Looking Up – Who Notices Buildings?

Most infants open their eyes to the whole world, however what they notice is soon culturally defined. They look up – until they can sit up by themselves they have little choice – and see places and objects beyond the faces looking down at them, but then they begin to notice what other people respond to, so they learn to act accordingly. The rest becomes background.

My earliest memory is of a garden, where I was placed on a rug spread by my mother. The rug, red tartan, and the twiggy hedge that released a strong smell are things which I’ve never forgotten. But everything else of my first home is lost in the mists of time, because I took no notice of it. I don’t know what that house looked like, or the second house, or the third although I have been told that one was a flat; we moved a lot.

Those who grew up living in one place will have memories of that particular building and the surrounding ones. They will be more likely to notice houses which remind them of where they lived, other styles of houses will quite possibly create a negative reaction, because of an unconscious rejection of the unfamiliar. Many buildings other than homes are often beyond their known space. They don’t use them therefore they don’t notice them.  

People all over the world rush around in towns and cities, ignoring their structures. They know where they are, and where they are going to. They notice and avoid the vehicles which dominate the urban environment, but they don’t really notice the buildings they are rushing past, or sometimes even the ones they use. Knowing what you are entering a building for, whether to buy some new jeans, sit down for a meal or pay a parking fine is one thing, however noticing what that shop, restaurant or parking office looks like as a building, its style, construction etc. is another. It’s usually not something that many people outside the construction industry would need to know.

If you show people a photograph of a building they walk past every day, the chances are that, taken out of its context, they may not recognize it. This is partly because they never look up above their own heads. They only ever see the building’s ground floor frontage, doorway and windows. They may know what is in the shop window, but ask them what the shop’s built of, when it was built, what happens above the shop sign and they just don’t know.

Building types are familiar to everybody, at least in theory. Country cottages are noticeably different from palaces and factory units aren’t expected to resemble multi-story car-parks. Most people will recognise their local church, hospital, town hall and fire station and when travelling can still identify these in different locations. But looking for the museum or police station in an unfamiliar town can be tricky if they’re not well signposted, there’s no standardized type for these functions. 

Complications abound when a building changes use; a deconsecrated Victorian church is converted into housing or an Art Deco cinema into a car showroom. Yet we do need to continue re-purposing obsolete structures and it can be done without visual confusion. Gasholder Park near Kings Cross Station is an excellent example. The intricate iron frame of Gasholder No 8, a giant gasometer which was once capable of holding 1.1 million cubic feet of gas has been painstakingly restored and now holds a small but delightful urban park on the bank of Regent’s Canal.

Noticing and enjoying buildings is not just a question of taking a trip on the London Eye to admire the skyline with St Paul’s cathedral, or standing in the town centre of Huddersfield, looking up at the Jubilee Tower on Castle Hill. Those structures are landmarks but most buildings are not. Once graceful Georgian or Victorian terraces may have already been altered and defaced, making them merge into mundane surroundings and beautifully designed individual buildings are often hemmed in by others of dubious merit. Housing estate homes may have an identity in their sameness, locals know this is their place, but too many streetscapes are dominated by parked cars or thunderous traffic.

A mismatch of architectural styles combined with the streets being dedicated to motor vehicles creates a degree of visual chaos which people tend to blot out. They’re too busy dodging traffic and infrastructure.  When they decide to go for a nice walk, they go to their nearest park or out to somewhere in the countryside. They want to get away from buildings. They don’t know what they’re missing! Architecture is art which people should be able to understand, after all they use it every day. Good architecture creates light and shade, protection, comfort and interest. It is both practical and beautiful and if you know where to look and who to ask, architecture tells stories.

A visitor checking into the Caro short stay apartments in Liverpool may be looking forward to exploring the culture and history of the city. They may not be aware that they are staying in it, though a look up at the forbidding façade and small windows could give them a clue. The Caro apartments are in the former Main Bridewell Prison which opened in 1859 and housed thousands over a period of 140 years. During that time, only a few prisoners managed to escape, one of the earliest being Joseph Banks, alias Mick Flannigan, alias Newcastle Mick who escaped with his two cellmates after picking the locks. They scaled the prison walls and got clean away over the roof of the neighboring fire station, using the firemen’s ladders. Banks was recaptured three months later after burgling a religious house, in possession of the Bishop of Chester’s gloves.

Whether subsequent generations will learn the stories or even recognise the origins of those converted structures is another matter.  Much of the population is ignorant of building styles, eras and even decoration. This is brought home by watching TV shows like Homes Under the Hammer.  In a recent show, a period house was repeatedly described as Victorian when it was very plainly post Edwardian in style, without any noticeably Victorian features. The fact that it had timber gables, a bit of stained glass and a Minton tiled floor was enough to cause the confusion. While those on the television have some responsibility for doing better research for their shows, the general public are not to blame, architecture is hardly a school subject. Perhaps it should be.