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Spring 2005
Bradford: A new city for old?

The Odeon - The future of the site is in doubt but is it an iconic building?

Can saving historic buildings put life back into our towns and cities? This was the question asked at a special conference held in Bradford, a city seen to be at the forefront of such development.

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Dr George Sheeran, who heads the University of Bradford's Pennine and Yorkshire Studies Unit, has been involved in organising the Sustaining Historic Environments conference. We asked him to what extent he thought regeneration projects could help turn around the fortunes of a city like Bradford.

He welcomes the fact that Bradford now seems to be a centre for urban regeneration: "Things are certainly happening. What I would hope is that they are sustained. It's been an Open Day at the university today, and one of the things we do is take students around on a bus, but driving around here at the moment is difficult because no road system is the same for two weeks together. Great and, if it delivers, in the end it's all been worth it, and one hopes it will be, of course."

Saltaire - a regeneration success story?

Not everybody thinks regeneration will work in Bradford. Dr Sheeran disagrees: "First of all you can look on the less optimistic side and say you've got to be careful what you're doing here, and you've got to have the right schemes and you've got to have the leadership to carry on and see it through. You've also got to have the social-critical-analytical sort of input to ensure you've got it right and you've got to have the funding.

"On the other hand, I think Bradford has some big strengths providing you realise its weaknesses. I do think we shouldn't become another Leeds. Leeds has done that. I think Bradford should play to its own historic strengths as a powerful Victorian city. You can find other types of buildings from other historic periods but what you've got in Bradford really mirrors its rise. It was this infant Hercules really of an Industrial Revolution city. It grew from very small beginnings very, very quickly in the 19th century and, no, you don't want it to become a city of museums but that's obviously going to play a part in it. We've got a World Heritage site in Saltaire and there are all sorts of other opportunities here too. You've got this multi-ethnic mix in Bradford, which to some extent it's always had, and this has to be taken into account as well. We shouldn't make ourselves like Leeds. We should be happy being Bradford.

"I think it can happen. I've lived in this area for a long time now and I remember in the 1970s Saltaire was regarded as a bit of a hole really. The mill was going to shut and there was a scheme for the Airedale road that would go right through Saltaire. They were talking about knocking it down but looks what's happened there - Saltaire is thriving."

Bradford Central Library was seen as a landmark building when it opened in 1966.

Asked if he thinks Bradford is now the victim of the vision of earlier town planners he urges caution: "A lot of the stuff that was done in the Sixties was done on a big wave of optimism about the future, and it did produce some things which unfortunately haven't lasted. If you look at Bradford Central Library, opened in 1966, then it was the biggest library (in terms of the number of books it had) in England which is an astonishing statistic when you think about it. It had a small art gallery, a cafeteria and it had a theatre and people were willing to put their money behind that sort of thing then, and some of the things done in the 1960s were very good.

"On the other hand, the architecture was dire. It was on a scale nobody had seen, it was of a design nobody in Bradford had experienced before. I think there was this ideology behind it which saw everything modern as progressive - that was a big word in the Sixties, whether it led to social progress or not, and there was a deep, deep hatred of everything in the Victorian past. In about 1960 there was a Dutch chap who taught planning at Leeds School of Architecture, I can't remember his name, but he called Bradford, 'a city designed by the devil' which I think was an attitude of mind amongst planners. I know which (Bradford) I would rather have."

"Tourism has been reasonably buoyant here, especially with Haworth and Saltaire, but if we had retained all that wonderful warehousing in the centre - it's being snapped up for apartments at the moment. We think of Little Germany but that area swept right down into Forster Square between the two railway stations and that's what was demolished."

Bradford City Hall - Can new purpose be given to this Grade One listed building or should it be left as it is?

