Towers Open Fire

1 April 2008

A Guardian piece here about Tom James and Tom Keeley, who were both involved in the Echo Cities, Venice Architecture Biennale 2006 project that Hugo and I also participated in. Telling the sad story of how Sheffield won't get to keep the iconic cooling towers out near Meadowhall, the Guardian piece also gives a grim view of the current scene in British urban regeneration (rebranding might be a more appropriate term) and public art. Tom and Tom have the analysis down pretty well. I was out that way in the city yesterday. Hard to imagine it with the towers down. They look amazing and it could have been such an amazing site for something.

"There is this assumption that local authorities are inexperienced when it comes to public art," she [Ann Gosse, the city council's director of culture] says. "It's not amateur night here. The council has a track record of producing stunning public art." She cites the newly renovated train station, with its array of complicated steel and stone fountains, and the well-liked Winter Gardens, an oversized wood and glass conservatory in the city centre, as proof that the council is well-placed to guide the process.

But this is exactly the kind of outlook that is the problem, according to Keeley. "Bins and benches might make the city nicer, but they are not public art," he says. "The council just doesn't get it and is not capable of creating something on the scale we want." He predicts: "It will be made of stainless steel, it will be a safe option, and it won't change anyone's perception of Sheffield."

A recent story in the local paper, the Sheffield Star, hints that this is not an unreasonable concern. Richard Caborn MP mooted his vision for the city's work of public art: a giant, stainless steel football. He told the paper: "It's an opportunity to celebrate what Sheffield has given to the world. We have the world's oldest football club and produced the first stainless steel."

James compares the idea to replacing the Angel of the North with a bottle of Newcastle Brown made of coal. "It would be funny if it wasn't so tragic," he says.