Taylan Tahir_2014_We Need To Talk About Croydon_Part I and Part II LR

Taylan Tahir

we need

to talk

about

croydon

part IRise and Fall and Rise?

Taylan Tahir

MA Architecture Royal College of Art

2014

10,442 wordsHandbound

With Thanks to:

Joe Kerr, Vincent Lacovara, Alice Cretney, Jonny

Rose, Nick Jewell, Alex Barretta, Grace Caffyn,

Aaron Salamon, Denizer Ibrahim, Kellie Preston.

We need to talk about Croydon

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table of contents

part I: rise and fall and rise?

Intent

Mentioning the ‘C’ Word

What a ‘Crap Town’

‘Form Follows Finance’

Legacy

Rethink

Identity Crisis

The Westfield Effect

Business as Usual

Counter Culture Centre

Learning From Birmingham

A Look to the Future

Bibliography

List of Illustrations

p.04

p.06

p.08

p.16

p.26

p.32

p.48

p.52

p.56

p.58

p.68

p.70

p.72

p.76

part II: Conversations on croydon

(Appendix)

Interview with Vincent Lacovara

Interview with Alice Cretney

Interview with Jonny Rose

Suburban Press: No. 5

p.03

p.15

p.21

p.31


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Intent

Figure 1-4.

Commercial, Residential, Retail, High Street.

Through this dissertation I would like to confront the perceptions and misconceptions of my hometown through a discussion of attitudes towards its distinctive built environment. I will first consider the history and narrative of urban development in Croydon, and the circumstances that it occurred, in order to understand its rise and fall from grace. Reflecting on what this has meant for current residents, I will document the present identity(ies) of the town through my own and others’ experiences. Ultimately, I will be concluding with a look to the future, the potential vision of Croydon and whether the borough will ever be able to shake or alter its tarnished reputation.

I see this piece of work as way of promoting a wider conversation about the social, economic, cultural and spatial impacts of regeneration in the borough. Also, to provide a written history of Croydon’s built environment in order to contextualise its current and future period of investment and development. As part of my research I will be talking with several people who have invested socially in the borough about their personal perceptions. Subsequently, this document will be formatted in two parts. Part I will outline my main investigation into Croydon’s past, present and future progression and Part II will be a more informal series of conversations I have had about Croydon, in Croydon with people from Croydon.


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When meeting new people, the topic of where you live is a common agenda. It has become a recurrent amusement for me to reveal to people where I grew up and currently live, anticipating the inevitable and pitiful response. “Ah yes, I know Croydon. That’s bad luck”, “that’s unfortunate” or my favourite - the exclaim of surprise, “you don’t seem like the type from there!” It seems unavoidable. Croydon is widely known to have a notorious reputation and, in my experience, regularly serves to elicit similar, negative responses in conversation. Many residents of the borough even opt to disassociate from the stigma of the place by classifying themselves as residents of Surrey, despite officially joining Greater London in 1965. Although, it feels to me as if more often than not, this negativity resonates from people that have not spent time there, having only been exposed to detrimental news reports, experienced the rush hour traffic or having briefly sped past on a train.

This South London borough is “set to become London‘s biggest growth centre with more than £3bn worth of investment in the next five years”,1 just hinting of those magic words urban regeneration and redevelopment. The face of Croydon I grew up with will be inextricably altered and I feel that if I blink, I’ll miss it. Waiting at the train station for the morning commute or popping into ‘town’ at the weekend leaves you with the impression that Croydon is very much ‘under construction’. Planning permission is granted, the hoarding is up and now

‘all visitors must report to the site office’.

But this isn’t the first time Croydon has endured such a concentrated period of investment and development. An intense period of commercially-led construction in the 1950s and 1960s created a ‘Mini Manhattan’ skyline of multi storey office blocks that is readily recognisable today. Many of the buildings in the ‘concrete jungle’ currently lie totally empty; in an era of housing shortages and soaring rents, servev as constant, visual reminders of the mistakes of the town’s forefathers.

1 Develop Croydon. Website. [Accessed 17th July 2014]. Available at: http://www.developcroydon.com/Why-Croydon/About-Croydon

Mentioning The ‘C’ Word

Figure 5.

The stark regularity of Corinthian House, one of two buildings in Croydon designed by

British Architect Richard Seifert.


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Over the years Croydon has been vilified as that of a pantomime villain in popular culture, berated with abuse from the rear of the auditorium and unable to retort. Croydon is the butt of the joke. An easy target; “a place lazy comics reflexively reach for as a synonym for shit.”2 Jimmy Carr, one of many comedians to publically poke fun at the town, wrote on Twitter saying that he was having a “knife crime in Croydon. Sorry nice time. It’s 1974 here.”3 While performing there earlier that year, Carr joked without even having to think twice, “An audience member proposed – she’s not even pregnant. That’s a first for Croydon.”4 Too Easy. A recent cameo role in the latest Iron Man 3 blockbuster even dragged the borough’s reputation through international mud.5

High profile adversary to Croydon is banal and familiar. David Bowie, who spent time studying at Croydon College, has perhaps the most evocative appreciation for his student days telling a journalist during an interview in 1999 that, the borough was his “nemesis” and that he “hated Croydon with a real vengeance.” He continued scathingly, “It represented everything I didn’t want in my life, everything I wanted to get away from. I think it’s the most derogatory thing I can say about somebody or something. ‘God, it’s so fucking Croydon!’”6

Sociologist and author Les Back, of Goldsmiths University (also born in Croydon), conveys the venom behind Bowie’s words and satirises the opinion of many suggesting that, “it is essentially a doom suburb, a site of cultural suffocation

2 Grindrod, John. Concretopia: A Journey around the Rebuilding of Postwar Britain. London: Old Street Publishing, 2013. p.10

3 Carr, Jimmy. “I’m having a knife crime in Croydon. Sorry nice time. It’s 1974 here. twitpic.com/7jvr9”. Twitter. 16th June 2009. [Accessed 10th August 2014]. Available from: https://twitter.com/jimmycarr

4 Tait, Simon. “Croydon – from concrete hell to cutting edge?” The Independent, 2010. [Accessed 5th August 2014]. Available from: http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/croydon-ndash-from-concrete-hell-to-cutting-edge-2064797.html

5 Note: “When the movie’s central villain, the Mandarin (Ben Kingsley), is shown to actually be Trevor Slattery, a bumbling, drunken British actor, audience reactions to the twist were quite varied. To defend his decision of casting Slattery for the role of America’s next terrorist, Aldrich Killion (Guy Pearce) cites the actor’s past roles claiming his performance of Shakespeare’s “King Lear” was hailed as the “toast of Croydon, wherever that is.”” [Accessed 27th August 2014]. Available from: http://screen-rant.com/iron-man-3-spoilers-comic-book-references-easter-eggs-trivia/

6 Bowie, David. “David Bowie interviewed by David Quantick”. Q Magazine, October 1999. Avail-able at: http://www.teenagewildlife.com/Appearances/Press/1999/1001/q.html

from which the only redemption is escape.”7 Imagery of a happening London culture would translate to see Croydon as an antithesis; “a place of living torment, a culture vacuum, the negation of style, an example of ‘where it’s not!’”8

Local chic is more synonymous with tracksuits, hoodies and the ‘Croydon Facelift’, a fetching hairstyle pioneered by model (and Croydoner) Kate Moss that involves scraping the hair back into a tight ponytail to ‘lift’ the face.

To many, the visual connotations evoked of Croydon are the strongest. A mini metropolis of flyovers, underpasses and skyscrapers. When given a moment of thought, imagery of bland, empty high streets and architectural malaise springs to mind. Dated ‘concrete carbuncles’ tower over a soulless, dreary commercial town centre, which becomes a “theatre of empty spaces after 6 o’clock”.9

7 Back, Les. ‘Out of the Shadows’ in D. Bravenboer ed Contagious Croydon: Croindene Press. 2001. p.26-35

8 Ibid.

9 Donald Meckiffe. Croydon Architecture Late Show. BBC. 1993. [Accessed 15th July 2014]. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Yf6YYqpKhw#t=29.

What a ‘Crap Town’...!

Figure 6-9.

Everyday newspaper headlines in Croydon.

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Croydon was described in the 1993 BBC Late Show as a “New York in Eastern Europe”, “blown apart by the car”10 and it seems even the professionals publically agreed. Deyan Sudjic suggests Croydon must be the

“English Alphaville”; Richard Rogers flat out refuses to spend his Summer Holidays there, “let alone [his] weekends” and Charles Jencks physically turns his back on the town, pointing out it lacks a “really strong identity” or “a strong focus”.11 Jencks’ criticism is particularly hard to digest as he presents himself sitting in front of what I can only describe as a unique and striking landscape for an outer London borough. This negative perception of a high rise ‘concrete jungle’ is still as prominent as ever.

The title of this chapter is borrowed from another of Croydon’s dreary accolades, the inclusion in the widely distributed book Crap Towns Returns: Back by Unpopular Demand, featuring some of the grimmest places in Britain. A comment posted by a reader on the Crap Towns Returns website sums it up; “when I travel (escape) away [from Croydon] on a train, I feel like the final survivor in a horror movie, where I have escaped from an epidemic of which has turned all the people into flesh eating zombies and I am fleeing into safety.”12 The same unfortunate year, 2013, saw Croydon’s social standing plummet even further as it was rated the “second unhappiest place to live in the UK” in a survey by agency, Rightmove. Despite placing one ahead of the whole of London East, the borough took last place for ‘Recreation’ and ‘Neighbourliness’ in the ‘Community’ category.13 (Gallingly, neighbouring borough Bromley placed 9th

happiest overall!). Accolades almost predictable for a place that is “shorthand for a rather dated English idea of ugliness, boredom and embarrassment”.14

10 Donald Meckiffe. Croydon Architecture Late Show. BBC. 1993. [Accessed 15th July 2014]. Avail-able from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Yf6YYqpKhw#t=29.

11 Ibid.

12 Dina. “Croydon”. Comment on Crap Towns Returns Website, August 22nd 2013 at 4:16pm. Avail-able from: http://www.craptownsreturns.co.uk/2013/03/04/croydon/

13 Rightmove. Rightmove Happy at Home Index. 2013. [Accessed 17th July 2014] Available from: KWWS��ZZZ�ULJKWPRYH�FR�XN�QHZV�ÀOHV��5LJKWPRYH�+DSS\�$W�+RPH�,QGH[��SGI* In total, 38,624 people responded to the survey, which was conducted between 2nd of January and 16th of January 2013.


Deyan Sudjic

Co-founder of Blueprint Magazine and current director of the Design Museum

“Some time about 1955, what had been a typical South East England market town turned itself into what could only be called the English Alphaville”

Richard Rogers

Internationally award winning architect

“It certainly isn’t a place I would go and spend my Summer Holidays in, let alone my weekends”

Croydon is a “theatre of empty spaces after 6 o’clock”

Charles Jencks

Renowned architecture theorist and critic

“The horror of these [edge cities] is that they lack a really strong identity, a strong focus”

Figure 10-13.

Stills and quotes taken from 1993 BBC show on the architecture of Croydon.

The Town Planners, the forefathers of Croydon. Top down design from an aerial perspective.


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One of the most visited buildings in Croydon is Lunar House, built in 1970, although it is no more striking or visually appealing than any of the other tower blocks stacked up like dominoes along Wellesley Road. Due to its primary use as the Home Office Immigration and Nationality Directorate it is often recognised by the lengthy queue of internationals waiting impatiently outside. Despite being named after the Apollo 11 moon landing the year prior to completion, “the moon is probably a more hospitable place to visit”.15 In 2009, Lunar House became the only asylum-screening unit in the UK. Besides the obvious slur of a disproportional influx of immigrants and asylum seekers to Croydon, for many visiting this building, it will also be their first experience of London. Refugees travelling to the UK, either illegally or legally on a student, business or tourist visa, without declaring themselves and wishing to seek asylum have to attend a personal assessment at Lunar House. In 2011, 15,569 applications for asylum were made in the UK, the vast majority of which were made via the Asylum Screening Unit in Croydon.16 Unfortunately, due to the lengthy and bureaucratic nature of the process, a number of these people visiting Croydon are left in limbo, with a temporary admission to the UK but unable to work, possibly with little food or money or somewhere to stay. The surrounding area is often their first port of call and it is not uncommon to see people sleeping rough in the shadowy corners of discarded shops and offices.

It is this build up of sustained negativity over an extended period of time, combined with a lack of community engagement and social unrest that added fuel to the fire in Croydon during the London Riots. In August 2011, the town centre was overrun with a mob who, “for several hours, held areas of Croydon in a grip of fear, looting and causing wanton destruction.”17 Shops were mindlessly smashed and vandalised; the most iconic act of destruction being the deliberate arson of Reeves Corner, a 100-year-old family run furniture store in North End. Helicopters circled overhead to film the ferocious flames rising uncontrollably out of the burning carcass of generations of hard work. Their houses ablaze, victims had to leave possessions and jump for safety from their windows. Cue the jokes about a hell on earth.


16 Refugee Council. Brief Guide to Asylum. February 2013. [Accessed on 6th August 2014]. Available IURP��KWWS��ZZZ�UHIXJHH&RXQFLO�RUJ�XN�DVVHWV��$V\OXPB%ULHÀQJB��SGI

17 Ibid. p.1

Figure 14.

Lunar House, right, facing on to Wellesley Road. The adjacent building to the left is Apollo House, also a Government building.


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64% of people suspected of being involved in these local riots were from Croydon.18 This statistic is particularly prevalent when considering they targeted their own hometown. Places where they live and work. Those areas were identified as having a real lack of civic pride. In the 2012 reactionary documentary, Riot From Wrong, Rev. Rose Wilkin proposes,

“the realisation that to destroy somewhere you live… shows a deeper

disconnectedness and a lack of engagement with the place where we are

growing up”.19

In the coming years, it is important Croydon sees positive social change as well

as urban development. In his article On the Brandwagon, through his sarcastic japes, Jonathon Meades touches on some prudent points. “It means riots and burning cars and police horses and power hoses outside the ring road. Out of sight – so that’s ok isn’t it”.20 Regeneration in the capitalist and physical sense will not resolve underlying social issues that hang over Croydon – to prevent similar occurrences, the Council must consider improvements to the urban fabric alongside more social initiatives.

18 “Croydon Local Independent Review Panel.” Report into the rioting in Croydon on 8 and 9 August 2011. 2011. p.24. [Accessed March 3rd 2014]. Available from: http://www.croydononline.org/lirp/

19 Nygh, Ted. (Director). Riot From Wrong. [Documentry]. 2012. UK: Fully Focused Community. [Accessed May 29th 2014]. Available from: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x10bql8_riot-from-ZURQJ�DZDUGLQJ�ZLQQLQJ�GRFR�RQ�\RXWK�LQ�UHYROWBVKRUWÀOPV

20 Meades, Jonathon. ‘On the Brandwagon’; Regenerating Culture and Society. 2011. p.40

Figure 15.

