A Unique English Town - Sian Ricketts

A U n i q u e E n g l i s h To w n Urban Planning Interventions in Barrow-in-Fur ness

Sian Elizabeth Ricketts S t E d m u n d ’s C o l l e g e University of Cambridge An essay submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the MPhil Examination in Architecture & Urban Design (2015-2017) April, 2016 Wo r d C o u n t : 5 3 7 1 w o r d s , i n c l u d i n g f o o t n o t e s , c a p t i o n s , a n d endnotes

A U n i q u e E n g l i s h To w n Urban Planning Interventions in Barrow-in-Fur ness

Sian Elizabeth Ricketts S t E d m u n d ’s C o l l e g e University of Cambridge An essay submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the MPhil Examination in Architecture & Urban Design (2015-2017) April, 2016 Wo r d C o u n t : 5 3 7 1 w o r d s , i n c l u d i n g f o o t n o t e s , c a p t i o n s , a n d endnotes

ABSTRACT

This paper begins a critical appraisal of how late 19th century planning principles and ideologies, specifically the Beaux Arts and City Beautiful movements, may be applied within the context of Barrow-in-Furness; a unique 21st century industrial town.

01. Barrow Island industry as seen from Walney Chanel

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INTRODUCTION

Arising from a combination of geographical remoteness, unique architectural topography and centralised heavy industry, Barrow-in-Furness is arguably unlike any other English town. This is especially so as it as it sits central to the UK’s nuclear weapons debate; the town is home to the shipbuilding facet of BAE Systems, who specialise in the design and manufacture of Vanguardclass nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines.

This paper begins with an examination of how the architecture of Barrow-in-Furness, specifically the industrial and domestic typology of Barrow Island, should be highly valued as a form of functional tradition, and may be described as sublime. In contrast, I argue that much of the town’s 21st century development is totally indifferent to the qualities of the landscape and the existing architecture: It stifles the heroic scale seen in much of the industrial buildings, mars the visual impact of the sublime, and exists as mean examples of neo-expediency.

As something of an antidote therefore, the second half of this paper introduces Beaux Arts and City beautiful planning principles. It considers how the aesthetic and ideological ideas may be used as a framework for speculative urban design proposals in Barrow-in-Furness. By responding to the unique grain of the town and recalling narrative traces from the past, the proposal advocates the erasure of much of the offensive commercially expedient development, in favour of re-establishing and indeed celebrating relationships between the town centre and its industrial core.

There is lack of critical discourse relating to the architecture of Barrow-in-Furness; a tendency towards neglect that appears echoed in the town-planning department’s attitude towards redevelopment. Given the unique qualities of the town, it highlights the need for a much more rigorous and sensitive approach. From the outset, the direction of enquiry has not been focused towards finding interventions intended to save the town from possible decline; the Bilbao effect feels inappropriate here. Rather, it works on the assumption that BAE Systems will continue to dominate and expand their presence in the town (a £1.3bn contract for HMS Anson was confirmed by the Government in November 2015) and the argument is manifested more as a gesture towards an attitude of minimum social responsibility to which the enterprise ought to arguably assume.

Equally, I do not wish to engage too deeply at a political level on the bigger question of trident.

Indeed, there exists something of a paradox between Barrow’s visually uplifting setting in the south lakes, and air of grim dystopia that resonates internally. There is juxtaposition between the function of the town, as an exemplar of British power, and the reality of inhabiting it. Yet, I am keen to assume a primarily static political position, in favour of a dynamic architectural one.

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BARROW-IN-FURNESS

Barrow-in-Furness is a remote industrial town in Cumbria, Northern England. It is situated at the tip of the Furness peninsula, bordered by Morecambe Bay, the Duddon Estuary and the Irish Sea. Despite its size (home to around 57,000 inhabitants) it is geographically isolated and relatively obscure: An hour’s drive connects Barrow to the M6 via the town’s principle road link; a slow meandering railway line connects the town with Lancaster to the south and Carlisle to the north.

