please empty your brain below
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Great news to see this terrible building demolished.
Mark | 24.04.19 - 7:08 a.m. | #
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I am a great fan of this building and will be sad to see it go, architecture is a very personal thing but I think that a few examples of all styles and trends should be preserved.
fishislandskin | 24.04.19 - 7:16 a.m. | #
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Great article!
Jon Jones | 24.04.19 - 7:19 a.m. | #
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Gosh, that new building is just shockingly bland, isn't it. To think, some people paid to design anonymous boxes like that. It has none of the character or distinctive appearance of the current building. The reasons for declining to list it are online here. What a shame to see it go.
dg writes: Link added, thanks.
Andrew | 24.04.19 - 8:25 a.m. | #
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Well I'm going to put up my hand and say I like the new building.
And I hate the car park, which doesn't have real diamonds anyway.
And I really hate the dirty black stain at lower right in the photo, which I guess is the entrance blackened from the exhausts of the cars queuing to get in.
Hurry up and knock it down.
Joho | Homepage | 24.04.19 - 8:47 a.m. | #
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Tricky. What use is a car park when you're trying to discourage people taking their cars to the West End? The split level layout would appear to make a sensible conversion difficult. And the bastardised proposal from the C20 Society is the worst of all worlds - it's hideous. I am surprised that there's no echo of the current building in the new one though.
I have a strange relationship with this type of design. I find them fascinating while being a blot on the landscape 85% of the time. This is part of the 85% for me.
Ned | 24.04.19 - 9:04 a.m. | #
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No VAT on new build either.
Still Anon | 24.04.19 - 9:14 a.m. | #
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It's a shame they couldn't have somehow converted the old car park by glazing over the gaps in the diamonds and then turning the interior into a hotel..
Adrian | 24.04.19 - 9:21 a.m. | #
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I guess light matters to hotel guests. Transformation into a prison would have been worth considering.
Next time build hotel above the car park. Like in Marina City Chicago.
International Reader | 24.04.19 - 9:40 a.m. | #
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The car park lasted 49 years. I very much doubt the hotel will last even half that time, so consider it as temporary and hope for something a bit more imaginative next time round.
Jonathan Wadman | 24.04.19 - 11:02 a.m. | #
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...another hotel? ...won't vistor numbers be down in the coming years? ...won't air-travel become unsustainable in the coming decades? what about affordable housing? ...ideal location for a conversation into micro appartments for the growing number of singletons in the future in a area close to employment opportunies.
Grumpy Anon | 24.04.19 - 11:21 a.m. | #
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Sad they are demolishing it. Have loads of photographs and keeping up with the happenings. Locals staged a photography exhibition extolling the building's virtues (the contractors soon tore this down.) Will do a post once they start demolishing it. They started removing all the historic signs a couple of weeks ago. The new building will of course give Crossrail - when it opens a boost with its direct connection to Heathrow.
Rog | Homepage | 24.04.19 - 11:26 a.m. | #
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A Euston Arch for this generation. It'll be missed when it's gone.
Philip | 24.04.19 - 12:14 p.m. | #
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Pop Art? Really? Can't see any soup tins. It's just a geometric pattern.
I often like modern architectural styles (including brutalist) but this doesn't really have anything about it worth keeping even if it's being replaced by the usual anonymous, bland.
Vic Flange | 24.04.19 - 12:54 p.m. | #
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I'll miss it - it has a real presence despite a back street site. Car parks have very much joined 1960s offices as the developers' demolition target of choice! If I remember correctly the car park, Debenhams, and the buildings to the east of the car park (which include Debenhams' service yard entrance, as unusually the main store has 'front' facades on all four sides) are all joined by tunnels.
David | 24.04.19 - 1:26 p.m. | #
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I'm joining the group of commenters who are sad to see this go, hand't realised the demolition was happening quite this soon. Thanks for the warning DG.
