This area of Bloomsbury came so close to being completely destroyed.
- Janet Hall
‘A Case Against Destruction, A Case for Celebration’ looks at how the people of Bloomsbury drew, wrote and celebrated their way out of plans to demolish a seven-acre site that was home to more than 600 people – and reflects on how a community’s resolve 40 years ago might influence planning policy and protest today.
Using original 1970s illustrations by artist Albany Wiseman, as well as contemporary photographs of the streets saved from the wrecking ball, the exhibition reveals how the area has changed – and remained the same – in the intervening decades.
Exhibition curator Janet Hall, an MPhil student of Architecture and Urban Design at Cambridge, said: “This area of Bloomsbury came so close to being completely destroyed; it was only the combined efforts of a community of local people, artists, friends, neighbours and councillors that saved it from almost certain destruction.
“Feasibility studies had been carried out, and full plans were drawn up. Had the Bloomsbury plans gone ahead, historic buildings including residences belonging to the Peabody Trust – one of the earliest housing associations in the capital – would have been lost for good.”
Despite fierce local opposition from councillors, including future Health Secretary Frank Dobson, Bloomsbury was the preferred choice of Edward Heath’s Conservative government and Whitehall mandarins who wanted to site the new British Library opposite the British Museum - in the face of strong evidence that such proximity was wholly unnecessary for the vast majority of future British Library users and researchers.
Read the full story
The exhibition ‘A Case Against Destruction, A Case for Celebration’ can be seen at 1 Pied Bull Yard, WC1A 2JR between 1-6pm on weekdays until July 27. Admission free
Reproduced courtesy of the University of Cambridge
_______________________________________