Tate Liverpool is currently closed for renovation and has temporarily moved across the dock to RIBA [the Royal Institute of British Architects] North at Mann Island. The photo exhibition, Wide Angle View, is well worth a visit, nevertheless. It’s based on the nine pamphlets that made up the Manplan series, dating from 1969/70, which investigated the relationship between modern architecture for residential areas and the impact it was having on social spaces for the people who lived there.
Those of us who have lived through the upheavals in our
inner cities that followed the post-war years in the 1960s, remember only too
well the impact those changes had on our urban landscapes. I suppose that my
overall conclusion would be that much that was of value was removed, that much
that replaced it was second-rate from a number of perspectives and that the
inhabitants were not always prioritised in the way that they should have been.
Awards for modern architects flowed, but in many cases, their flawed schemes
simply left problems for those who followed them to address.
The work of a series of urban street photographers from the time shows how bleak and depressing these grey, concrete urban landscapes sometimes became, while many communities were decimated, relocated and continued to struggle. The work that stood out for me was by Ian Berry. Much travelled, he made his reputation in South Africa recording politics and social strife, later moving to London where he photographed city life, including a number of railway-related scenes, like the overcrowded commuter train pictured here. Sadly, Ian Berry died just last Sunday, aged 92. I’m pleased to have caught up with this fraction of his work at such a poignant moment.
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