The projects for the area next to St Paul’s cathedral: conservation and planning

Heleni PorfyriouConsiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche – Istituto per la Conservazione e la Valorizzazione dei Beni Culturali, Italy

St Paul’s cathedral, after the Great Fire of 1666 (which devastated two thirds of London) and itsrebuilding by Sir Christopher Wren, became the symbol of the city and of the nation: the 8thwonder of its time and the first big domed cathedral of Britain.

Which are the conservation measures undertaken for such an outstanding monument andeven more specifically, which are the conservation and planning policies regarding itssurroundings?

The early 20th century projects, the 1935 Parliament Act, known as St. Paul’s Act, theprotective regulations regarding the cathedral’s strategic views and the depth of the basementsof the buildings close to the cathedral are among the most explicit protective measures.However, after the II WW bombing and devastation of the area around it, the reconstructionprojects, as well as the redevelopment projects of the 1990’s for the same area – known asPaternoster Square – made evident, in a striking way, different and contrasting approaches oftackling issues of planning and conservation.

More specifically, the alternative projects presented both in 1944-47 (as well as the schemeimplemented for the area surrounding the cathedral in 1961-67) and in 1987-90 posed questionsof architectural style, of compatibility between old and new structures and functions, of urbanmorphological criteria in understanding, interpreting and valorising heritage monuments andtheir context while promoting new development, of public participation or of politicalpatronage; in one word posed the question of planning and conservation. How these issueswere approached, evaluated and tackled by the different projects (in two quite distinct time-periods and for such a sensible, culturally and symbolically speaking area) is the core of thispaper.

Furthermore, the development of the area next to St. Paul’s cathedral is even morerevealing, as a case study, if one considers that it functioned as a testing ground of howLondon, if not Britain, should look like and how similar questions regarding transformation andpreservation should be tackled. In fact, the debate, the ideas and the projects presented wererepresentative of the debate around the country and were actually leading it, as the case – justto mention one – of the redevelopment in 1963-73 of Eldon Square in Newcastle upon Tyne, innorthern England, reveals.

1hporfyriou@yahoo.it

Why choosing St Paul’s cathedral?

Because:It is the oldest cathedral of the Nation, built in 604, only four years after Canterbury

cathedral.After the Great Fire of 1666 (that devastated two thirds of London) and the cathedral’s

rebuilding by Sir Christopher Wren, it became the symbol of the city and of the nation: the 8thwonder of its time and the first big domed cathedral of Britain.

It is visited by seven million people per year. It is the focus of national life: even those whonever visited it have a view of it.

Together with Wren’s other churches gave to London its distinctive skyline.After the bombing of December 1940 that devastated one third of the City’s area, St Paul’s

cathedral still standing appeared as the pre-eminent symbol of national resistance and sacrifice.In popular eyes it was the country’s chief war memorial.

Why choosing the area around St Paul’s cathedral?

Because:In three different historic periods: after the great fire in 1666, after the WWII bombing, and

in the redevelopment projects of the 1990s, the area around St Paul’s cathedral became atesting ground of how London, if not Britain, should look like. In fact in all three cases, thedebate, the ideas and projects presented there were representative of the debate around thecountry and were actually leading it. In this sense the projects presented for the reconstructionof the area after the WWII bombing and the master plans produced in recent years for theredevelopment of the Paternoster area — posing problems of planning and conservation, ofarchitectural style, of public participation, or of political patronage – emerge as the mostrepresentative one.

After the “great fire”: the first chance

It all began in flames. Ten days after the great fire of London, in September 1666, the 34 yearold Christopher Wren met king Charles II and only few days later he presented a plan (accordingto the principles of regular axial planning) for the reconstruction of the burned city. None ofthe plans presented (either by Wren or by John Evelyn, prof. Robert Hooke or Valentine Knight)were ever realised. London’s survival (the country at the time was going through an expensivewar against France) depended upon commerce and this meant immediate reconstruction. In therebuilding Commission created that same year, Wren was a member. They surveyed the cityconsidering how best it could be built with stone and brick, respecting old property lines andstreet patterns. They drafted the Rebuilding Act of 1667 and a second one in 1670. The work onSt Paul’s cathedral started in 1675 and Wren built 53 city churches holding the position ofSurveyor of the king’s Works up to 1710, thus becoming the most powerful architectural figurein the Kingdom.

