One Park West-Voted One Park Worst by the public.

PR Stunt backfires big time. Think Publicity have not paid attention to the details and realised that this was going to show the whole North West what a sad carbuncle of a building it is, even stimulating nominations for other carbuncles.
They even showed the other Carbuncle Cup nomination, the Ferry Terminal and one of the interviewees declared that big white thing out of keeping which was the new egg-box museum.
IF THIS IS LIVERPOOL'S NEW TOMORROW, OUR NEW DAWN Then I for one am sleeping in.
It went down like a sinking ship all who were interviewed on BBC give it a downer.
Except MARTIN WATSON from Brock Carmicheal, the "helper" to Cesar Pelli the pretentious and arrogant architect. He said
"It is very cool and very confident".
When asked about it being a carbuncle he said "Well, I mean that's personal opinion" Just, who do these architect people think they are as if because they have turned up to to college, whether they learnt anything or not, their opinion is right and others are wrong and here he was standing in front of a carbuncle with the whole of BBC North West laughing at him. I wouldn't have shown my face, never mind admitted to being involved in this, what is now being described as in the shape of a boat. The PR firm should be re-named Not Thinking Publicity because if a boat was this shape it would be upside down.......are they mad?
Ed Hall from BBC said "People are saying you have got a world heritage site, and The Three Graces of Liverpool and questioning if that should be next to them"
"I think it should" I fell off the chair laughing at the barefaced cheek of the guy masquerading as if he understood architecture behaving like a confidence trickster, pretending he knew what he was on about, he went on, "I think it is a well justified this design", I couldn't bear it I was doubled up and still there was more, "I think what it provides is a backdrop to the World Heritage Site and does not compete with anything on the WHS its all about city scale, rhythm, and texture on the facade".
No Mr Watson you have given us a dog and I wouldn't go around admitting it if I was you. In my opinion Mr Watson if you are a qualified architect and did in fact contribute to this eyesore you should be struck off for crimes to the architectural profession.

So they sent Richard Down out to cover it on behalf of the PR company the Daily Ghost writer. How come he gets all the PR stunt jobs. Dickie who recently said when I called him Richard Downer. "Great play on my surname by the way. Right up there with Eryl Roberts who first latched on to its comic possiblities in Penycae pre school".
Obviously his wet nurse nanny didn't teach him to be so outrageous it just comes naturally. Here is Dickie Downers piece. http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/liverpool-news/regional-news/2009/08/20/hundreds-hug-grosvenor-s-underfire-flagship-apartment-block-one-park-west-92534-24486226/
Oh and here is a Correspondents, I know who was the true writer present.
http://condensedthoughts.blogspot.com/2009/08/hugs-from-mugs.html

One Park West The Balloons Arrive for a Group Hug.

IS THIS A DESPERATE PR STUNT?

Todays Architects Journal carries a headline
Beauty or Beast: Cesar Pelli's One Park West Liverpool
18 August, 2009 By Richard Waite

The huggers want to show that, despite the recent nomination for an architectural wooden spoon and for generally ‘getting it in the neck’, there are people who still care for the 326-apartment, boat-shaped block. So who’s right?
BEAUTY
Speaking about the scheme, Pelli said he wanted to ‘to create a modern, striking building, a memorable place to live, with exceptional view of a wonderful waterfront and park’. Meanwhile Guy Butler, senior development manager at project backer Grosvenor, described the prowed block as a ‘building design which has really stuck its head above the parapet and has, without a doubt, vastly improved an area of our city centre which was formerly wasteland.’
BEAST
David Dunster from the Liverpool School of Architecture said it boasts ‘one of the nastiest looking pieces of standard office glazing since Britain was bombed by the Luftwaffe; and cheap.’ He added: ‘The prow can only be a ghastly reference to Liverpool’s maritime past and conclusive evidence that all architects should be banned from the use of metaphor, simile or metonymy in the next 100 years at least.’

http://www.architectsjournal.co.uk/news/daily-news/beauty-or-beast-cesar-pellis-one-park-west-liverpool/5206890.article


Also Building design run a story too http://www.bdonline.co.uk/story.asp?storycode=3147077&origin=BDdaily

So the PR company seem to be earning their fees and most of the crowd seem to be made up by them and Grosvenor staff. They even tried to get the BBC reporter to wear a badge. "I cant do that he said I work for the BBC.
Then they brought one of the blokes who said he worked with Cesar Pelli.....with a megaphone to direct the 50 people. They had been hoping for 150. I think they did well to get that many people as the six who were not getting paid to be there.

