Where are you at , with this ?

[BertiWooster]

There is a fight going on to save these ' monuments ' from a 100 tonnes of dynamite .

Would you be happy to push the plunger OR should they be saved ?


http://www.flickr.com..._hartland/1731867565/

http://www.prestonbus...-preston-bus-station/

http://en.wikipedia.o...i/Preston_bus_station

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-15180978

[joggerjayne]

LOL jno ...

=0)

But the Pavillion is kooky, and quirky, and a liitle bit of cheeky history (being built, basically, as a posh shag palace).

The Brighton Centre, on the other hand, is a ghastly blot on the landscape. It is, by quite some way, the ugliest building on the whole seafront.

(The most gorgeous building is, of course, the Grosvenor Casino).

[emmie]

can't beat some of the monstrosities they have built in London,
not least the brutalist housing over in Southwark, which should be pulled down, currently the whole lot stands empty. Not sure can provide a link, but its ghastly.

[emmie]

this is it, The Heygate estate, even worse when you see it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heygate_Estate

[anotheoldgit]

Coventry Cathedral, should be saved as a memorial to all those who perished in WW2's blitz, and Newstead Abbey, the ancestral home of Lord Byron should also be saved.

If one building should be destroyed it should be Battersea Power Station, why is this a listed building?

[naomi24]

The garishness of the decor of Brighton Pavilion gives me a headache - and the inside of the Rosslyn Chapel has the same effect - but I wouldn't support either being demolished. There's architecture - and there's architecture.

[boxtops]

Could we convene a mobile AB chain gang to knock down the ones we DO want to get rid of?

[ummmm]

Jack.....Greyfriars is coming down. I read that the new bus terminal is going to be the old fish market.

And have you seen what they are doing to Beckets park?

[anotheoldgit]

/// I read that the new bus terminal is going to be the old fish market. ///

A good a 'Plaice' as any.

[China Doll]

Heygate estate, is that near alsbury estate? It looks familiar... (I lived on alsbury estate til I was about 7/8)... if it's anything like alsbury then yes, complete monstrosity.

[PRBusStation]

Preston Bus Station should certainly not be demolished, yes it has problems but demolition of a building which has been rated the city's residents' favourite building and the original architect's (Building Design Partnership) 3rd most popular building is rather extreme. You will the evidence for this here: http://bit.ly/jvv5mB

The subways aren't an ideal route to the bus station, though with permanent ground level access now having been in place for several years (including designated crossing points across the apron) there is little reason why anyone would use those subways.

The claim that "many have been killed or injured over the years" at the bus station is simply untrue. There has been one sad fatality in recent years in which the victim walked behind a reversing bus.

The campaign to save the bus station is not about preserving the interior (after 42 years of underfunding and neglect by its council owners it is in real need of modernisation), rather it is about preserving this vital public transport facility of which there is no planned replacement and integrating into a regenerated Tithebarn district. Preston has few instantly recognisable buildings and to simply bulldoze this one to replace it with a miniature clone of Liverpool One or any other generic early 2000s shopping scheme would be a real shame. An example of how it could be partially repurposed: http://bit.ly/gwfiyF

For a council that is keen for residents to recycle we would hope that they reconsider the demolition on the grounds that it is not economically nor environmentally sustainable; furthermore it's the only thing that has brought so much local, national and international exposure to the City of Preston in a long time.

Website: http://www.prestonbusstation.co.uk
Facebook Group: http://www.facebook.com/saveprestonbusstation
Twitter Feed: http://twitter.com/#!/PRBusStation

[Mosaic]

Preston bus station and the adjoining ring road area - St John's shopping centre, the Guild Hall complex, a low-rise shop that was once a Sainsbury's, and the Preston Holiday Inn - were hideous from the day they were first drawn.
The stairs from the bus station concourse to ground level are permanently impregnated with urine and have been for decades.
Suicides seem to lke the car park, as the outward-bowing structure of the walls allows - nay, encourages you - to take a spectacular run-up to your leap.
I take Jno's points entirely and we should always be diffident about condemning this kind of building. And I believe Preston Bus Station should remain, if only to be a monument to the council's greed and folly.

If the locals aren't involved in the decision making the likelihood is they'll hate the end result. In all apsects of life including architecture.

To state that this is ne of the most attractive buildings in Preston is barking mad. From the late Georgian warehouses, to the Miller arcade and the adjacent library, Preston has a wealth of architecture of all periods that the developers have thankfully missed. Including one for Jno :
http://www.skyscraper...alHouse_pic1.jpg&no=1

[Mosaic]

This little gem should be listed forthwith:
http://s561.photobuck...w¤t=burnley.gif

[PRBusStation]

Again I must clarify, there have been no more suicides at Preston Bus Station than at any other multi storey building anywhere on Earth. If suicides were grounds for demolishing a building then the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco would have been torn down decades again - 1200 deaths as of 2008 http://en.wikipedia.o..._Gate_Bridge#Suicides

Furthermore the most recent suicide scare, and the more common place for them to occur, was at Preston's far uglier multistorey car park attached to the indoor market and on the ring road - May 2011 - http://www.lep.co.uk/...r_park_roof_1_3392987 and an image of that car park http://www.lep.co.uk/...r_park_yobs_1_2855683

I take on board your point about the current aroma in the stair wells, however to say that it is "permanently impregnated" and mandates demolition seems rather extreme compared to a deep clean and a bottle of bleach. As already pointed out, the campaign to save the bus station is not about preserving the interior in its current condition or format; it's likely that stairwells would need to be moved and modernised to create a better environment within the station.

[Mosaic]

I don't want it to be demolished. it needs to serve as a constant reminder to keep things on a human scale and not to play building-block games with public funding.
They want to demolish it to build yet another shopping mall at a time when shops are closing. Now that's going to end just as well as the bus station has.

[PRBusStation]

That's great, I'm glad we're in agreement. It certainly is a large scale building like the 81 storey Eiffel Tower, Buckingham Palace at 771 rooms or the o2 Arena (Millennium Dome) with it's 20,000 people capacity or Preston's own Harris Museum, the largest gallery space in the whole of Lancashire - http://s0.geograph.or...6/161619_7b91d721.jpg

[Mosaic]

Steady on half of the Harris building is a public library, not a gallery!

[PRBusStation]

.....or Preston's own Harris Museum, the largest gallery space in the whole of Lancashire and a library too - http://s0.geograph.or...6/161619_7b91d721.jpg

[fixed]

[Mosaic]

Repeating yourself doesn't alter the fact that the entire ground floor, more than half the basement and half the first floor of this building is a public library with a reet good referene section - not an art gallery or museum. Different use, different management.

[rowanwitch]

Birmingham Central libraru is awful and not fit for purpose as it is dark and access to upper floors is poor as the escalators are very narrow and the lift too small.... Agree with JJ about the brighton centre what an eyesore...

[Mosaic]

I think the central libray in manchester had those non-stop lift things in one section- paternoster lifts? Terrifying things, theyve hopefully been taken out now.