The Odeon Cinema, once one of the city's most celebrated buildings, stands empty while the future of the site is still being determined. Dr Sheeran believes it could have a future: "Again, starting from a pessimistic point of view I would tend to believe the engineers when they say there are big structural problems. I'm sure it would take a lot of money to restore the back part of it to a structurally sound condition...The most impressive part is that almost V-shaped frontage with the twin towers. People have said you can only guarantee the building thirty years life which I think is nonsensical. You can guarantee it indefinite life if you spend X-plus-whatever on it. I think what you've got there is a landmark and that somehow the frontage should be retained. I might have misinterpreted this but I remember looking at Will Allsop's grand plan for Bradford and retaining the twin-towers was incorporated into it. There's talk as well about a competition for an iconic building but it seems to have escaped them that they've got one. It's there already and you can't build an iconic building anymore than you can write a best-seller. There's a lot of nonsense being talked about this and it strikes me as being very similar to the sort of nonsense being spoken about in the sixties - 'We can't keep these old buildings, they are too expensive and no-one wants them anyway.' We lose something which cannot be put back."

He is also cautious about some of the plans surrounding Bradford City Hall: "Again there have been some plans there for demolishing bits of it, opening up bits of it, and so on, and again I think it's crazy. You've got a building designed by what were initially 19th century Bradford's favourite architects, then it's been extended by the nationally important architect Richard Norman Shaw. It's a Grade One listed building, it' got a carillon of bells, and you want to knock bits out of it? I think it's pie in the sky anyway - English Heritage would probably go ballistic at the idea of that happening and it's difficult to see how it would get planning permission anyway."

When asked, Dr Sheeran finds it hard to choose his own favourite buildings in Bradford because there are too many: "It's best done by period. You can see some early development in Bradford from the 1830s and there's a wonderful area of housing over in Little Horton - around Melbourne Place for example there are some stupendously good, very austerely designed houses of about 1840. If you move into the later 19th century and look at some of the bigger civic buildings and commercial buildings, a building that never gets much notice is what is now Lloyds-TSB. If you look very carefully it says right at the very top 'Thorpe's Buildings and I think it gives the date (of the building.) We always talk about Brown and Muffs as one of Bradford's great department stores - Thorpes was as well. It not only sold home furnishings, it made them on the premises. I think there were even people living in the attics and it was a massive store, brilliantly designed, and that's not to mention the real icons like the Wool Exchange and City Hall."

However, Dr Sheeran is convinced it needs more than the regeneration of individual buildings to attract life back into the city centre: "There's a problem. Obviously the regeneration of buildings can help to regenerate the economy. If you've got tourists then they're spending things in the town, if you've got shops there are places where people can buy things and this provides service industry jobs, and the same with restaurants - you've got to have that sort of infrastructure to make money. On the other hand it strikes me you can't run away with the idea that architecture and the built environment can solve social problems...I don't think you can use architecture to solve problems of racial disharmony and cultural tensions, and so on.

Bradford's Little Germany

"These are problems that have to be looked in the face and solved by social means so I think you've got to be very careful about what you are doing when you're regenerating parts of the urban environment and what problems it will actually solve. I'm not sure you hear too much talk about that, and I find that slightly worrying. But if the money is going to regenerate parts of Bradford so much the better because some of the city is looking very, very tired indeed."

But Dr Sheeran is optimistic: "I think Bradford has got a lot going for it. It's got all the marks of a great 21st century city in that it's got a central business district which could be flourishing, I'm sure, given the right sort of opportunities. It has the central administration - Bradford Council - there. It's got a university and a big college on it's doorstep and I think that's one of the marks of the 21st century city, and it's got national health service buildings and a big population. You've got to be able to do something with that, and it's a question not just of buildings but, as I say, of social problems and trying to solve those by social means.

"I am sure that is going on as well...The university here is playing its role, I think, through trying to raise self-esteem amongst some groups, trying to work with communities that have traditionally thought, 'university is not for me,' and trying to get some of those people into university so I think education is a big factor as well as things like buildings."

