July 24, 2006
Pimlico School: Brutalist Building Goes Bye-Bye
Love it or hate it, Pimlico School is going to be pulled down. The Brutalist secondary school building in SW1 has been simultaneously revered and reviled for years, in similar ways to London's other Brutalist buildings such as the Greater London Council Traffic Island, the Royal Festival Hall and Trellick Tower. While some of these stark, clumpy concrete buildings survive endless criticism relatively intact, others face a jazzed-up reincarnation or complete annihilation at the hands of a child.
Pimlico School has long been revered for its bold, stark, raw style and reviled for the common drawbacks attached to these stylistic elements: floor to ceiling glass windows and large expanses of bare, unadorned concrete means the school is a freezing cold box in winter and a sweltering greenhouse in summer. Whatever respect it has among the architectural community the school has never been granted a listed bulding status so it too will go the way of the Greater London Council Traffic Island and be torn down, thankfully not for more "retail and residential opportunities" but for a whole new school building. Perhaps made of bricks this time. With smaller windows. And maybe a curve here and there.
The re-build of Pimlico school is part of the Building Schools for the Future initiative, a government investment into improving school buildings and environments. Let's hope they get it right: Pimlico School already has a good reputation for its teaching, its special music programme and, well, generally avoiding being picked as the Evening Standard's favourite inner London comprehensive secondary school from hell ("Teachers threatened by knife-wielding pupils! Students caught pushing drugs in staff toilets!" and so on...) It would be a shame not to (literally) build on this.
However, the look of London will certainly lose something with the demolition of the GLC Traffic Island and Pimlico School - but are we better off without these clunky, concrete "carbuncles" or will we miss these two examples of architecture that did something very different for London's architecture and landscape? Jubilation and / or commiseration welcome...
Picture of Pimlico School from the Art and Architecture website here.
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yet another brutalist meets the bulldozer...can someone pleeeeease stand-up for this much derided style of architecture? how long before there are no examples left? ignorant fucks.
Dear Big Concrete Lump, With respect, you don't have to work in this building. It is not fit for purpose. We are regularly sent home at all times of the year due to illegal temperatures in the building that are hazardous to working conditions. The large central concourse becomes a rat-run at breaktimes with over 1400 children swarming through en masse, creating a terrifying crush for staff and students alike. By all means, keep examples of this style of architecture for posterity, but please not a working school. How about a nice roundabout or traffic island instead?
I do sympathise with your comments about working conditions, but I do basically agree with Big Concrete Lump. If this were a Victorian building, people would be frantically trying to find workarounds to bring its air-conditioning/heating/whatever systems up to date without resorting to pulling it down. This type of architecture is currently easy prey for demolition simply because it's currently unfashionable. So was Victorian architecture in the 60s, and masses of it was pulled down. Which many people now regret.
I went to Pimlico school from 1997 to 2001 and although the teaching was usually brilliant and the subjects taught interesting the school and therefore my education suffered as a result of the architecture of the building.
Students should not miss school time as the building is unfit.
Although the average 12 year old may not complain about being sent home early due to the school premises resembling Kew Gardens in climate, the average 16 year old studying hard for their GCSEs will have a very different point of view.
Hi everybody Big great concrete lump, as you all know the school is not exactly beautiful but it has great facilities inseide and how should i know because i go to that school and some people no offnese should be careful what they say because i was surfing the net and i found this and thought why is my school being ripped off people should learn this lesson and this is what my parents taught me dont judge a book by its cover unless youve read it and known its full potential meaning. Some people don't understand that there are people who are bad bunk of skive lessons and stuff like that but its not all of us there are some of us that want to learn and get great jobs in the future. So dont judge the school because it will be rebuilt and made nicer you should come visit the school because it has the school planning for the future. My headteacher not metioning names is a great teacher and she has made the school much more tough shes so tough thats she has introduced uniform. Discover first then say what you have o say.