Whilst digging up some planning permission applications in the local planning office, I noticed how beautiful the sculpted curvature of the Town Hall in Catford appeared. It isnt immediately obvious, that the beauty of the 1968 town hall, has somehow become harder to appreciate due to the risks of getting run over on the busy South Circular Road. Lewisham (and Catford) outgrew the original 1875 townhall, which admittedly, was as pictoresque as the little church on Blackheaths common: ideal-homes.org.uk/__data/assets/image/0008/304649/lewisham-town-hall-01525-350.jpg The current town hall, was only built after a conservation campaign by the locals, who enlisted the poet John Betjeman, to try to save the original Gothic townhall. It failed, and this is the legacy. I keep thinking, that if we cumulatively ignore how our cities and towns develop, inevitably, its our children who get what we really deserved. Nonetheless, I was struck at the possibility, that maybe the town hall is not as lacking in beauty. A lone statue of a Reflecting Girl sits in the commons; even in summer, the grounds are unpopulated, and the absence of humanity around the town hall, contrasts to the business of the narrow pavement, crowded with bus stops; library and administrative office staff and passerbys, all competing against one another to move on. Its hard to wonder what the Reflecting Girl is thinking, all alone in the huge court yard of grass, out of touch with the rest of the town.
Posted on: Sun, 12 Oct 2014 22:19:23 +0000