On Spiegelhalters (4)

Richard Waite's article about the Save Spiegelhalter's campaign appeared last week on the website of the Architects Journal and is reproduced in full below with their kind permission. Copyright www.architectsjournal.co.uk

Photograph by Catherine Croft (November 2014)

Architects Journal  15 JANUARY, 2015  

BY RICHARD WAITE

The architect behind plans to flatten a ‘tatty shop front’, described by Ian Nairn as ‘one of the best visual jokes in London’, has hit back at critics of the proposals.

Buckley Gray Yeoman wants to pull down the remains of Spiegelhalter’s jewellers shop – a ‘holdout unit’ which splits the two Neoclassical wings of the former Wickhams department store in Mile End Road – as part of a new office-led redevelopment.

The Wickhams built the shop in the 1920s in the expectation that the Spiegelhalter family business of clockmakers would eventually sell up. But the Spiegelhalters refused, leaving the ‘plucky little structure’ as a ‘powerful and evocative symbol of East End indomitability’ for almost a century.

Now the Victorian Society and the Twentieth Century Society are urging the public to sign a petition urging Tower Hamlets Council to locally list the building and halt Resolution Properties’ plans for the site.

But Matt Yeoman of Buckley Gray Yeoman has defended the scheme, saying that the two ‘sculptural shards that would replace the two-storey shop front, creating a new entrance, would pay homage to the Spiegelhalters’ resistance.

He told the AJ: ‘The Spiegelhalter story is absolutely key to our design. We have totally embraced that David and Goliath stance which the building represents.

‘We want that void to be at the heart of our development. With this Cor-ten artwork we can be slightly more sophisticated in telling this story.’

He added: ‘Of course, the counterargument is that there is no better symbol of this battle than keeping the existing building. But we say it can be commemorated in a contemporary way.

‘And frankly there is nothing left of that building other than its front wall and four openings. It is empty behind – you wouldn’t necessarily know that from the street.’   

More than 1,300 people have already signed the petition against the scheme, which includes a 1,500m² extension on top of the existing 9,300m² block.

Victorian Society conservation adviser Sarah Caradec said: ‘Spiegelhalter’s is not in itself the most architecturally important building. However, in its context it is not only amusing but it tells an important story about Whitechapel’s development.

‘Tower Hamlets should add Spiegelhalter’s to its local list, and do everything in its power to ensure that this building continues to tell its story to future generations.’

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Spread the word - SAVE SPIEGELHALTERS!