The Brutally Bonkers Architecture of Sheffield
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 27 ก.ย. 2024
- Everyone and their dog knows about Park Hill in Sheffield - a huge sprawling complex of flats, concrete lines, streets in the sky, urban decay and so on. But Sheffield has embraced odd, "ugly" architecture wholeheartedly over the years, leaving it as a living museum to various styles not very popular elsewhere.
One of those is Modernism, which includes everything from the University Arts Tower (with its paternoster lifts), the Moorfoot Building (resembling a giant Aztec stepped pyramid), the cold and simple Crucible Theatre (home of world snooker), and the uber-brutalist Moore Street electricity substation.
What do these buildings say about Sheffield - where its come from and where its going to - and what do they say about us?
So let's walk around Sheffield looking at mad buildings and pretend we're having a serious think about cities, architecture, nature and the human condition.
I'm 55 born and bred in Sheffield.
This film has blown me away...us sheffielders are so used to our environment we harldly bat an eyelid at it. From an outsiders point of view I can see exactly where you're coming from. When I left school in 1984 there was a load of old pubs and cobbled streets alongside the brutalist, so called modern buildings. Sheffield took a hammering in the war being a massive steel producer but as far as I know, the Germans missed their target...of the factories in the east end, and hit random areas and especially the city centre. Under the old marples pub in Fitzalan square there's 60 odd skeletons from one bombing raid....I was told they were that buried, they just threw loads of lime down to stop them decomposing. When I left school Sheffield felt hard, brutal and very left wing, union orientated.
It shaped me massively as a person, gave me a lot of pride but at the same time a feeling of hopelessness, the axe had come down via Thatcher. Great music sprung up at that time.....human league, abc, heaven 17 and we had a great time tbh. The limit nightclub was amazing where all of the above played. Spent many a night off my nut on trips or whizz in there....haha....the cold war was at it's peak and Sheffield was a major target for the Russians....hence the film "threads". Love my city, it's hardness, it's down to earth-ness it's Yorkshireness.
I love that Threads was the movie that introduced me to Sheffield and its distinctive circa early-1980s character. As Charlie Brooker once put it, the climax of the plot inflicted upon the city "millions of pounds worth of improvement in Sheffield's architecture". 😂
One landmark this video left out and was also featured prominently in Threads is the 1977 annex of Sheffield Town Hall around the Peace Gardens, which egg carton facade clashed so aggressively against its Victorian-era counterpart that it's unforgettable. It may have evaded being reduced to rubble in a full-blown war but it couldn't escape the increasingly vocal negative reception of its strikingly brutalist architecture and met the wrecking ball in 2002. Sadly most of the buildings that have taken the place of that annex aren't quiet as memorable.
@@vinesauceobscurities peace gardens was beautiful now a concrete slab full of drunks and drug addicts not to mention beggers
I like to tell myself that films like this are the reason TH-cam was invented.
Definitely at the top of the list, for sure.
It actually started out as a dating site, where you would upload videos about yourself hence the name youtube
Thank you that's a lovely thing to say (I'm taking it as a compliment 😄)
@@caboozzle
Incorrect.
It actually started in 1983 as a video about me. People would tell me it was called “you teevee” and such. Back then there was less content but it was better quality since it consisted entirely of me, or, as other people refer to me,”you”.
This is all pretty well documented on the internet.
@@caboozzle first video was me at the zoo
Sheffield is gorgeous: you've covered the brutalist centre; but there's also the lovely stone houses in the suburbs, and the fact that Sheffield developed as an accidental amalgamation of small coal and forging villages gives it a decentralised, community feel unlike any other city I know in the UK. Then you've got the 5 rivers confluences and 7 hills with numerous parks, creating great views for orientating yourself, giving a sense of space and local character. The brutalism also reflects the rugged feel of the local environment in the Dark Peak side of the Peak District: with its harsh, dark Gritstone edges and endless barren moors, creating strong, clear, simple shapes and lines across the landscape. The rugged terrain and brutalist buildings, giving way to large riverine areas reserved for flourishes of nature provides a unique city experience. A great example of this is the Rivelin Valley, which used to be home to several steel mills which have long since been abandoned, and has slowly been reclaimed by nature, with trees growing through the ancient industrial architecture, creating a wild, post-industrial, riparian forest nestled between suburbs. Walk up the hill either side and you're back in stone-fronted houses with views of the industrial Hillsborough area and the Peak District beyond. John Ruskin became enamoured with the valley and founded a museum nearby to house Rivelin paintings. Post-WWI, it became a retreat for soldiers with PTSD to paint and reconnect with nature. Few places manage to fuse ugly ingredients into a beautiful whole like that.
