CABE has slammed Land Securities’ plans for a £60m shopping centre in the heart of York.
Speaking on behalf of the architecture watchdog at the inquiry into LandSec’s Coppergate Riverside scheme, Daily Telegraph architecture critic Giles Worsley said yesterday that the scheme was “poorly proportioned, badly detailed and clumsily handled in its essential form”.
Worsley singled out Unit 10, which would link the 330,000 sq ft (30,657 sq m) proposed development to the historic Georgian Women’s Prison, for especially fierce criticism.
He said: “It is the key building in the relationship between the proposed new development and the historic buildings. It therefore requires a building of the highest quality. Instead this building is the worst in the entire scheme.”
He added that the “design is so weak that it ends up parodying” the historic buildings.
CABE deputy chief executive Peter Stewart also told the inquiry that the design “fails to measure up to the high standard required for this site. The prevailing characteristic is that it is arbitrary and whimsical yet lacking in interest or charm.
“It is a collage of elements of different materials and shapes and sizes for which no rationale can be discerned. If it were built, it would soon come to be regretted as a lost opportunity.”
EGi News 06/02/01