Lux | 24.04.19 - 1:46 p.m. | #
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Imagine all the energy used to construct it. Imagine all the energy used in demolition. And of course all the energy to be used in the construction of what replaces it. All those vehicle movements. All those raw materials being processed. And what say of any new buildings being forced to comply with enhanced "green credentials"...it power usage/self-generation, rain-water capture/usage, solar panels, wind turbines, green space commitments, etc.
E | 24.04.19 - 2:38 p.m. | #
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Having walked past the car park hundreds of times, I can't say I'll miss it or the "retail units" underneath. The redevelopment of the nearby Pontefract Castle pub was far more of a loss to the area
The new hotel is dull I'd admit, but of more use to the area. Right next to Bond Street station too, so perfect for visitors who can go straight there from Heathrow on Crossrail.
Mikey C | 24.04.19 - 2:55 p.m. | #
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Sad to see this go because in my early work days as a draughtsman I produced the detail and reinforcement drawings for the 'diamond' precast units. The building looked great when completed but as with many exposed concrete structures has not weathered well. The replacement looks ok, on paper!
mikeH | 24.04.19 - 4:55 p.m. | #
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I always enjoyed coming across this building tucked away in the backstreets. Still, 49 years isn't too bad.
Suse | 24.04.19 - 5:29 p.m. | #
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Gosh... the full range of comments today, from 'I love it' to 'I hate it' via 'I helped build it'.
diamond geezer | Homepage | 24.04.19 - 5:37 p.m. | #
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Add one to the "past it's use by date..I won't miss it" tally.
Replacement is dull dull dull though.
Frank F | 24.04.19 - 5:56 p.m. | #
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You can tally me for I hate it
Thomas | 24.04.19 - 6:04 p.m. | #
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As you say DG, this is just another example of the increasing gentrification of the area.
The Marylebone Village development has replaced what was one of my favourite parts of old London. This was the delightful mixed bag of small shops including a rather good family-run Italian Restaurant / Cafe that used to be in Marylebone Lane. These have now been turned into upmarket designer retail opportunity developments, for just the sort of clientele that this new hotel is aimed at.
On the plus side however, many of the old buildings have been retained although their street frontages have been remodelled. And at least the area has not yet fallen foul of the skyscraper mania that has affected so much of London development in recent years, so perhaps we should be grateful for such small mercies.
IanD | 24.04.19 - 8:43 p.m. | #
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I liked it.
The facade reminds me of the interesting shapes in old gas fires, like this
Bob L-S | 24.04.19 - 10:18 p.m. | #
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There are often comments when modern buildings are discussed, about how we don’t build things to last anymore. What’s most impressive about Welbeck Street is that it quietly did it’s job for almost 50 years, and could likely have clocked up another half-century if left undisturbed.
Personally I’m interested in this type of architecture, and really do find this building fascinating. It’s not for everyone, I understand. The tragedy is that the replacement building doesn’t really seem to be for *anyone*
Mike Newman | Homepage | 25.04.19 - 7:03 a.m. | #
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Well I'm really sad that it is going to be demolished. I'm sure there are plenty of architects who could have come up with ways of converting this into something really exciting instead of a bland hotel which will only cater for the super rich.
ganching | Homepage | 25.04.19 - 7:50 p.m. | #
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"Imagine being the kind of planning weasel who writes this kind of thing, let alone believes it." Classic DG, absolutely classic.
Jim Brettell | 25.04.19 - 9:51 p.m. | #
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It's a pity the developers weren't forced to re-use the concrete facade on a new hotel structure.. That would have been ideal. London, as ever, is the capital of nasty throw-away architecture.
IsarSteve | Homepage | 26.04.19 - 3:34 p.m. | #
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Sad to see it go, have paid a few visits over the last few years to take photographs of the car park. Appreciate this style is not everyone's cup of tea, but the replacement is yet another bland glass box - at least they could have done something distinctive. As the poem on the hoarding said, "You were once the future, welcome to the past".
Ian Callaghan | Homepage | 26.04.19 - 10:46 p.m. | #
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1 week later... scaffolding all around.
https://twitter.com/hughpearman/status/1123567254384386048
diamond geezer | Homepage | 01.05.19 - 2:47 p.m. | #
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