very well said
I nearly went to Uni in Sheffield in the 80s. When I told my mates back in Crewe where I was going to for the open day, the ones that had been were really enthused. "It's incredible", "escalators in the street", "there's this roundabout and you actually go into it and there are shops and everything". I didn't end up going Uni there and unfortunately only been back once or twice since, but always been impressed with the place and the people. Bit of a sidetrack - Sheffield's music history is at least and possibly more important than other cities e.g. Manchester, but never seems to get a look in.
Any docs on Sheffield music sene to warch
I lived on Park Hill in the early 90's and I discovered, due to some workmen not closing an access door, that there is a huge network of utility tunnels that run below the flats with laddered risers that went all the way up to the roof.
There was also another block of brutalist design flats, Kelvin Flats, not far outside the city centre that were demolished about the same time Hyde Park was.
Everyone seems to love to hate Sheffield and to an extent I can certainly see why. Living there myself though, I do like Sheffield.
Sadly though, a combination of poor planning, bad decisions by the council, withdrawal of funding after the 2008 crisis and the current severe lack of funding in favour of other nearby cities (looking at you, Manchester) have left Sheffield city centre very fragmented, underutilised and in places extremely unwelcoming.
Possibly the very worst decision was to move the main shopping area to the Moor (which admittedly did need regeneration, but which isn't ideally located in the city) whilst ignoring areas that would have been a far better fit for a refreshed commercial centre around High Street, Castle Gate, Arundel Gate and Fargate.
Essentially, moving the commercial centre to the Moor has led to one of the city's best assets - the supertram, not serving the commercial centre of the city, which is madness! It's also moved it further from the bus station and train station.
Compare that to the out of town shopping centre at Meadowhall which has a fully integrated and (mostly) accessible tram, bus and train station and there's no wonder the city centre is dying.
What Sheffield desperately needs is a plan and funding to make it happen, preferably quickly. There's lots of good stuff in Sheffield, but it so often feels unwelcoming or at times unsafe to get to it
fargate is a bloody mess now, they've got rid of the trees and tarmacked them over for some reason and the entire top end is surrounded by metal fencing where that monstrosity of a 'container park' was untill last month, took them a year to build it, somehow, and it didn't even last a year🤦♂now it'll probably take them another year to decide what to do and enevitably get rid of the fences and have nothing there as it should've been all along. council dont have a bloody clue.
I used to work in the University student sector 20 years ago and found that quite a lot of students remain in the city after their studies. Always remember asking a Liverpool girl. Why do you like Sheffield so much. Her reply was it has the feel of a town, she said crime seems low and people are so friendly however it has the facilities and size of a city and its location is great, close to other large cities, next to the motorway and the city is so green with parks everywhere and the Peak District right on the doorstep.
It’s sad when you say Sheffields most famous venue is the Lyceum Theatre home of the World Snooker Championships when Sheffield is the true home of football, the most popular sport in the world. Bramall Lane has so many football firsts, oldest stadium, hosted the 1st ever cup competition, there’s the Adelphi theatre which played a big part in football and of course Hillsboro stadium. The problem is that Sheffield…for some reason don’t wish to promote its roll in the game. At 1 point in the mid 1870’s there were 50 organised clubs playing football in Sheffield, that half of all the known clubs in the world at the time. Sheffield was the 1st place in the world to have a football culture, leagues, cup competitions, even paying customers in the Cromwell Cup.
Sandygate, Hallam FC is the oldest stadium. The oldest club, Sheffield FC. Sheffield United, one of the iconic teams of modern times, and Sheffield Wednesday at Hillsborough with the old school stadium and the first cantilever stand in the country. The football history of this city is rich. I'm proud to work at Hillsborough on match days. I moved to Sheffield 11 years ago from Bradford, and I'm happy I did. I felt welcomed here straight away. Underrated City. Love it.
Nice video. I've been in Sheffield for 11 years now, and I love the place. Home of football and snooker, and loads of decent people. A tram conversion with a complete stranger is quite normal quite often. Plenty of parks and green land to relax in. Some of the best health care in the country with it's two main hospitals and other local centres. I'm still learning about the history of the City, and so thanks for this video.
