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A Bigger, Integrated, City-Centre: Ideas Here.

3526 Views 24 Replies 8 Participants Last post by  Pietari, 
Villiers Terrace
I'll start.

1.Retail cores:
a.)The Islington Project: This plan is incredibly important if this historically successfull part of the Centre isn't to wither away and die. I love the remit and the sheer size of the area being advanced under this plan, however, we need to see fantastic spaces and buildings being created and I can't help but think the whole thing needs a Grand Projet like the Central Village to really anchor and spark the whole thing off.
TJ's proves the viability of this area, but I see NO reason why this propsed core can't have it's share of some of the very finest retail we're hoping to attract.
It's three great advantages are: Lime St Station on it's doorstep, the coach station, and proximity to the Walker/Museum draw.

b.)L1: Whatever there is to say about this project has been said already on this forum, suffice to say it's going to be transformational for the city and for the waterfront also (hopefully).

c.)Central Village: A wonderful consolidation of this central heart of the umm..centre. Should really provide a vital counterbalance to the draw of L1 and in doing so should help sustain activity around it's fringes i.e Renshaw St etc.

d.)Met Quarter: I love the way this also conterbalances L1 with a higher-market draw up into Whitechapel. I'd say it's provides a bit of an opportunity for those streets around Williamson Square to take the bait and "style-up" into what I think, with the Playhouse, may become the "exclusive
streets."

e.) St John's Precinct/ Clayton Square: Both visually and in terms of civic ergonomics I just think this area, in particular the huge grap of land St.Johns occupies needs a DRASTIC re-think. It's our 60's/70's mini-eyesore. Most cities around the world have one. In Paris it's Les Halles, in Manch..well there are a few....
Whatever it's merits, and it has them, I'm thinking it's unsustainable. Maybe I'm wrong.


2. Important Quarters
a.) Lime St. The gaping need, aside from the St.Johns question, which has to be addressed. Just some landscaping, and a replacement tower won't suffice (though if we could just get that point it would be nice).
Ground-floor amemity/ public access for the NWestern Hotel a must. Possibly relinked to the station.
The strip along Lime St, the old Futurist, the pubs etc, all the way along to the Adelphi, reaching down the Blackers block to Clayton: of vital importance to regenerate. Do we quaterise the Blackers building to create a mini-district? We have to bring this area back into circulation. The potential is there.

b.) Chinatown. Needs a bit of air, a bit of light to grow and expand. I think we need to design out from the cityscape the mistake which is the student walled estate on Gt George St. I think both sides of this southern thoroughfare into town now need street-level activity and I'd keep the accommodation and housing on the upper storeys of blocks.

c.) Brownlow Hill. Shove the new-town housing spread and give this important strip the Hardman St treatment. At the moment this road depresses me like no other. A complete rethink on this would spread some light and activity down it's offshoots and create a whole new link to a rejuvenated Lime St and London Road, and off towards Mt.Pleasant.

Ok, so without getting into the whole North side issues, and then on about Upper Parlie etc I'll quit here for now.
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Tony Sebo
all of these and other areas of potential need to be joined by a grid plan... or neter a reinstatement of a street plan as near as possible to pre 60s' destruction as poss. The beauty of this is that one area will flow into the next seemlessly, helping to provide growth without disjointedness... if that all amkes sense?

it is vital that the dock wall comes down to enable the new developments of Peel's to grow into the areas further inland... if not, yuppy haven disguised as a housing estate.
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Villiers Terrace
I don't really understand your position on the dock wall, well I understand the point you've made but c'mon, the dock wall: this monolithic presence has defined and shaped that whole area of town. Take down the wall, you render meaningless the remnants of that which was built around it. It also unique and as nice as glass towers can be, it holds a whole lot more interest than any of it.

I know it can be seen as an "obstacle" to future development but I can't believe that a certain amount of creativity and ingenuity can't find access solutions which can work with the thing rather than knocking sections or indeed all of it down.

The "Dock Road" without the wall just isn't the Dock Road and Liverpool with the Dock Road may as well be Plymouth or wherever.
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Soul_13
A dock wall is a dock wall. Knock it down NOW
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Villiers Terrace
Soul_13 said:
A dock wall is a dock wall. Knock it down NOW
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...an amazing insight.
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Toadboy
Good stufff VT, as Tony points out the key to it all in connection and flow.

Wouldn't it have been great to build the new museum on Islington and re established the seemless flow in to the city? The so called Cultural Quarter would be bolstered and loads of associated business and lifestyles would begin to mass.
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Awayo
The idea of replacing Fortress Liverpool with a new theatre was interesting I thought. Now, the Playhouse and Everyman are to refurbish their existing spaces intead.