‘The name Barrow derives from the Norse Barrai, meaning either bare island or island of the headland’1. The town exists by virtue of a long and prolific tradition of heavy manufacturing in the district. Significant deposits of high-grade hematite iron ore, found on the Furness Peninsula and adjacent coastal plains of southern Cumbria allowed for a flourishing iron and steel industry in the 18th and 19th centuries. Owing to the geographical characteristics of the site; namely a series of naturally occurring tidal inlets, which are buffered from direct impact of the Irish Sea by low-lying marshland of Walney Island, Barrow established itself from a small hamlet to the very core of Furness Industry.

The town became synonymous with shipbuilding after James Ramsden ‘de facto’2 town founder purchased Barrow Island in 1863 and established a successful shipyard. Bourne out of this burgeoning enterprise he became something of a custodian to the town and produced a comprehensive urban plan, complete with an assortment of housing stock, grand squares, and a first rate collection of civic buildings; all centred on a distinct grid layout. Narratives describing the architectural character of Barrow-in-Furness are likely to reference how it was once dubbed ‘the Chicago of England’3 , indeed Ramsden’s contribution, reflect this wealthy and ambitious indusial centre.

Today the town continues to be dominated by its shipyard, owned by BAE Systems. Whereas at one time the yard catered to a much broader field of civil engineering, the last four decades

02. Barrow Docks. Mid 1880s

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03/04. Picture postcards depicting Barrow-In-Furness Town Hall and Iron Works. Early 1900s.

have seen a strong management bias lean towards specialist military work, primarily nuclear submarine production; giving BAE Systems unique strength as prime contractor for the MoD4 . The distinct characteristics of Barrow, render it well situated for such a controversial industry, arguably however, this offers the town very little stability, as large-scale military contracts are inherently vulnerable to changes in centralised government defence policy. Furthermore, gradual rationalisation and consolidation of the arms industry has over time, resulted in widespread job losses. The number of employees based at the shipyard dropped from 12,000 in 1987 to just over 3,000 in 2006, it currently stands at around 7,000 which is approximately 12 percent of the population. One gets impression a local skilled work force enables BAE Systems to generate significant profits out of Barrow, yet evidence of widespread urban decline would indicate that very little gets directed back into the town5.

Architecturally, Barrow-in-Furness is a compelling and somewhat extreme landscape; vast industrial buildings, representing two centuries of functional tradition sit cheek by jowl with Victorian era terraces and imposing sandstone tenements. Aside from historical narratives and conservation appraisals, there exists very little critical discourse relating to the town and its architecture. One exception is a chapter, titled Diving for Pearls in, A New Kind of Bleak: Journeys through Urban Britain,

by Owen Hatherley. In this travelogue-cum-critique Hatherley documents the most interesting architecture throughout the town. Whilst the account is not overtly negative, and indeed Hatherley generally appears to favour proletarian, industrial and unapologetically ‘northern’ landscapes6 , there is an implicit tone throughout which plays to a popularized and broadly cynical vision of the town. A vision no doubt exacerbated by the media and its geographical obscurity¬—Hatherley was reputedly asked ‘why on earth would you want to go there?!’7—more often than with any

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other location. Without doubt, the local planning authority has been ‘awesomely negligent’8 ; the town centre speaks plainly of struggles and pains endured throughout the last century and Hatherley’s observation of Hollywood Park as ‘one of the most dispiriting retail developments in the British Isles’9 is not in dispute. Yet whilst he speaks a great deal of the extreme landscapes, power and unique urbanity, he regards them as ‘odd’, ‘bizarre’ and ‘strange’, and makes little reference of the positive qualities of the architecture.

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AN APRECIATION OF SCALE - THE FUNCTIONAL TRADITION

The architectural virtues of Barrow-in-Furness are rooted in a tradition of forthright and functional design that permeates English architecture. It is a tradition that arguably transcends the nuances in historic styles and fashion and ‘seldom departs from the bold geometrical simplicity that functional considerations engender’.10 Yet, despite a sustained and well-established practice, full appreciation of this aesthetic was not formally recognized until the mid-20th century.

