- That street space has become highly segregated, with clear divisions between pedestrians, motor vehicles and cyclists.
- Thinking that the city centre has been pedestrianised over the last few years is a mistake. In fact it has been repedestrianised
- The amount of clutter (signs, posts, awnings etc) is roughly the same
Thursday, 14 October 2010
Leicester 1900-17 and 2010
This is embarrassingly nerdy, but I thought you might be interested in my collection of 'Leicester Then & Now' photos. I find the old pictures fascinating, and the side-by-side comparisons reveal the following:
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Nice pictures, Matt. What struck me was how the structure of the streets is roughly the same - very little road changes etc. Reminds me of a seminar I went to that talked about Nottingham's road structure, and how it could essentially be traced back more than 500 years with little change. I wonder if the same could be done with Leicester?
ReplyDeleteOn a side note, I wonder if Conrad Smigelski's plans for Leicester c. 1960s are on the web? He was a really visionary planner - escalators above the road, monorail, turning granby street into an almost-italian promenade. His drawings are fantastic. I know that Simon Gunn has written, or is writing, something on him - when it comes out I will post the details on this blog
That's an interesting point about roads. You can see from this map of 1722 that many of the streets in the centre are still there, and that there is a long continuity of the clock tower site being an important junction/focal point.
ReplyDeleteBut overall I think that the C20th saw radical changes in which the ring road caused previously central areas (such as St Margaret's, High Street, the Great Central Station area) to become peripheral, and for the main focus of the town to shift out of the roman/medieval city. That's quite a big change, for the worse in my opinion. It would be interesting to do a photographic comparison between now and the 1950/60s, since what you don't see in my photos is the increasing tyranny of the motor car.
I'd not heard of those Smigelski plans -- is he the person who proposed building a massive construction at the end of New Walk?
Yes, you are right. Ring-roads have a lot to answer for - it's a common story I think. Another easy way to see their effect is to cross over the road near John Lewis, and see the vast difference in the development of the area.
ReplyDeleteYou are right about the Clock Tower too - interestingly, in Smigelski's plans, the CT was always still there, somewhat out of place when surrounded with his much more modern (or postmodern, architecture isn't my strong point) buildings and plan.
I am not sure if he proposed building a construction at the end of New Walk, but from what I recall it was he who was in charge of regenerating it back to it's Georgian incarnation (and apparently quite well - the features, like lampposts etc, are supposedly very realistic).
Hi Matt, have you considered merging your photos in this sort of fashion?
ReplyDeletehttp://design-fetish.blogspot.com/2010/08/ghosts-of-world-war-ii.html
I think they'd look great!
cant leicester be like how it was in the olden days
ReplyDeletei really like the images from the history and the present. those days must be diffrent days completley, and am not sure was those days running on diffrent currencies?
ReplyDelete