Sorry you missed the paternoster. It's one of my fondest (or at least strangest) memories of studying in Sheffield.
wonderfully explained. I have grown to love brutalism because they tell the story of the last century in two acts. after the war there was an opportunity for a radically utilitarian, experimental approach to design in every aspect of the system. the boldness of brutalism radiates optimism and open-mindedness for new ideas. then when the economic crises began it also became symbolic of the stagnation of tory britain.
utopia and dystopia are two sides of the same coin, when the context changes so can a utopia become dystopian. the hostile, unfriendly architecture can seem almost prisonlike with an oppressive atmosphere. when they were built they weren't covered in CCTV cameras. sometimes it feels surreal, bit like a layered, ironic cosmic joke to admire brutalist architecture. it just says so much about the world we used to live in, and the world we live in now.
I agree, at least the post war architects were attempting to solve big problems with new ideas.
Funfacts and memories! I lived in Hyde Park flats in 86 and have mainly and luckily lived in council housing since. Unfortunately they now badly maintained and it feels like they are waiting for them to fall down before moving us further out where the busses don't run and selling the land to developers. I love council housing and wish that more proper council housing was being built now around the city center. It's been such a blessing despite everything really
Been living in Sheffield for a couple of years and I do think it's really beautiful in a way. The buildings in this video are some of the ugliest I've ever seen, but they are contrasted with some awesome rustic redbrick warehouses, blackened gothic churches and lots of greenery. Even though it's a fairly decently sized city, it feels small in a good way, and never as sprawling and unfriendly as cities like Manchester can seem. Whilst it is sad to see the amount of disposable, homogenous student accommodation buildings that seem to pop up in any small space, Sheffield definitely has its own vibe when you get here and is surrounded by some amazing landscapes and filled with interesting people. Coming from living in the often sterile-if-endearing, aborted attempt at utopia that is Milton Keynes, Sheffield also has its own character and is a cool place to walk about and be.
Sheffield feels different because of its isolation. It was only because of its reputation for cutlery & steelmaking that it grew so much. It was never a major commercial city like the other big cities of the North so it never attracted all the offices & financial companies like your Manchesters or Leeds. It always kept that small town feel where everyone knew everyone and everyone is friendly. It has been called England's largest village. Unfortunately the city centre retail hasn't weathered very well not helped by the Meadowhall out of town shopping centre, but it is reinventing itself as a leisure destination with loads of food halls & bars opening up and has some really nice local neighbourhoods like Kelham Island & Ecclesall Road.
@@antonycharnock2993think part of the reason it has a small town feel is it’s so God damn hilly, this create natural boundaries between areas, so it does have a village mentality throughout the city.
Absolutely love this, Ollie. One of your best, IMHO. I love Brutalism... mainly because it's so awful, but it's of our time and it's fascinating to look at and dissect. Nice one!
Thanks for making this great video, I work in an office near the train station and walk past the Moore Street Substation and Moorfoot building every day on my way to work. When I first moved to Sheffield I too was taken back by the architecture and I couldn't believe people could just walk past these buildings without stopping to look or comment on them. Over time though (I've lived in Sheffield for nearly a decade now) seeing the same buildings becomes routine. I see the substation, the Moorfoot, Park Hill and the Crucible constantly and they just became 'normal' and often, when I speak to Sheffield natives, the term 'eyesore' gets thrown around for them.
I think its sometimes hard to appreciate architecture like this when the shock value wears off. I think this video is great because it's refreshed my perception of these buildings and I'll appreciate them again for what they are - cultural landmarks.
I have lived in Sheffield for over a decade. I love here ,one of the most friendly place . I have met one the best people of my life in here . In my eyes, it's beautiful, and peaks district is cherry on the top. No doubts good and bad people are everywhere. But to be honest, I found it the most friendliest place in England.
I used to live there. It's beautifully depressing. Congrats for the video.
Thank you very much!
Another great programme Ollie, thanks mate! Can't help but feel you've missed your calling....production standards are first class, and that means a great experience for plebs like me (up the workers!).
Nice one, thanks Mike!
Great video, as ever. Studied at Sheffield in the early 1990s, and recall apprehensively riding the Paternoster lift over the top into the void, and wondering whether I’d ever see the light of day again. Moore Street substation revisited my nightmares for years afterwards.