Wren’s plan was not realised, but his buildings left an indelible imprint on London’s skyline,as it is evident in the panoramic view of 1710: the church steeples are intimately connected withone another in a complex architectural composition where the domed cathedral stands up asthe culmination of this procession of churches.

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The relationship of St Paul’s to its neighbourhood remained invariable for the next twocenturies: 4-6 storey buildings, mostly of the same period, surrounded the cathedral, while thestreet pattern up to Newgate market (the meat market to the north of the cathedral) wasunchanged.

In the period 1905-1939 only one fifth of the City’s fabric was rebuilt, mainly banks. But thepopulation figures illustrate a dramatic change in uses. In 1605 the City had 190.000 inhabitants(London 225.000); in 1801 the population of the City had fallen to 128.000 inhabitants (London1.000.000); in 1841 it was still 123.000, but by 1939 it had dramatically fallen to 9.000. Theexodus of the residential population and the predominance of commercial and tertiary activitieswas already a reality but it hadn’t threaten yet the area around the cathedral. North of thecathedral the Newgate market was closed in 1870 and Paternoster Row and square were takenover by printers and booksellers, becoming the headquarters of London’s publishing companies,like Longman, Nelson etc. South of the cathedral were mainly warehouses.

Early 20th century

Two projects, however, of this early 20th century period made evident the fragility of the area:

• the project of 1911 for a new bridge across Thames, that was never realised, but whichthrough a competition and a number of Beaux-Arts designs opened a debate on how partof the cathedral’s surroundings should be reordered, pointing to the alignment of thedome to the bridge’s direction1;• the building, by the Ministry of Works, of Faraday House that obstructed with its heightone of St Paul’s most familiar views from the river. This happened because governmentalagencies were allowed to operate outside the limitations of the Building Acts (the FaradayHouse was 30 feet higher than the 100-foot limit of the Building regulations). To preventthe same thing happening again, the Cathedral Surveyor documented a series of views tobe protected under future planning legislation2.

Around the same years the cathedral authority discovered also (during a campaign ofrepairs in the 1920s) that new cracks in the fabric were due to the deep basements and thepumping of subsoil water in the vicinity of the cathedral. Thus in 1935 a Parliament Act waspassed (known as St Paul’s Act) in order to regulate the depth of digging in the cathedral’ssurroundings.

The debate regarding the cathedral’s strategic views as well as the measures that regulatedthe height of buildings near St Paul’s and the depth of their basements put forward what stillexist as the only protective regulation, from below and above, for St Paul’s. This approachpresupposed that if redevelopment in the cathedral’s surroundings had to take place it wouldhave been a gradual process and not a comprehensive transformation. But this was not thecase.

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After the bombing: the second chance

In December 1940 the area around St Paul’s was devastated by bombs (Fig.1). One third of theCity was destroyed (over five million books destroyed). The cathedral was hit but survived. Wardamage was seen as an opportunity to re-plan the area just like the 1666 fire had presented anideal moment for redevelopment. Before the war had ended two alternative visions of how thecathedral should be treated and what post-war London should look like, had been put forward.

On one hand the architect members of the Royal Academy prepared a report and plansthrough a committee chaired by Sir Edwin Lutyens, and after his death in 1944 by Sir GilesGilbert Scott3; a planning work that echoed Christopher Wren’s classical layout. On the otherhand, the editorial team of the Architectural Review (1946, pp.142-9), the main mouthpiece ofmodernist architectural thought of the 1930s, headed by the prominent figures of J.M. Richardsand Nicolaus Pevsner, prepared their designs in 1945-6 according to the ideals of modernistarchitecture and picturesque planning. Both projects had in common a complete revision of theCity’s street patterns; and in order to achieve this, more than just the bomb-damaged sites hadto be cleared.

The main feature of the Royal Academy’s scheme was a symmetrical open space createdaround St Paul’s, that was lined by 3-4 storey symmetrically disposed buildings (Fig.2). Axial andmonumental long perspectives were departing both from the main entrance and from thetransepts of the cathedral, thus linking St Paul’s through long vistas to other major citylandmarks.

