Re Simon Jenkins’ excellent article on listing (Yes, rebuild the Crooked House brick by brick – and buttress local planning, too, 14 August), yes, the pub should be rebuilt – perhaps calling in a deconstructivist architect such as Daniel Libeskind, who specialises in sloping floors, out-leaning walls and overhanging eaves.
As for listing, perhaps it would make sense to reverse the entire system. Instead of listings being the odd exception among the unlisted, why not begin by listing everything, so that every development proposal would have to begin by unlisting whatever is on the proposed site? Sure, that would make a lot of casework, but it is pretty much what happens in every conservation area. And there are regions such as national parks where entire counties are in effect conservation areas.
Given scarce resources and green imperatives, it is arguable that the onus should be to prove the real necessity of any development that seeks to demolish existing buildings.
Similarly, architecture should move towards presuming its primary activity not as invention but as interpretive reiteration.
Brian Hatton
London
• Simon Jenkins is absolutely right: the Crooked House must be rebuilt. And all the other architectural treasures turned into dust by “developers” too. But when Scarborough’s seafront Futurist Theatre – at 2,000 seats, considered a wonderful asset by Ken Dodd, who’d played a few – was consigned to the wrecker’s ball, its interior plundered and sold on to other redevelopment projects backed by councils with guts and vision, we didn’t see much support.
In its place now stands a pathetic copy of the London Eye, surrounded by fibreglass pirates and a plastic shark. The view from the top offers less than a free walk to the gardens above. Progress, eh? We could’ve done better with some support from you people.
Mat Watkinson
Scarborough, North Yorkshire
• Rebuilding the Crooked House would be complicated but perfectly possible. The original part is quite small – just the leaning front range. The original bricks are onsite and need protecting. It would be a wonderful challenge for conservation architects and craftsmen, especially bricklayers, but the skills exist and it ought to be done. It would not be a replica, but a recreation of a building central to the identity and history of the Black Country. It would cost money of course. Andy Street, the mayor of West Midlands, has called for it to be done. Will he help fund it?
Andy Foster
Birmingham
• The news that Hamish Ogston’s donation will enable the training of a new generation of specialists to protect at-risk buildings (UK philanthropist gives almost £29m to heritage skills training, 10 August) is most welcome.
Far from just being about preserving old buildings and monuments, the vitalness of this work is in what we can learn from history, both as individuals and as a society. The challenges that our ancestors faced in getting work, and the battles they fought to access knowledge, better living conditions and education are ones we should all take notice of. As the Canadian author and philosopher Matshona Dhliwayo said: “It is in the roots, not the branches, that a tree’s greatest strength lies.”
Matthew Smith
Sheffield
• Have an opinion on anything you’ve read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our letters section.