There was a Paternoster lift at Leeds Uni too. I remember the terror of using it for the first time. Half a dozen people leaping out whilst half a dozen leapt in. All about timing!
As a big fan of John Grindrod, this video is fantastic. His book Concretopia is fascinating, and touches very lovingly on places like Park Hill and talks about how beloved they were by the residents at the time. How the people who first moved in there couldn't believe the luxury they were afforded by having their own heated home, with a bathroom indoors and a fridge. It also talks about how the loss of funding, the decline of the local economy, and so on resulted in many of these developments failing.
This is a very long winded way for me to say excellent video.
Aw thanks that's a nice compliment 👍
Im from Rotherham & thought Sheffield as posh! Had some fun times in Sheffield in the 80's. ❤ once woke up on a bench in the hole in the road after a night out, happy days.😊
@@sinord5288 🤣🎅👍
I have very fond memories of Sheffield. I did my PGCE there in 1980/1. We were based in the Arts Tower and I remember the paternoster very well. I was terrified of the damn thing! They used to nickname it the Socialist Republic of Sheffield and bus fares were about 5p.
Socialist Republic of South Yorkshire actually but love form Doncaster
@@sglenny001 I stand corrected. 😂✊🏻
@@blotski indeed Sheffield was always a grand city the way I see it embrace modernist Glasgow had its own new style and Sheffield had tge world of the 60s and 70s I've live in both City's both showcase there ideas well although I prefer Glasgow architecture and art I respect the ideals and dreams of Sheffield Doncaster an Great city still showcase power of speed
wish they were still 5p 😅
Can’t thank you enough for this vid your input into the conversation of us all, I see behind the lines also and see the difference between same and progress, the people that created the vision of all our buildings… WE THANK YOU 🙏♥️👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼
Thanks very much that's really nice of you to say!
And it turned out that their so-called "new architecture" would become a worse solution than renovating the old houses that were torn down.
Sheffield was by no means alone in this postwar ideology.
Architecture aside, there is also a common theory that "a slum is made by the people who inhabit it".
In other words, any place can be turned into a palace with the aid of money, effort and foresight.
Thank you so much for this personal tour of brutalist Sheffield. Perhaps because I came of age when it was new and fashionable, I’ve always liked the best of brutalism, but then it was probably mostly downhill after Corbusier’s inspirational post war work. New York has a brutalist Family Courthouse that is anything but “family friendly.” Originally clad in forbidding black granite and looking like a science fiction nightmare, the budget-strapped city even went to the expense of resurfacing the whole thing in grey stone. The result is only slightly less unwelcoming. Thanks again!
The timing of the release of this video is extremely helpful with my essay on Sheffield and its post-war brutalist architecture such as Parkhill and alike
Omg I loved my home city 😍 But I moved away in '95 & wish I never did cos every time I go back I don't recognise it. Seeing old footage just feels like heartache & I'm going to say it loud & proud "I MISS THE EGG BOX & THE WEDDING CAKE" & I don't care about the haters who are glad it's all gone. Those two buildings, to me, were Sheffield ❤ & I miss that 80's / 90's gritty city. All that brutalist architecture was what Sheffield was all about at one time in it's history & it was just perfect. If you never grew up around it, you probably will never get it. But I loved it & it will always feel like I just want to pack up my bags & move back to those streets in the sky ☺
I don't get why so many architects think that modern architecture is 'progress.' It's a great leap backward. Architecture has regressed.
Beauty matters.
you are a sentimentalist, stay away from me!
@@kevinwelsh7490 you're a robotic retard, stay away from the blueprints
I disagree with you.
I quite agree.
A nicely Meades-esque feel to this. Very well produced!
Oh wow thank you very much!
I moved to Sheffield in 2003 and I am still here. 🤗🤗🤗
A great video exemplifying all that I vowed I wouldn’t create as an architect.
There was also kelvin flats which stretched along langset road. Not dissimilar to park hill. I think gone in mid 90s
I don’t know how this video found me but I’m glad it did. Keep up the great work!
'And here's a magistrates court that hates you...' Love it!
Thanks for the vid, I'll not be the first to correct you about the Moorfoot building, it was designed to let the street run through the middle of it: The Moor, to join with London Rd. But a bomb scare in the 80's made the council close the access. It remains really annoying.