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The scheme of the Architectural Review was instead featuring curtain-walled office blocksup to ten storeys high, not so much different in their individual treatment in as much as in theirgeneral disposition. In fact the variations of scale and arrangement, the changes of level andangle and the contrast between groupings were the elements that could create the effects ofinformality and surprise proper of the Picturesque composition, according to Pevsner andRichards. The editors of the Architectural Review were claiming that “a genius for irregularcomposition and for picturesque is native to the English character” (1946, pp. 147-8), while theaxial composition adopted by Sir Lutyens, they sustained, was un-english since it represented acontinuation of imperialist neo-classical tradition. In this sense their project — although wasnot preserving neither the buildings, survived after the bombing, nor the street pattern — itwas claimed to be able to create the same intimate conditions existing in the area of St Paul’s asrevealed by pre-war photographs.

In the meantime official planning had produced its own reports that were creating mainly a“more harmonious street architecture” within the existing street pattern4. Yet such anapproach, considered unimaginative for the rebuilding of the City, was not welcomed. Thus theMinister of Town and Country Planning was persuaded to ask the local planning authority (theCity Corporation) to call for an external consultant. The Minister’s own adviser, the planner-architect William Holford with the architect Charles Holden, were chosen.

In 1947 the famous Holden-Holford report on the reconstruction of the City was presented.Having to deal with the whole City it was concerned with St Paul’s area only in broad terms,that is5:

its main concern was to create a protective enclave, for the cathedral, free from the muchincreased traffic. So it proposed to widen Carter Lane (so through traffic could be directedthere); Ludgate Hill could be thus reserved as a ceremonial approach to the cathedral; and asimilar approach had to be created along the South side, where buildings had been cleared bybombing. Instead, to the North the historic pattern of the area was to be conserved. However,other indications of the report, as the following ones, were making clear that such a goal wasnot really contemplated.

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The report’s guiding principle was the provision of agreeable and efficient to work inoffices. Their design was following the studies of the Building Research Station that was basedon the ideas of Walter Gropius. In other words office welfare, was claimed, depended onnatural lighting; the best amount of light was provided if buildings were arranged either ascruciform blocks (such as the building on 55 Broadway street built by Holden), or as slabs set atright angles to each other.

The scientific authority of this approach was showed in an appendix with a series of sixdiagrams showing how good daylight could be achieved by comprehensive redevelopment (of a5:1 plot ratio). These diagrammatic illustrations showed more clearly than any plan that theredevelopment of the City was not meant to safeguard the traditional streets and buildings, butwas instead intended to be comprehensive, creating free-standing office blocks laid out on anopen plan according to modernist planning principles.

Holden-Holford’s proposal became part (in a modified form) of the Development Plan forthe County of London submitted for Government approval in 1953. At the same period,however, Duncan Sandys, then Minister of Housing and Local Government, asked the CityCorporation to prepare a special study for the area around St Paul’s. His intention — particularlygiven the important role he played later on conservation issues: in 1958, as founder of the CivicTrust (one of the most well known associations for the protection of historic buildings andmonuments); and in 1967, as the promoter of the first legislation for the conservation of wholeparts of cities and not only of single monuments – was to safeguard St Paul’s area from acomprehensive redevelopment.

Holford was once more asked to work as a consultant. In his report, presented in 1956, heexplains how he took into consideration all the debate since the first meeting of the RoyalAcademy committee, in 1940. He describes that he asked for the advice of John Summerson (theleading expert on Wren and on English classicism) regarding a monumental setting for thecathedral; and that Summerson’s evaluation was that monumentalism on a small scale wouldlook petty, and on a large scale would be unrealistic. And he proceeds, after such a diplomaticintroduction, with the presentation of his proposal that is on line with his earlier modernistplan and office building architecture, to the disappointment of Duncan Sandys6.