In 1949 the Architectural Review (AR) began a campaign led by editor J.M Richards and his contemporaries, H. de Cronin Hastings and E. de Maré, to document and celebrate the anonymous vernacular industrial architecture of the English urban and rural environments.

The campaign was manifested though a number of publications and the expression ‘Functional Tradition’ coined.

The vigorous and forthright qualities shared by all the artefacts of the industrial revolution – engineering structures and industrial buildings alike – is not surprising when we consider that they express the enterprising spirit that was stirring so deeply at the time. Periods of war and civil strife have left to posterity their castles. Periods dominated by power of religion have left their abbeys and cathedrals. And periods where a nation’s energies have been concentrated on commerce and industry have left factories, warehouses, docks and such-like buildings which, when they had as much creative energy focused on them as English buildings of this kind has in the years following the industrial revolution, possess something of the same vigour and conviction as the castles and cathedrals.11 In addition to a celebration of aesthetic values, the campaign sought to re-determine ‘misunderstandings’ that have grown up around the term ‘functionalism’. In The Functional Tradition, in Early Industrial Buildings, Richards argues that, ‘Functional is a word that has always been more closely associated with modern architecture than any other, both in the explanations of its apologists and in the popular mind’.12 Indeed by the mid-20th century, it was well established as the philosophical basis on which modern architectural values exist, an ‘acceptance of a principle that the process of designing a building begins with a close analysis of the needs it is to serve’.13 Yet, continues Richards, it is in this sense that it is somewhat misunderstood. ‘Functionalism’ he argues ‘has acquired the reputation of being a revolutionary creed, peculiar to our day’.14 This is not the case. Whilst buildings have always had a practical role to fulfill, and as such a functional element is always present, the ‘Functional Tradition’, both through the manner of publications and the wider sentiment, sought to illustrate a special sense of the term, one reserved for a typology that derives a specific and unique ‘artistic character directly from the way the challenge of function is met’.15 It is a sentiment that emerges with particular strength during the industrial revolution, as buildings were designed and constructed to accommodate unprecedented scales of manufacturing and mechanics;

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Previously buildings of almost every kind, however large, were domestic in scale. Even the vastest structures that were not domestic in purpose, like cathedrals and tithebarns, had doorways and other features which, being designed in relation to the human figure, served as a reminder to their connection with human activities. One of the most important effects aesthetically of the industrial revolution was the introduction into the landscape of structures that had nothing to do with the human scale, but reflected rather the superhuman nature of the new industrial activities’.16 Throughout Barrow-in-Furness there are many remarkable examples of late Victorian industrial vernacular, the sheds are monumental in size and gain a distinct majesty from their scale.

The Heavy Engineering Shop on Michaelson Road, is a particularly striking example. It is an immensely long sandstone warehouse, which almost runs the entire width of Barrow Island. It has a roadside frontage with 42 bay windows, making a major contribution to the industrial landscape of Barrow Island. Like so many great industrial buildings there exists a subtlety of detailing and elegant composition particular to this typology. Arguably more modern industrial buildings are crude in comparison, yet there is a satisfying tapestry-like visual effect, upon which the various ages and grain come together.

Most striking about Barrow-in-Furness is the quality of its contrasts: the industrial and the domestic; the landscape and the townscape; the vertical and the horizontal. These contrasts are manifested through the immediate juxtaposition of scales, typologies, materials, and textures; this is highly valuable as it gives rise to a topography more extreme and varied than we are accustomed to experience - perhaps strange, but also unique, poetic, evocative and in many instances sublime.

05.Functional Tradition on Barrow Island, as seen from Walney Chanel.

Opposite: 06.The Heavy Engineering Shop, Michaelson Road, Barrow Island.