A woman jumps from a burning building in Croydon in one of the most iconic photographs to come out of

the London Riots 2011. Captured by Amy Weston.


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Although the media ostensibly represents Croydon through negative newspaper headlines, the borough has a much richer and illustrious history than it is often given credit for. The town centre itself is a real visual aggregate of 20th Century ambitions and ideals. Suburban housing neighbouring retail parks, a dense commercial business district along with a scattering of marooned fragments of a bygone heritage.

On the trade route to London from the South coast, Croydon has origins as a “medieval market town”. It grew to become a “prosperous Victorian town that by the turn of the 20th Century was eager to rival England’s big cities”.21 The borough really began to make itself distinct from other London suburbs when it became host to the world’s first international airstrip, built originally to aid the effort during WWI. After the war, the airstrip became a new luxury travel hub “in the heart of suburban Surrey”.22 Growing in commercial importance, it swiftly transformed into the glamorous, art deco Croydon Aerodrome and the central airport for the Capital. This step began to situate Croydon’s reputation at the “cutting edge of technology, design and innovation”.23 During this period, these advances in technology and transport infrastructure quickly made the suburb a popular and desirable home for commuters into central London.

However, the end of the Second World War marked the conclusion of Croydon’s aeronautical duties to London. Further developments in technology rendered the lowly Croydon Airport inadequate and too small to house the latest generation of larger aircrafts. The war had also seen the town suffer loses from heavy bombing and the town fathers began to search for a new way to progress, looking to “London’s office boom to supply a fresh raison d’être and fund its expansion”.24 This decision would prove to be pivotal in the physical evolution of Croydon between the 1950s and early 1970s, ultimately shaping the town dramatically to the present day.


22 Ibid. p.10

23 Ibid. p.11

24 Ibid. p. 11


Figure 16.

Historic photograph of East Croydon train station circa 1901. Adjacent to the railway station are tram lines, a parade of shops and a hotel.

Figure 17.

Historic postcard of Croydon underpass circa 1960s.

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In 1956, the Council passed its own private bill, the ‘Croydon Corporation Act’. This bill, coupled with central Government incentives, encouraged large businesses to operate outside of London and was the catalyst for the radical top down planning and commercialisation of the town centre into a Central Business District (CBD). Under this act, Croydon Council gained significant power as an independent planning authority allowing it to process considerable compulsory purchase orders without accountability at Central Government level. As business boomed through the 1960s the Council facilitated a vast, irrevocable architectural transformation of the town centre. “By April 1971 a total of 5 million sq. ft. of office space had been constructed in the central area alone”,25 roughly equivalent to 115 acres of rentable office slab. By acquiring some of the land themselves, the corporation were able to collect rateable revenue, seeing their profits increase as rents soared from 25p per sq. ft. in 1960 to £4 per sq. ft. in 1972.26

In order to place into context the current perceptions that exist of the town’s built environment it is important to understand just how, through ”misguided civic optimism and voracious private enterprise”,27 this procurement process occurred. The Conservatives were in control of Croydon Council at the time, and made decisions “based on the fact the best way to serve a town such as Croydon [was] to encourage private enterprise.”28 These were probably genuinely altruistic motives; promoting new business in a town is only a good thing, but the manner in which it occurred led Croydon to fall victim to profit hungry, private developers. In the book, Form Follows Finance, Willis suggests that fundamental to commercial architecture is the “linkage between profit and program”. Where the “function of a building is to produce rents”; “economic decisions [will] govern design decisions.”29 When an office is designed with the sole purpose of earning the greatest possible return for its developer owners, it will always result in a building that presents the maximum area of rentable space, with the most amount of light. The most efficient example of this is the economic design of a single room, repeated to fill one floor plate and then multiplied by the number of required levels to create an office; a recurrent

25 Reid, Jamie. Suburban Press no.5. Lo! A Monster is Born, 1972. p.2

26 Ibid. p.11

27 Mowbray, Robert. Hauntology of Croydon Exhibition. May 2014

28 Reid, Jamie. Suburban Press no.5. Lo! A Monster is Born, 1972. p. 5

29 Willis, Carol. Form Follows Finance: Skyscrapers and Skylines in New York and Chicago. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1996. p.19-23

methodology in Croydon. Once a few of the newer and seemingly risky ventures were seen to be successful, many more developers swooped in “like vultures”, and

“the scene was set for the cancerous growth of Croydon, the concrete slab

business mecca.”30

Things were moving quickly for Croydon and between 1963-73, 20% of offices and 30% of jobs moving out of central London had relocated to the town.31

30 Reid, Jamie. Suburban Press no.5. Lo! A Monster is Born, 1972. p. 15

31 Croydon Council. Croydon Opportunity Area Planning Framework. January 2013. p.10


Figure 18.

Aerial Image of Croydon by Will Stanley Design.

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Suburban Press, a publication produced by situationist artists (and ex Croydon Art School Students) Jamie Reid, Jeremy Brook and Nigel Edwards in the 1970s, documented the process from the viewpoint of the powerless residents at the time. The speed of office growth seemed extraordinary, “development moved so fast that it became a law unto itself”, “and any attempt to question what was happening or of consultation with the people of Croydon was swept aside.”32 Residents felt helpless in an environment where their town centre was being knocked down and totally redeveloped for reasons of pure commerciality. Speaking as a voice of the people, Reid used Suburban Press as a way to make a stand against decisions happening behind closed doors within the Council. It was propaganda against the commercial developers and a call to arms for a counter culture. “We are left dwarfed in the streets by huge towers of commerce. An architecture and environment of commerce has been created to manipulate our lives.”33 Reid’s accusative tone was representative of the emotion of many people at the time.

“Old buildings were demolished and replaced with skyscrapers with the ease

that a child knocks down toy bricks and builds them back up again. It was

impossible to know what replaced what. There was a property bonanza and

private developers grew fat”.34

“It is the whole concept of ripping down homes, pubs and cinemas to replace them with monopolistic offices that [was] wrong”,35 especially when it “was largely at the expense of Victorian housing, public halls and school playing


33 Ibid. p.4

34 Ibid. p.15

35 Ibid. p.16


Figure 19.

Impelling images taken from Suburban Press, 1972.

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fields”.36 Much of the controversy during this intense period of development surrounds one man, Sir James Marshall. An alderman and local magistrate since 1936, by the end of his career Marshall also managed to combine the roles of Chairman of the Planning Committee, Chairman of the Finance Committee, Chairman of the Governors of the Whitgift Foundation and Leader of the Council. As the ‘Managing Director of Croydon’, Marshall had elevated to a level where he was protected from being subject to popular election. His autocratic nature was epitomised in his personal philosophy; “the best committee is a committee of one.”37 Marshall masterminded the Croydon Corporation Act and used his position as Governor to pull strings and push through a deal that saw the swift sale and removal of the Trinity School of John Whitgift; ‘relocated’ from its prime 12 acre site situated between East Croydon Station and the new office centre. 1970 saw the opening of the Whitgift Centre, a complex of offices and a sprawling shopping mall, on the site of the school and its surrounding grounds.

The end of the frantic land-grab was signified by the introduction of the ‘Brown Ban’ in 1964; a nearly total ban on new office development in the Greater London Counties, and then the subsequent introduction of the Town and Country Planning Act in 1968, which legally obliged local authorities to provide a public consultation when structuring new local plans. This didn’t represent an immediate halt to construction by any means, as most of the major development proposals where already under construction or held a valid building contract. By 1972, there were 56 office blocks of over 1000 sq. ft. in the town centre,38 providing headquarters to a number of large companies including Nestlé, Tate & Lyle, I.B.M. and R.A.C. amongst many other insurance and financial services companies. Things were booming, and by 1973 the rateable value of the borough soared to around £64 million,39 setting Croydon out as one of the richest boroughs in London.

36 Mowbray, Robert. Hauntology of Croydon Exhibition. May 2014


38 Mowbray, Robert. Blogpost. Major Project Report. November 2013. [Accessed on 15th September 2014] Available at: http://rob-dirtywork.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/major-project-report.html

39� 3XEOLF�+HDOWK�'HSDUWPHQW�&UR\GRQ��3XEOLF�+HDOWK�LQ�&UR\GRQ��$QQXDO�5HSRUW��1973. [Accessed on 15th September 2014] Available at: http://wellcomelibrary.org/moh/report/b19787315/1#?asi=0&ai=12&z=-0.1479%2C0.0022%2C1.2997%2C0.558


Figure 21.

Whitgift Grammar School renamed Trinity School of John Whitgift in 1954 used to sit on a 12 acre site between East Croydon Station and the new Shopping Centre.

Figure 20.

Sir James Marshall, ‘Managing Director of Croydon’ and mastermind of the Croydon Corporation Act, believed the best comittee was a comittee of one.

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Figure 22. A rhythm of Croydon facades.

As “a result of the subjugation of planning to commerce”,40 Central Croydon has been transformed from a familiar outer London suburb to a “minor metropolis of skyscrapers, underpasses and flyovers”.41 The town has grown to be “London’s third largest office location, behind the City of London and Canary Wharf, and is also south London’s largest shopping centre.”42 But despite the financial successes, in the rush to take advantage of insatiable demand, little was done to make considerations for the pedestrians and residents. Permissions were granted on a project-by-project basis with no direction or obvious pattern, resulting in a series of high-rise towers “constructed at random, oblivious to one another, [and] allowed to go as high in any place as developers wanted.”43 From the ground, towering offices leering down over pedestrians dominate the skyline. The influx of such a dense grouping of commercial buildings in the town centre ruthlessly “displaced working class communities in neighbourhoods like Old Town and depopulated central Croydon.”44 The exclusively commercial environment seems only to make sense during the week, as office employees scuttle to and from their workplace.

During the evenings and weekends, Croydon becomes a ghost town.

40� +DWKHUOH\��2ZHQ��A New Kind of Bleak: Journeys Through Urban Britain. London ; New York: Verso Books, 2012.p.164

41 Ibid. p.164




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An inherited assertion towards the vision of a bold new future in Croydon has noticeably faded. Modern tower blocks that may have been taken with a pinch of cosmopolitan sophistication after construction, now appear shabby and distinctly brutalist. The resulting legacy is just simply “a poor quality public realm dominated by car parks with poorly defined streets and spaces.”45 Urban development in the heyday of the automobile inevitably meant a focus on its importance. Vast amounts of large tarmac transport infrastructure segregate and dissect the centre of the town. Historic road widening schemes designed to alleviate traffic, have only served to increase the number of cars in Croydon. The walk from East Croydon train station to the Whitgift Shopping Centre provides the challenge of crossing a six-lane ring road and a cavernous underpass. Warning signs about road fatalities bring home the dangers for inferior pedestrians. The only way across is down an unassuming set of stairs, past a sleeping drunk and through an ominous and dingy underpass - hardly an ideal entrance for the largest shopping centre in South London.


Figure 23 and 24.

Pedestrian route from East Croydon to the Whitgift Shopping Centre.

Legacy

Due to such a dramatic and aggressive transformation during the 1960s, very little development has been undertaken since. Croydon has been retained in aesthetic as “a 1960s living museum.”46 Or, a distressing visual reminder to an older generation of residents that, not so long ago, saw their town obliterated by the Council and rebuilt for a profit.47 A conversation with Vincent Lacovara of Croydon Council, informed the appreciation that, for some people, the perception of negativity surrounding Croydon’s built environment stems from these emotions and first hand experiences. However, others also have different associations. A younger generation, including myself, grew up gazing towards Croydon town centre from their parents’ bedroom window, attaching “a value to [the Croydon metropolis] that someone in their 60’s and 70’s doesn’t.”48 But now, years of public slander and pessimistic professional interpretation dominate the way the borough is viewed by both residents and outsiders. There is frequently an aggressive over reaction, with suggestions of pulling down the whole concrete jungle and starting again.


47 Lacovara, Vincent. Interview. 18th July 2014.

48 Ibid.

Figure 25.

Four Shades of grey at Apollo House.

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We need to talk about CroydonLegacy

In his book, The Architecture of Happiness, philosopher Alain de Botton suggests that our buildings are “memorials of identity”,49 and Croydon is no different. Vincent supports this argument, suggesting to me that what we can see when we look around the town is “a reflection of ourselves”; a “manifestation of the values of our own society.”50 Although the scale of the development that occurred in Croydon is quite unique, it bears a great relevance to the optimistic post war visions being implemented in the rest of London and nationwide at the time. It is part of a heritage that should be deliberated carefully before being wholly erased.

Despite being historically important and representative of the philosophy of an era, could Croydon’s “castles of commerce”51 ever be considered appealing, or is this change in attitude for some too much to ask? De Botton proposes, “an ugly [space] can coagulate any loose suspicions as to the incompleteness of life.”52 If Croydon really is as dreadful as they say, it will be having a very detrimental emotional effect on many residents. But he continues that, in a subconscious reaction to surrounding ugliness and, “to prevent the possibility of permanent anguish … we can be led to shut our eyes to most of what is around us.”53

49� %RWWRQ��$ODLQ�GH��7KH�$UFKLWHFWXUH�RI�+DSSLQHVV��3HQJXLQ��S��



52 Botton, Alain de. The Architecture of Happiness. Penguin, 2006. p. 12

53 Ibid. p.13

Figure 26 and 27.

Transformation from suburban to urban just by crossing the road.Map showing the development of Croydon Opportunity Area from 1938, left, to 2012, right.

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We need to talk about CroydonLegacy

that, “in most cases, little besides time is required for [buildings] to recover their charm.”55 Just the passing of a few generations will allow us to regard places or objects without the biases of past eras.

But it is not just the locals who have lost a sense of ownership in the town. For 40 years East Croydon was dubbed the ‘home of Nestlé UK’, until Nestlé moved to the cheaper alternative, Gatwick, in 2012. An on-going theme for decades, these large corporations that once flocked to Croydon when times were good, lead by example. They have no or very little interest in the places they locate to other than meeting their demand to lower costs and generate more revenue and business, relocating without a second thought for an offer of lower rent. Years of encouraging the influx of these soulless proprietors have now rendered large areas of central Croydon totally unoccupied and redundant. This trend has escalated to the point where in 2013, 52% of the overall office space in the Metropolitan Centre was recorded as vacant.56 Despite offering some of the most competitive office rents in London, the borough is still finding it difficult to turn heads for the right reasons. Much of the existing office stock is old fashioned and inadequate for the needs of todays businesses and the offering of cheaper rents in no longer a sustainable marketing strategy. Many buildings, inappropriate for their context now sit ignored, emptily ever after, waiting patiently for their next role in Croydon’s dynamic story.

