Brighton
Cohesive individuality by the sea-side
The Placemaking Collective UK was treated to a tour of Brighton at the end of November, care of Richard Wolfstrome and Shed KM. Brighton is the town where everything is tolerated but intolerance, a moniker that applies as much to the physical make-up and commercial offer of the place as to the lifestyles and politics. Architecturally, a baffling array of styles sits cheek-by-jowl, as do types of use and activity. But Brighton’s jumble, instead of feeling messy and confused, feels authentic, accepting and vibrant. Duly, there’s more of an acceptance of what doesn’t quite work, aesthetically or philosophically. As long as its scale doesn’t dominate, it becomes part of the eclecticism.
The Lanes are clearly poshing up from my last visit five years ago. While a few independent eateries hold on, there is a prevalence of higher-end chains. However, the Lanes are small and North Laine, just across the road, has embraced the more alternative offer. More opportunities await further inland - London Road and its mid-range chains are also welcoming some of Brighton’s more colourful businesses. Just off London Road, the Open Market shows that even suspect design doesn’t discourage an organic mix. The King of Bacon sits next to trendy Tea & Honey; Artpothecary and Shaboutique next to the fruit and veg shop. Even when the most unimaginative elements of urban regen arrive, the blandness feels cajoled into the Brighton state of mind. Take Jubilee Street - Chain Lane if you will. It may be all glass facades with the ubiquitous Pizza Express and Yo Sushi, but it actually all felt rather quaint, as if even some beige was a necessary part of this town of many colours. New developments which forge a mix of identities and offers can also succeed here.
The future Circus Street (Shed KM for U+I) seems to have truly understood and embraced this cohesive individuality - and I don’t just say that because they provided tea and shelter from the bitter coastal cold. .. Each building in the Circus Street scheme has its individual style, embracing its specific use, yet combining with its neighbours to be a single place. Residential, student housing, a new home for South East Dance and Brighton University library will nestle together - clearly individuals, but clearly together. And so the adjacent all-night, post-clubbing institution The Market Diner, will feel like it got a bunch of new friends rather than had a monochrome spaceship land next door. In contrast, the bits which don’t work feel like pastiches of that eclectic sensibility.
Rather than allowing the wash and connection from the rest of the town, they’ve forced it and in doing so, have squashed the authentic colour. Take the mono-styled New England Quarter, with its ham-fisted public realm and bitty commercial offer - architecturally busy but without identity or warmth. Ditto the uninspiring public art in the development sitting to the East of the station - which looks like it started fading before completion. Or the square outside the utterly magnificent St. Bartholomew’s Church, which doesn’t seem to want to acknowledge the tallest parish church in Europe, modelled on the Ark, which completely dominates it. The taxi lobby group denying Brighton its potential dramatic and much-deserved entrance is a well-thumbed bugbear too. However, maybe we're reaching back, inappropriately, to the Victorian set-pieces - or across to European rail concourses.
Thirsting after the grand entrance piece to the seaside town. Maybe actually the unsightly taxi underpass, by the hipster coffee vendors and the stunning 1840s station is more illustrative of what Brighton is. As is the row of standard Edwardian terraces punctuated by 'Brighton’s Original Adult Shop' on Surrey Street as you head south from the station. Difference sitting side-by-side, yet belonging together. I did like to be beside the seaside and those of us looking to build sustainably mixed places, should go stroll.