Holford’s recommendations, carried out in 1961-7, were looking very much alike hisdaylight diagrams of the 1947 plan. His master plan was reflecting the modernist thinking ofthe time: a rigid grid was set at right angles to the cathedral, rejecting the traditional streetpattern and cancelling the last traces of the buildings that had survived the bombing . ThePaternoster square was shaped from three slab blocks on a podium, linked by lower buildings(Fig.3). A fourth slab, 16 storeys high, marked the northern edge of the square. The podium wascreated in order to accommodate a car park beneath; but raising the level of the pedestrianspace 6 feet above the original ground level had the effect of reducing the effective height ofthe cathedral seen from the square. The grouping of the buildings was not sufficiently compactand their disposition inappropriate both in relation to the cathedral and to the other nearbybuildings; but also the scale, texture and materials of the buildings were contrasting with thecathedral. Yet, according to Holford there was “more to be gained by contrast in design … thanfrom attempts at harmony of scale or character or spacing” (Paternoster Associates, 1991, p.17).On these grounds it was also designed the Juxon House, a zig-zag building aiming to recreatethe original “funnelling” approach to St Paul’s. A real disaster!, according to almost all recentcommentators.

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Yet, in the 1960’s when the post-war planning was giving a new opportunity formodernisation by enhancing the economic role of each area and when the only constrains onredevelopment were economic, while conservation policy was restricted to the preservation of alimited number of major buildings or monuments, the Holford plan gave the pace for manydevelopments to be carried out on the same lines. Among others the redevelopment, in 1963-73of Eldon Square in Newcastle upon Tyne, in northern England. The demolition of this “beautifulresidential Georgian Square” (Pendlebury, 2001, p.128) was to give place to a shopping centre,that was integral part of the city’s plan of 1963. A plan based on the same utilitarian principles,as Holford’s one: new urban motorways; traffic and pedestrian segregation through multilevelcirculation; underground, multi-storey car parking; new shopping centres and new offices onthe basis of free-standing blocks laid in an open plan according to daylight conditions. But alsothe plan’s aesthetic approach in its “harsh juxtaposition of old and new architecture based onthe modernist principle of dynamic contrast” (Pendlebury, 2001, p.136) was similar to Holford’sone. After all Gordon Cullen, who theorised the picturesque visual tradition – placing theemphasis on the combination of space rather than on the formal harmony of individualbuildings — was involved both in the project for St Paul’s area, proposed by the ArchitecturalReview in 1946, and in the developments of Newcastle upon Tyne.

Nowdays, the 1960s are associated with “clean sweep” planning and “the feeling of thePaternoster square”, as designed by the Holford plan, is recognised to be “that of a New Townshopping centre in form, layout and materials”, as the SAVE the City Conservation Study put it(1976, p.26). In the 1960s, however, traffic planning and comprehensive redevelopment,according to the principles of modernist architecture, were the driving force for economicdevelopment and the conservation instances were limited to isolated monuments. In fact, in theSt Paul’s area, apart from the cathedral that was safeguarded by the ecclesiastical authority,there was only one building listed and protected: the Chapter House. While the then existedconservation legislation — that is the Ancient Monuments Protection Act (introduced in 1882

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and updated in 1913, 1931), and the “Historic Buildings List” (introduced by the Town andCountry Planning Act of 1947) – regarded only the protection of isolated monuments andhistoric buildings. The situation started changing in 1967 with the Civic Amenities Act (a billpresented by the ex-minister Duncan Sandys), that introduced the Conservation Areas, that isthe conservation of whole parts of cities. The Local Planning Authorities had to designate theseareas and to prepare plans for them, as well as to find funds, in order to “protect and enhancetheir character and appearance”. Gradually more powers were given to Conservation Areas(with the 1972, 1974, 1990, 1994 planning laws) regarding the demolition and alteration of anybuilding within the Conservation Areas and the financial assistance for conservationinterventions7.

In the case of St Paul’s area the Local Planning Authority (the City Corporation) designatedin 1971 two Conservation areas in the vicinity of the cathedral, but none of them wascomprising of course the Paternoster square developed only ten years earlier by the Holfordplan. Although in the 1980s a suggestion was made to create more comprehensive Conservationareas8, up to day the areas north and south of St Paul’s are still planned and built according todevelopers’ plans and not a conservation plan.

