Squire and Partners in Lambeth

[Rushy]

I assumed he was being funny. Satirically taking the piss.

I've always thought Cuppa was a she .

 

[CH1]

I've always liked the 336 building even though it's not in a good state. The aircon doesn't help (are they still there?) and the accessible ramp needs a redesign

The owners (a charity) keep trying to promote a major revamp. Don't know if any progress. They have at least repainted the front.

 

[alcopop]

Hilarious!

There are parallels with the colonisers who stole and appropriated the art and creativity of indigineous people's while simultaneously laying waste to their culture

Th

I've always thought Cuppa was a she .

Sorry, my apologies. My bad

 

[cuppa tee]

I assumed she was being funny. Satirically taking the piss.

If not then you have have my heartfelt apology.

The parallels are real, a little exaggerated but still more realistic than claiming to have created a youth culture that existed 20 years earlier

 

[editor]

The Department Store

Squires has won RIBA 2018 National and London Awards.

"This project took an unoccupied and dilapidated former department store from 1906, and reimagined the buildings to create a series of inspiring work and social spaces for a multi-disciplinary architecture and design practice. The brief included a series of units for new and existing local businesses, including a community Post Office, coffee roastery, vinyl record store, delicatessen and bar/restaurant.

I wonder exactly what a "community Post Office" is and how might it differ from a normal Post Office?

 

[Gramsci]

I remember when Department Store first opened Brixton Forum had meetings there. Squires junior turned up to say he wanted space to be used for local groups.

At recent meeting of a local community group last week. Seeking places for future events. Department store was mentioned. They are charging now. It's not that affordable for local groups any more.

 

[Gramsci]

One of the problems with the term "gentrification" is shown here. The way Capitalism works is not like a top down State dictatorship as in say Stalinist states where one has a direct oppressor. Some one to blame directly.

The Squires development is good example in microcosm come to think of it. The Post Office ( and I know someone in it so get good idea what's been happening) has changed from a publicly owned service to creeping privatisation. Squires are beneficiaries of thirty plus years of Neo liberalism. Doing well out of the privatisation of publicly owned space like Scotland yard/ Kings Cross.

Are Squires directly to blame? No. Is the capitalist system that leads to Chelsea style bar/ restaurant replacing post office now relegated to smaller site to blame? In the larger picture yes. I would think that is indisputable.

Quoting myself here.

Bickering about Squires and graffiti is all very well.

Above post is trying to move argument on. I elaborated on it in June Brixton chat thread using David Harvey , a geographer, work in urbanisation.

If graffiti is side issue who agrees with my post above?

 

[editor]

I remember when Department Store first opened Brixton Forum had meetings there. Squires junior turned up to say he wanted space to be used for local groups.

At recent meeting of a local community group last week. Seeking places for future events. Department store was mentioned. They are charging now. It's not that affordable for local groups any more.

That's disgraceful.

 

[teuchter]

I know Owen Luder was probably more concerned to throw up his concrete buildings as cheaply as possible, and no doubt did not expect them to last. And they haven't.

I expect he "threw them up" using whatever budget was dictated to him, and probably did not expect them to be destroyed by philistines.

 

[CH1]

I expect he "threw them up" using whatever budget was dictated to him, and probably did not expect them to be destroyed by philistines.

I guess you're in the Jonathan Meades camp?

 

[CH1]

Whilst I'm mucking about on Youtube, see this "appreciation" by Anita Roddick of the original Bon Marché of which the Squires building was a 1908 extension apparently.

Anita seemed to heartily despise the department store as a concept, out of town shoppping, industrial methods applied to retail etc

This short film was made by Ms Roddick as a sort of talking point filler on BBC2 in 1992 - yet she and her husband went on to sell their The Body Shop business to L'Oréal in 2006.

 

[Gramsci]

That's disgraceful.

Business is business. It surprised me that Squires use of downstairs area is not now that affordable for community groups. Maybe Squires will change there minds again. Its the one of the problems of the increasing need to depend on philanthropy of rich individuals. Its at there whim.

It is not imo how society should be run. But increasingly this is the case.

 

[teuchter]

I guess you're in the Jonathan Meades camp?

 

[aka]

Whilst I'm mucking about on Youtube, see this "appreciation" by Anita Roddick of the original Bon Marché of which the Squires building was a 1908 extension apparently.

Anita seemed to heartily despise the department store as a concept, out of town shoppping, industrial methods applied to retail etc

This short film was made by Ms Roddick as a sort of talking point filler on BBC2 in 1992 - yet she and her husband went on to sell their The Body Shop business to L'Oréal in 2006.

to paraphrase Mike Tyson; "everyone has a plan [to be socially and environmentally activist] until they get a smack in the mouth [from a large amount of cash]"

 

[editor]

to paraphrase Mike Tyson; "everyone has a plan [to be socially and environmentally activist] until they get a smack in the mouth [from a large amount of cash]"

Not everyone. I know people who have turned down large sums of cash because of their ethics.

 

[Gramsci]

Whilst I'm mucking about on Youtube, see this "appreciation" by Anita Roddick of the original Bon Marché of which the Squires building was a 1908 extension apparently.

