Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Haringey Hunts for £2bn Developer to Redevelop Main Council Buildings for Housing
According to architects' journal BD Online, Haringey Council is currently looking for a developer to jointly build 5,000 homes and redevelop more than 20 sites across the borough.
Among the sites up for grabs are the council’s main nine-storey office in Wood Green, where more than 300 people work, as well as Wood Green’s civic centre (pictured above) and library – which "will be moved elsewhere in the borough".
Other land included in the package is the Northumberland Park regeneration area in Tottenham, while it is also looking at bundling up other sites into the work including land behind Muswell Hill library and parts of Broadwater Farm in Tottenham.
It will be interesting to see how much affordable housing is included and what will happen to the facilities due to be "moved elsewhere".
Thanks to Robert Pike for the heads-up on this story.
Tags for Forum Posts: civic centre, haringey development vehicle, hdv
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Maddy on
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I was merely asking - where else in Haringey will the council site the facilities for civil weddings, which I presume they will still be obliged to provide for those who either wish to or are still obliged to be married in that way. Other councils seem to regard weddings etc. as something of a money spinner - Stoke Newington town hall has recently been revamped expressly to improve these kind of facilities.
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Permalink Reply by John D on
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And remember - my initial suggestion finished with a
to indicate that it was not to be taken too seriously. -
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Permalink Reply by Cllr Emina Ibrahim on
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I think it is an undervalued architectural gem personally, great example of brutalism. My parents, my sister and so many of my cousins married there. I have been to very few weddings in my life that have not been preceded by a trip to Wood Green Civic Centre or Islington Town Hall.
I think it is a shame when buildings are demolished when their style goes out of fashion.
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That's kind of irrelevant whether I could marry in a church or not it's whether one would want to bearing in mind I am of a different faith. Saying to someone it's not illegal for you to marry in a Church doesn't fill most with the excitement of their day. Registrars go anywhere now but the point is it's more expensive but even if it went there would be a replacement
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This is fascinating from - The Civic Plunge Revisited March 24th 2012 by John East and Nicola Rutt
Wood Green Civic Centre
Wood Green High Road - Sir John Brown, A.E. Henson and Partners - 1955-58
Built on the site of the Fishmongers and Poulterers’ Almshouses. Intended as a focus for Wood Green, but now rather isolated on the northern fringe of the later commercial centre. Only three municipal complexes began construction in the London area in the 1950s, Wood Green being one of them. The architects, Sir John Brown, A.E. Henson and Partners, had been the winners of a competition held by Wood Green Borough Council in 1938 for a different site. New proposals for the present site, drawn up in 1946 and revised in 1950, were for an ambitious scheme that included offices and a council chamber, a public hall and a library arranged in an informal courtyard grouping. Only the offices and council chamber were built, housed in a long four storey range with a raised single storey rear wing put up in 1955-58, of reinforced-concrete and steel-framed construction, clad in sand-faced golden brick and stone.
The treatment of the elevations is subtle and low key, with a full height aluminium-framed glazing and a projecting canopy marking the off-centre main entrance. The building is in distinct parts, the civic end containing the council chamber being separated from the office section by the full-height entrance hall that leads to the mayoral suite and committee rooms at the rear. However, these elements are allowed to flow into each other, for example where the gallery of the council chamber bows graciously into the hall, reflecting post-war ideals of approachability and openness; lightness and transparency are emphasised in the interior. Indeed, the new ideal for post-war local government buildings was ‘a more democratic civic centre which should attract rather than intimidate’. In practice this meant the rejection of grand facades in favour of simple, unaffected elevations. At Wood Green free movement is further encouraged by the bold helical stair, a sinuously curving first-floor bridge, and large areas of internal glazing. In all of this there are strong echoes of Arne Jacobsen and Eric Moller’s Aarhus City Hall (1938-41) in Denmark. The Council Chamber has an unusual, curved dog-leg ceiling and a public gallery carried on two enormous hollow columns that act as a boiler flue and plenum duct. The original furniture was removed in 1965, when the buildings were taken over by the London Borough of Haringey and the number of councillors dramatically increased. A civil defence suite was included in the basement, with walls of two-foot-thick reinforced concrete, theoretically able to withstand a nuclear attack, and escape tunnels to the external gardens.
Sir John Brown, A.E. Henson had made their reputation in the 1930s (in London they were responsible for designing Friern Barnet Town Hall – 1939-41) and went on to specialise in municipal buildings in the post war period, including Crawley Civic Centre which the Society saw in 2011.
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There is also a Civil Defence bunker in the grounds of Alexandra Palace.
I have a pic somewhere.
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Permalink Reply by Clive Carter on
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I understand it could house a couple of observers for a couple of days. It's still there on the northeastern side of the park: small, overgrown and probably collapsed inside.
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Permalink Reply by Hugh on
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Another civic space sell off this week - no surprises there, but it does add to an impression of a civic spaces fire sale. The times we live in, I guess.
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Permalink Reply by matthew cuthbert on
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Hmm, when I tap in Municipal, predictive text corrects that to Money Pile.
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Hmmm I think that's says more about what you have recently been googling Matthew then it does about the meaning of municipal ;-)
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Permalink Reply by Michael Anderson on
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Sadly, the family jewels are being sold off right across the country, as the Leader of Oxfordshire County Council pointed out in page five of a very interesting letter to a local MP, a Mr Cameron.
http://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/resources/files/35654
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