After the Big Bang: the third chance

Almost twenty five years later, the site developed by the Holford plan, known as Paternosterarea, was facing demolition, for economic rather than architectural reasons. The Big Bang andthe deregulation of London’s financial markets had created in the late 1980s a great demandfor sophisticated new office buildings. In this sense, the Paternoster area was a prime site forredevelopment. And in fact part of the site (4.3 acres) was purchased in 1986 by two of thebiggest Big Bang developers (Stuart Lipton of Stanhope and Elliott Bernerd of Chelsfieldan. Ayear later (1987) a competition took place in which seven of the most famous world widearchitectural firms were invited to present their ideas for a master plan: Foster Associates, ArataIsozaki and Associates, Richard Rogers and Partners, MacCormac and Jamieson, SkidmoreOwings and Merrill (SOM), James Stirling and Michael Wilford, Arup Associates.

The master plans presented by these seven firms can be summarised as follows9: three of them — Foster, Rogers, Isozaki – treated the site as a single major block.

Diaphanous glass screens provided dramatic views of the cathedral in Foster’s designs; Rogersintroduced an underground complex, above the metro station, in a way that the visitor whoascends the escalators is to be greeted by a dramatic view of the cathedral, which can be seenfrom the station foyer, four floors below ground; Isozaki produced bland facades towards theexternal part of the site, in the Newgate street and a collection of post-modern forms facing StPaul’s (Fig. 4a).

Stirling and Wilford recreated a formal street pattern providing a visual separation betweenthe cathedral and the office buildings behind.

The SOM proposal was somehow closely related to the pre-war street pattern and providedthree new public spaces.

The MacCormac and Jamieson scheme was basically a set of rules that the architecturaldesigners could follow, which reconciled the public domain with individual initiatives on thedifferent plots.

The Arup scheme was characterised by a crescent-shaped arcade running east to west acrossthe site and leading to a semicircular public space. A clear separation between the cathedraland the offices behind was created by a semicircular building of a stripped classical style (Fig.4b).

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The panel of assessors (that among others included the Financial Times architecturalcorrespondent, the architectural critic Charles Jencks, and the surveyor of St Paul’s) selected thescheme of Arup. In a second round of consultation, where Arup presented their master planfurther elaborated, participated also the Royal Fine Art Commission (called in only whenprojects of national importance are discussed), and representatives of the English Heritage (themost important governmental agency on conservation), of the City and the Dean and Chapterof St Paul’s10.

In the meantime, Prince Charles — who less than a year earlier had actively entered thearchitectural and town planning debate by strongly criticising modernism — had decided, afterbeen shown all the entries of the original competition and Arup’s new designs, to support analternative neo-classical scheme for the area, sponsored by the Evening Standard and designedby John Simpson. To overcome the Prince’s criticisms the new developers decided to hold anexhibition, in 1988, presenting both Arup’s and Simpson’s projects, with the aim to have a full-scale public consultation. The outcome of the public inquiry was clearly favourable to Simpson’sdesign proposal: 70% against 17% for Arup. Nevertheless, Arup continued to develop theirplans and a new developer came in.

After almost a year it was clear that development on that site was not going to be easy. Sothe property was sold, in 1990, to a new consortium of developers, made up from Greycoat andMitsubishi, who commissioned a new team headed by Terry Farrell and including Simpson, toproduce a master plan. The team called “Paternoster Associates” covered a broad range ofapproaches to the classical ideal and was made from the architectural offices of Simpson,Farrell, Quinlan Terry, Robert Adam, Allan Greenberg, Thomas Beeby, Paul Gibson and DemetriPorphyrios.

The master plan produced by the “Paternoster Associates” (1991, p. 25) restored thetraditional urban pattern of the area: by introducing curvilinear streets and lanes, of variouswidths; by recreating a central square; by restoring the traditional alignment of St Paul’s

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churchyard. It also created an intimate relationship between old and new architecture throughscale, texture and materials, thus bringing the offices to face the cathedral without any needfor division (Fig.5). And it respected, the only limits ever posed by the responsible conservationand planning authorities, that is St Paul’s Heights and Strategic views.

