How it looked at night
This project regenerated an area of East Belfast during troubled times with a mix of retail and leisure uses. On behalf of client Ewartco plc, John Muir designed a new 120,000 sq ft shopping mall to link the redundant Gallaher warehouses on the site. The warehouses were then converted – retaining much of the original structure – to accommodate a leisure pool with flumes, slides and chutes, together with a multiplex cinema and food court.
The warehouses and shopping mall have since been demolished to make way for retail sheds.
Photos thanks to John Muir himself.
I can’t “get a handle” on this site. Is it a fansite for cereal box architecture, bewailing the fact that these buildings have been demolished? Or is it a celebration of the fact that these vile structures have been knocked down?
We simply aim to raise awareness of the increasing prevalence of rapid demolition, providing an outlet for architects to share their tales of woe. Who knows we may even get an annual gathering organised!
If the architects didnt design such vile structures, then maybe they wouldn’t get knocked down quite so fast. You never heard Lutyens moaning that someone had razed one of his buildings to the ground, did you?
I feel that it is a shame that so much effort has gone into these buildings, not just from the architect, but the construction and manufacture for them to be raised to the ground in some cases for rather poor reasons.
One of the main issues in 20th century architecture is concrete.
Concrete is as vulnerable to acidic rain or water with solved carbon dioxide as for example sand stone, as can be seen on cave style stalactites in many concrete built car parks after a only decade or two. Its also needs metal reinforcements for stability, and the metal growing due to rust cracks and crumbs the concrete around it.
In a climate zone where there is ice in the winter, the effect is even worse, especially on constructions facing the elements openly like bridges or other open air consructions (parking lots, train stations, …)
As a result, we have houses with a wooden superstructure or steel constructions from the previous to last century still standing solid, but concrete built stuff from the 1950 to 1970 now needs to be taken down for statical issues.
I live in a 3 story house from the early 1930s, from wood and brickstones (wooden framework (3×3 inches beams), gaps filled with bricks) The mortar between the bricks meanwhile crumbled, but it doesn’t matter, since it has no required function for statics. When we refurbished the house last year, from several hundred wood beams only 3 were rotten and needed replacement, we put modern insulation on the outside and gave it a new roof. Done, good for another 30 to 50 years at least,
For comparison, in the yard, we have some concrete fenceposts put there in the 1940s. They crumble on touch, the metal rods inside got wet and rusted through entirely.
And, while concrete is cheap to build its also in comparison very expensive to repair once aged and worn out. Its cheaper to tear the thing down and build something new.
In the old days they said, if you want to build for eternity, build from stone.
Concrete obviously is NOT stone.