text here is brief but includes basic information about influences and trends. Striking, in many cases, is the simplicity of the public and domestic architecture of the first half the 20th century when compared with later examples. For the most part, the authors refrain from making value judgments or critical assessments.
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Chapter 4 briefly summarizes "conservation and change" in the community and how knowledge of the community's history might inform new uses (p. 75). This includes mention of new developments along the riverfront, a renewed appreciation for the community's historic environment (including its industrial past and its pre-industrial heritage), and new conservation initiatives aimed at preserving the local landscape.
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Each chapter reads like a separate essay; common threads (such as environmental, economic, and social issues) are left largely unexplored. Missing from chapter 1 is information about TVTE's designers, how various theories of planned communities evolved in the late-19th and early-20th centuries, and how this industrial "estate" fit into the context of planned communities elsewhere in England. In chapters 2 and 3, some readers may wish for more information about recent developments, buildings, and architects that are mentioned but not discussed, such as the Gateshead Borough Lunatic Asylum from c. 1910, the transformation of the Baltic Flour Mills around 1950 into an arts center, or Norman Foster and his recent Sage Gateshead music center. While these discussions are perhaps beyond the scope of this work, weaving what is here into whole cloth, putting Gateshead into a broader context, and including more details about recent developments could have increased the reader's appreciation for the community's attractions and made them more relevant to a wider audience.
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| Nevertheless, this work is effective in providing a tool to evaluate "the making of the urban landscape" (p. 80). On its website, English Heritage says that since "... knowledge is the essential pre-requisite of good decision-making, we are committed to the study of neglected or hitherto unrecognized elements of the built heritage." Based on this premise, the authors present data here that facilitate a reasonable understanding of how this landscape evolved. This, they suggest, should lead to future strategies for both the natural and manmade environments that are informed by the past but balanced by present realities. For American professionals, this work is an excellent model in how to research, document, and describe an urban landscape's evolution and how to present these findings to a general audience in a format that is both appealing and informative. |
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