However, the long lasting procedures for planning permission frustrated once more thedevelopers, who sold the site to a new firm. Thus, leaving unrealised also this project. In 1995the area was finally under construction by a different architectural firm (MacCormac andJamieson, Allies, and Morrison), with new planners (Whitfield Partners) and developers11. Theirwork, although not neo-classical, largely reflects the master plan of the “Paternoster Associates”in as much as it respects the traditional urban pattern, it creates a pedestrian plaza, it relatesthe new area to St Paul’s through landscaping and scale and it respects the cathedral’s strategicviews.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

ALLEN, W.G. (1934). St. Paul’s Cathedral: A Survey of Views, LondonAMERY, C. (1988). Wren’s London, LondonBANHAM, R. (1968). “Revenge of the Picturesque: English architectural polemics, 1945-1965”, in

SUMMERSON, J. (ed.), Concerning Architecture: Essays on Architectural Writers and WritingPresented to Nikolaus Pevsner, London, pp. 265-73

BARKER, F. and HYDE, R. (1982). London as it Might Have Been, LondonBRADLEY, S. and PEVSNER, N. (1997). London 1: The City of London (The Buildings of England

series), LondonBRADLEY, S. (forthcoming). “The Precint and Setting of St Paul’s from the Nineteenth Century”,

in KEENE, D. (ed.), The History of St Paul’s Cathedral (provisional title)BUILDING DESIGN, (1995) 15 DecemberCHERRY, G. E. and PENNY, L. (1986). Holford: a study in architecture, planning and civic design,

LondonCORPORATION OF LONDON Improvements and Town Planning Committee (1944).

Reconstruction in the City of London, LondonCORPORATION OF LONDON (1994). Conservation Areas in the City of London, a General

Introduction to their Character, LondonThe Guildhall of the City of London, London, 1939 seventh ed.HEBBERT, M. (1998). London more by fortune than design, LondonHOLDEN, C. H. and HOLFORD, W. G. (1951). The City of London: a record of destruction and

survival, LondonHOLFORD, W. G. (1956). Report to the Court of Common Council of the Corporation of the City

of London on the Precincts of St Paul’s , LondonMARTIN, C. (1989), “Second Chance” Architectural Design, 59, 5-6, pp.6-15MURRAY, P. (1991). “Paternoster – post Holford” London Journal 16/2, pp. 129-39PATERNOSTER ASSOCIATES (1991). Paternoster Square. The Master Plan, London“Paternoster Square: A Discussion between Leon Krier and Charles Jencks” Architectural Design,

(1988) 58, 1-2, pp. VII-XIIIPENDLEBURY, J. (2001). “Alas Smith and Burns? Conservation in Newcastle upon Tyne city centre

1959-68” Planning Perspectives, 16, pp. 115-141PENDLEBURY, J. (2001a). “United Kingdom”, in PICKARD, R. (ed.), Policy and Law in Heritage

Conservation, London, pp. 289-313PORFYRIOU, H. (2002). “La legislazione relativa ai settori di salvaguardia in Inghilterra”, in

PORFYRIOU, H. (ed), Studi comparativi: 1. Metodi e strutture catalografiche europeenell’ambito dei beni architettonici e culturali; 2. La legislazione relativa ai settori disalvaguardia in Europa, Padova, pp. 161-197 and 254-261

SAVE the City: a conservation study of the City of London (1976). LondonROYAL ACADEMY OF ARTS (1942). London Replanned: The Royal Academy Planning Committee

Interim Report, LondonROYAL ACADEMY OF ARTS (1944). Road, Rail and River in London. The Royal Academy’s Second

Report, LondonTHORNE, R. (1991). “The Setting of St Paul’s Cathedral in the Twentieth Century” London

Journal

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NOTES

1 BARKER and HYDE (1982) pp. 50-22 ALLEN (1934); BRADLEY and PEVSNER (1997) p. 3433 ROYAL ACADEMY OF ARTS (1942); ROYAL ACADEMY OF ARTS (1944)4 CORPORATION OF LONDON (1944) p.125 THORNE (1991) pp. 123-66 For a full account see CHERRY and PENNY (1986) pp.160-97 For a better account on British conservation legislation see PORFYRIOU (2002); PENDLEBURY 2001a)8 CORPORATION OF LONDON (1994)9 MURRAY (1991) pp. 130-13210 MARTIN (1989); “Paternoster Square…” (1988)11 BUILDING DESIGN (1995)

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