YOUR COMMENTS:

Leonie from Bradford
There have been some fantastic improvements to the city cetre of late, the busy area opposite the town hall is excellent for evening and lunchtime drinking and socialising and there are some fantastic converted apartments in areas like Little Germany, not to mention that we already are starting to see the skyline again now some of the 60s monstrosities are gone. Bradfordians, we need to all support the regeneration - Bradford is an historic city with a great deal to be proud of, and I for one intend to be proud of it again. Never mind that it's taking ages to build the new shopping centre - stop always going to Leeds, get out there and shop in the existing city centre, which is fine for the basics, and a lot more convenient to get around than Leeds with it's stressed-out poorly paid call centre office dwellers mixed with over-rich students all over the place, and show investors why they should come to Bradford instead of just waiting for them to come first! The only way is up, but we need to start using the place again. It's easy to complain about what's already happened before, but not that effective - put your money and time into the future of Bradford. I am.

Chris
Originally from Bradford, I check back occasionally to see how the place looks, and am horrified that so many of the historic buildings are being demolished to be replaced with nasty looking modern ones. The fact the Odeon is threatened is very sad.

paul shipley
Upwards and onwards. just make a decision and get on with. Paralysis by analysis. If Bradford stands still it will surely die.

Trevor Wood, Manningham
It's now 2 years on from this article and we still have a huge void in the city centre where the 1960's buildings have been flattened to build a giant shopping centre that noone wants, not even the hoped-for investors who have failed to materialise. Why is the emphasis always palced on shopping centres? Aren't buildings worth preserving for their own sake? Isn't it worthwhile having a nice environment for local people to appreciate on a daily basis? It doesn't help when one of the major Housing Associations in the area are ripping out original window fittings from splendid Victorian villas (in a Conservation Area) and replacing them with UPVC, without Planning Permission, and therefore entirely illegally! The Couincil are now investigating and work has been stopped, but too late for some. The idea of a lake in the city centre was a nonstarter and will never happen. What about protecting vulnerable buildings, such as the old (16thC.?) manor house in Oak Lane? The roof was stolen and it is semi-derelict.

Sam, Bradford
We all need to get behind the regeneration plans, instead of focusing on the past. There is no doubt that mistakes have been made in the past, especially in teh 60s. The regeneration is now addressing those alongside restoring and reflecting the heritage of the city. The Odeon is key, it's of no aesthetic value to the city and is in a prime site for re-development. We have the Alhambra & St Georges and do not need another concert venue. What we need is the planned hotel, city centre residential and the mix of cafes, bars and restaurants. The lake is no longer a lake - it is a mirror pool situated within a park - Bradfordians need a place to gather, socialise and more than that - this is a huge space for events. Ice skating, markets, theatre. We can all be proud of Bradford again when the regeneration plans come through. Come on the glass is half full and we need to see the optimistic side of the exciting plans for our city. We can only restore pride together -so start backing the regeneration!

Jane - Wharfedale
A lake in the city is a waste of time & money. I lived in Bradford for 30 years and loved the place, but now only go about once a year. I will definitely shop there instead of Leeds once all the building work is completed. Thank goodness most of the beautiful old buildings are still with us, but still have to move with the times. Lets have some decent stonework like the Victorians but in a modern way - something that will last and we will be proud of. Why did we ever get rid of the old Kirkgate Market? Too late now, but still hoping Bradford will be as wonderful as it was.

Catherine Gilsenan, from Darlington, but lived in
Save the Odeon. Stop the Lake. Make the area around City Hall a people-friendly area. Save all historic buildings. Pulling down the historic arcade in favour of the Kirkgate Centre was a disgrace. Give the City back to its people.

Andy Kissack, born in Bradford now residing in Haw
I was born and bred in Bradford in the 1960,s and we only moved up the road 5 years ago. Most Bradfordians were proud of their city and speak nostagically about its friendlyness and its many atributes, the Swan arcade, the Kirkgate market, the first and last trolleybus system in britain, the boats in the parks, the floral displays, the spirit of Bradford was vibrant and pleasant, but that was then, I like many other Bradfordians do not feel the same way about the city any more, I never visit bradford unless to visit family and friends or the few that remain, many people we knew have left, and most choose to shop elsewhere, like it or not Leeds and Halifax are much nicer places to shop. Bradford is now a frighteningly depressing version of its self, yes some of the buildings look the same, but many are run down and have become pound shops. Other cities with smarter councils avoided this inevitable with better decisions many years ago, its a bit late to be starting now! Its the spirit that has died, the bradford I love lives on in my memory now and visiting it only reminds me of how far it has declined. I am 45 years old and every body I know of my age and older share my views. Perhaps I could make a flippant remark and say I am in favour of the water feature in the centre and flood all of it! with the water just ebbwing at the Alhambra and the Cathedral.

nick.h
look at what we have in the building,s of bradford,the stucture of these great building,s are already there, let,s work on there revamp to get them in tip top condision again and make the bradford people proud again of thre city.