Anita seemed to heartily despise the department store as a concept, out of town shoppping, industrial methods applied to retail etc

This short film was made by Ms Roddick as a sort of talking point filler on BBC2 in 1992 - yet she and her husband went on to sell their The Body Shop business to L'Oréal in 2006.

It's an interesting video.

The retail shopping experience run on a factory system. Its almost a Marxist critique. The socialisation of the means of production. As Capitalism develops it sweeps aside petit bourgeois shopkeeping replacing it with retail stores run like factories. Turning the independent shopkeeper into a proletarian.

Another David Harvey interview I listened to he says the left ( a very loose term for him) should learn / embrace technical change. Department stores aren't bad idea as way to distribute goods. The bad thing was , as Anita implies, the increased explotation of the workers.

The thing about Anita was that she thought her growing empire of shops could all be individually seen like the ye olde corner shop. A fantasy of hers.

Like Lush has recently copied she used her shops to promote good causes. But it was all top down. It was her telling her workers what to do. Lush are the new Body shop.

What she did do successfully was to show that what were niche interests like being against animal testing were profitable.

 

[editor]

The website for the vile Brixton Central upwardly mobile lifestyle development has a gallery containing 11 images of Brixton.

No less than three of those pictures are of Canova Hall/Squire & Partners. That sums up what a fucking yuppie magnet the place is and the knock on effect this place is having.

 

[lang rabbie]

The owners (a charity) keep trying to promote a major revamp. Don't know if any progress. They have at least repainted the front.

CH1 I know you used to manage the 336 building in a previous life, but where did you get the information that Luder was the designer when it was built for Coutts? Is there some plaque in the lobby that I have missed?

 

[CH1]

CH1 I know you used to manage the 336 building in a previous life, but where did you get the information that Luder was the designer when it was built for Coutts? Is there some plaque in the lobby that I have missed?

The secretary of the local amenity group - who is of course himself an architect - told me the building was designed by the Owne Luder Partnership. He also pointed out that Owen Luder had designed a house for himself on Herne Hill Road. This appears to be confirmed by Wikipedia Owen Luder - Wikipedia

As regards 336 Brixton Road there is no plaque, and the history is somewhat obscured because the conversion for community use was by another architects - Pellings - and there was a major dispute (before my time). Also bear in mind the building seems to have been designed as a warehouse/distribution centre originally, so the use as a bank mainframe computer hub plus depository for share certificates and the like was itself most likely an adaption.

If you are seriously interested in the issue Coutts have an archivist (based in Crawley believe it or not). When I was liaising with them in 2008 or thereabouts they seemed very keen to explore their connection with Brixton.

 

[editor]

Now That's What I Call Edgy #583

 

[Angellic]

Whatever one thinks of S&P they really missed a trick not calling the building The Annexe.

 

[teuchter]

May be of interest to some readers of this thread.

Reinier de Graaf: “Architecture is in a State of Denial” - Failed Architecture

 

[editor]

Gentrification and elitism in action:
Squire & Partners demand £240/year to drink in their swanky private rooftop bar in The Department Store

 

[Angellic]

Wandered past their offices yesterday and there was some sort of Design Fair in the basement. It's a shame it cost £3.00 to visit.

 

[editor]

Wandered past their offices yesterday and there was some sort of Design Fair in the basement. It's a shame it cost £3.00 to visit.

It's almost like they don't want their events to be open to all in the community. There's loads of free art/design events happening all over London every day and to charge for an event where people are selling stuff seems particularly parsimonious.

Still, if you're looking for a Christmas gift, you can pop into the Dept Store and pick up a tiny 125mm plant pot for £84, a vase for £108 or perhaps a wonderful Department Store Scarf for a mere £170. Or maybe go all out and bag yourself a glass vase for £1,560.

Shop

 

[alcopop]

Wandered past their offices yesterday and there was some sort of Design Fair in the basement. It's a shame it cost £3.00 to visit.

£3 is less than a pint. A mere bagatelle to many people.

I think it’s a Christmas bargain.

 

[Angellic]

£3 is less than a pint. A mere bagatelle to many people.

I think it’s a Christmas bargain.

It didn't entice me, a middle-class, middle-aged man.

 

[editor]

It didn't entice me, a middle-class, middle-aged man.

It seems that the last thing they want is ordinary folk coming in off the street to have a look around their hoity toity showcase premises, so that £3 charge will nicely filter out the 'wrong' faces.

Compare and contrast with actually community-invited events such as this, and this.

 

[alcopop]

Are

It didn't entice me, a middle-class, middle-aged man.

Are the white, middle aged, middle class a monolithic entity?

 

[T & P]

So a private business with no obligation whatsoever to offer community events within their premises occasionally chooses to do so, sometimes for a small admission fee. A question comes to mind for those who think this amounts to shunning the community.

The great majority of companies in Brixton and elsewhere have of course never, ever, offered any part of their space for events for the public. So aren’t all these companies that never have opened up their premises for public access events also shunning the local community (much more so than S&P, many would argue)?

Do people look at businesses where the public wouldn’t be expected to have access to, whether accountant firms, financial institutions and countless others and actually think they have any kind of obligation to offer community events for the locals?

If so fair enough, but then it is ludicrous to single out S&P- and even more so since S&P at least offer some, small fee or not.

If not, I‘d like to understand how a company that never ever offers their office space for public events is community-inclusive but a company that sometimes does so is shunning the locals.