55 Botton, Alain de. The Architecture of Happiness. Penguin, 2006. p. 96

56 Croydon Council. The Croydon Monitoring Report: Croydon Metropolitan Centre. January 2014. p. 3 [Accessed 8th July 2014] Available at: http://www.croydon.gov.uk/planningandregeneration/frame-work/localplan/monitoringreports

)LJXUH��$�VHOHFWLRQ�RI�KLJK�ULVH�RIÀFHV��GLIIHUHQW�DQJOHV��VKDSHV��VL]HV��FRORXUV��KHLJKWV

It is possible to become subconsciously blind to our environment, detached from the notion of civic pride. Drifting daily past tower block after tower block, just assuming an inherent hostility towards each lofty ugly duckling without even an empathetic upward glance. This phenomenon could help explain why Croydon is paused in time - unable to look closely at the buildings that exist and see potential merit where it is due but simultaneously, unable to pull them down in their entirety for fear of admitting the mistakes of a generation of planning.

Although our personal ideals of beauty oscillate over time, De Botton suggests that the “we are drawn to call something beautiful whenever we detect that it contains in a concentrated form those qualities in which we personally, or our societies more generally, are deficient.”54 Unfortunately, the negativity embodied in the empty office shells that line Croydon’s streets is not a deficiency and is found in abundance within the borough. Neglect, abandonment, dereliction, disrepair, vacancy, notoriety. These supressed associations only come to the fore when buildings are abused. A recent incident in June, saw thousands of people swarm to the abandoned Royal Mail delivery depot opposite East Croydon station to take part in an illegal rave, resulting in the avoidable death of a 15-year-old boy. The depot had closed and relocated earlier in the year to make way for flats but, in its empty state and with limited security, it was an easy target for squatters. As with the London Riots, incidents like these highlight a general lack of community ownership from within the town. If residents do not see a beauty in their environment they cannot care about it. De Botton leaves Croydon with some passing hope for acceptance of its edifices of commerce

54 Botton, Alain de. The Architecture of Happiness. Penguin, 2006. p.157

Figure 29. The view from Centrale shopping centre car park, available for just £3 for up to 2 hours.

3332


In the process of new development in the urban realm there have been a variety of different terms and phrases often coined in an attempt to portray a particular positive intention by those responsible for the changes, to those affected by the change. Urban renewal, most popular in the 1960s, now represents “an aggressive top-down process driven by politicians and conniving planners that does violence to existing communities.”57 The term, although intended in a positive way at the time, was criticised and perceived as something to be feared. The new in ‘renewal’ alludes to the disregard and destruction of the old in order to facilitate a shiny new vision.

After renewal came the premise of urban development and urban redevelopment, having the obvious capitalist connotations associated with developers. The most recent of which was adopted in the 1980s, and the choice phrase for Croydon now is, urban regeneration. Notably different from renewal, “a top-down process driven by a few human actors” to “sweep away what is already there”, regeneration implies “a bottom-up, diffused and ostensibly respectful transformation of the existing landscape” wanting the “past to remain visible”58. In practice, regeneration has meant “the process of change in cities that were formally dominated by heavy industry and their associated built environment forms”.59 This ‘process of change’ is often a more subtle transformation, retrofitting and adapting existing structures in order to retain the original features and a sense of previous history. This contrast between renewal and regeneration is key when comparing Croydon’s approach to new development in the 60s/70s and its current approach to ‘regeneration’.

When asked about Croydon’s post-war legacy, John Grindrod suggests the town has had a “bad history of not protecting its local character”, and is unlikely to “make a huge effort to preserve its post-war heritage, in the same way it didn’t make much of an effort to preserve its Victorian heritage.”60 Grindrod speculates about the short sightedness of some residents, “I think people don’t realise

57� +DUULV��-RQDWKDQ��DQG�'U�5LFKDUG�:LOOLDPV��¶5H��¶5HJHQHUDWH·��7KH�$UW�DQG�$UFKLWHFWXUH�RI�D�0L[HG�Metaphor’. Regenerating Culture and Society: Architecture, Art and Urban Style within the Global Politics of City Branding. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2011. p.16

58 Ibid. p.17

59 Ibid. p.17

60 Grindrod, John. Concretopia: to Space Age Croydon and beyond. [Accessed 1st June 2014]. Avail-able at: http://www.eastlondonlines.co.uk/2013/12/concretopia-to-croydon-and-beyond/

Figure 30.

A sketch from Surrey Street Market highlighting a collage of market stalls sitting in front of an imposing GRXEOH�KHLJKW�IXUQLWXUH�VWRUH��ERWK�LQ�WKH�VKDGRZ�RI�D�EORFN�RI�´\XSSLH�ÁDWVµ�

Rethink

3534


how interesting their street is. There are disasters to be sad about, but there are also triumphs that should be celebrated and appreciated for what they are.”61 Within the Croydon Opportunity Area Planning Framework, the current Council has identified the dramatic juxtaposition of scale, character and appearance as playing an important role in defining the present built character of the area and creating a sense of place. Tall beside small, and old beside new.

These many layers of history and heritage that exist, seem to be supressed and generally go unnoticed within the town. Details unobserved and unappreciated by consumers hurriedly marching up and down the high street in their search to buy more ‘stuff’’. Shoppers so focused on when the next sale starts, completely bypass oddities like the mock Tudor KFC in Surrey Street Market. This is an original medieval building with a contemporary conversion to a fast food chain - an eccentric amalgamation of traditional and commercial architectural language working together. It is the combination of these curiosities that contribute to “a sense of chaos and drama”.62 Owen Hatherley agrees that some of the more telling moments are “at the back end of the mini-metropolis, where the office block landscape suddenly drops and meets market stalls, butchers’ shops and caffs, while a black steel walkway stretches across to connect it to a block of yuppie flats.”63 The market itself has a great deal of heritage, even holding a Royal Charter since 1271AD. Generations of Croydoners have, and continue to ply their trade selling fresh and locally produced produce from its stalls. A collage of commercial, retail and residential additions work to reflect the needs of a moment in time, serving to emphasise historic strata and the dynamic course of narrative in a place.

This “accidental ensemble creates an acutely surreal urban experience, taking

the capital’s pre-existing aptitude for juxtaposition and amplifying it.”64

61 Grindrod, John. Concretopia: to Space Age Croydon and beyond. [Accessed 1st June 2014]. Avail-able at: http://www.eastlondonlines.co.uk/2013/12/concretopia-to-croydon-and-beyond/

62� +DWKHUOH\��2ZHQ��$�A New Kind of Bleak: Journeys Through Urban Britain. London ; New York: Verso Books, 2012. p.166

63 Ibid. p.166

64 Ibid. p.166

Historically, places such as East London that are frequently described as trendy or have undergone positive urban regeneration, are often characterised by the imaginative reuse of existing building stock. There is a great opportunity for this to happen in Croydon and a continuity of new visual contrasts would add to a rich and dynamic character in the town centre.

Although often subjective, sometimes these appositions are unsuccessful and over recent decades the setting surrounding particular ‘heritage assets’ in Croydon has been significantly compromised. Their context has been totally ignored and adjacent “bulky, deep plan, high rise modern buildings” have been constructed in an imposing and discordant form, epitomised in the example of the Grade I Listed church of St. Michael in the 1990s. The Council have identified this “lack of protection and ensuing disregard of the significance of a heritage asset’s setting” as an on-going issue that should be addressed in future policy reviews.65 When developing in the setting of heritage assets in Croydon, new additions should attempt “celebrate the interplay and relationship between the old and new”, helping to “mend problematic juxtapositions and celebrate successful ones.”66

65 Croydon Council. Sustainability Appraisal Scoping Report. June 2014. p. 28


Rethink

Figure 31. and 32.

The mock-Tudor KFC still standing proudly at the corner of Surrey Street Market.

St. Michael’s church is boxed in and hidden E\�KLJK�ULVH�RIÀFHV��ORVLQJ�LWV�SURPLQHQFH�DQG�

importance on the street.

3736


There are plenty of these curious moments

in Croydon just waiting to be discovered and

acknowledged, a second look above the shops

on the high street reveal old traditional building

details, indicative of a previous generation of

activity and narrative.

Figure 33 and 34.

Surrey Street market is always full of bright colours, distinct smells and the loud voice of stall

RZQHUV�ÁRJJLQJ�WKHLU�VWRFN�

Rethink

3938


Figure 35 and 36.

View from College Gardens including the Nestle Building, right, and Taberner House, left.

St. George’s House, still known locally as the

Nestle Building despite the company vacating

the premises in 2012, has from a distance a

striking visual regularity that emanates an

omnipresent solidarity and calmness - perceived

as a welcome character in contrast to the often

frantic chaos of traffic and shoppers below.

Rethink

4140


Figure 37 and 38.

View from College Gardens including the Nestle Building, right, and Taberner House, left.

Standing on the deserted top level of the

Whitgift Centre multi-storey car park leaves you

with the impression of a powerful vantage point

looking down over Wellesley Road and a whole

new outlook over the surrounding landscape

(and also the excessive number of car parks in

Croydon). Standing adjacent to the middle of a

tower block totally changes the hierarchy, giving

the impression of equality between person and

building.

Rethink

4342


Figure 39 and 40.

2IÀFH�ZLQGRZ�OLJKWV�DUH�NHSW�RQ�RYHU�QLJKW�WR�IRUP�the shape of the tree, giving a personal an fun

touch to a commercial building. Photograph by Homemade.

Christmas lights on Taberner House. Photograph by Martin Stitchener.

Before the dismantling of Taberner House

(former offices of Croydon Council) began this

year, an annual sprinkle of festive cheer would

be brought to passers by with the sight of a giant

illuminated Christmas tree. Driving past on a

cold, rainy winters night with my face pressed

against the glass gazing, mesmerized at the blue

glow is a childhood memory that sticks in my

mind.

Rethink

4544

We need to talk about CroydonRethink

Figure 41 and 42.

The distinctive shape of the ‘50p Building’ makes it very easy to recongnise where East Croydon

Station is.

Playful glow from Seifert’s Tower, No.1 Croydon. Photograph by Homemade.

No.1 Croydon is probably the most iconic

tower in the town and a popular favourite. The

24-storey building, designed by Seifert in the

1960s, is also renowned locally for its playful

lighting scheme. Leisurely, alternating colours

set off the striking geometric façade against the

nights sky, drawing your eyes upward from the

busy transport hub at ground level.

4746

We need to talk about CroydonRethink

Entering the town by car and driving over the

flyover, gives you an absolutely dynamic and

exciting approach into Croydon as you sweep in

alongside the middle level of the bordering high-

rise buildings. A range of coloured glazing glints

in the sunlight like a pair of child’s metallic

sunglasses. Speeding past the glass facades

of these offices renders a fluid, glimmering

reflection of opposing buildings.

Figure 43 and 44.

Birds eye view highlighting the scale of the infa-PRXV�VZHHSLQJ�Á\RYHU�LQMHFWLQJ�WKH�DXWRPRELOH�

directly into the heart of Croydon. Bing Maps.

Sign Reads: ‘Warning. People have been killed crossing this road. PLEASE USE THE SUBWAY.’

4948


Croydon’s personality disorder is embodied in the town’s borderline obsessive attempts to achieve ‘city status’ and with it the idea that this would bring a deserved recognition and respect of sorts. With a population of more than 363,000 people (2011 Census), Croydon is the largest borough in London and one of the largest towns in Western Europe. Despite being repeatedly identified by the Home Office as a potential candidate, the borough has been unable to distinguish itself from the crowd and over the years has been stung by 8 failed bids. They were “over-looked most recently in 2002, in favour of smaller towns like Newport, Stirling and Preston”.67 In 1992, the reason given for this was, Croydon is “now just part of the London conurbation and almost indistinguishable from many of the other Greater London boroughs” and has “no particular identity of its own”.68 An advocate of city box ticking, Gavin Barwell MP for Central Croydon, insists that regardless of previous verdicts,

“Croydon is a city in all but name.”69

The extreme growth and subsequent mortification of the town centre has resulted in a blur of identities, denting the reputation of the borough. Uncertain of where they stand; successive Councils have attempted to sell their latest vision of the Croydon’s future progression. Croydon’s more grandeur days as a market town and the summer residence of the Archbishop’s of Canterbury are lost to history; it is no longer successful as a bustling centre of business, and once Westfield opened in Shepherds Bush, 2008, the town had to resign its reign as home of the largest covered shopping mall in London. Even the promise of Croydon as a green borough (1/3rd being Metropolitan Green Belt) is not enough to situate the borough with a consistent image and uncertainty has only served to bolster efforts to define a certain focus.


68 Beckett, J. V. City Status in the British Isles, 1830-2002. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. 2005. p. 175-6

69 Croydon Advertiser. MP Barwell: ‘Croydon is a city in all but name’. 2011. [Acessed 20th

September 2014] Available at: http://www.croydonadvertiser.co.uk/MP-Barwell-Croydon-city/sto-ry-13343494-detail/story.html

Identity Crisis

Successive waves of commissions for big urban master plans and new imaginings of Croydon have been employed in attempts to provide brand and clarity. Each new ‘vision’ has failed in its challenge to disassociate from the stigma projected on the town by its forefathers. Aside from ambitions to be recognised as an independent ‘city’, earlier concept’s for re-imagining started in 1993 with a design initiative and public exhibition by The Architecture Foundation. ‘Croydon – The Future’, saw a host of prominent architects invited to prepare schemes for “creative yet realistic ideas for Croydon’s notorious problem areas.”70 Exhibitors included many household names in the architecture world; Michael Hopkins, Terry Farrell, Richard Rogers and Future Systems to name a few. The exhibition attracted 40,000 visitors to Croydon and was one of the most successful architecture exhibitions in the country. The Council even went to the trouble of having detailed feasibility studies produced for new projects; none of which materialised in reality. The baton was then handed over to Will Alsop in 2007, who proposed Croydon as the ‘Third City’

70 The Architecture Foundation. Croydon: The Furture: Design Initiative and Public Exhibition. 1993. Available at: http://www.architecturefoundation.org.uk/programme/1993/croydon-the-future

Figure 45 and 46.

Will Alsop’s Croydon: The Third City Masterplan. 2007.

Birds Portchmouth and Russum Architects �SURSRVDO�IRU�DQ�LQÁDWDEOH�VWUXFWXUHV�WKDW�VLW�DERYH�H[LVWLQJ�

carparks in Croydon to stage public events. 1999.

5150


- after Westminster and the City of London. It was an ambitious twenty-year vision that would see the construction of waterways, lagoons and a ‘vertical Eden project’ as part of a 3.5bn regeneration scheme for the borough. Again, nothing concrete materialised or was pulled down.

