What they said about Greyfriars
Greyfriars was named in the top three worst architectural eyesores in Britain by Channel 4 programme Demolition.
Mary Markham, 57, who ran the office canteen, remembers plumbing issues: "All the waste was coming up through the drains and the only way to get rid of it was to have rods and push it out of the other end. Unfortunately, that was on to the directors' cars below."
Chris Mahony, 77, Northampton Transport Manager at the time, said: "In the early days, graffiti was removed, the place was swept. When the budgets were tightened... that's when the place began to deteriorate."
Channel 4's Demolition presenter and designer Kevin McCloud said it was "like a great big mouth of hell... Abandon hope all ye who enter here".
But local architect Dominic Kramer said the modern view was very different. "It had no respect for the public realm. Where you would have been able to walk out of the town it just severed [access]."
He said town planners, politicians and architects all over the country were emerging in the 1960s from post-war rationing of materials with a new-found freedom.
"I think they believed they were going to create some sort of utopia. The failure of this building [is] it just doesn't integrate [with people] using the town."
With deconstruction set to begin at Easter - it cannot be demolished due to the danger from asbestos - the end of Greyfriars is not only about removing a failed blueprint for Northampton's architecture, it signals the end of another Brutalist building - a period of architecture that it has been argued "produced some of the most sublime, awe-inspiring buildings on the planet".
A helicopter was used to lift pieces of infrastructure on to the roof of the Greyfriars bus station.
Arriving at Greyfriars circa 1988.
The World Monuments Fund published a watch listwarning that a whole era of architecture could be lost.
The Twentieth Century Societyhas campaigned to protect the best examples of British Brutalist design, including London's South Bank Centreand Preston's Bus Station.
Follow @LaNUBlog & @Hon_KingSIMEO on Twitter for Updates
Mary Markham, 57, who ran the office canteen, remembers plumbing issues: "All the waste was coming up through the drains and the only way to get rid of it was to have rods and push it out of the other end. Unfortunately, that was on to the directors' cars below."
Chris Mahony, 77, Northampton Transport Manager at the time, said: "In the early days, graffiti was removed, the place was swept. When the budgets were tightened... that's when the place began to deteriorate."
Channel 4's Demolition presenter and designer Kevin McCloud said it was "like a great big mouth of hell... Abandon hope all ye who enter here".
But local architect Dominic Kramer said the modern view was very different. "It had no respect for the public realm. Where you would have been able to walk out of the town it just severed [access]."
He said town planners, politicians and architects all over the country were emerging in the 1960s from post-war rationing of materials with a new-found freedom.
"I think they believed they were going to create some sort of utopia. The failure of this building [is] it just doesn't integrate [with people] using the town."
With deconstruction set to begin at Easter - it cannot be demolished due to the danger from asbestos - the end of Greyfriars is not only about removing a failed blueprint for Northampton's architecture, it signals the end of another Brutalist building - a period of architecture that it has been argued "produced some of the most sublime, awe-inspiring buildings on the planet".
A helicopter was used to lift pieces of infrastructure on to the roof of the Greyfriars bus station.
Arriving at Greyfriars circa 1988.
The World Monuments Fund published a watch listwarning that a whole era of architecture could be lost.
The Twentieth Century Societyhas campaigned to protect the best examples of British Brutalist design, including London's South Bank Centreand Preston's Bus Station.
Follow @LaNUBlog & @Hon_KingSIMEO on Twitter for Updates
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