{"id":24914,"date":"2019-12-26T16:03:42","date_gmt":"2019-12-26T16:03:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ihbconline.co.uk\/newsachive\/?p=24914"},"modified":"2019-12-24T17:13:58","modified_gmt":"2019-12-24T17:13:58","slug":"how-a-camden-town-sainsburys-became-grade-ii-listed-it-was-very-very-controversial-a-detailed-history-from-the-new-statesman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/?p=24914","title":{"rendered":"How a Camden Town Sainsbury\u2019s became Grade II listed: \u2018It was very, very controversial\u2019 \u2013 a detailed history from the New Statesman"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"In July, Sainsbury\u2019s Camden Town superstore \u2013 a key example of High-Tech architecture \u2013 became the first purpose-built supermarket to be listed by Historic England, and the New Statesman<\/em> offers an uncommonly detailed and holistic take on the process.<\/h3>\n

<\/p>\n

New Statesman<\/em> writes:<\/p>\n

On a recent drizzly Tuesday, the Sainsbury\u2019s Superstore in Camden Town was doing a bustling trade. A man in a tweed flat cap bought a copy of the Daily Mail<\/em> and considered, before rejecting, a \u00a31.75 punnet of British strawberries. A young man in Nike trainers queued for cigarettes, greeting another customer with a nod. A man in a burgundy jumper and beige cord suit carried a lone butternut squash in his basket. Little was out of the ordinary, except, perhaps the man carrying a large suitcase, who bought 12 jumbo packs of antibacterial wipes.<\/p>\n

Yet this Sainsbury\u2019s is unique. On 19 July 2019, it became the first purpose-built supermarket to be listed by Historic England, which gave it Grade II status. Designed and built between 1986 and 1988 by Nicholas Grimshaw and Partners, it was praised by the listing report as a key example of High-Tech architecture, a style pioneered by Grimshaw, alongside firms such as Fosters and Rogers, which favours grainless modernity \u2013 all aluminium panels, smooth steel columns and interchangeability; mezzanines that can be adjusted, or cladding that can be moved around to reposition windows. The report called the Sainsbury\u2019s \u2018a rare example of the important but typically mundane post-war building type, the supermarket, being designed as a highly original, bespoke piece of architecture; a project made possible by the ambition of the architects, the client and the local authority.\u2019 On this particular Tuesday, a blonde lady stood in the cold meats section. She shopped here quite a lot, she told me. She had \u2018no idea\u2019 about the listing, she said, surveying some prosciutto, before glancing briefly at the arched steel roof.<\/p>\n

Neven Sidor was the lead architect on the project. It was, he tells me over the telephone, \u2018one of the most stressful periods in my life.\u2019 Grimshaw, who have since built the Eden Project in Cornwall and The National Space Centre in Leicester, were at the time a small office of about fifteen people. Only seven worked on this project, which was tricky, Sidor explains, as the supermarket was part of a broader complex featuring two other buildings, of all which Grimshaw\u2019s team were tasked with designing \u2013 one is a set of workshop spaces, sat high above basement parking, which face onto Kentish Town Road; the other is a row of terraced housing facing the Regent\u2019s Canal. \u2018We don\u2019t do easy projects. We only do really difficult projects, that are only just possible,\u2019 says Sidor. \u2018There was this huge pressure from Sainsbury\u2019s to be open by Christmas.\u2019<\/p>\n

While architecture fans may notice the striking silver facade, most passing Londoners are more likely to notice how unusual it is to have such a large supermarket in this bustling location, just a minute or so from Camden Town tube station and the market, with all its excitable tourists and sullen teenage goths\u2026.<\/p>\n

\u2026 the supermarket looms large in the UK imagination \u2013 a hub for gossiping, congregating, judging and flirting. A place where someone keeps an eye on your nan as she pops in on her errands. A place where teenage couples share a first kiss against the romantic backdrop of a \u20183 for 2\u2019 offer. In Pulp\u2019s Common People, the education into the life of the everyman begins, of course, here: \u2018I took her to a supermarket, I don\u2019t know why, But I had to start it somewhere.\u2019<\/p>\n

At the Camden Sainsbury\u2019s, large windows allow passers-by to glance inside, and survey shoppers lapping the aisles. If you\u2019re approaching from the canal, the set of silver houses block the view of lorries entering and leaving. \u2018It looks like a spaceship has landed on the canal,\u2019 says Deborah Mays, Head of Listing Advice at Historic England\u2026.<\/p>\n

\u2026 Late in 2018, The Twentieth Century Society, a group which campaign to safeguard post-1914 design and architecture, received a tip off\u2026 that a planning application had been put in to redevelop Grand Union House. By January of 2019, the society\u2019s caseworker Grace Etherington had commissioned a full report\u2026.<\/p>\n

…She asked that Historic England list all the buildings together, as one complex, as they were designed. \u201cThe multiple usage thing was very pioneering at the time,\u201d Etherington says.<\/p>\n

\u2026 \u2018If people aren\u2019t aware of how ambitious these buildings are then it\u2019s hard to get them to act in a sensitive way,\u2019 she explains\u2026.<\/p>\n

Around 300-400 buildings are listed by Historic England each year (this doesn\u2019t include war memorials, which would increase the number exponentially). It\u2019s hardly surprising that, until now, a supermarket hasn\u2019t made the cut\u2026<\/p>\n

\u2026 While Grimshaw\u2019s Sainsbury\u2019s is now listed, it is, as Mays say, not frozen. The move protects the building, but doesn\u2019t automatically guarantee it will keep its purpose. Some hungry developer, down the line, may think it could make a great delivery depot, or Amazon pick-up centre, or some hyped-up co-working space. A total change would be a shame, says Sidor; \u2018People talk about how the next decade isn\u2019t going to be about goods but experience \u2013 maybe Sainsbury\u2019s could reconfigure it to a new pattern of trading.\u2019 It could make a good gym, muses Etherington. Or office space, offers her colleague Croft, though she hopes not. \u2018I hope it remains a supermarket for as long as possible,\u2019 she said. \u2018Not least as manifest evidence that not all supermarkets need be architecturally uninspired.\u2019<\/p>\n

Read more….<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In July, Sainsbury\u2019s Camden Town superstore \u2013 a key example of High-Tech architecture \u2013 became the first purpose-built supermarket to be listed by Historic England, and the New Statesman offers an uncommonly detailed and holistic take on the process.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24914","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sector-newsblog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24914","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24914"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24914\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24916,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24914\/revisions\/24916"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsblogs.ihbc.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}