Spooners, Pophams and Norwich Union

"Lets just sort out the ugly run down bits of Plymouth City Centre first” dbg Elsewhere... Numberzz: 500 My Dog smells nice! Others... Omnibuses 2.0 : W&D VRT Farewell First: Hawks

©Plymouth Man on Flickr These three buildings date from 1951 until 1958. Two of the buildings were designed by architects who were RIBA gold medallists at the time. Unfortunately, there is a plan to demolish all three and build new retail units with 'a glass frontage'. No doubt that they will be termed "iconic" such as every other new building in Plymouth (although I do agree that the Levinsky Building is quite special).  I must admit that this development scheme has passed me by, but then there have been so many promises of redevelopment in and around the City Centre that have come and (mostly) gone I am not surprised. It is clear that parts of the City Centre do need some work, and Drake’s Circus was the prime example of that, but these fine buildings here surely deserve to be saved rather than replaced by modern glass fronted buildings. I am all in favour of modern glass buildings, and actually quite like the Drakes Circus complex (from most angles anyway) but not when they replace fine old buildings just for the sake of it. In the current economic climate many planned schemes are likely to be delayed or even dropped so lets just hope that this is one of them. Lets just sort out the ugly run down bits of Plymouth City Centre first can we?