Getting the TGWU refurbished or replaced is an important priority. It's depressing that, even now, new central sites in town like this are still becoming derelict.
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Livernow
I say get rid of the dock road!!!
Block off Bath street(build a tower). Remove the bridge at Stanley etc. The road from Great Howard street to Sefton boundry is not fit for purpose. It needs to be widened with central reservations and turn off lanes as it has along the rest of this main artery into the city. Once the bulk of the traffic in and out of the city is using this (mainly none residential )route, every so many hundred yards a street should be widened considerably down to the docks. As for the wall, the red brick sections should be breached but I am not sure about the stone run from Regent. I stress this is simply my opinion.
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the golden vision
Villiers Terrace said:
I don't really understand your position on the dock wall, well I understand the point you've made but c'mon, the dock wall: this monolithic presence has defined and shaped that whole area of town. Take down the wall, you render meaningless the remnants of that which was built around it. It also unique and as nice as glass towers can be, it holds a whole lot more interest than any of it.

I know it can be seen as an "obstacle" to future development but I can't believe that a certain amount of creativity and ingenuity can't find access solutions which can work with the thing rather than knocking sections or indeed all of it down.

The "Dock Road" without the wall just isn't the Dock Road and Liverpool with the Dock Road may as well be Plymouth or wherever.
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I Know what you mean Villiers,the dock rd/wall is so evocative of maritme Liverpool it feels like sacrilege to say remove it. Sadly i think some sections should come down.A couple of reasons:travelling down it by car last summer,there were some sailing ships in the Central Docks and you could see the top of the masts if you peered up,the vast majority of the passing traffic was probably totally unaware they were there:it's a barrier.Secondly,the north dock rd has lost most of the huge warehouses that lined it,that cavernous effect has now been replaced with two storey premises and landscaping one side and derelict docks on the other.Sad but inevitable.
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Villiers Terrace
Toadboy said:
Good stufff VT, as Tony points out the key to it all in connection and flow.

Wouldn't it have been great to build the new museum on Islington and re established the seemless flow in to the city? The so called Cultural Quarter would be bolstered and loads of associated business and lifestyles would begin to mass.
Click to expand...
You know we haven't built a proper art gallery in Liverpool for 150 years now. And that's the only one we've ever built. (I think FACT is somewhat different.) Most cities have built two at least, Manchester has ..three (?)

A third major gallery to compliment the Tate and the Walker would seem to called for, (in my opinion anyway), and wouldn't it be great if it was in Islington- coach, train, bus links and all??

Other sites I'd consider:
a.)On the current St.John's site
b.)Stanley Dock
c.)Sefton Park, where the caf is.
d.)Princes Park "floating" on the lake (maybe that's too small an area).
e.)Lodge Lane (Involving a major uprade of Edge Lane station)
f.)Wavertree Road ( ditto )

Let's talk a gallery of World-wide stature here, designed by, say, a Renzo Piano type practitioner, concentrating on one of the major schools of the art movement, bringing tourists, scholars and students of Art history form all around the globe.
So that's 70mill€ and, politcal will being favourable, 5 years between first thought and spade. :eek:kay:
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Awayo
Villiers Terrace said:
You know we haven't built a proper art gallery in Liverpool for 150 years now. And that's the only one we've ever built. (I think FACT is somewhat different.) Most cities have built two at least, Manchester has ..three (?)
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Fucksakes Villiers. That's your worst post ever. You're a art teacher for Christs sake, as well. I'm not even going to explain to you the cluelessness of it. Go away, think about it, delete the above and start again. 0/10. :eek:hno:
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Villiers Terrace
Awayo said:
Fucksakes Villiers. That's your worst post ever. You're a art teacher for Christs sake, as well. I'm not even going to explain to you the cluelessness of it. Go away, think about it, delete the above and start again. 0/10. :eek:hno:
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:lol: :lol: Oh thanks!

But I'm not an Art teacher, I'm a part-time Fashion lecturer!!

Give me one major Nationally-known art gallery we've purpose-built out of the ground since the soddin Walker??!

There is none.
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Awayo
If there's one thing that Liverpool excels at it's its number of art galleries, far in excess of Manchester's or anywhere elses for that matter.

If its of some strange concern that an art gallery be housed in a building built as an art gallery, rather than having tens of millions spent on creating a gallery in a building that was once something else (like Tate Liverpool or Tate Modern or the Baltic, etc., etc.), we'll start with the Lady Lever, shall we, and work down from there?
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Awayo
Oh, and as you mentioned Manchester, as I've said, I'm not an expert on that city, but I can't think of one purpose-built large art gallery in the city centre (and only one if we quite reasonably include Salford as Manchester).

Manchester City Art Gallery occupies the old Manchester Royal Institution. Ours is now Barfly! The Whitworth is part of the university buildings, the Cornerhouse is in some old Victorian building. What else are you thinking of?
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Villiers Terrace
Awayo said:
If there's one thing that Liverpool excels at it's its number of art galleries, far in excess of Manchester's or anywhere elses for that matter.

