HiredGun123
Well-known member
‘Great Monuments in places where people want to go’ Have a think about that. The Dorman Long Tower was a great monument and could have had a multitude of uses. I was speaking to a chap tonight who had secured arts funding for a huge projection by a well respected artist.. the project sounded fantastic and included archive footage of historical works involving the site and the works of Dorman Long. Redcar council were fully behind this and it was originally due to be installed March 2020 (covid meant this was delayed) this was one of many exciting projects involving the structure most of which had funding backed and secured. That will most likely go elsewhere now. It sounded very much like we could have had an industrial heritage/modern art building (similar to the Baltic but with a greater emphasis on industrial heritage and brutalist architecture) Pehaps this is where Ben Houchen is getting the £9m figure from? (it certainly wasn’t the cost of cleaning up a completely intact concrete box) This isn’t money that could go towards the NHS by the way, these are funds that go towards heritage and culture sites across the UK.. most likely these funds will be now be used instead to redecorate a private stately home and provide extra funding to well funded opera or ballet companies. Ben Houchen made the decision himself to have the building de-listed in order to gain favour with a certain crowd of conservatives MP and donors who will no doubt look after his future career interests. Brutalist Architecture is heavily steeped in socialist utopian ideology and stands the polar opposite to Conservative values, add into this the towers huge connection to a successful nationalised industry and an all powerful Teesside conurbation (which the Conservatives have fought to minimise, undermine, undervalue, re-name, split, cut, divide and conquer) and you have the tories number one target for destruction. De-listed by in the four hours by the new Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport in the first four hours of her tenure. Pretty busy morning with the introduction to her new job, tweeting thank yous to her old colleagues, visiting the natural history museum, taking photographs.. and really getting to grips with the architectural merits of a 1950’s concrete structure, the context of the heritage asset at the same time citing irrelevant internal aspects and it’s curtilage as reasons to de-list. She must have picked up her architectural acumen from that time she was on ‘I’m a celebrity get me out of here’ - it certainly reads that way.
Let’s be realistic. It was never going to be turned into an art museum. The Baltic in Newcastle is in a good location, just a nice stroll over the river.
The Dorman Long tower was well out of the way. Just an abandoned industrial building in the middle of nowhere. People should stop romanticising it.
Focus on building things for the future that have more use and access, not try to save some old useless sh1t tip in the middle of nowhere.