Councillor Miller with his new found friends, schoolkids bussed in for the occasion to make up the numbers. His letter in yesterdays Daily Ghost.
A negative few
DESIGNED by Cesar Pelli and stabbed in the back by a small group of internet surfers on a website, One Park West is bold, modern, thought-provoking and in the right place and definitely at the right time.
Liverpool One is up for the Stirling Prize by the same website, yet one of its iconic buildings is being lambasted by the negative and disgruntled few.
The Pier Head Ferry Terminal has also been drawn into the same nonsense. I personally love its positioning, style and seamless linking of old and new, including its proximity to the Three Graces, the new canal link and the fabulous new museum.
Liverpool is an amazing world- class city and we should all congratulate Merseytravel for their bold new Ferry Terminal and Grosvenor for transforming the city centre. They helped create almost 5,000 new jobs, while bringing iconic retail outlets, a fabulous new Hilton Hotel, a stunning new Chavasse Park and, of course, a great place to set up home in the bold design, that is One Park West.
Cllr Gary Millar, Executive Member for Enterprise and Tourism, Liverpool City Council
Not quite sure who stabbed the building in the back Mr Miller who asked me did I want a badge, I declined.

Well it has been said that the standard of this piece of, well if you could call it architecture is more suitable for the preferences of a 10 year old.

http://condensedthoughts.blogspot.com/2009/08/tree-huggers-sue-for-copyright.html
Paid for by Grosvenor they rolled them out at Park West Worst for this desperate PR stunt. A colleague of mine went on facebook to check out how its all going and the organiser of it is http://en-gb.facebook.com/jvolpfletcher. She works for a PR company called ThinkPublicity http://www.thinkpublicity.co.uk/ and guess what (if you can stand the annoying website) their clients are Trinity Mirrors Group, Grosvenor and they launched the One Park Worst opening evening. They say they launched LDP the Liverpool Daily Post Business Club.....they say at the launch for Liverpool.com and they are pleased to be associated with Trinity Mirror.

They also have as clients Negresco and a couple of other Guttman enterprises who seem to always go bust and recently went bang and caused outrage when the same owners opened up the same week further down the same road in Lark Lane.

http://www.liverpoolconfidential.com/index.asp?Sessionx=IpqiNwEiKaqjJWAqNwB6IaqiNwA

WHAT A DESPERATE ACT BUT I LEAVE IT WITH ONE FINAL COMMENT LEFT OF FACEBOOK.

Nick Wensley (Liverpool) wrote at 12:07
I'm in work then too... Do they not understand our great home is supposed to look like a ship? Explaining that would make all the confusion and bad feeling evaporate i'm sure!

followed by another comment

This building is supposed to look like a ship ? The Titanic comes to mind. No bad feelings or confusion, it is truly awful and should sink without trace. Are there enough lifeboats ?

Liverpool One, by David Littlefield.

I was asked to review this book for Building Design magazine. Not surprising the author has taken it badly.
And that was the edited version.
HIS COMMENTS WERE LEFT ON THE BD WEBSITE.
http://www.bdonline.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=723&storycode=3143733
29 June, 2009
Reviewed by Wayne Colquhoun, chairman and spokesperson of the Liverpool Preservation Trust
Written in the euphoria of the opening of Liverpool One, a shopping centre that opened, ironically, just as we hit the worst retail recession for 80 years. All those moody shots of… shop fronts and escalators.
Liverpool One by David Littlefield.It says everything one would expect it to. It was funded and published by Grosvenor. It tells the story as they want it to be told.
But it fails to address questions like how much Grosvenor paid for the a third of Liverpool city centre. The people put out of business who lost their livelihoods don’t have a say, it just waxes lyrical, and it’s all from the developer’s point of view.
I am not sure who would buy such a book that at times is factually incorrect, especially the section about the Cesar Pelli monolith on Chavasse Park, in the World Heritage Site buffer zone, which was 12 storeys on the masterplan and increased to 17.
I had to navigate the city being dug up for years to get more choice for shirts, and now Grosvenor-pool has opened I still can’t find a decent one.
It praises the architects, the council, the duke, and the people who worked there. Anyone would think they had built Rome.
In reality it is not brilliant architecture. They knocked down The sixties Moat House and Steers House (two hated buildings) and built blocks in the same style, only 12 storeys higher. All the architectural critics have now had their say, but as the dust settles this is a book about a shopping centre, an open roofed Trafford Park in the City. Yippeee!

COMMENTS BY David Littlefield 3 July, 2009
As the author of the book, it's clearly not up to me to say whether it's any good or not. But (equally clearly) Mr Colquhoun doesn't like the Liverpool One development, which is entirely predictable, bearing in mind his role at the local preservation trust. However, his view of the book is jaundiced by his view of the development itself. Rather than waxing lyrical, the book contains some material that makes uncomfortable reading for Grosvenor, as the project didn't go entirely according to plan. Grosvenor has been honest about things which most private firms would not make public. Also, Grosvenor did not publish the book - Wiley did, and they are certainly not in the business of publishing the sort of puffery Mr Colquhoun suggests it is. As for the question of how much Grosvenor paid the city council for the site - the answer is in the book (it's a percentage of rental income). As for the Duke, he gets 2 or 3 brief mentions in a book of 40,000 words. Mr Colquhoun hasn't reviewed this book - he's used it as an opportunity to criticise the project itself. I would hope that most readers would find a far greater degree of objectivity in this book than he suggests.