07. Industrial shed, Barrow Island.

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BARROW AND THE SUBLIME

Philosophical aesthetic theory of the sublime provides framework for appreciating the urban landscape of Barrow-in-Furness. Not purely through its physical manifestations, but additionally by virtue of what the buildings represent in a broader political context.

Firstly, that of scale.

Edmund Burke, in his seminal work, ‘A Philosophical Enquiry into the Sublime and Beautiful, states that, ‘greatness of dimension is a powerful cause of the sublime’.17 Looking northwards from the Vickerstown foreshore towards Barrow-in-Furness, The Devonshire Dock Hall (DDH) looms above its scattered appendages. Architecturally it is ‘genuinely astonishing’.18 By far the largest object on the horizon and visible from as far away as Blackpool, it is monumental in scale and sculptural in form, a vast creamy geometrical mass silhouetted against bracken-clad undulations of the southern Cumbrian fells. Burke suggests the reason why objects of great dimension are sublime is linked to our ability to focally assimilate them whole.19 Fragments of the DDH are visible from virtually all across Barrow-in-Furness, at 52 metres in height and 260 metres in length it is difficult to avoid. The grid layout of streets means that turning a corner may unexpectedly result in confrontation with its façade, moreover as we only ever see it piecemeal it arguably dominates our mind and our imagination fills in the hidden bulk. To see the entire building whole one has to travel to Walney Island and look across the channel.

Secondly, for John Ruskin, in The Seven Lamps of Architecture, an important attribute of the sublime is its severity and mystery: In thus reverting to the memories of those works of architecture by which we have been most pleasurably impressed, it will generally happen that they fall into two broad classes: the one characterised by an exceeding precariousness in delicacy, to which we recur with a sense of affectionate admiration; and the other by a severe and, in many cased mysterious, majesty, which we remember with an undiminished awe, like that felt at the presence and operation of some great spiritual power.20 Along with its sheer scale, the secretive and somewhat disturbing industrial processes that take place within the DDH may be attributed to these characteristics. Affectionately known as ‘Maggie’s Farm’ it was erected in the early nineteen-eighties and was designed specifically to allow for the full-scale production and assembly of nuclear submarines. The shed not only provides protection from the threat of harsh Cumbrian weather, but also safeguards against overhead satellites which may photograph classified technologies within. Cocooned and away from prying Opposite: 08. Barrow Industry seen from Walney Island framed against Black Combe fell in the Lake District National Park.

09. The Devonshire Dock Hall, as seen from Walney Chanel.

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10. Part of an Astute Class submarine hull is transported between sites, Barrow Island.

Opposite: 11. Interior of the Devonshire Dock Hall.

12. Devonshire Dock Hall as seen from the Michaelson Road Bridge, Barrow Island.

eyes, the submarines are fitted out with the most advanced technologies to maim and harm. So rare is the case, it is quite remarkable when the public are allowed glimpses into its clandestine world; occasionally great chunks of submarine require moving from one shed to another, resulting in a sublime contrast between the seemingly miniature terrace houses and these vast cylindrical segments. There is a great comparison between the carefully controlled inner machinations of the hall and the contrived setting that accompanies an eventual launch; with dramatic effect the colossal doors of the DDH are parted, and completed submarines unveiled with elaborate pomp, attracting large crowds and media attention.

Finally, therefore: Power.

For Burke there is a strong relationship between the idea of the sublime and that of power and terror, indeed he explicitly states ‘I know of nothing sublime which is not some modification of power.’21 Referencing Burke, Paul Guyer explains the arrival of this theory in that: Whatever is fitted in any sort to excite the idea of pain, and danger, that is to say, whatever is in any sort terrible, or is conversant about terrible objects, or operates in a manner analogous to terror, is a source of the sublime…’ When such ‘causes operate most powerfully’, their effect is ‘Astonishment…with some degree of horror’; in lesser degrees, the effects ‘are admiration, reverence and respect’. 22 Existing almost exclusively on the currency of perpetual warfare, the industrial landscape of Barrow-in-Furness represents a powerful sublime by virtue of the machines it manufactures.