In a fresh attempt to coax new visitors off the train as the doors slide open at East Croydon station, the Council is in the midst of its latest regeneration programme, ‘Croydon Vision 2020’. Undeterred by history, the scheme seeks to promote Croydon as “a hub of living, retailing, culture and business in South London and South East England.”71 Five detailed master plans are under development as a part of the Council’s overall local plan, that include the construction of more office space, high-density residential high-rise buildings and a new sprawling retail centre on the site of the dated Whitgift Centre as well as seeing improvements to infrastructure and the public realm. The lack of delivery for any of the previous elaborate schemes has resulted in public a loss of faith in the Council for the delivery of future masterplans. But by working systematically, dividing the town centre into tangible parts and implementing tailored strategies for each area the Council have established momentum and small but steady steps have already been taken towards the long-term vision.

The compulsive need for verbal definition has disseminated to physical spaces in Croydon. Various attempts by the Council to define elements of public area have become so excessive,

“sometimes the place seems to be mocking itself, as when a churchyard

meets a concrete subway you find the sign: ‘OLD TOWN CONSERVATION

AREA’.”72

71 TFL. London Borough of Croydon Fact Sheet. 2013. [Accessed 20th September 2014] Available at: KWWSV��ZZZ�WÁ�JRY�XN�FGQ�VWDWLF�FPV�GRFXPHQWV�FUR\GRQ�VXPPHU��IDFWVKHHW�SGI�


Figure 47 and 48.

A series of vacant shops in Croydon Old Town’s ‘Cultural Quarter’.

Identity Crisis

The use of visual labels to indicate a ‘Cultural Quarter’ does not make it anymore cultural; yet when a visitor stops to read this sign they are pointed in the direction of ‘Exchange Square’; an empty courtyard with artificial shop facades and a disused Victorian pumping House. With a bit of imagination you can see the potential; artisan market stalls spilling out over the cobbled courtyard, contemporary and traditional buildings functioning in tandem, all tucked away behind a historic street market. But to literally point to where this should happen with an oversized arrow before it exists somehow feels contrived.

5352


The Westfield Effect

Social scientists Daniel Bell and Avner de-Shalit express in their book, The Spirit of Cities: Why the Identity of a City Matters in a Global Age, that although small towns are able to retain a sense of community grounded in heritage and culture, “when urbanisation is combined with the seemingly inexorable force of capitalism, it has the effect of transforming a variety of cultures into a single culture of consumerism.”73 This perception is reminiscent of the effects of development in Croydon in the 1960s and may be one of the detriments of growing into the big shoes of ‘city status’ and expansion. “Cities that seem to express a particular identity, or ethos, typically generate the most intense forms of urban pride”74 but “it’s hard to feel proud of a city that only expresses the homogeneity of globalisation.”75 If the particular identity expressed by the place you live is focused on commercialism or consumerism, is this enough to generate a civic pride for that environment? After the backlash against the previous commercial identity of Croydon, history would suggest not. Yet still, the addition of a Westfield and Hammerson shopping centre will be pushed by the Council as the new face of regeneration in the borough.

The third of its kind in London, the arrival of Westfield will mean the construction and amalgamation of 1.5 million square feet of ‘state-of-the-art’ retail and leisure space. The scheme will provide over 5000 permanent job opportunities as well as between 400 – 600 new homes. For some, flashy visuals of the proposal will be a sight for sore eyes. Dreary, windswept streets with vacant shop fronts are replaced like magic with smiley, trendy shoppers, sunglasses pushed to the top of new hair do’s. Laden with bulging shopping bags they animate the high streets, over joyed at the fantastic new choice of ‘lifestyle brands’ and ‘fashion outlets’. Affluent punters will flock from Surrey Hills to splash their cash in Croydon, a place they had no reason to visit previously. Others, however, will need the same sunglasses to hide their inner despairs. The once familiar diversity and eclecticism of the high street is now synonymous with the homogenous shopping mall, and that’s it. Independence and disparity are replaced with uniformity and the feeling of being indistinguishable from any other mixed use retail complex in Europe. Just another clone of one company’s successful business model.

73 Bell, Daniel A., and Avner de-Shalit. The Spirit of Cities: Why the Identity of a City Matters in a Global Age. Princeton University Press, 2013. p.11

74 Ibid. p.12

75 Ibid. p.11

Figure 49 and 50.

9LVXDOLVDWLRQV�IURP�:HVWÀHOG�IRU�SURSRVDOV�IRU�Croydon depict busy public spaces full of trendy

shoppers with a disposable income.

5554

We need to talk about CroydonThe Westfield Effect

The development is marketed as a “catalyst to the regeneration in Croydon”, breathing

“new life and vitality into the town.”76

‘Connecting Croydon’, ‘enhancing employment’ and ‘supporting local business’ are terms of peace and persuasion offered to the public by the developers. The scheme is presented as such an overtly beneficial endeavour that there can’t possibly be any negatives. The flip side of the coin could reveal Westfield as a ‘Trojan Horse’. By funding and regenerating a new pedestrian link from East Croydon station to the high street they improve the safety and aesthetic of elements of public realm. This infrastructure also serves another (primary) purpose; to herd pedestrians like sheep, directly to shops and cafes, reducing time spent in the rest of the town centre and maximising revenues for the developers. The reality is, akin to the 1960s, town planning is being altered and organised in a way that best serves to aid the success and delivery of this new retail development. Everyone agrees Croydon town centre has seen better days, but is Westfield preying on a town in desperate need of funding and direction? Is Croydon once again falling victim to the whims of commercial developers?

Economically speaking, the injection of funding from developers is necessary for any sizable urban redevelopment; as a developer this investment would not be possible without the capacity for a profitable return. But what will this mean for the community in Croydon? Bell and de-Shalit suggest, “there is a sense of community rooted in particularity.”77 The ‘particular’ being a sense of independent identity; things people see in themselves and their surroundings that aren’t found elsewhere. If the Westfield/Hammerson development can be a successful catalyst for an influx of spending in the borough, this may help to support local businesses and communities to thrive independently. It could be possible to achieve a balance between a strong consumer culture (seen in a capitalist, urbanised environment) and the ‘particular’ derived from the unique curiosities scattered around Croydon (seen in a smaller town). This strong juxtaposition would also be fitting with Croydon’s historic narrative of vastly contrasting and neighbouring urban elements and functions.

76 The Croydon Partnership. &RPPXQLW\�%HQHÀWV��[Accessed 22nd September 2014]. Available at: http://thecroydonpartnership.com/masterplan

77 Bell, Daniel A., and Avner de-Shalit. The Spirit of Cities: Why the Identity of a City Matters in a Global Age. Princeton University Press, 2013. p.12

Figure 51 and 52.

7KH�:HVWÀHOG�PDVWHUSODQ��LQGLFDWHV�D�QHZO\�GHÀQHG�GLUHFW�SHGHVWULDQ�WKURXJK�URXWH�IURP�(DVW�

Croydon station directly to the heart of the shopping centre.

5756


It is important to note that it is not only the town leaders that believe it is essential that Croydon is stamped with an overarching brand. However what exact form that narrative should take is up to interpretation. Develop Croydon, a private sector led local initiative, aims to use the momentum generated from regeneration to promote the borough as, “Croydon London – An International Business Destination”.78 This is a way of using commercial language to encourage new investors that Croydon is the best place to invest their money, be it property or business. One of their main seductions to the town centre is as a well-connected business hub. Public Transport Accessibility Levels (PTAL) in the town centre are rated at 6b, the highest rating on the chart, and are deemed to be excellent with fast and regular services to London and Gatwick Airport as well as an abundance of tram and bus services. Office rents are 58% cheaper than the City of London79 so from a business perspective, this makes Croydon an ideal location to be based.

Another patron of the borough is Jonny Rose, a Croydoner and founder of the Croydon Tech City (CTC) movement. He is adamant that Croydon “needs to know what its identity is, in and of itself, and… its relation to other areas”, and most importantly in order to change the wider public perceptions, the borough needs to “stand for something simple and easy.”80 Croydon Tech City is a bottom up organisation that brings together a community of software developers, venture capitalists, technologists, start up founders and creatives. It was established in Autumn 2012, after a perceived lack of action from local Government and business leaders post Croydon riots in 2011 and inspired from the success stories of the ‘East London Tech City’. Jonny believes that this formula can be brought to Croydon to the benefit of the entire borough and is the solution to many of the ongoing issues and problems the town has faced. He views the ‘Tech City’ brand as a way to create an outward facing image of Croydon and a marketing tool that will attract new people and business. This is not just a purely commercial endeavor, as with Develop Croydon – set up to benefit those in a closed business community, CTC is a holistic package. One initiative, Future Tech City, considers education - making coding accessible to all 9-18 year olds in the borough and implementing a code club in all 92 primary

78 Develop Croydon. Why Croydon? [Accessed 10th September 2014] Available at: http://www.devel-opcroydon.com/Why-Croydon

79 Ibid.

80 Rose, Jonny. Interview. 13th August 2014

Business As Usual

schools. Jonny and his team see this as a vital skill that will almost guarantee a generation of kids a job in Croydon’s Tech City of the future, if they so wish. Since starting CTC, ‘tech’ has grown to be Croydon’s second largest economy just after retail and the town is currently the fastest growing tech cluster in London since 2011. It achieved 23% growth of new tech and media business since 2011, higher than averages in London (17.1%) and the UK (11.3%).81 The organisation is purely voluntary and is fueled by the pride and passion the team have for the borough and its residents. They truly see this as an all-encompassing narrative that everybody in the borough should embrace with open arms and is something Croydon just needs to recognise it is already a part of.

When I asked Jonny how he saw the CTC movement fitting alongside the inevitable retail influx to Croydon he remarked that, Tech City is a counter narrative to Westfield becoming Croydon’s biggest jobs provider. He commented that, “effectively consigning young people to ‘Mc Jobs’”82 is profoundly depressing. Jonny advises publically on his blog that, “trying to regain our position as a ‘top ten retail destination’ may well increase footfall, but it will not educate our children or improve our cultural capital. A digitally-connected vibrant community of doers and entrepreneurs with an innovative collective mindset will.”83 And he has a point.

81� 5RVH��-RQQ\��+RZ�&UR\GRQ�7HFK�&LW\�%HFDPH�/RQGRQ·V�)DVWHVW�*URZLQJ�7HFK�&OXVWHU��Real Busi-ness. 10th March 2014. [Accessed 16th June 2014]. Avalaible at: http://realbusiness.co.uk/article/25935-how-croydon-tech-city-became-londons-fastest-growing-tech-cluster

82 Rose, Jonny. Interview. 13th August 2014

83 Rose, Jonny. THE VISION: #Croydon – The Second Tech City. Blogpost. 2012. [Accessed 10th July 2014] Available at: http://jonathanrose.wordpress.com/the-vision-croydon-the-second-tech-city/

Figure 53.

Jonny Rose would see Croydon branded as a ‘Tech City’ the Silicon Valley of South London.

5958


The need to fabricate a wider reaching brand for Croydon has eclipsed many local interests. Vincent Lacovara has previously discussed that the idea of ‘an identity’ has changed. It “used to be simply defined by where you came from, what you did, or what you made. Now as the crowd gets bigger, standing out amongst it gets harder. Professional image making is big business and architecture is frequently recruited to articulate difference”.84

The desire to condense such a vast, multicultural place into a series of new buildings or a label will always fall short in its representation. The problem is,

“journalists want a strapline for what a place is all about and Croydon just isn’t

one thing.”85

Ironically, a consequence of commissioning and implementing a series of big urban visions to give the borough a certain clarity has achieved the opposite. These different concepts and imaginings rub up against each other to contribute to the uncertainty that is there in the first place. Vincent suggests, Croydon already “has a clear identity made out of ambiguities.”86 This may be a more romantic notion and less pragmatic than ‘Croydon London’ or ‘Croydon Tech City’ but is much closer to a true representation of place that is known and recognised for its diversity. Standing from a vantage point in the town centre and looking out towards the South personifies this idea.

84 Lacovara, Vincent. Speaking at ‘Penroye and Prasad: Who do you think you are?” London. June 2011. [Accessed 5th May 2014]. Available at: http://vimeo.com/56009655


86 Lacovara, Vincent. Speaking at ‘Penroye and Prasad: Who do you think you are?” London. June 2011. [Accessed 5th May 2014]. Available at: http://vimeo.com/56009655


Figure 54.

A collage to highlight the multiple personalities RI�&UR\GRQ��$�YLHZ�IURP�WKH�ODYHQGHU�ÀHOGV�LQ�

Southern Green Belt looking towards the high rise town centre.

6160


The view is of Surrey Green Belt, its emerald canopies undulate enticingly across the width of the

horizon, hinting at open fields and fresh air. Indistinguishable amongst the trees, familiar streaks

of terracotta roof tiles and silhouettes of gables and bay windows represent the endless suburbia

ahead – only the occasional church spire and playing field break the pattern.


Figure 55.

Looking South from the 18th Floor of Taberner House, Croydon, as part of Open House 2013.

Photograph by Neuphin.

At the fore, your gaze is brought quickly back

to the immediate reality. Oversized chunks of

building rip upwards through the landscape,

standing proudly turgid, not dissimilar to the line

up in a body building competition. Un-phased by

the attention, windows glisten in the light like

the oiled up forms of athletes as they tower over

the miniature houses below.

6362


It may not be what some in Croydon wants to hear, but it is this obscure and “accidental uniqueness”87 that makes the town an inspiring place to many and has done so historically for several decades. This centre of soulless commerce “has always been one of the places young people could experiment and come up with new forms of identity.”88 It is important to remember that, “it is precisely the blankness, suffocation and bland commercial inauthenticity of Croydon’s cityscape that has inspired artists, musicians and writers to paint an alternative line and colour experience.”89 Croydon is a counter culture centre.

Croydon Art School was established in 1868 and counts a number of recognized people amongst its eclectic alumni. Pop star David Bowie, lead singer of The Kinks Ray Davies, Tuner Prize nominees Helen Chadwick and Sean Scully, international fashion designer John Rocha, and Mighty Boosh comedian Noel Fielding to name a few. But, it was in the late 1960s that the school would unknowingly host one of the most influential partnerships in popular culture, the meeting of Jamie Reid and Malcolm McLaren. It was in this period that “Croydon’s sterile shopping centres and Council estates provided … the perfect canvas for Situationist slogans, radical gestures and the stylistic refusals of punk.”90 Reid began to express his radical ideas through collage and overlaid graphics, later developing his iconic style through collaboration with the band McLaren managed, the Sex Pistols. For their 1977 single, God Save The Queen, Reid produced a contentious portrait of the Monarch featuring blackmail style lettering covering her eyes and a safety pin piercing her lip. This particular image became a defining symbol of the punk era, and the graphic that Reid created “has now been subsumed into popular culture the world over.”91

87� +DWKHUOH\��2ZHQ��A New Kind of Bleak: Journeys Through Urban Britain. London ; New York: Verso Books, 2012. p.165



90 Ibid. p.26-35



92

– Malcolm McLaren

92 McLaren, Malcom. (As cited by Lacovara, Vincent. “Croydon: The English Everytown”. Building Design. 13th November 2009). [Accessed on 12th September 2014]. Available at: http://www.bdonline.co.uk/croydon-the-english-everytown/3153005.article

“Croydon will always be remembered [for the] rites of passage of my

life – the constant roaming at night through its market streets and

thereafter navigating those deep leafy suburbs into the countryside

and beyond – spending hours looking out of Croydon’s Art School

windows observing and then struggling to come to terms with these

giant triffids of buildings that rise up and spread themselves all along

East Croydon’s path. Using charcoal pencil and anything to hand,

I drew and drew and drew.”