I quite like the hallamshire hospital, it's extremely monumental, and the third tallest tower in Sheffield believe it or not. Because of its placement hallway up the hillside, pretty much anywhere you go in Sheffield you will see it in the distance, just a huge block
Brutalism, loved by the middle classes, hated by real working people.
The people that have to live in them
Park Hill is such a wonderful building, can’t wait until the whole things renovated, phase 1 and 2 are stunning
Modernist and brutal architecture doesn’t begin and end with British post war poor social housing. You can see beautiful modernist social housing in Scandinavia and you can see examples of beautiful and often grand modernist private apartment buildings all around the world,in Milan, Rio de Janeiro, Barcelona, New York. Don’t judge a whole era of architecture based on the very specific and reductive experience of the Uk with it
some nice 70s american buildings too, seagram is a good example
I moved to Sheffield 12 years ago and I love it. It's not perfect by any means, but it's honest and is full of charm.
Although it's a shame so many of the beautiful city centre buildings were lost due to WW2 bombing. The post war developments add to the cities unique architecture of the industrial cutlery works or steelwork structures, as well as victorian terraces built around the varied challenges of the cities topography.
Sheffield also has so much to offer in terms of open and green spece to offset it's architecture. For example, It's the only UK city to include a national park within its boundary and it's officially the greenest city in Europe (based on trees per capita). It's very easy to forget you're in a large cosmopolitan city rather than a countryside village.
Sheffield often gets unfairly compared to other local cities like Manchester or Leeds. These cities may have redeveloped further to add a fancy veneer to their city centres. But Sheffield is working to catch up and offers so much more that the others can't match for me.
there are still some georgian buildings left paradise square is beautiful
I'm from and live in Sheffield my self lovely to see this video
I have heard the moor foot building might be coming down some time soon
I heard the same thing when I first moved to Sheffield a decade ago.
I doubt it will ever happen.
I know some people like the building, but personally I consider it the ugliest part of an otherwise very beautiful city.
Another brilliant video. Your sense of humour is fantastic
Well I try!
My adopted hometown. Thanks for the coverage - very entertaining
Great video, enjoyed that! If you find yourself in Sheffield again make sure to visit the Moore St substation again after dark. You can also get a good view of it from Meersbrook Park. It gets all lit up with coloured lights and looks even better.
Thanks for the tip!
Brutalist buildings imposed by brutal capitalist regimes. The Moorfoot building blocked out the sky views from the Moor ,imported many workers from London,and did little for local employment opportunities. It still does nothing for Sheffield.. Park Hill flats have essentially been privatised and the residents been shoved further up the hill by Norfolk park ,making access to city centre shops more difficult and expensive. The middle class have taken over Park Hill and all that remains of the former community are a few plaintive poems at the edges.
I think brutalist architecture is quite cool. What I don't like is the car-centric infrastructure they built at that time where pedestrians are forced onto concrete overpasses or underpasses.
Agreed sadly I feel that'd coming back to British citys
I've been inside the Moore Street substation and I can tell you that its mostly empty, just one masive concrete room with no internal walls and no windows.
Just some massive transformers and switchgear I imagine.
13:01 - but it reminds me of the lovely Yorkshire Grey pub they demolished to build it!
Honestly my favourite city ever ❤
Not because it’s perfect, far from it, but because it’s human 🇬🇧
Sorry. Sheffield is a dump, everything has been sold off to the lowest corporate bidder.
I love the winter garden
The paternoster in the arts tower was not fun on Monday morning with a hangover
Huh? Why do people have such an issue with it? 😂 I’ve used it every day for the last 3 years and it’s great
The punk rock of architecture is a great description. I don't really like brutalism but as a punk fan I'm now a bit conflicted
Mate, just got to say I'm lovin' your films, grew up in Irlam, grown up life in Chorlton, worked in Oldham and now in Mallorca for 5 years! Keep it up sunshine, you make me smile. Big Love x
Awesome, thank you!
Great video. I have a great affection for the city and some of these buildings. I am glad they were spared the wrecking ball.
Alright, watching this waiting for tram in Fitzalan Square feels odd..
The Crucible got its partial facade reconstruction and now got its modernistic, pretty glass-panelled entrance.
Park Hill Flats has undergone a major renovation and is now being "gentrified" with private housing.
Blending with Modern architectural styles and aesthetics would be the future of Brutalist buildings. Only if different sectors are willing to contribute to this transformation, the image of a place and the wider city could be greatly improved.