Nuclear weapons, in particular nuclear submarines; with their incomprehensible destructive capabilities are representative of this theory in its most articulated sense, as a visitor to Barrow there is no escaping the slight unease that these buildings induce.

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QUESTIONABLE DEVELOPMENT

For all of its aesthetic virtues, the last two decades have seen swathes of post-industrial land succumb to a particularly mean brand of neo-expediency through hasty and insensitive development.

For what is a relatively small town, Barrow-in-Furness has no less than five retail parks. They occupy a prominent strip of land, formally the site of Hindpool steelworks, which flanks Devonshire and Buccleauch Dock, and extends North westerly along Walney Channel. The four most offensive contenders; Cornerhouse, Cornmill-Crossing, Hindpool, and Hollywood, are fully conjoined and merge into one massive car park. Equally dispiriting, an enormous Morrisions supermarket, an appendage of Cornmill-Crossing, has been sandwiched incongruously, south east of the town centre on the same strip of post-industrial land. Its sheer size supplants any possibility of a vista along the Central Barrow’s main artery; Duke Street, towards the waterfront. Some attempts have been made to soften its impact: a footpath cutting through the car park gestures to what would otherwise have been a prominent axial relationship with the town centre; a token portion of façade from the original shipyard boundary has been retained, some homage to the site from which the town originally developed. Yet these bids hardly begin to compensate for the destruction of both visual and physical relationships between the town centre, the waterfront, and the urban industry.

Moreover, planning permission for these schemes, which began with Hollywood Park in 1998, was sought and granted over a couple of months23 perhaps suggesting that little thought, or indeed care was given to the ramifications of the development. Considering the global financial crash of 2008, and ensuing economic crisis, one can assume that the planning departments were somewhat vulnerable to the more persuasive arm of private development. Written in 2012 of Hollywood

13. Neo-expediency: Halfords and B&M Homestores, Corner House Retail Park. The Devonshire Dock Hall dominates the skyline behind.

Barrow-In-Furness.

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park Hatherley remarks that, ‘typically in a Labour stronghold, it breaks everyone of the planning rules set down by the outgoing government in its various white papers and recommendations’24 , the schemes appear especially offensive as they bite in to what is otherwise ‘a refreshingly compact town’25, indeed, ‘the wipe clean Pizza Huts and PC Worlds are not so much an affront to their red-brick context as blissfully unaware of it’26.

BEAUX ARTS & CITY BEAUTIFUL

Using the historic literary term, ‘sublime’, allows for an understanding of Barrow-in-Furness and a means of examining the town, which imbues a sense of value. Equally, an appreciation of the increasingly rare, urban industrial vernacular, adds resonance to this. To begin then, in considering urban design interventions, which are both appropriate and applicable to Barrow-inFurness, it appears reasonable to adopt a framework of principles that were originally established by virtue of an 18th and 19th century romantic tradition, and rooted in very specific attitudes towards landscape, composition and monumental grandeur; namely the Beaux-Arts influenced City Beautiful Movement.

The City Beautiful movement was a reform philosophy and political agenda in American urban planning during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Broadly speaking, it promoted the aestheticisation of urban environments through a comprehensive planning agenda with the ambition of fostering civic virtue amongst the population. Aesthetically it was bound in a European legacy; blending neo-classic forms and formal composition with naturalistic and pastoral romantic landscaping. Ideologically, reformist and ameliorative; though a synthesis with utility and efficiency proponents advocated the power of urban beautification in its ability to ‘shape human thought and behaviour’.27 ORIGINS William H. Wilson in The City Beautiful Movement, states that its ‘taproot’ lies in nineteenth century landscape architecture, in particular that personified by Frederick Law Olmsted (1822-1903).

Although ‘emphatically not a City Beautiful figure’ (Olmstead’s career as landscape architect preceded its conception, and ultimately he didn’t champion the urban plasticity it represented) against the backdrop of an American revolution in aesthetics; from a reading of Emerson, Ruskin, Gilpin and Price; and with personal admiration for natural landscapes and scenery, Olmstead developed a number of themes or legacies, which are reflected in the movement and give it particular resonance in relation to Barrow-in-Furness.