Figure 56 and 57.

McLaren’s anarchist portrait of the Queen, 1977.A sketch produced by McLaren while at Croydon Art School, 1967.

6564


As well as artists, local musicians have found a creative stimulus in Croydon. Kirsty MacColl grew up in New Addington and conveyed her own reflections on the metropolis through her songs. Still Life, first released in 1989, highlighted her own experience living in a small town on the outskirts of an outer London suburb.

“Our love is just a relic of the past You’d never recognise the old town now

Somewhere behind the concrete and the glass The monuments of England’s sacred cow

Where are all the human beings? Have they been sent to Milton Keynes?

They used to live round here but now they’re gone

For some of us still life moves on”93

A growing culture of musical achievement in Croydon has been cemented with the opening of the BRIT School in 1990. An institution that needs little introduction has produced some of the most successful international musicians and performing artists in a generation. The illustrious list of alumni includes Amy Winehouse, Adele, Jessie J and the Kooks. After the turn of the new millennium, Croydon found itself the unassuming birthplace for a new genre of heavy, electronic dance music, ‘Dubstep’. By the end of the decade, Croydon’s catchy bass loops had spread rapidly. Quickly adopted by ravers across London Dubstep grew to be an internationally recognised genre played on mainstream media worldwide.

Despite these many successes the arts scene in Croydon is often unassertive and has taken a battering in recent years. Funding has been tightening and the town has seen the closure of its cherished Warehouse theatre, the discontinuation of the annual summer festival, the Croydon Mela, and the sale of the Riesco collection of antique Chinese ceramics. Grass roots organisations are playing a more important role in trying to fill the void and promoting cultural events in the borough. An example of this is TURF Projects, formed in 2013, a collective of local artists, filmmakers and architects, headed by Alice Cretney. TURF projects was set up due the lack of exposure to contemporary art in the borough and Alice saw this as an opportunity for intervention. Their quick popularity can be measured by a recent successful Kickstarter campaign, crowd funding £5000 of local support in order to initiate a year of curated artworks that would be freely accessible to the public.

93 MacColl, Kirsty. Lyrics from Still Life. 1989.

The collective are all related to Croydon in some way and their work often reflects or highlights their borough. A recent installation PUTT PUTT II, was an interactive crazy golf course set up in the ‘Platform’ space on Ruskin Square (designed by MUF architecture/art), an area adjacent to East Croydon station that is currently under development. Alice informed me that the site was chosen due to its use as a commuter route, “people work here and then go straight home”, “it is quite nice for them to actually see there is interesting stuff going on here.”94 It is a temporary use for a space that would otherwise remain an empty building site until the mixed-use development is complete and a great advert of Croydon for new and regular visitors. Although a free art installation wouldn’t generate any immediate revenue for the developer, it is possible that this support of a local arts scheme will help build cultural capital for the site. Popularity and use of the site before the project is complete will increase awareness, helping with the future marketing and sale of residential and commercial units.

94 Cretney, Alice. Interview. 11th August 2014.


Figure 58 and 59.

PUTT PUTT II Close Up, 2014.Photograph by Jim Stephenson.

The temporary use of the construction site adjacent to East Croydon train station.

6766


Previous locations for TURF interventions include Exchange Square, in the heart of the under-utilised ‘Cultural Quarter’. The next project comes in the form of a series of posters put up around Croydon in the Reeves Corner site (burnt down in the Riots in 2011), Wandle Park and East Croydon and South Croydon train stations. Walking tours will be run between the sites highlighting them in a different light, as spaces to view and display art instead of pieces of infrastructure or disused areas, and encouraging conversation about them. These installations will allow visitors to form new opinions on spaces they may frequently pass and know but never stop to consider. Through a continuation of this type of work “TURF aims to shine a spotlight on the diverse, rapidly changing cultural landscape of Croydon, and provide opportunities of local residents and visitors to be involved.”95

Residents, such as Jonny Rose and Alice Cretney, are empowered in a very different way to the past and are stepping up to the plate, driving many of the changes happening in Croydon now. Maybe this is just symptom of Council failings or it could be a new sense of responsibility and liberation filtering through the borough. Alice and many others do see the town as a ‘cultural hub’; a place with

“a lot of creative thinking happening and a lot of potential for things to

happen” in the future.96 95 TURF Projects. About. [Accessed on 12th August 2014]. Available at: http://turf-projects.com/turf/

96 Cretney, Alice. Interview. 11th August 2014.


Figure 60 and 61.

The view from Dingwall car park. East Croydon station, centre, Corinthian House, right.

Could we begin to see new creative uses for under-utilised spaces such as the many empty car parks? *These photographs were taken on a Saturday in the early afternoon.

6968


of investment. Croydon itself is a large borough and the majority of investment is planned for the town centre, not necessarily the most deprived areas. Could mono-focused investment in one location result in resentment from another? Successful investment in one location will result in increased demand, inflated property prices and ultimately, gentrification. In this scenario, current residents could be priced out of their own neighbourhood, returning social tensions to the fore.

Croydon was not the first urban centre to undertake a post-war Modernist makeover, and it certainly wasn’t the hastiest at trying to undo some of its overzealous concrete construction. Birmingham, one of the quicker cities off the mark, felt the need to shrug of their ‘concrete jungle’ image in the early 1980s. Their “inspiration [for] a post-industrial vision of the physical regeneration and beautification of downtown … would change the image of the city into a more seductive place, a place where international investors, tourists, and conventioneers would want to come, stay, and spend.”97 Within a decade four flagship projects were completed at a cost of £276m to the City Council; an international convention centre, a four-star hotel, an indoor arena as well as a large mixed-use retail complex. This development was then tied together with a new strapline, ‘Birmingham: The meeting place of Europe’.

Unfortunately, despite successes in creating an attractive built environment, the opportunity costs of such focused expenditure had been absorbed directly by the social sectors; housing and education. “The human capital of the city had been sacrificed.”98 In her book, Cosmopolis II, Sandercock suggests, “the economic development vision of the early 1980s had failed on two counts. It had not created economic prosperity beyond a narrow range of middle class beneficiaries, and it had not provided a culturally inclusive representation of the city which left many of its communities feeling invisible and resentful.”99

Many comparisons can be drawn between the development of Birmingham and the narrative of Croydon’s recent push for regeneration. When equating similarities such as demographic diversity, it is important to consider the negative effect well-intentioned urban development had on citizens. It is not just the built environment that should be addressed in the coming period of regeneration in Croydon. Underlying tensions in the borough exist in the disguise of public diversity; areas in the South are quite suburban and conservative and there sometimes a more impoverished demographic in the North as well as immigrants who bring their own culture. These elements all meet in the town centre to create a real cultural melting pot. In Birmingham’s example, it was the disadvantaged areas that had gained least from the period

97 Sandercock, Leonie. Cosmopolis II: Mongrel Cities of the 21st Century. 2nd edition. London ; New York: Continuum, 2004. p.16

98 Ibid. p.17

99 Ibid. p.18

Learning From Birmingham

Figure 62 and 63.

6W��*HRUJH·V�:DON�VKRSSLQJ�SDUDGH�DQG�RIÀFHV��WRS��ORRNLQJ�WLUHG�DQG�vacant compared to recently refurbished urban realm around Ding-

wall Roundabout, bottom. Focused regeneration for commercial and UHWDLO�DUHDV�ZLOO�QRW�EHQHÀW�DOO�GHPRJUDSKLFV�OLYLQJ�LQ�&UR\GRQ�

7170


to see some huge and exciting differences. A larger critical mass will see a bigger human presence in the evenings and weekends, suitable to sustain the business of shops and restaurants, as well as leisure and entertainment venues. An energetic, urban city centre will help to shrug off the label of a ghost town.

A city liberated by people will result in the ownership of public spaces in a way Croydon hasn’t seen before. Disregarded spots may be used for more creative projects, new occupants can begin to demand things from the local authorities and question ideas for their public space. As new residents begin to spend more time in their new town centre, uninfluenced by the biases of past generations, they will form new affections to spaces and places that may have previously been unloved. Inspired by the direction of Croydon, moves are already being made from the ground up by locals and patrons to encourage a new wave of activities and thinking in the town. Recognising and supporting instances where grass roots initiatives are demonstrating a wider social engagement and civic pride will allow the Council to assist a more organic cultural growth, directed by residents and truly representational of the borough.

Primarily, people chose to move to Croydon because of its location in relation to the surrounding areas. It is close to the city, close to the airport, close to the countryside and only 45 miles to the south coast at Brighton. Now, the potential in the borough has become more tangible; a greater offering of culture and activity. The town is drawing in a new dynamic generation and behind the hoarding attitudes are changing.

As the conversation widens, people will inevitably begin to change the way they talk and think about Croydon.

Croydon has real ‘potential’; an optimistic phrase that gets thrown around all too easily. It would seem that Croydon has had ‘the potential’ for a long while now without seeming to fulfill it.

But this is the impending Croydon I see. It will become, almost by accident, “the Holy Grail of the liveable city.”100 A commercial bedrock optimistically imagined by the town planners of the 1960s provides an abundance of office space in close proximity to the train station, and therefore London and Gatwick Airport. A retail and leisure core developed over a number of decades offers consumer choice; combining a historic market and pedestrian high streets with the facilities of a contemporary shopping mall. Plus, the new addition of high-density residential accommodation in the town centre, will create a place where people can live, work and play. A bustling metropolis close to both city and countryside - the new (sub)urban dream.

The town has been a target for developers in the past but Vincent Lacovara suggests the current Council are keen for new buildings to be “thoughtful and responsive to the place and not just things that could be built anywhere.”101 Where developers have come in previously with free reign and regarded Croydon as a “blank canvas”, a place with no context,102 they are now challenged to work in a collaborative process with a team in the planning department and the architect to deliver high quality design that satisfies all parties. Sticking to principles, the Council themselves have followed this process for schemes they have commissioned directly and have worked particularly hard to appoint good design teams. Hopefully this process will result in some sympathetic architecture, a set of new buildings that can work cohesively to add to the Croydon vernacular.

Since the late 1960s there has been less than 1000 people living in the heart of Croydon, a tiny proportion of the borough. The Council hope to build 7300 more homes for 17,000 new residents in the town centre by 2018.103 As these residents and their families begin to inhabit the town centre, we will start


101 Ibid.

102 Ibid.

103 Croydon Council. Croydon Economic Development Report Plan 2013-2018. 2013. p.13

A Look To The Future

7372


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Fig. 33Fig. 34Fig. 35Fig. 36Fig. 37Fig. 38

Fig. 1Fig. 2Fig. 3Fig. 4Fig. 5Fig. 6Fig. 7Fig. 8Fig. 9Fig. 10Fig. 11Fig. 12Fig. 13Fig. 14Fig. 15

Fig. 16Fig. 17Fig. 18

Fig. 19Fig. 20Fig. 21Fig. 22Fig. 23Fig. 24Fig. 25Fig. 26Fig. 27Fig. 28Fig. 29Fig. 30Fig. 31Fig. 32

p.04

p.04

p.05

p.05

p.07

p.09

p.09

p.09

p.09

p.11

p.11

p.11

p.11

p.12

p.15

p.17

p.17

p.19

p.20

p.22

p.22

p.25

p.26

p.26

p.27

p.28

p.29

p.30

p.31

p.33

p.35

p.35

Author’s own.

Author’s own.

Author’s own.

Author’s own.

Author’s own.

http://www.craptownsreturns.co.uk/word-on-the-street/

http://shitlondon.co.uk/romanticroydon/

http://shitlondon.co.uk/protest/

http://shitlondon.co.uk/fatball/

BBC Late Show. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Yf6YYqpKhw#t=29

Ibid.

Ibid.

Ibid.

Author’s own.

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2011/aug/09/london-riots-photographer-

dramatic

http://insidecroydon.com/2012/11/11/mind-the-gap-addiscombe-gets-its-missing-link/

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in-croydon.

http://willstanleydesign.com/2013/05/14/croydon-master-plan/

Reid, Jamie. Suburban Press no.5. Lo! A Monster is Born, 1972. p.14 and p.19

http://robertmowbray.moonfruit.com/sir-james-marshall/4580867544

http://www.whitgiftfoundation.co.uk/content/our-role-whitgift-centre-redevelopment

Author’s Own.

Author’s Own.

Author’s Own.

Author’s Own.

Author’s Own.

Croydon Council. Croydon Opportunity Area Planning Framework. January 2013. p.18

Author’s Own.

Author’s Own.

Author’s Own.

Author’s Own.

Author’s Own.

List of Illustrations

Fig. 39

Fig. 40Fig. 41Fig. 42Fig. 43Fig. 44Fig. 45Fig. 46Fig. 47Fig. 48Fig. 49

Fig. 50Fig. 51

Fig. 52Fig. 53Fig. 54Fig. 55Fig. 56Fig. 57Fig. 58Fig. 59Fig. 60Fig. 61Fig. 62Fig. 63

p.42

p.43

p.44

p.45

p.46

p.47

p.49

p.49

p.50

p.50

p.53

p.53

p.55

p.55

p.57

p.59

p.61

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p.63

p.65

p.65

p.67

p.67

p.69

p.69

https://www.flickr.com/photos/homemade_london/300840401/in/set-

72157600025589856

https://www.flickr.com/photos/dxhawk/11312757094/in/photostream/

Author’s own.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/homemade_london/3209314466/in/pool-nlatower/

https://www.bing.com/maps

Author’s own.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/57855223@N05/14377751680/

http://www.birdsportchmouthrussum.com/bpr/pr-croyden-future.html

Author’s own.

Author’s own.

http://insidecroydon.com/2012/07/20/only-18-vote-in-favour-of-westfields-plans-for-

croydon/

http://thecroydoncitizen.com/economics-business/croydons-retail-heart-transplant/

http://insidecroydon.com/2012/07/20/only-18-vote-in-favour-of-westfields-plans-for-

croydon/

http://thecroydonpartnership.com/masterplan

http://www.techcityinsider.net/is-croydon-south-londons-silicon-valley/

Author’s own.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/neuphin/9858060625/in/set-72157633874249503

http://www.humenglish.com/music-and-lyrics-issue-5/

http://www.building.co.uk/croydon-the-english-everytown/3153005.article

http://turf-projects.com/our-projects/putt-putt-2/

Author’s own.

