Anders Hanson

The developers of Sheffield’s New Retail Quarter, now renamed ‘Sevenstone‘, have unveiled their designs for the new shopping centre that will take in all of the land between Pinstone Street, Barker’s Pool, Division Street, Rockingham Street and Furnival Gate.   There is an exhibition that only lasts until Saturday (anyone would think they didn’t want people’s opinions) but there are also pictures on The Star’s website.

For what it’s worth I think most of the design is quite exciting and it is great if we can have a really impressive and architecturally daring shopping centre in the middle of the city.  Sevenstone (terrible name but I suppose we will have to live with it) will also hopefully be a great counterbalance to Meadowhall and will make sure that the city centre has a much better range of shops and attracts more of the national chains as well as local one-off stores.  This will mean that the city centre, that has improved immeasurably over the last few years, will be able to stand on its own two feet in competition with Meadowhall and other surrounding cities.

Although many people in Sheffield will disagree with the design, what it doesn’t seem to be is yet another bland and boring building like some of the recent developments in the middle of the city.  I don’t mind having unusual and controversial buildings because, although some won’t stand the test of time, we should in the long-run end up with an interesting and attractive cityscape.  Unfortunately what we seem to have had lately is some pretty cheap and nasty looking architecture that is also pretty bland.  The worst in my view is 1 St. Paul’s Place which is unattractive and bland and yet stands in a very high-profile location.

What worries me about Sevenstone is what we are losing in the process.  Although I won’t shed a tear when we lose buildings such as the current John Lewis, Kingdom nightclub and the Central Fire Station, it is appalling that we will lose buildings such as the old Bethel Sunday School on Cambridge Street and the pepper pot building on Pinstone Street.  Not only are they of architectural importance but they are also of historical significance too.  Sheffield is not renowned for its great architecture and a combination of bad planning decisions and the Second World War has reduced Sheffield’s collection of interesting older buildings down to a handful.  So I don’t want us to lose yet more.

I also don’t accept the argument that we have to be prepared to lose these buildings for the greater good.  I firmly believe that if you go to a reputable developer and say that they can do what they like but they have to protect certain buildings they will see it as a challenge and come back with something that not only retains the buildings but is perhaps even more interesting and exciting.

There is now a place where you can sign an online petition to save Tinsley’s cooling towers. So if you want to help save this important landmark, then make sure you sign. The campaign has now had support from Anthony Gormley and Jarvis Cocker, as well as many other prominent Sheffielders and non-Sheffielders.

PETITION ONLINE: Save the Landmark Tinsley Cooling Towers

Like most cities, Sheffield has its fair share of architectural triumphs and disasters. Much of the debate has centered on the future of Park Hill flats and the architectural merit of the city centre’s new St. Paul’s Hotel and St. Paul’s Place developments. One debate though that is becoming more high profile is on whether Tinsley Cooling Towers should be retained or demolished.

The future of the cooling towers is not a new debate. But at the very time that E.ON. is planning the demolition of the structures, the argument on their future is now going national thanks to Channel 4’s The Big Art Project.

I say it is going national now, but for those people who regularly travel up and down the M1, the cooling towers may be familiar. They stand on the opposite side of the M1 from Sheffield’s Meadowhall Shopping Centre, immediately next to the Tinsley Viaduct. Indeed it is the motorway that prevented their demolition many years ago when the old Blackburn Meadows Power Station closed down. Their proximity to the M1 makes their demolition quite precarious.

So over the years the debate has raged about whether they are an eyesore that has to go or whether they are landmark structures. Despite my love of industrial buildings, I would not normally look at cooling towers as beautiful. I suppose they’re a bit too commonplace, bland and uniform for that. But in my view, there’s something about Tinsley’s that make them important. From any high point near where I live you can see them in the distance on the other side of the city, and you know that that is more or less where Sheffield ends. They are a sort of full-stop to Sheffield, everything before them is a part of the city and beyond them the land gets flatter and flatter through Rotherham, Doncaster, the Humber Estuary and eventually the North Sea. So I suppose the reason I want to save them is not because they are beautiful or because they are unique, but because they are a clear landmark in the city. Some people have declared them as Sheffield’s equivalent to the Angel of the North, but I think that denegrates the beauty of that sculpture.

But the question then is what do you do with them? Some proposals have been to beautify them, but in a way that would take away their starkness and the way that they stand out so much. But leaving them as they are would just make them look like what they currently are - something that has yet to be demolished. I suppose I don’t know what should be done with them, but I do feel they should be kept.

CHANNEL 4: The Channel 4 The Big Art Project - Sheffield

GUARDIAN: Power station towers in line for cool new use

SHEFFIELD STAR: Opinion divided on cooling towers