Most visibly, he can be credited with the conception of the park and boulevard system, synonymous to the City Beautiful Movement, and closely linked to the formulation of its ideology;

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14/15. Proposed parks in Burnham’s Plan of Chicago.

Olsteadian principles of the park and boulevard system are clearly visible.

Opposite: 16. William Gilpin, Landscape, a River between Hills (date unknown). Gilpin profoundly influenced Frederick Law Olmstead and his ideas towards the ascendancy of the romantic.

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He moved from the designing of single, although multifunctional, parks to the planning of comprehensive, multipurpose park and boulevard systems…were the restorative, recreative influences of natural landscape on city bound people. The park was a magnet for all urbanities and a benign instrument of class reconciliation and democratization.29 Stemming from this first point, Olmstead left a important intellectual legacy to the City Beautiful movement.

He is described by Wilson as having a deeply personal appreciation of the natural landscapes and wilderness, no doubt cemented by his reading of romantic literature and painting, he ‘upheld the environmental value of naturalistic beauty’.30 Thus advancing ‘many of the arguments associated with the City Beautiful conviction of the inseparability of beauty and utility’.31 He witnessed rapid urbanization, the destruction of natural landscapes and with it the loss of rural life and community. Although non-sectarian, Olmstead accepted the secularizing world and thus viewed landscape architecture as something of an outlet for the belief ‘that conscious social effort…would achieve the redemption of humanity on earth’32 providing palliative reprieve to a burgeoning urban class.

It is important to emphasise that the City Beautiful Movement is not a direct translation of Olmsteadian thought; indeed there are some fundamental differences. Whilst Olmstead’s ambitions were palliative, and focused towards spaces of reprieve, the City Beautiful Movement was concerned with spaces of virtue and aspiration. Equally, Olmsteadian appreciation of naturalist beauty was extended far beyond the picturesque to include civic beauty, and we see the Civic Centre rise to prominence, emblematic of ‘local autonomy and public interest in local decision making’.33 Moreover, the City Beautiful movement was consequential of a convergence of other themes: Proponents’ looks closely at Western Europe, ‘impressed by clean and beautiful cities’.34 Out of Darwinism the concept of the city became synonymous with a type of organicism; determining a view of the city as more than simply ‘an agglomeration of individuals or buildings, but as an entity that must be manipulated and designed as a whole’.35 And thus proponents, sought to establish a comprehensive approach to urban design, which, through the seamless combination of aesthetic and functional matters, may ‘heal’ defective environments.

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MANIFESTATIONS OF THE CITY BEAUTIFUL In its most elevated context, as seen in The World’s Columbian Exposition (1893) Washington’s McMillan Plan (1901-2) and Burnham’s Plan of Chicago (1909), the City Beautiful movement is manifested through an ensemble of grand public palaces (almost always neo-classic), formal courts, and monumental sculptures. These are orientated around symmetrical and axial relationships, providing lines of sight and movement that culminate in dramatic and extensive vistas. Multiple readings of a plan are orchestrated as one complete whole, often softened by naturalistic landscaping and juxtaposed against an expanse of water.

It is here that reference to the principles of architectural composition practiced at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris is most visible. Many of the champions of City Beautiful urban planning, most notably Daniel Burnham, had attended the Parisian School. ‘ “Beaux-Arts” ’ States David Van Zanten, in The Architecture of the Ecole Des Beaux-Arts ‘denotes not a style, but rather a technique’:36 Composition was the French academic system’s terms for what it considered the essential act of architectural design. What composition signified was not so much the design of ornament or façades, but of whole buildings, conceived as three-dimensional entities and seen together in plan, section and elevation. 37 In this respect, an application of Beaux-Arts and City Beautiful principles in Barrow-in-Furness does not propose a direct translation; that is to say, it does not for example denote an adoption of neo-classic design. Rather, it considers the monumental buildings that already exist in the town, including the Devonshire Dock Hall, the Heavy Engineering Shop and the Town Hall, and suggests compositional techniques and a neutral order against which they can be appreciated. Just as we enjoy the visual juxtaposition of a vast industrial edifice against the Walney Chanel mashes, by imposing a more formal set of relationships onto the landscape, a sense the natural becomes stronger; the marshes become, more marshy and industry becomes more pronounced.