The city centre of Sheffield always has its charm and potential; unfortunately there is still a long way to compete with the giant Meadowhall just miles away.
An well made, very interesting video as always. Keep up the good work.
Glad you enjoyed it
Brilliant video. Brutalism architecture is bold, it might not be aesthetically pretty, but it gets your attention
It's thought provoking, and that can only be a good thing. Most modern buildings quite frankly look identical, with a constant obsession with glass. Infact most modern euro cities are looking shockingly similar, its blandness its only constant. Keep up the good work fella 👍
It's like living in a Soviet Union country 😂
Love Sheffield, great people and great city. Sadly done dirty by god aweful local government and miopic at best strategy.
It was once good
I'm Sheffield born and bred. Don't get me started on Sheffield. I left for more than 20 years and travelled the world. I was never going to come back until my dad died and I came back to look after mi' mum. It's the worst city in the country. The shopping centre is mad cos it is linear (Haymarket to Moorfoot) boring as hell. Miles of walking to get nowhere. Don't get me start on Meadowhell. Go about once a year for Christmas shopping. However, what Sheffield does have is wonderful countryside. My local park is 17 1/2 acres of woodland. My husband calls it middle earth.
I don't think it's a coincidence that so much goes on outside of the city centre - Crookes, Eccleshall Road, Abbeydale Road, Sharrow Vale, Kelham Island etc. Those areas are all fantastic and ahead of the overall suburbs in comparable cities (eg Leeds - where I grew up - and Manchester). But the city centre itself is being left to rot, sadly.
Agree the greenery and Peak District are the real jewels in the crown.
Sheffield has such potential, but definitely needs a lot of TLC, hard work and investment to get there.
Agreed. Travel a little further out near or to the peaks and it’s beautiful. Eccleshall and Kelham Island are also great. Most of the park flats are student housing now and they are actually quite nice inside.
yes the layout of Sheffield has always been problematic linear not a block system like most cities I always thought they should have run a free bus from one end to the other have big shops on the moor and small quirky shops at the other end that is walkable
In the 80s Sheffield had a free bus service that serviced the city centre.
@@keithscothern3398I was told a few decades back that it was difficult to plan a block system in the city centre because it’s so hilly. So you’re a slave to the terrain.
I think brutalism could be interesting in a more broad application if it was accompanied by modern urban planning practices, it seem that the examples of brutalism people find most offensive have a lot to do with their disregard for the existing city design and building scale, that was common in the post war era.
Surprised no talk of Gleadless Valley. Some interesting architecture over there
Very good! The true purpose of hunanity and everything we do should serve it, including architecture.
A great video, thank you.
Yes, thank you
Lived on here 97-03. Hague Row.
Here in Sydney, Aust., there's quite a few buildings you could classify as Brutalist, but I like them, with the Sirius Building & the Seymour (theatre) Centre among my favorites!
The High School I attended was a mix of original Edwardian buildings with high windows & even higher ceilings, and late '60s Brutalism, with a more tempered mid '60s admin/library block thrown in!
Interesting! Thanks for the info
Bet your weather isn't as Brutal as ours in Yorkshire in winter..
@@stevedickson5853 No, but it can be in the hot summer months (as well as spring & autumn)! Forecast is for 35degC today! 🥵
@@stevie-ray2020 crikey, that's hot 🔥
Love the Park Hill Flats simply because the architecture is beautiful in a brutal way, and it was, and is, the bane of Thatcherites who see it as a symbol of public housing.
Ah Park Hill… Giving criminals a watchtower with a view so good that no raid would ever find anything.
Spent many a happy day or two at the Crucible watching all the Snooker stars ..Alex Higgins ..Steve Davis ..Jimmy White ..Cliff Thorburn..
Again really enjoyed the vid Ollie. Very interesting and so educational - only ever passed through Sheffield...
"A joke shared between two shy people..." Intriguing. Will we have to wait for the autobiography?
in my final year at sheffield uni, gonna miss this weird ol' city
Taking the train in from Elsecar in the 1990s I was struck by the vast expanses of concrete where factories once stood. There was a dormant station called Brightside that was marooned in the middle of it all. I wonder if it’s back in service and if the land has been developed since then.