Author’s own.

Author’s own.

Author’s own.

Author’s own.

p.36

p.37

p.38

p.39

p.40

p.41

Author’s own.

Author’s own.

Author’s own.

Author’s own.

Author’s own.

Author’s own.

Conversations on Croydon part II

1

Conversations on Croydon

part II


01

This is a collection of conversations I have had in Croydon, about Croydon, with people from Croydon. Their contrasting backgrounds and viewpoints provide individual perspectives on their experiences of working and living within the Borough. These perspectives have all informed my writing and thinking about

perceptions and misconceptions of Croydon.

Conversations on CroydonArchitect/Planner

02 03

Vincent Lacovara grew up in Shirley, Croydon and has lived in the Borough there for the majority of his life, until only recently moving to Bethnal Green. He has enjoyed working at Croydon Council, within London’s largest Borough, for the past 11 years most recently holding the role of Placemaking Team Leader. This position has enabled Vincent to concentrate on developing urban policy and strategy as well as providing critical advice and consultation to developers working on major projects and regeneration schemes within the Borough.

A continued involvement in private architectural practice as a director of AOC adds a great deal of value, bringing knowledge and experience to work in the public sector. Private work helps to provide a critical perspective and understanding when negotiating with developer and architect clients on behalf of the Council. A simultaneous involvement in both private and public sector is uncommon and brings a unique perspective of local knowledge and an understanding of the planning framework to delivering high quality architecture in both areas.

Yet another arm of Vincent’s experience is as a tutor at London Metropolitan University, where AOC run a studio unit. As well as teaching previously across the country, his current students often explore themes and challenges relevant to experiences in public and private practice.

vincent lacovara

Place-Making Team Leader at Croydon CouncilDirector at AOC Architecture


0504

TAYLAN How long have you been at Croydon Council?

VINCENT I’ve been at Croydon for 11 years at the Council but I grew up in Croydon. I started as an urban design officer in the ‘urban design team’, which was a much bigger team that included a lot of smaller teams that have since gone. Around 4/5 years ago it got restricted to Spatial Planning, which was urban design and conservation merging with planning policy to make one service which is spatial planning. One is called ‘Place Making’ and one is called ‘Plan Making.. We work as a matrix all together.

Our work is broadly split between projects that the council is delivering itself. As well as are providing design advice for those and helping procure design teams and write briefs for projects. Then there is responding to external projects, so planning applications and developers coming along with ideas. We will provide design advice to them as a part of their pre-app and planning application process.

TAYLAN So you are involved directly in planning committee meetings?

VINCENT Very involved, yes. Broadly speaking my team lead on the front end of a pre app. So when a developer first comes in with their architect, or sometimes without their architect – we encourage them to come in when they’ve got an almost blank sheet of paper. They’ve got their own development brief and we will basically work with them to ensure that it conforms with local policy but to also make sure they establish the best design objectives and then work through together as a development design team. It doesn’t always work that way because [the developer] will often come in without having done a pre app or they’ll come in further down the process when they have already got an architect and have started to evolve some ideas. But the emphasis we put on it is that it is a collaborative process. The value that we bring is local knowledge and we understand the planning framework inside out, we know all of the local conditions and we are able to help and guide them through that process in a way that should make it more efficient for them but also get a better quality project.

TAYLAN This sounds like quite an effective approach. Is this something other local authorities also do?

VINCENT Other local authorities do pre apps but there aren’t any other local authorities that do it quite the way that we do it. Croydon is at the forefront

because we have a whole structured service where you can pay for different levels of input depending on what your scheme is or how quickly you need to get the advice or what kind of information you need. The most involved version of that we call ‘DTS’ (Development Team Service) is an allocated planning officer and a whole set of officers from the council with different expertise. So people like environmental health, if it is a big scheme you might get provided with some technical advice, there is place making in terms of design and conservation advice, plan making provides policy advice and you will get a series of meetings that a developer will pay for and a programme that is set out so it is much more structured. So project management basically. What really is unique to Croydon is that we, as a part of that process, we give the developer an opportunity to present their scheme as it evolves to planning committee as a presentation and then get questions from the committee. What that means is they will often go two or three times during the process, the committee gets to see the design process, they get to feed into it, the developer gets to see early on what sorts of things the local council and Politician’s are interested in and allow that to inform their design process. Fundamentally, what it means is that when is does go to committee for determination it is not the first time that they have seen it. This is what used to happen and it still happens in a lot of cases where sometimes quite significant projects will go to planning committee, the developer might spend thousands of pounds on consultant’s time, members haven’t ever seen it before and will respond on the night to a two minute presentation. You will often get the wrong decision or an uninformed decision with a much higher risk to success. So what we have done is basically try to de-risk it and improve quality at the same time.

TAYLAN So this is essentially an invitation for developers to join into this collaborative process?

VINCENT It was initially a bit of a slow start and slow on the uptake but over the last five years, the period we have started to do this, developers actively want to come in to us early because they know it will be a good process and they will get a lot out of it. It is challenging, that’s the other thing that is often quite surprising, because we do have an in-house design team that is made up of people that have also been on the other side of the table. So I have experience in private practice as well as local authority practice. [The developers] get a proper thorough going over and we genuinely bring something to the table, we are not just responsive to whatever they show us and we creatively input into it.



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TAYLAN Have you got a few people that have experience in architecture within your team?

VINCENT Yes, at the moment the make up of the team is two other architects. One of them was an associate at a private practice and has been a project architect on a number of mixed use and commercial schemes. So she knows what is takes to deliver high quality buildings and take them all the way through the design process and she knows what the pressures are from the client’s perspective and what architects are being expected to do, what their clients are asking of them. There is someone else whose background is in architecture but they have been in planning for the last ten years. And then there are two team members who are landscape architects and also have experience working in both the private and public sector. It is really important to me that when I am recruiting to the team that they ideally have that mixture of experience so that they bring that perspective to negotiations.

TAYLAN Can you tell me about the CCURV (Croydon Council Urban Regeneration Vehicle) organisation?

VINCENT That is a separate company that is a joint venture between the council and John Laing (Developers) but that sits separate to the council. The company is 50% Croydon Council and 50% John Laing and there are members of the Council that sit on the board. My understanding of it is that effectively the council put in the land and some expertise and John Laing put in the capital and their own expertise.

TAYLAN I would imagine a conflict of interests at times between developer and Council objectives from a project?

VINCENT What makes them different to other developers is that the Council sit on the board, the company is partly made up by the council and there is more of an emphasis on the public benefit of the scheme. There are regeneration benefits, so it is not about just developing a site for the sake of it to turn over a profit, there has to be a regenerative benefit that comes out of it.

TAYLAN The recent permission gained by CCURV for the development of 420 new units at Taberner House has resulted in the loss of some of the existing public space in the Queens Gardens.

VINCENT Some of these balances can be quite controversial, its probably a more extreme version of the sorts of balances that have to be struck on all projects but that is much more prominent and the council is more involved. It is very emotive stuff as well.

TAYLAN What has been your experience of an outsider’s perspective of Croydon?

VINCENT When I studied at Cambridge and people were introducing themselves during fresher’s week, people would say “Where are you from?” and I would say “Croydon.” And I would get reactions like “oh, never mind”, “that’s unfortunate” and pitying me for it. My immediate reaction was I wasn’t expecting it. I was really surprised; I think because I had grown up in Croydon, been to school in Croydon, it was just where I grew up. It’s not like I thought it was amazing but I thought it was alright, you know. But yeah it was that reaction, I remember it and people were particularly scathing and felt sorry for me for coming from Croydon. And then I started to develop this interest in it, in a different way. I remember I used to come home from university and get the train from Victoria to Croydon. I’d come in on the train and see the skyline and think ‘wow that is pretty amazing that this place that I come from is unlike anywhere else and isn’t it amazing that other people seem to hate it’. I started to think about the way that from my Mum and Dad’s house in Shirley you could see the skyline of Croydon town centre in the distance, all the kinds of 60’s and 70’s skyscrapers and I used to look at that view out of my mum and dad’s bedroom window when I was a kid and used to think it was London. That’s the city. That is London. I started to wonder why is Croydon like that and nowhere else is like that? I started to research it and become a bit obsessed with it and ended up writing my degree dissertation about Croydon in the late 90’s.

I also started to encounter not only general perceptions of the place but also how architects saw the place and it was used, apparently, as an example of bad architecture. When you actually look at it, I don’t think it’s got any more or less bad architecture than anywhere else, in fact it’s probably got more interesting architecture than other places.

TAYLAN Do you think that these perceptions have changed over the years?

VINCENT Only very recently in the last year or so perceptions have been changing in a way I have really started to notice. I met someone earlier who has just moved to Exchange Square in Croydon and moved here on the basis


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that she had heard that Croydon is an up and coming place and there are lots of interesting things going on here. That certainly wasn’t the case even five years ago, you wouldn’t hear people saying that. Perceptions are changing but I think that it is a quite a hard image to shake off. But I don’t know whether we should try to anyway . The more than I have thought about it over the years, I think it is great that Croydon has this image that is misplaced but it is better to have that than people not know where it is. The fact that [Croydon] is used as the ‘butt of jokes’, it’s quite often on TV for the wrong reasons, at least it has an identity whether people like it or not.

TAYLAN Last year Richard Seifert’s NLA Tower was rejected for Grade II Listing, do you think that Croydon is an interesting example of post-war architecture and planning that should be celebrated and actually be more considered? Should we do more to keep some of the existing buildings that are here instead of just taking them down and rebuilding them?

VINCENT Yes I do, I don’t think it’s necessarily about protecting it for the sake of it but with out a doubt the development that happened in Croydon post war is quite unique and it has relevance to not only the story of Croydon but its of interest to the story of the nation and of London. It’s at the stage where it is still relatively recent history but not that recent anymore, so that this new generation, my generation and your generation who have grown up with it and perceive it in a different way that remember what it was like before hand or like my Dad was at Croydon Art College before any of these buildings were even built so he associates them with something different to what I associate it with. I think on the basis that it is a part of the story of not only Croydon but it is the story of post war Britain. Not that it should be protected but, that it should be respected and understood and we should take the time to think about the places that not only do we live in but that we have produced. It is the product of our own society, it’s a reflection of ourselves as all physical design and construction is. It is a manifestation of the values of our own society. So if we don’t like it, it kind of means we don’t like ourselves. I think it is really important to reflect on that. I don’t think all of it is particularly high quality, some of it will change, it will evolve over time and that is the way it should be. But I think the aggressive over reaction to it, because a lot of people have said they hate it, it’s a concrete jungle, just knock it all down, says as much about us as the people that built it in the first place. So personally, I think I would advocate a much more thoughtful process and a more thoughtful approach to it. If that means that in twenty years hardly any of it is left then, as long as that was a process of careful evolution and a balanced, discursive

process that involved people, that is fine. What I find more irritating is when people say, “let’s knock it down” because it is a concrete jungle without really having thought about it. Or even taken the time to notice that there are a lot of people that actually like it as well or even associate with it. Especially the younger generation who have grown up with it, like me seeing out of my mum and dad’s bedroom window since young childhood, attach a value to it that someone in their 60’s and 70’s doesn’t attach value to it.

TAYLAN An interesting thing for me is the unique approach to the town centre coming in from the flyover driving alongside the middle of a high-rise building.

VINCENT It’s a combination of the topography of Croydon and the way that that piece of infrastructure was designed with the sweep of the flyover; it is exciting and really dynamic.

TAYLAN So would you encourage re-use of some of the existing buildings, for example the Nestle building is being converted into a residential use?

VINCENT The planning consent is for a scheme which strips it right back and then which adds to it. I am all up for reuse of buildings, not just in Croydon but also in general. I think we are often too quick to knock things down and build new buildings when we have got plenty of good infrastructure that we can make use of creatively. A lot of my favourite buildings are ones that have been reused over and over again for different things and that is something that AOC has been interested in over the years. How do you design new things that can be reused in a way that is flexible but also very specific, so that you don’t just design a big box in the modernist diagram of flexibility. Like this space [Matthews Yard] is flexible but is also quirky and unique. Or Victorian buildings do that well. So yes, I would advocate them being re-used but only if it makes sense, sometimes it wont make sense.

TAYLAN You have previously talked about Croydon having a “clear identity made out of ambiguities” and I really clicked with that when I heard it. It has all of these different identities historically; a market town, the summer residence of the Archbishop’s of Canterbury, a transport hub, a commercial district, a retail destination, not to mention its Green Belt offering.

VINCENT It is a very diverse borough as well and I don’t always think people appreciate it but there are a lot of voices in Croydon and people from a lot of


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different backgrounds, affluent and working class. London as a whole is like that and the UK is like that but not every single London borough is like that. I think that quality is quite unique that is has got some of the qualities of an inner city borough but it is also semi rural. The town centre is so much like a mini city. So many aspects of Croydon are in and of themselves unique when you look at them but they don’t necessarily conform to a consist picture that I suppose that people like to look for sometimes, the headline grabbing stuff. Journalists want a strap line for what a place is all about and Croydon isn’t just one thing.

TAYLAN Is it just journalists or does the Council in a way want to have something it can brand the town with? Croydon attempted to go for city status a number of times; do you think it should have a particular identity that would allow it to do that? Do you think it should be a city?

VINCENT I think it kind of just is a city. It is always going to be difficult for Croydon because it is a city within a city and that in and of itself is ambiguous and that will always be difficult. I think whenever those BID city status are made, the fact that it forms a greater metropolitan area will always be a difficult thing to square that circle but in all intents and purposes it is a city within a bigger city. The same as the City of London is a city within a city. It is very much consistent with the cliché of London being ‘a city of villages’, and it just so happens that Croydon is a bigger village than a lot of the other ones.

I think there have been lots of attempts and I think that it has almost been an obsession to try and tick all the boxes and define what Croydon is. There has always been this frustration that Croydon has got an image problem, particularly amongst the city fathers, and that Croydon is misrepresented in the press. I remember when we were in the book ‘Crap Towns’ and people over reacted to that. I personally tend to think that trying to respond to that is a waste of time, Croydon is what it is and we should just celebrate it for what it is and enjoy it. It speaks for itself really but trying to sum it up in a strap line and trying to come up with one characteristic definition of what Croydon is, is almost impossible because it is so varied. It is that variety that makes it so brilliant. You don’t get that in other places that have more of a consistent kind of character that you can communicate. But then I think of other cities and places around the world and some of the best ones are the ones that are surprising. That is one of the things about Croydon, is that it is surprising. People visit that have an image of it in their head and will actually come here and say “oh, I didn’t think it was like this”, I was showing someone around

Surrey Street Market a few weeks ago who had never been [to Croydon]. They said “I thought Croydon was all 1960s, I didn’t know there was stuff like this”. That is what matters, getting as many people to come here and experience it as possible and just enjoy what it is.

