A Bold and Imposing Cliché

"A BOLD and imposing development will be 'wonderful' for Portelet's headland, according to the Environment Minister Freddie Cohen. One of Jersey's most beautiful bays is soon to be dominated by a large-scale scheme of 50 residential properties on the former Portelet Holiday Village site. Dandara, who got permission to build on the site more than two years ago, employed UK architect Sir Richard MacCormac to design the 45 flats and five houses." (JEP, 30.04.2008)

In fact, despite the blurb about "bold" and "imposing", the photo shows a very large set of buildings, which in no way blend any way with the scenery of Portelet, but stand out like a sore thumb. In fact, I can't find any pictures of anything designed by MacCormac in a rural coastal setting; all his stuff seems centered on cities and suburbs, which is hardly promising. Fine designs if you are building there, but not really suitable for a scenic Island coast.

It will certainly be "wonderful" for someone - Sir Richard, who will have another example of his buildings to lecture upon, Dandara, who appear to have managed to get this plan past Freddie by the captivating glamour of a big name in architecture, and Freddie, who will have made a name for himself in the record books with his planning decisions alongside the late John Le Sueur of St John, and his impressive attempts to enter the ranks of Private Eye's Pseud's Corner for jargon.

When words like "bold" and "imposing" are mentioned, I know I am entering clichéland, where the words are used for propaganda to bolster a counter-intuitive (and large-scale) style of architecture that clashes horribly with the granite surrounds of Portelet Bay. Whereas a nice granite facing might cost more, but would respect the Jersey coastline, and be in keeping with Jersey styles of architecture. Smaller scale buildings in Ouasne, for example, have had a requirement of granite facing to blend in with their surroundings, while up on a cliff-top, beneath a bay, in full sight from Noirmont, all these requirements have been waived.

Who said: "Planning - respecting Jersey's architecture. In recent years we have failed to respect Jersey's traditional architecture. We must ensure that our Island heritage is reflected in new buildings constructed. It costs no more to design and build well. "?

Methinks it was the last Cohen election manifesto.

Planning a Disaster Area

Reading the recent JEP, and having looked at the Waterfront "Masterplan", I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that planning in Jersey - once for those of us with old memories - called Island Beauties Committee - should be renamed the Ministry of Island Uglies. Freddie Cohen can join the ranks of the Ugly Ministers who have preceded him - Nigel Querree, who soon lost his Green credentials, and John Le Sueur. The only one not to "go native" was Norman Le Brocq, who produced the Island Plan, an excellent piece of work which his successors are dismantling piece by piece.

Points in case:

a) Swansons site - one of those charmless glass, steel and concrete very rise (7 stories) office developments, towering over and completely at odds with the style of the neighbouring buildings. As usual, safety considerations are neglected - try asking the fire service how to deal with a fire on 5th storey and rescue people above! I did a study of high-rise buildings and fire safety in a submission to the present Minister for Planning regarding the high residential buildings, and it was completely ignored. Equally, as an example of exemplary design, it is lego-pseudo-Corbusier, the kind of pot-boiler architecture that passes for office building these days, and completely bland and featureless.

b) The Waterfront "Masterplan", otherwise known as the Town Sump, because of its ability to drain water and prevent Gloucester Street from being flooded. A document replete with images of various pleasant architectural facades, often in classical styles, from around the world, and leafy avenues of trees, with the rhetoric that asks the question "Wouldn't it be nice if Jersey was like this?". Well, indeed it would! I would love to see a Stockholm style facade. But I fear from the available evidence that it will be the kind of functional building of glass, concrete and steel noted in the previous paragraph. The icing on the cake is the section of a far of St Helier plan from above, with the suggestion that Jersey - as an international finance centre - needs a Waterfront office centre commensurate with that status. And then compares this with the other major centres such as London, New York, etc. Delusions of grandeur! I think I might send Freddie Cohen a copy of E.F. Schumacher's "Small is Beautiful", inscribed with the message - "It is better than Big is Boastful". It is not so much a masterplan, as a way of planning a disaster area!

c) Portelet Holiday Camp site - the previous plans were passed, but then having one foot in the door, the developer flung in a bigger set of plans, and gave an artists impression from the air, to minimise the impact that it might have on the unsuspecting planning minister.

And one success story....

Nothing to do with Freddie Cohen. The planning meeting at St Aubin rejected wholeheartedly the idea of reclaiming land for car parking as a bad idea. One of the arguments I liked the best - we've looked across the bay and seen the Radisson Hotel as an example of what might be expected with land reclamation, and as far as we are concerned, that is the kind of distance we want to keep that kind of development! Thank goodness this was a Parish matter, settled by the Parish, and not by the Ministry of Island Uglification.