The station isn't but the area is light industry now - warehousing, scrapyards, distribution centres, car rentals, etc and a shopping centre
Don't look at modern architecture if feeling suicidal; it could be the straw that breaks the camel's back
it is existential, if one has the imagination to think of one's place in the universe instead of one's localized issue
This is what I say about overcrowded with ornamentation and tasteless 1800s, early 1900s architecture.
A lot of these towers and large blocks of flats all over the UK were built by the same company. In a nutshell, they built them as cheaply as possible. In the US & Canada, during the 60's and 70's, they built high rise apartment buildings which were actually good, well designed and good quality. In the UK, the towers the same heights were horrible places to live. I don't like it when they give protection to some of these concrete monstrosities. Park Hill and other places like it should be leveled.
The Park Hill Flats embody beautiful ideals in a brutal form (social democracy, solidarity, the public good). Neoliberal architecture might be appealing in a superficial way but have ugly ideals (destroying the commons, the naked pursuit of profit, the commodification of human needs, etc).
The Park Hill flats should nationally embody and represent gentrification and social cleansing working hand in glove. They are also a prime example of this university technocrat run councils 15 minute city and city urbanisation plan. You mentioned democracy, I only see a technocracy.
Although brutalist and very concrete, there is a uniqueness to Sheffield and an undeniable charm it feels rather than a cramped fast paced city more like a town that refused to stop growing and developing
If you like Park Hill, or just find it interesting, you should come and visit the Barri Gaudí in Reus, Catalonia
Sheffield Council has a lot to answer for.
Such as?
Worked at Park Hill flats a few times, the best thing about them is that from the roof, you can see pretty much all of Sheffield,… without seeing Park Hill flats.
Unless you look off the wrong side, then you can see all the ones that are still derelict and haven’t been done up yet.
I’m really glad someone else appreciates Sheffield’s brutalism. Thought I’m super you didn’t visit the Gleadless estate, it looks like Pripyat sticking out of the trees on a hillside. I fell in love with this former council estate and actually left my home of London to buy an upside down house there, which I’m currently renovating into its late 50s modernist glory. The houses are by the same architect as Park Hill.
Great presentation.
I had a girlfriend who lived in Sheffield for 2 years and i hated visiting the city because it's so gloomy and thats coming from someone who's from Stoke 😂
Having my morning coffee in NZ, and Twitter said "just look at this, look!" I guess Richard Hawley bought me here. Ok, ok, next visit I'll finally come to Sheffield.
I go to Sheffield Uni and once got stuck on the paternoster lift for 15 minutes. Someone must have pressed the emergency stop button because the lift just stopped with the floor level at my head height. Very fun but kinda scary
A BRUTAL attitude to life....
the A630 into Sheffield is like driving through the Somme.
Very interesting and a masterclass in essay writing. Thanks
I love thee dear Sheffield ,what have they done too you?
I see your streets are empty, i see your shops are too.
I love thee dear Sheffield, what have they done too you?
Your factorys are missing your steel is missing too.
Your history? your future? You haven't got a clue
I love thee dear Sheffield what have they done to you?
Where are all your silversmiths and all your cuttlers too,your furnaces your accent what have they done to you?
Your publicans ,your people, you've run em out a town,replaced em all with robots supplied by the crown.
OH how i loved thee Sheffield, now a deserted foreign town.😢
I think that footage is in The full Monty
it is
Great video, when did you film this?? I live in Sheffield and I’ve never seen less traffic and no people like on your footage.
Its the punk rock of the architecture world .. love the analogy !!
There certainly are some buildings of strange architecture in the city, Ollie. It's quite a few years since I've been in the city, but I never realised how many unusual ones there are. I never thought that those apartments blocks behind the railway station would have been refurbished. Anyhow, this is an interesting production, and so, thank you.
This was good timing, just went to Sheffield for the first time this weekend. The building on Moore Street definitely stuck in my memory!
Why would a substation need windows? Hats off to Bryan Jefferson.
Fascinating presentation thanks xxx
they just put up a Giant burger billboard wrapping around what was before a quite pleasant top of a building . absolute eyesore.
Moore Street substation is amazing, a concrete castle!
I quite like brutalist architecture in certain settings. There is a college campus in Washington State that is nestled amongst a sprawling evergreen forest (Evergreen State University) that has a largely brutalist campus. Very striking to constrast amidst ethereal nature. Awful school, terrific architecture.
Yes we had paternoster in the Chemistry block at Salford University. So quick convenient to use. Sad when they shut them down and then knocked the building down.
Sheffield technology lol.