He has been paid for it (by Grosvenor or the publishers) so he's alright I suppose. I just cant understand why anyone would want a book about a shopping centre.......and not a very good one at that. I have to say that I love modern design and all this critisizm about not being able to judge modernism is really silly. Bad or boring architecture is the same no matter what style or era it is. The secret is being able to see that and not be persuaded by a load of press pack tosh. Talking of which here is the Daily Ghost review.
http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/ldpbusiness/business-local/2009/06/15/liverpool-one-becomes-the-subject-of-a-new-book-charting-its-rise-to-glory-92534-23879020/

WHAT ANNOYS ME IS THAT HE, BEING PAID BY GROSVENOR HAS PROPEGATED UNTRUTHS ABOUT THE CESAR PELLI BUILDING ON CHAVASSE PARK. Yes he says it is not universaly liked (a understatement). BUT HE WRONGLY CLAIMS THAT THE BUILDING WAS REDUCED FROM 20 TO 17. THIS IS RUBBISH. The building was 12 Storeys on the master plan and the greedy Grosvenor wacked the height up to 20 so they got 17. I know this because I was there at the planning meeting. This has now backfired on them. At the present moment in time 56 out of 346 flats are occupied. http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2009/06/rod-holmes-came-in-my-shop-today.html

I was about to limber up to tackle the need to understand how we opened a retail therapy palace at the start of the worst recession for 80 years but I think a nice byline is the take on the subject by Correspondent who says it well.
http://condensedthoughts.blogspot.com/2009/07/merseyside-recession-free-zone.html

Old Customs Die Hard.

Here is an old photo looking from within the Colonades of the Old Customs House which was demolished in the 50s to give people work (it would have been as easy to rebuild it) this is one of the biggest disasters to Liverpools Architecture.
But look at the same view and what the current bunch are doing right under the noses of Unesco who are a complete waste of time.
We have recently been advised that the sum of £135,000 comes from the UK government and their total budget is £2,000,000. There is no wonder they will not complain. The DCMS are assisting in running it as a member state of UNESCO.
You may note the New Liverpool, the Milton Keynes-On-Sea is not quite of the same quality as the old where we had Quality Architects such as Lutyens, Shaw, and Gilbert Scott working here.
This is the corner of Chavasse Park and the god'am awful Cesar Pelli monstrosity on the corner of Grosvenor-pool. In the background is the New Museum inspired by a design by ....Manweb and the Three Ugly Sisters next to our Three Graces, which are just about to be clad in stick a brick black Granite. It is going to hit home soon just what the lunatics who have taken over the asylum have done.






It is a crying shame.
We know you have to move on but this is going backwards.
Liverpool had a blank canvass on which to paint a new picture and it seems we have turned away from Palladio and got into Puff Daddio.

Jonathon Glancey touches on the subject in BD Magazine.

http://www.bdonline.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=427&storycode=3142110&channel=783&c=2&encCode=00000000019a7d9e
Phil Redmond the Chair of NML replacing Loyd Grossman, who was allegedly "grassed up" to the DCMS by David "Fuzzy Felt" Fleming. Dr Redmond who coined the phrase "Scouse Wedding" well he nicked it from one of the local writers recently said to me looking over from the Albert Dock to the New Liverpool "At least they will fall down in 50 years, and wont be around after that".
"Yes in the meantime I have to look at them, thats no good to me." I replied.
Some attitude that from the master of spin whose wife is also a trustee of NML.
I don't think there are many Scouse Weddings in the leafy Cheshire Village of Utkington where he is now Lord of the Manor.
The City has been binge-building and now we are soon gonna wake up and have one hell of a hangover.

LIVERPOOL TURNS INTO A GIANT EMPTY FLAT

Councillor Mumby is out in force...is there an election coming up.

We have to say that he has supported some of the worst designed schemes in the history of Liverpool. The city council have two rules accept the plans.....and pass, and instead of fighting against bad architecture Councillors become part of that rubber stamping process. It takes educated debate to regenerate a city. Liverpool's City area has lost its style and its essence of what Liverpool was. It may never recover.

http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/liverpool-news/regional-news/2009/03/31/how-liverpool-is-faring-in-the-battle-to-fill-the-city-centre-s-empty-flats-92534-23270598/

GAZUMPING, GAZUNDERING…NOW ITS RENAGE-ING

Well Its all going belly up for Grosvenor-pools new luxury apartments ONE PARK GONE WEST on Chavasse Lawn at the World Heritage Site.
Liverpool's new eyesore.
Grosvenor’s agents said that 146 had been sold. By sold they meant they had taken a couple of hundred pounds deposit.
Our agents tell us otherwise.
Five Completions…yes Five. Well would you having agreed to a price of say £150,000 pay up, can you get a mortgage, when its worth 30% less.
So they have now put a housing association up to letting the space.
We did tell them at the planning committee meeting that the master-plan said 12 storeys and they greedily went for 17.

David "am I bovvered" Irving sitting in for Doreen Jones as Chairman because she knew the applicant..What. Where does she live? Is it that she and Trevor live on the Grosvenor estate in Pulford?
They promised us world class architecture..a Cesar Pelli and we got a Cesar Salad…and a empty one at that.