In a less grandiose sense, and The City Beautiful Movement took the most commonplace aspects of the urban townscape; the streetlights, pavements, children’s playgrounds, billboards, etc. and attempted a sort of rationalisation and beautification; a cleaning up of urban space. Having discussed widespread urban decline in the town centre, we arrive once again at the question of moral social responsibility on behalf of BAE Systems. An urban planning scheme endorsed by BAE, may begin to rectify what feels like something of ‘disavowed company town’.38 As a final thought; there is an element to City Beautiful planning that treats urban environments like that of a park. This is a sentiment that holds particular resonance to Barrow-in-Furness given the town’s relatively rural location and deep affinity to the landscape within which it developed.

A wide view must therefore be adopted when considering urban planning interventions, encompassing the town’s wider context.

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17. An example of Beaux-Arts principles of composition: Louis Duc, Un Hôtel de Ville pour Paris (A City Hall for Paris) 1825.

18. World’s Colombian Exposition, Chicago, 1893.

19. Daniel Burnham’s Plan of Chicago showing the general system of boulevards and parks, existing and proposed, 1909.

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20. View from Burnham’s Plan of Chicago, 1909.

21. Proposed interventions in Barrow-in-Furness. The pink outline on the drawing indicates the opening up space between the town centre and industrial Barrow-Island. It removes much of the expedient retail development adjacent to the waterfront in favour of landscaped parks and a more sympathetically scaled typology.

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DESIGN

Prior to concluding therefore, this research presents a number of urban planning interventions in Barrow-in-Furness that have developed out of themes discussed above.

Broadly speaking the scheme is concerned with creating, and in some instances reinstating, a number of axial relationships between the town centre and the industrial core. It does away with much of the offensive 21st century development, in its place proposing a more sympathetic typology and a series of landscaped parks. This provides increased visibility between the facets of the town, and reactivates the town centre.

It proposes 4 interventions: Firstly, landscaping adjacent to the docklands removes Morrisons supermarket and allows for a number of sweeping vistas from Duke Street towards Buccleuch Dock, Walney Island and Morecombe Bay. It takes advantage of the existing, but currently almost inaccessible footpath that runs along the waterfront and exploits a backdrop of varied industrial ornamentation on Barrow Island.

Secondly, between the Town Hall, and Devonshire Dock, the proposal cuts through existing buildings to create a direct line of sight, capitalizing on a biaxial relationship between historically significant Duke Street, and the Town Hall.

Thirdly. Increased visibility of the route between the Heavy Engineering Shop on Barrow Island and the town’s main railway station, links two important locations, and emphasises historical importance of Michaelson road.

Finally, fourthly, the proposal addresses the treatment of ancillary buildings around the Devonshire Dock Hall. In place of retail parks, the scheme proposes a more sympatric housing typology that is in-keeping with the general grain of the town, and allows for scale and monumentality of the Devonshire Dock Hall to be appreciated.

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CONCLUSION

In The Concise Townscape Gordon Cullen describes the ‘art of relationship’ in architecture, a means of taking all the elements that go into creating the environment ‘and weaving them together in such a way that drama is released’.

In Barrow-in-Furness, drama is already tangible: The town is emblematic of, and testament to, a long and powerful tradition of industrialism, which within an urban context is increasingly rare.

When coupled with the sublimity of scale, monumentality and a visually stunning backdrop, the town can be situated within a field of discourse upon which its’ aesthetic virtues are celebrated.