Carolyn and David
Although Bradford is not our native city we adopted 3yrs ago. We came to Bradford to join The Abundant Life Church from Selby which some would say was a much nicer part of the country.After we got over the culture shock and the hills!we have noticed with interest the regeneration that is happening .This city truly has a character of its own and now becoming a good mix of old and new .We would like to see some good use of old Odeon as it is not easy on the eye !Bradford should retain its character not trying to become like Leeds.

ronnie smith
I was born and breed in bradford ihave been back afew times to see my family and i think bradford is losing its soul the original odeon was up manchester road preservit by any means. pomy ron

emma from denholme
i was not born in bradford but hae lived here all my life. i think that if they destroy all the historic buildings then tourists will stop visiting and i think that we should respect bradford for what it is. whe have no right in destroying what we didnt build and i think we should help with restoring bradford to its former glory.

J Thorpe North Yorkshire.
Thank you Dr Sheeran Great,Great Uncle George would have been proud to hear you praise his building and Thomas Campbell Hope(Architect)would have agreed with you. The dates are 1871 on one side of the building and 1876 on the other side, it was one of the first stores to use electric light for display purposes, lloyds-TSB Bank have done it proud!The old buildingd are Bradford's Heart.If you need to build new then do, but alongside of the old, it works look at London. It would be interesting to see which one stands the test of time!135 years the Thorpe Building as stood on that spot. I think it has earned the right to stay there.Thanks a lover of old Buildings.

gary bradford
bradford is a citythekeywordiscityqualty buildings old with history whyare these occupied offices outside center inside center everything is for sale at 50pence does not match up with regenarationkeep thecitys old buildings with blending no more cheap goods also agree flooding of town hall bad mistake grade 1 listed think about it lots of nostalgia remmber halifax except the lord keep the city

Norman Littlewood Bradford
As we are in our third year of campaign trying to save the famous Odeon Building in Bradford we are well aware of what the majority of Bradford citizens really want that is that the so called lake around the City Hall is NOT wanted.Preferably picturesque green landscapes with covered seating areas , shrubs and maybe small water features.The most important of all is to retain the Odeon Building which is sound for another 150 years , the untidy exterior is only cosmetic and could easily rectified.By re-furbishing and saving money at the same providing a multi use building for all ages to attract into the City giving Bradford the boost that it well needs. A tribute to its architect William Illingworth who deserves to be well remembered.

Julie Littlewood - Bradford - Born and Bred
Bradford certainly needs a boost for sure but not a 'lake' or 'Large puddle' around City Centre or any where else.The one we have in front of the Law Courts is never clean it is a disgrace and how many visitors are going to keep coming along to see it? We need to SAVE THE ODEON building and have a concert hall plus. The building is huge, the once car park at the back is owned by the same as who owns the Odeon therefore could be extended making it even larger.Lets have an Atrium across to the Alhambra and have ourselves something really special which would keep the people coming in to Bradford, spending money which is what Bradford needs. It is time the powers that be listened to what we really want , after all we are the ones who will be living with it , after they have moved on.

louise
Bradford my adopted home is in the ugly stages/ we see in "Grand Designs"/ with all its bare bones showing.But with the central vison of something great to come.Once all the hard work is done and a new city emerges with a cohesive heart that enables fun and carnival. Let us hold our breath and have something that allows the positives /of a true multifasceted city shine through as a beacon of what is possible in the 21st century.Let it be a city that says look they did it, so can we. A now safe and beautiful harmony of past , present & future for all to share & celebrate.