If its of some strange concern that an art gallery be housed in a building built as an art gallery, rather than having tens of millions spent on creating a gallery in a building that was once something else (like Tate Liverpool or Tate Modern or the Baltic, etc., etc.), we'll start with the Lady Lever, shall we, and work down from there?
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Errr.....well we could if this were a thread about "Art On Merseyside", but it's not, it's a thread about how we add to, and sustain a wider, rather than dimishing city centre through projects either based in the centre, or, on the fringes of that centre (Seffo's at least in the city).

And in response to Toadies remark about the "Cultural Quarter", I am indeed mooting a purpose-built INTERNATIONALLY, let alone Nationally known 'Grand Projet'.
Now these small, locally-known galleries you mention are fine, but if actually read the original post, and the posts preceeding it, not forgetting a brief scan of the title of the soddin thread, you'll realise they're not really not what I'm talking about are they?

Lady Lever? I've heard of it. I've even been to it. It's on the Wirral.

Nutkins.
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Awayo
Eh, okay city centre then. Where are Manchester's three city-centre, purpose-built art galleries you were talking about? :?

Liverpool doesn't need another art gallery. Where's the collection going to come from? Liverpool's display spaces and existing collections are already excellent. I can't be arsed with another London relocation (National Gallery of the North as Liverpool has a Tate of the North? Bollox.) And how else would a massive art gallery be filled, by clearing out the current NML/Tate/Liverpool U/etc. spaces?

Opera or ballet, they're missing, however.

Off subject, I tell you what I'd like to see - seeing as we're in visionary mode- a new-build University of Bootle, created in those parts of the north dock currently unused or virtually deserted. Open that town (of part of the metropolis, natrilly) up to the sea again and end up with the most impressive uni campus in the country. The best architects worldwide should be employed.

It's a pisser that unlike Salford, the Bootle burgomeisters did not seize the opportunity to turn its tech college(s) into a university. There's no reason why Salford should have a Bootle not. The almagamation into the meaningles Sefton couldn't have helped.

Anyway: the University of Bootle. Build it now.
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the golden vision
Awayo said:
Eh, okay city centre then. Where are Manchester's three city-centre, purpose-built art galleries you were talking about? :?

Liverpool doesn't need another art gallery. Where's the collection going to come from? Liverpool's display spaces and existing collections are already excellent. I can't be arsed with another London relocation (National Gallery of the North as Liverpool has a Tate of the North? Bollox.) And how else would a massive art gallery be filled, by clearing out the current NML/Tate/Liverpool U/etc. spaces?

Opera or ballet, they're missing, however.

Off subject, I tell you what I'd like to see - seeing as we're in visionary mode- a new-build University of Bootle, created in those parts of the north dock currently unused or virtually deserted. Open that town (of part of the metropolis, natrilly) up to the sea again and end up with the most impressive uni campus in the country. The best architects worldwide should be employed.

It's a pisser that unlike Salford, the Bootle burgomeisters did not seize the opportunity to turn its tech college(s) into a university. There's no reason why Salford should have a Bootle not. The almagamation into the meaningles Sefton couldn't have helped.

Anyway: the University of Bootle. Build it now.
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Awayo Bootle's already got a great university:Marsh Lane:lol: Seriously, Bootle's only half the size of Salford. Strangely enough Edge Hill up here in Ormskirk,was originally based in Edge Hill Liverpool, so the city could've had 4 universities if you include Hope.
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Awayo
Ah, Marsh Lane: the university of hard knocks.

I dunno, Wiki reckons, Salford - 72,750, Bootle 59,123, towns, that is, not the boroughs that now include both towns.

I properly consituted Borough of Bootle, set up in 74 and including Bootle proper, all of the C20s Bootle overspill stuff like Litherland/Ford/Netherton, etc. and Crosby would have made more sense than Sefton at least. And it should have whacked up Hugh Baird to uni status with a new build Maritime Campus.

And so should have the useless Wirral MBC as well. Bolton's got one ffs.
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the golden vision
I know the old City of Salford before reorganistion had a population around 150k,Bootle peaked at about 85k.
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the golden vision
Awayo said:
Ah, Marsh Lane: the university of hard knocks.

I dunno, Wiki reckons, Salford - 72,750, Bootle 59,123, towns, that is, not the boroughs that now include both towns.

I properly consituted Borough of Bootle, set up in 74 and including Bootle proper, all of the C20s Bootle overspill stuff like Litherland/Ford/Neverton, etc. and Crosby would have made more sense than Sefton at least. And it should have whacked up Hugh Baird to uni status with a new build Maritime Campus.

And so should have the useless Wirral MBC as well. Bolton's got one ffs.
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Aye. Birkenhead is always forgotten.
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