In this abstract take on 19th century planning policy I believe that the adoption of Beaux-Arts and City Beautiful principles provide a robust framework upon which further investigation of the town may develop. Expanding on research which considers the aestheticisation of cites, landscape and daily life.

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ENDNOTES

1

Trescatheric, Brian, The Barrow Story, Revised Edition (Barrow-in-Furness: The Dock Museum, 2013) pp. 8

2

Hatherley, Owen, A New Kind of Bleak: Journeys through Urban Britain (Verso Books, 2012) pp. 86

3 Reference is made to The English Chicago in: Fisher, Joseph, Popular History of Barrow-in-Furness : The English Chicago (Bournemouth: E.J. Frampton, 1891) 4 Schofield, Dr S., 2007, Barrow Alternative Employment, Oceans of Work: The Case for Non-Military Research, Development and Production at VSEL Barrow (Barrow Alternative Employment Committee, 2007) 5

Hatherley, Owen, A New Kind of Bleak: Journeys through Urban Britain (Verso Books, 2012) pp. 82

6 Beckett, Andy, ‘A New Kind of Bleak by Owen Hatherley – Review’, The Guardian, 6 July 2012, <http://www. theguardian.com/artanddesign/2012/jul/06/new-kind-of-bleak-hatherley-review> [accessed 5 January 2016] 7

Hatherley, Owen, A New Kind of Bleak: Journeys through Urban Britain (Verso Books, 2012) pp. 81

8

Ibid. pp. 88

9

Ibid. pp. 87

10 Richards, James. M., and Eric de Maré, The Functional Tradition in Early Industrial Buildings (The Architectural Press, 1958) pp.14 11

Ibid. pp.16

12

Ibid. pp.14

13

Ibid. pp.14

14

Ibid. pp. 14-15

15

Ibid. pp.15

16

Ibid. pp. 20

17 Burke, Edmund, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful, ed. by Paul Guyer, 2nd edition (Oxford, United Kingdom: OUP Oxford, 2015) pp. 59 18

Hatherley, Owen, A New Kind of Bleak: Journeys through Urban Britain (Verso Books, 2012) pp. 83

19 Burke, Edmund, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful, ed. by Paul Guyer, 2nd edition (Oxford, United Kingdom: OUP Oxford, 2015) pp. 109 20

Ruskin, John, The Seven Lamps of Architecture, Reprint edition (Dover Publications, 1989) pp. 70

21 Burke, Edmund, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful, ed. by Paul Guyer, 2nd edition (Oxford, United Kingdom: OUP Oxford, 2015) pp. 53 22 Guyer, Paul, Introduction, In: Burke, Edmund, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful, ed. by Paul Guyer, 2nd edition (Oxford, United Kingdom: OUP Oxford, 2015) pp. xv 23

http://www.barrowbc.gov.uk/papps/search.aspx

24

Hatherley, Owen, A New Kind of Bleak: Journeys through Urban Britain (Verso Books, 2012) pp. 83

25

Ibid. pp. 87

26

Ibid. pp. 87

27

Wilson, William H., The City Beautiful Movement (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994) pp. 79

28

Ibid. pp. 9

24

29 w

Ibid. pp. 10

30

Ibid. pp. 11

31

Ibid. pp. 79

32

Ibid. pp. 11

33 Stelter, Gilbert, A., Rethinking the significance of the City Beautiful Idea, In: Freestone, Robert, Urban Planning in a Changing World: The Twentieth Century Experience (Routledge, 2012) pp.111 34

Ibid. pp.103

35

Ibid.103

Zanten, David, V., Architectural Composition at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts from Charles Percier to Charles Garnier. In; Drexler, Arthur, The Architecture of the Ecole Des Beaux-Arts (New Yorkâ&#x20AC;Ż: Cambridge, Mass: Museum of Modern Art, 1977) pp. 115

37 Ibid.pp. 112 36

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Cullen, Gordo, New Ed edition (Oxfordâ&#x20AC;Ż; Boston: Routledge, 1961) pp. 7-8

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