TAYLAN How do you see Croydon’s built environment evolving in the future?

VINCENT I think there will be an evolution of the existing 60s and 70s buildings; it is still relatively early days in terms of their life. Such a big chunk of the town centre was built within a 10-year period; all effectively at the same time and like any city that will evolve and change over time, so it’s character will change. That is quite exciting I think, given that we’ve got this basic infrastructure that was put there in the 60s, you can start to see it now being edited. Some of it is being knocked down, other bits are being refurbished, I think that is quite an exciting prospect. It will be used and abused over the coming years and will be really fascinating watching that happen. I think similarly watching the town centre become a place where people live and spaces actually being inhabited and owned by residents and their families is an exciting prospect. You can start to see it already with places like Matthews Yard, new residents moving in who are actually starting to take ownership and interest in the public spaces in central Croydon, which hasn’t really happened over the last 40 years, as most of the town centre has been commercial. People haven’t lived here, it has been a place you come to shop or work and then go home. So it closes down at night and you get a similar situation that you get in the City of London, where it is quiet at the weekends but as more people start to move in, I am going to find that quite enjoyable. They will demand things from the local authority, make demands on public space. No doubt we will see spaces being used for more creative things, play space and things that are outside of anyone’s control basically. People let loose on a city, that’s an exciting prospect!

I think, for me, in terms of more conventional architecture I am really keen to see that new building are tailored to Croydon and that they’re thoughtful and responsive to the place and not just things that could be built anywhere. It goes back to the conversation that we had early about one’s attitude to the place and that is important to take a bit of time to actually look at it properly and actually think about it. That’s what I try to encourage when you get developers coming in with their architects. Quite often they will first of just say, “we can do anything here, it’s only Croydon, there is no context”. So we will say, “well look at the context, respond to it and just think about it” and


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unfortunately quite often their first reaction is that there isn’t any context and that [Croydon] is a blank canvas and part of my job at Croydon is to challenge that. To help people see things and help them look. It is not to tell them what to do but to give them a way in sometimes and to point them in certain directions. More often than not, when we have done that it works. Working with Alford Hall Monahan Morris (AHMM) on their part of the Ruskin Square scheme that has started on site now, I think if you were to ask Paul Monahan, and I think he’d probably say the same, they went on a bit of a journey through what they thought building a building in Croydon meant when they started to where they ended up with the design. We challenged them quite hard and I don’t know whether they were expecting that, I think probably not. I think that they welcomed that, it was quite hard work at the time but then they have ended up with something that I think is going to be a really lovely building.

Hopefully, the same thing is going to happen with other schemes, we have obviously got the Croydon partnership redevelopment of the Whitgift centre and it is a similar sort of approach to that working with Allies and Morrison. It is encouraging for me that developers that are working in Croydon are, generally speaking, appointing really good architects. So we’ve got AHMM, Shedkm, Allies and Morrison, Make, Hawkins Brown and then on the schemes that the council is commissioning as well, for the public realm schemes in particular, we are really working had to get good design teams. So we’ve got people liked Assemble, 5th Studio, East, Studio Weave, We Made That, MUF. It is hard working getting the procurement system to work in a way that can enable us to get those kinds of quality design teams and to make the case to appoint them. I think if we left the system to it’s own devices we wouldn’t necessarily get that but it’s really important in terms of public realm top get that level of thoughtfulness and attention to detail and interest in creating robust, functional environments that are also very characterful and respond to the specifics of the place. There are so many projects that have gone through planning and are going to happen but haven’t started yet; I am really excited about seeing that happen.

TAYLAN One of the most exciting things for me is the way Croydon has developed over time with the new residential adding to the existing commercial and retail infrastructure in the town in a way that will create a very dense area where people will live, work and play.

VINCENT Yes, you are right, it is almost like the Holy Grail of the liveable city. It has, almost accidently, happened that way around so there is lots of

office space, a massive retail core, high streets, and the market. So it has got commercial bedrock ands then the residential element is being added to it. It is part of the logic behind it really because Croydon needs to accommodate something like 21,000 new homes over the next 20 years and you either do that by densifying the suburbs and building new homes in the suburbs which end up being low density, more reliance on cars, you have to put more infrastructure in, and we don’t have money for this infrastructure. Or you build the homes where the infrastructure already exists and where the jobs already exist and that is broadly speaking what the strategy is. It kind of makes sense. It wouldn’t necessarily be the thing you do everywhere but it just the right thing for the challenge that we have in Croydon.

TAYLAN I wonder if the people that were building in the 60’s and 70’s had the foresight to imagine Croydon in this way?

VINCENT Yeah, they might have done. I think there is a tendency to be very critical, in the same way in the 60’s everyone was very critical of the Victorian period and then that has been reconsidered.

TAYLAN I think a lot of negativity came from that procurement process where the Croydon Corporation Act was established and allowed the compulsory purchase of schools and houses and gave the Council free reign.

VINCENT Yes, I think it was very lot of top down. We have recently been working on a master plan for the Old Town area with Allies and Morrison and very early on we had a public meeting and lots of people turned up who live in old town and some of them had lived in the Old Town when Roman Way was built and they remember houses being demolished and it was the Council that did this. So of course when they heard there was a public meeting about an Old Town master plan they assumed that it was more of the same. That the council were going to come and demolish, that took me by surprise, it was a real wake up call that it is in living memory that people remember their town centre being obliterated. Not because by Nazi’s bombing it but by the Council doing it and it wasn’t that long ago. You can understand why people are upset by it. There is all the ‘Suburban Press’ work by Jamie Reid and that is where that came from. It is pretty amazing if you think that the whole Punk aesthetic and the arts students who were at Croydon Art College while all this was going on were influenced by it, so you get massive cultural movements that have gone on to be global cultural movements that were influenced by that happening in Croydon at that particular time. I don’t think people really appreciate


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that. It is quite amazing, it’s not only the music it’s the cultural influence. The graphic of the punk movement that Jamie Reid came up with has now been subsumed into popular culture the world over and is used everywhere, on adverts in Topshop they use that kind of font. It is just associated with rebellious youth culture and its from the late 70’s and has kind of stuck.

One of the most amazing things Croydon has got going for it is that it has always been one of the places young people can experiment and come up with new forms of identity, no doubt its going on now. Being close to central London but not in London, so as a teenager that makes you a bit frustrated because you are not exactly where the action is. You are a bit far out but you are still in London, so there are all of these weird dynamics going on that help contribute towards it.

Underlying tensions where some of it is quite suburban and conservative but you have also got counter culture and the two things rub up against each other in the town centre. Immigrants have come through Croydon for a long time.

Join in the conversation with @VincentLacovara

alice cretney

Co-Founder of TURF Projects

Alice grew up in Bristol, but has enjoyed living in Croydon for the last 5 years. She studied Fine Art at Wimbledon College of Art and since graduating has worked as the Arts and Events Coordinator at Matthews Yard in Croydon where she has worked with emerging artists from around the country.

Alice and fellow artists, filmakers and architects Aoife Flynn, Becky Atherton, Helena Wee, Isabelle Southwood, Jack Friswell and Tom Winter formed the TURF projects collective in October 2013. This was set up in order to bring together emerging and established artists and curators to create free, high quality exhibitions and events for Croydon.

‘TURF aims to shine a spotlight on the diverse, rapidly changing cultural landscape of Croydon, and provide opportunities of local residents and visitors to be involved’. They have most recently curated their second crazy golf course adjacent to East Croydon Station, entitled ‘PUTT PUTT II’. This has been a great success and well received by locals and visitors alike.


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TAYLAN Do you find Croydon to be a ‘cultural hub’ or a positive place for artists to be working in at the moment and creating things?

ALICE Yes, definitely. There aren’t really any studios or hubs where people are creating physical work but I think there is a lot of creative thinking happening and a lot of potential for things to happen so I think that excites people.

TAYLAN Why do you think there are not more people creating things here locally?

ALICE I think because there aren’t any studio providers in Croydon at the moment. I think there is a market for it and it is something TURF want to hopefully do. Just open a few studios so that people, especially for people that study at the Croydon School of Art, that would like to carry on working in Croydon can do because at the moment it is quite difficult. For me, as an artist, I would love to have a space here. Somewhere I am living as well, so I don’t have to travel to London all the time to make work. It kind of feels more natural to create it where you are living and exhibit it eventually.

TAYLAN Would you encourage or recommend other artists to live and work in Croydon as a good place to make things?

ALICE Yes, definitely, because there isn’t that many things going on like that people are more open for things to happen. It is quite rough and ready in places so you don’t feel like you are treading on anyone’s toes in a way and you have more of a free reign over some of the public realm when it is half finished and open to new use.

TAYLAN What do you think about the ‘Cultural Quarter’ that is in town at the moment?

ALICE I don’t really feel like there should be a cultural quarter necessarily, it is more interesting to have cultural things dotted around rather than just in one place. But I guess it kind of acts as a kind of springboard for further cultural activity to happen.

TAYLAN I agree with you in a way, for me it feels a bit forced, especially because there isn’t much there at the moment. It is saying more this could be a cultural quarter in the future. There is a lot of signage pointing you in the direction of the ‘cultural quarter’ but in reality just showing you an empty alley.

TAYLAN How long have you lived in Croydon?

ALICE I have lived in Croydon for five years on and off. I was born in Bristol and moved to London to study and so lived in a couple of other places around London but ended up in Croydon. I have worked in Croydon since 2012 at Matthews Yard but before that in London at a few different galleries.

TAYLAN How long has TURF projects been together and how long have you been working together in Croydon?

ALICE TURF formed in August last year. I set it up originally by myself, and then I wanted other people to get involved so I asked people that were either born in Croydon or already had some kind of interest in Croydon.

TAYLAN So TURF was set up and mainly revolves around Croydon?

ALICE Yeah, basically!

TAYLAN You recently had a successful Kickstarter campaign, and you raised quite a lot of money. Is that a good indication of local support? Did you expect that?

ALICE Yes, we raised around £5000. I had hoped for it, I was quietly confident. I think there is a really nice community in Croydon that is really supportive of grass roots projects and things like that which probably evolved around Matthews Yard. We had exhibited a few pieces of public art previously and the Kickstarter campaign was to initiate a year of curated pieces of work that would be accessible to the public for free and funded by local support and crowd funding.

TAYLAN What has been the general reaction to your work from local people coming to take part in the installations?

ALICE I think initially people just think “ah it’s crazy golf” but then they get talking to us and they realise it has been made by local artists. People seem quite interested in how art can be quite accessible; I think a lot of people in Croydon don’t really experience contemporary art on a day-to-day basis so it is interesting to see what their views are.

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TAYLAN What has your personal experience been of outside perceptions of Croydon?

ALICE Not particularly negative really, people are more interested to find out why I am living here I think. I think it is also a really interesting place to live in because of its reputation. Whenever people come here that haven’t visited before they are surprised and say, “ah, it’s actually a really interesting place to be”.

TAYLAN Over the years, quite a few artists and creatives have found Croydon a particular source of inspiration, most widely know is probably Jamie Reid who studied at Croydon Art School. His work was a reaction to the place he was in, turning it into a positive creative outcome. Have you found that Croydon has been an inspiration in that way and that your work has been a reaction of the place that you are exhibiting at the moment?

ALICE To some extent, because people think of Croydon in a negative way it is an interesting place to be making work.

TAYLAN TURF was formed around Croydon not having as wide exposure to contemporary art so in some aspects TURF was formed around that opportunity and then your project ‘PUTT PUTT II’ was situated in a location that is under development. Would you have put that installation somewhere else in the town? The original ‘PUTT PUTT’ was in Exchange Square, was that more to get people into the space and highlight that it is under utilised and encourage more things to happen?

ALICE Yes, I think so. The reason why we chose the platform space is because it is mostly used by people that commute into Croydon, who work here and then go straight home. So it is quite nice for them to see that actually there is interesting stuff going on here.

It is giving attention to those kinds of commuters telling them this is what is happening in Croydon now, as opposed to what you actually see which is those tall buildings from East Croydon station which are just there blocking the view into the rest of the town.

TAYLAN Croydon has applied for ‘city status’ on a number of occasions and had failed every time, it has become a bit of an obsession with the council to try and brand itself as a city. It has all of these different identities historically;

a market town, the summer residence of the Archbishop’s of Canterbury, a transport hub, a commercial district, a retail destination, not to mention a third of the borough is Metropolitan Green Belt. Do you think that Croydon suffers from a bit of an identity crisis and struggles to define itself?

ALICE Potentially. Because there are so many different areas of Croydon that are not kind of one thing but lots of different things and people. But this also means there is space and freedom to be able to experiment.

TAYLAN How do you see TURF playing a role in the future of Croydon?

ALICE The most important aspect and on going legacy is to provide space for people to make work, that is the ultimate aim. Also to work alongside the Croydon School of Art to develop artists practices within Croydon.

TAYLAN What is your relationship with the Croydon School of Art at the moment?

ALICE We are currently running tutorials and leading workshops with them and we have used some of their facilities. We are hoping to do an exhibition there in January with some of the students. We wil be getting a group of artists to make some work and then selecting some students to respond to it and make their own work and then they will both be exhibited at their gallery space.

TAYLAN Have you found the art students want to stay on and work in Croydon?

ALICE It’s a bit of a mix really; it is quite new for them. There hasn’t been an artist collective like TURF in Croydon for a while so it is new for them and I guess it is a bit of a challenge to get them involved in what we are doing.

TAYLAN What difficulties have you faced when trying to make your work and get it out there to public spaces?

ALICE It is pretty hard I guess, it is just a case of constantly negotiating and trying to keep on top of things. Putt Putt II was in the planning stages for almost a year, we were meant to be using another space on Ruskin Square and then it got moved to the Platform.

TAYLAN Can you describe the process you went through to realise Putt Putt II?

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ALICE I initially found out about the Ruskin Square space through Open House London. I went to the opening day and spoke to Anthony from MUF Architecture, we got talking and proposed a programme of events that could take place on that bit of land next to the station and it kind of went from there. They put it to the developers and then it got narrowed down to doing the crazy golf and then hopefully at some point in the future we will be able to work on some other projects on the site as well.

TAYLAN I think it is a great temporary use to the site while it is under development and encouraging the use of it through art will only add to the cultural capital value of the site for the developers. Are there any other spaces you would like to get your hands on in Croydon?

ALICE The next project we are doing in September, where we will be creating and putting up posters, we will be using the Reeves Corner site that burnt down in the riots in 2011, Wandle Park, East Croydon and South Croydon stations. We want to run tours between the spaces to encourage people to spend time in them and help people look at them as a place to see art where they wouldn’t usually.

TAYLAN What is your favourite building in Croydon?

ALICE I think my favourite is probably Corinthian house.