Colin from Hartlepool
I have been a regular visitor to Bradford for 27 years and think that it is a great city, the old buildings and its history are of great interest to me. Where I live there is not many historic buildings and I think that some people in Bradford might not appreciate the buildings because they see them every day, however I think that if they were demolished people would soon miss them and realize how important they are. The people of Bradford have something very special and I for one hope that Bradford keeps its historical buildings.

Daniel - Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire
Well to be honest, I don't see what's wrong with Bradford City Centre. The lake idea is rediculous, I agree the old buildings need to be kept, post-modernist buildings are fundamentally dull and ugly. You should try living in Stoke for a while. It puts things in perspective.

Kate, New Mills
I went to uni in Bradford and saw some of the regeneration that occurred around the Alhambra. A grotty area was turned into a busy, livey place to go out. I work in the construction industry now, and have seen many of the new plans for Bradford. I am worried that some of the nice historic buildings that are left will be destroyed, and nothing will be built to replace them. Remember what happened in the sixties! Modernising an area is great, but if you haven't learnt from the mistakes of the past, we'll be talking about this again in 40 years time!

Younus,A proud to be bradfordian
As aperson who grew up in bradford it's sad to see it old buildings demolished to make way for car parks and more car parks.Please restore old buildings and have pride in this remarkable city of ours.Thanks.

gary - ex Bradford
I was born and grew up in Bradford, but it seemed to lose it's soul a long time ago. I return often to visit, theres something missing though and the place seems dirty and run down. It would be nice if the proposed regeneration could save the lovely old buildings - they give the town it's character - look at halifax. Bradford needs to stop trying to be Leeds and just be it's self!

Tony, Leicester
As A Bradfordian, now living elsewhere, I worked at the bottom of Leeds Road and saw all the demolishion in the 60's. What was build was not in keeping with the rest of the City. Please don't let the developers do it again! Restore the old building and have pride in the past once you pull a building down it's gone forever. Planners please learn from past mistakes.

Andrew, Oakenshaw
The council should be careful not to make the sames mistakes made in the 1960s by putting buildings in that date quickly. Old buildings are without doubt Bradfords finest asset and should not be demolished to make way for 'iconic' buildings of the future.

Mrs G HULL FROM YORK
I think Bradford has some magnificent and historic buildings, which represent the history of the city, please resore as many as possible, it is the thing that gives Bradford it's identity.

Alex Belfast
Please please please keep your old buildingg Bradord. Look at the prosperious towns Harrogate York Leeds all keep their old buildings. that awful lake around the Town Hall and the new thing opposite are really bad ideas!!

Noor , Bradford, West Yorkshire
If we move forward and do anything to Bradford (that in the main means keeping the old buidings) then surely it is better than doing nothing at all! i am proud of the city that I was born, bred and will hopefully die in!!!

Andy from Wyke
What ever happend to"Jane Glaisters" monumental proposal to turn the old ODEON building into a 1,500 Plus seater concert venue ? why don't these so called intelligent council officials in the Arts and Heritage department of Bradford council stick to doing what they doo best and destroy local creative arts compleatly and have done with it [ then retire !!!

Gareth - Leeds
Having looked at the buildings in need of renovation in Bradford it's undeniable, something needs to be done there, but i personally dont think the masterplan exhibit the council have approved is the way forward for Bradford. The changes that would be made are all synthetic, and wouldn't solve the recurring problems which has caused the city to get into the state it is. What Bradfordians need is a pleasant, but above all functional city.

Andrew, Bradford
It's time to rediscover Bradford We have to learn from it's past to create a prosperous future. The city is a fine place full of heritage (well whats left!) and its the people that make it depressing not the location! We live in a city where the minority live and breath the rules of the land whilst others litter, drive dangerously and create issues that seem to mount up. Its time for change but it's not just the landscape, people have to take a more responsible role in Bradford's future! Thanks a True Bradfordian!

Andrew -Sydney-Australia
As a person who returns to Bradford.Every year to visit family in the city i was born.It seems to get more depressing,how long can i go on defending the city.Pride has to be restored,the jokes are getting old,and stale. Thanks, `A DINKY-DI POM`!!

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