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Detonator
In August 2004, George Ferguson, then president of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) came up with a radical idea of the X-list. To combat the blight that some bad buildings caused to their local community, George proposed that these buildings should be X-listed in order to speed up their demolition.
In response to this, Channel 4 and RIBA launched a joint initiative. They asked Channel 4 viewers to vote for Britain’s worst building. Over 10,000 people voted. They nominated every type of building from palaces to public loos and from piers to power stations, including many 1960s concrete towers. This list of over 100 buildings forms the basis of the Demolition series.
Following this display of interest and strong feeling, there is now the chance for viewers to vote on:
- whether an X-list is a good idea or not
- whether or not a petition should be put to the Government asking it to introduce planning and financial incentives to encourage owners of X-listed buildings to fast track them to demolition.
This X-listing process will need built-in safeguards to prevent mistakes of the past being repeated. Buildings that were once fashionable can fall out of favour and then become popular again. Nor should it be used to condemn modern buildings which may be ahead of their time or be used as a witch-hunt against a particular style.
As well as the public’s nominations, the process of X-listing a building would include a panel of experts and near unanimous agreement would be required from the public, architects and historians for a building to be X-listed.
As a final safeguard, X-listing should be flexible enough to accommodate radical remodelling of a building as an alternative to the ultimate sanction of demolition.
Petition
Here's your chance to change the built environment. Follow this link to add your name to the petition to persuade the Government to take up the challenge of getting rid of bad buildings and making way for excellent contemporary architecture.
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