Join in the conversation with @CRETNEYalice @Turf_Projects

Artist/Curator

jonny rose

Founder of Croydon Tech City

Jonny describes himself as a “27 year old Christian who is committed to the economic, social and spiritual well-being of Croydon and its inhabitants”. He is actively involved in many things happening in Croydon and can often be found hopping between meetings in Matthews Yard or enthusiastically sharing his love for his home on Twitter.

Inspired by the lack of local Council action post London riots 2011, Jonny founded Croydon Tech City in October 2012 as a way to bring together a community of software developers, venture capitalists, technologists, startup founders and creatives.

The success of the ‘East London Tech City’ has been widely documented and Jonny believes that this formula can be brought to Croydon to the benefit of the entire borough. He feels it is the solution to many of the ongoing issues and problems the town has faced as well as, a way to create an outward facing brand and a marketing tool that will attract new people and business. This “lifelong project” is purely voluntary and is fueled by the pride and passion Jonny and his team has for Croydon and its residents.


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Social Entrepreneur/Activist

TAYLAN How long have you lived in Croydon?

JONNY I am an English Lit. grad, I am a Croydon man through and through. I am 27 now and moved up this way with my parents in 1990.

TAYLAN What have you been up to?

JONNY One of the things we are working on is ‘Future Tech City’ – trying to make coding accessible to 9-18 year olds. We want to get a code club into all 92 primary schools in the borough of Croydon. Then ideally we want to do is get another company, called Apps for Good, to provide free coding for secondary schools. The idea is we are essentially going to create a Croydon Tech City curriculum, so a 9 year old in 2015 can start in one school and by the time its 2024 they are 18 and they can then have the skills to go and work in Croydon Tech City. That’s the kind of holistic thing we are trying to work on at the moment.

TAYLAN What would you say your experiences of external perceptions of Croydon have been?

JONNY There is a massive perception of Croydon being a dangerous place, so actually just unsafe. There is a perception that most people there aren’t high attainers and don’t have a particularly high aptitude, that it is a place where people have no aspiration. So basically it is dangerous, everybody is very thick, it is impoverished and just pretty grim.

TAYLAN Do you think those perceptions have changed over the years or have remained consistent?

JONNY I would disambiguate between perceptions of people that live in Croydon and those who are outside of Croydon talking about it. Both of those are things I am trying to fight on both fronts.

So you have those people who live here and are very quick to do down the borough and speak negatively of it, the way I’d treat those people is actually more harshly than those who live outside of Croydon. I find that prejudice against Croydon by Croydoners is due to laziness. It is because a lot of Croydoners can’t be bothered to even do anything to rectify things. You’ll find a lot of people with negative vibes are the ones who are not doing a thing about it and just languishing their moaning. I have no time for those people

at all. What I found is that it is not that there is nothing good happening in Croydon, it’s that all the good things happening in Croydon are just very siloed. It’s not as if Croydon never had an arts scene, never had interesting things to visit or attractions. It’s because there would be something happening in Addington, there would be something happening in Wandle Park and it all just very disconnected. So because it has always been so siloed there was never any uniformity. So there is no feeling that Croydon is a great place for music or art because were always so intermittent and sporadic. So one of the things Croydon has suffered from internally is not joining up the positivity, it has always been very separate and so there is no whole which people can really feel.

TAYLAN What actually inspired you to start the CTC movement?

JONNY I was inspired because of a perception of a lack of action on the part of local Government and business leaders post Croydon Riots. August 2011 we had the riots, and then a year after I was acutely aware there was nothing being done to really holistically change the way the borough worked socially, economically and culturally. 12 months later, any changes were just cosmetic as far as I was concerned. There wasn’t anything really to look at the causes, which were apathy, nihilism which are both material – I lack money, and existential – I lack money and I don’t care about doing anything good or helpful. I was acutely aware of all of those issues and I thought to myself what sort of vision for Croydon could I cast, which was holistic – there is no point doing something for the few that was disjointed, I had to do something that was as inclusive as possible.

I was looking all around the world, and even closer to our doorstep, and I was aware of start ups and the start up culture of Idio – the company I work at, was and is just revolutionising the world. They call Israel the start up nation because about 90% of its industry is just around start up technologies. You have Silicon Valley. So everywhere where there are clusters, a mass of app/software developers and tech businesses, exhume really interesting stuff for the culture – making it more open making it friendlier, more dynamic, people building stuff and creating.

You are very aware of creatives and what that urge is like to build something from nothing and that satisfaction, the joy of pursuing it single mindedly. So, imagine that just times it by 10,000 people all doing the same thing and you create a real free song of activity and I just like that idea of Croydon being a


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place where ambitious people go to build something. So that was the idea just inspired by what I saw in Silicon Valley and East London’s Tech City. So yeah, the riots were the catalyst and the perception that no one was doing anything.

TAYLAN How has the development of CTC had an impact in Croydon to date?

JONNY So Croydon Tech City is three things: It’s an organisation, that’s myself, Nigel and Sarah. Just three Croydoners doing stuff voluntarily, trying to work out how do we shift Croydon to being an area where there are a lot of tech companies. Below us we have community, which is the people that come along and that could be tech founders or just interested hangers on. The third part is CTC the borough, so what is Croydon when the tech community interacts with the borough? How does Croydon being a tech community impact education? I talked about Future Croydon Tech City. How does it impact governance, where the Government puts its spending? Well fantastic, we are going to get good broadband because we have been haranguing the Council.

How has it changed Croydon – well in several ways. First of all it has changed, and we are in early days which is one of the things I would caveat with, in the first two years since we started ‘tech’ has grown to be Croydon’s second largest economy just after retail. More interestingly, we have seen more new media start-ups have incorporated in Croydon than any other borough in the last two years, showing business confidence. The wider narrative is we are in a crunch, the Government isn’t doing very well, we are too scared to set up our businesses but actually CTC is starting to change the narrative around “well, is Croydon a good place to set up my business?” Fundamentally and an even better stat from the Office of National Statistics that has been really encouraging is that, it was released in March this year and it said that Croydon had seen a 23% increase in the rate of businesses starting up compared to East London which had seen 17%. So actually there is a lot of dynamism right now, it doesn’t mean we have more tech start ups but the rate of them being set up is higher. There is just a real encouraging business confidence right now, people suddenly moving to the borough. There is a company called SMARTA, a company called ‘Natterbox’ just moved 160 of their staff here. There are actually people who are leaving other areas of London saying, “we want to be in Croydon because there is an opportunity here”.

TAYLAN There has been a history of the opposite of that with big companies like Nestlé having their headquarters here and then moving away.

JONNY Exactly, so we are reversing all of that kind of stuff. Which is exactly what we set out to try and do, is reverse this idea and actually bring back companies who are employing locally as well. We haven’t fixed that perfectly, there are a lot of companies here but there is a big skills deficit, to be frank it is not as if everyone is suddenly being employed but that is the next thing for us to work on. Those are some of the sort of headline things, lots of companies are moving here, lots of companies are starting here, we now having coding in primary schools in the area so that there is a big education drive to up skill young people, there has been a change in local Government in the way they view technology so that not only are they educated but they are empowered to do things. Governance is changing, infrastructure is changing, education if changing.

TAYLAN What has been the reaction locally to CTC and also the reaction from the Council?

JONNY Croydon Council are very pro CTC. We work reasonably closely with them, one of the reasons why is that CTC is helping them meet a lot of their targets. There is a whole team at the Council who deal with inward investment, attracting business to the area. So we are doing their job for them, we are doing the whole education skills bit for them, with the infrastructure they now have an actual reason why they are doing it, its not just nebulous – let’s get broadband in. So the whole branding aspect of what CTC is doing is making things a lot easier for them.

TAYLAN So is there a way for the Council to help fund some of the things you are doing and have a working relationship with them?

JONNY So in terms of the aspect of money [at CTC], nothing is funded, everything is run by volunteers at the moment. So no money has exchanged hands. In terms of the Council funding us, we are actually trying to stay away from any kind of monies being given to us, mainly just because you have to be accountable and it gets messy. If people associate you too closely with the establishment it slows things down. So to that effect the Council certainly help us and are ideologically with us, we meet with them regularly to talk to them about changes they are making and to suggest things. But we would never get funding for activities, what you will see is in the future them giving funding for things which will help us. They would invest in infrastructure, which we would ask them to do. So we work as consultants and advisors for



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some aspects.

TAYLAN Have you had a positive reaction from local people?

JONNY With locals now I would be wary, we haven’t really made a huge penetration into Croydon. There are about 380,000 people in Croydon and at the moment I would say there have been about 1500 unique people have come through our doors or contacted us in the last 18 months or so to that effect it’s a tiny mind share we have got and actually a rather small thing. But for people who actually are involved they are very behind it, they haven’t seen anything like this before – the novelty of it mixed with the fact that, wonderfully we actually are helping people. There are some great testimonials for people who have started up tech companies in the last year and a half who have recruited people, seen sales increases etc. So the small subset of Croydon who are aware of us almost entirely, unequivocally support us.

TAYLAN With the inevitable residential and retail influx that is coming into Croydon, where do you see Croydon Tech City playing a role within the future of the town?

JONNY We met recently with Berkeley Homes who are doing the Saffron Square development. This whole property thing is multi-faceted, if you look at East London’s tech city what has happened is it has become really cool and hipsters are there, there are a lot of speculative developers, its desirability and rising prices means it has become prohibitive start up there. One of my big issues is, something to think about not and issue that is pressing, is trying to work out how do we create an attractive area without it becoming prohibitive for the very people that we are trying to retain? Essentially, how do we make more start ups come here without them being priced out too soon. So that is one of the concerns that will commercial offices be too expensive in time that is a further along concern at the moment. Fortunately the Council is on our side at the moment and they are running a campaign called ‘Rate Free for a Year’, so we have a lot of attractive things to subsidise some of the costs for tech start-ups moving to the area.

I am very keen for people marketing residential buildings to jump on to the tech narrative. When I met with Berkeley Homes I suggested to them when they try and sell Saffron Square or anywhere like that and trying to attract young families, don’t just try to sell close to London, close to the parks and things like that. Actually explain to them that they are moving into a Tech City

where their children will be educated in any schools they go to through our Future Tech City program and guaranteed a job in the next 7 years. I am trying to help those sorts of people try to sell the complete package of Croydon. If you are trying to sell a complete residential experience here, your children will be educated as well as jobs and homes in tech city. In time I would love for people to start marketing with that Tech City brand.

I think with retail CTC has emerged as a counter narrative. So I do not want Croydon just to be known as a ‘top ten retail destination’. I think the idea that Westfield being our biggest jobs provider is actually profoundly depressing, effectively consigning young people to ‘Mc Jobs’. To be honest, I don’t even know the future of tactile retail, I am more interested in Internet shopping and e-commerce vs. the idea of still needing to go to a mall. In the next ten years the mall isn’t going to change significantly but for our generation or even the millennials, it may become a place where there is almost a premium on touching stuff and it will become more about the experience. All that is to say, we want to be a counter narrative to that. I am not opposed to Westfield but I am not hugely enthused by it, for me a shop’s a shop.

TAYLAN Croydon has failed numerous times to brand itself with City Status and as historically had a number of different identities as a market town, the summer residence of the Archbishop’s of Canterbury, a transport hub, a commercial district, a retail destination, not to mention a third of the borough is Metropolitan Green Belt. Do you think in that light that Croydon has struggled with an identity crisis?

JONNY Yes I do actually. Croydon needs to know what its identity is in and of itself and it also needs to know is relation to other areas and that is on of the things I am very adamant about. There are two branding issues, Croydon needs to get its head around that become a Tech City is literally its only avenue, Croydon needs to stand for something very simple and easy. At the moment there are several quarters, the restaurant quarter, the cultural quarter, BID as well as the areas you have highlighted. I think in my mind Croydon needs to recongise that it is a Tech City and I think that should be the over arching narrative whether you’re living in Thornton Heath or Purley or Addiscombe. You need to be aware now tat you are apart of a Tech City and how that manifests itself in reality to you I don’t know but that is the vision I suggest everyone pursue and I’ll be encouraging everyone to talk about.

But also Croydon needs to understand what it means to be a Tech City in



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relation to other areas. We are now the third largest tech cluster in the South; you’ve got East London, Brighton and Croydon. Which is fantastic we have grown to just over a thousand tech start ups, Brighton has about 1500 and East London maintains it has about 5000 but that always oscillates wildly. We have to be aware that there is this kind of ‘tech corridor’ where we are like a nexus between the two big clusters of the South. So that is quite powerful and something I am trying to exploit as well.

TAYLAN In a historic context Croydon was also a stopping point on a trade route between Brighton and London, which is where the market heritage came from.

JONNY Ah right, yes, so I think we should capitalize on that and as both London and Brighton are really jumping on that tech bandwagon and think we would do well to appreciate we have now essentially gone from a market town to a tech town.

TAYLAN It is quite an interesting perspective, what you are suggesting is that Croydon Tech City is another way to brand the town and is the way we should be looking. Vincent Lacovara suggested Croydon is so vast and multi-faceted that it is impossible to give it one single stamp or strap line and instead we should celebrate it for want it is and leave it with an ‘identity made of ambiguities’. Counter to that, you are proposing that Croydon should brand itself, which is maybe more in line with the way the Council think in terms of trying to encourage people to visit and a way of marketing it externally.

JONNY The thing about those ambiguities and that nebulousness serves the romantic notion of Croydon and no one likes monocultures but seeing it as a way to externalize Croydon the only way is with one unique message. Croydon is wonderful in the sense that it is the largest town in Europe and that is really powerful and why I believe anyone can do anything here because there is always going to be enough talent or opportunity here. It is like a small London or principality really.

I think when you are trying to pitch it to other people and actually convince them it has to stand for something that is easy to grasp, people don’t have the time to be indulged in its oh, its really multicultural, its got really cool stuff here, here and here. They just want to know you go here for tech you go here for retail or you go here for something else. That is my slightly more pragmatic way of looking at it I think. It doesn’t mean we are there yet, I don’t

think convincingly we can make a claim that everywhere recognises it as a tech town but that is what I would suggest we pursue.

TAYLAN What is your favourite and least favourite building in Croydon?

JONNY Matthews Yard is my favourite interior, there is no way I can fault it, with its weird paraphernalia. I like the fact its not just identi-kit, I am not a fan of your Café Nero’s etc. So inside Matthews Yard is possibly the most interesting place in Croydon and exterior wise the only buildings I really pay attention to are No.1 Croydon and Bernard Weatherill House. I am a big fan of Croydon’s Brutalism, but I couldn’t really isolate one. My least favourite is probably the Whitgift Centre, from the Wellesley Road side, you just look at it and it looks like a moored ship. It’s not very glamorous.

Join in the conversation with @98rosjon



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Taylan Tahir_2014_We Need To Talk About Croydon_Part I and Part II LR

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Transcript of Taylan Tahir_2014_We Need To Talk About Croydon_Part I and Part II LR