2009-07-07
In Praise Of Highwalks
(This post is about the City of London Highwalks. You might want to check the introductory post for a list of related stories.)
One of the things that prompted me to finally start writing at the highwalks was a post I’ve already commented on here; oobject’s Nine Reasons The High Line Sucks. I ignored the final section:
Like the Highline, the Barbican Center in London created a pedestrianized zone one level above the street. It has become a sad and lonely place and people still use the street level underpass which is hostile to pedestrians.
Thankfully, I never even had to write a defence of my own. Will Wiles posted in praise Of Beech Street:
Like most of Oobject’s baffling complaint about the Highline, this attack on Beech Street is stunningly wrongheaded. The Highwalk gets plenty of use and is anything but a “sad and lonely” place.
He goes on to point out that, while the designers of the Barbican evidently intended pedestrian traffic should be on the highwalk level, Beech Street itself is remarkably nice for a traffic-dominated underpass. (In fact, I’d rather use it than some of London’s 1960s pedestrian subways, which are themselves far less pleasant than most highwalks.)
The argument is further expanded on by Owen Hatherley in his post, Brutalism, friend of the Pedestrian:
Rather than the idealised main street bafflingly turned into a model for all to follow, the Brutalist city of skywalks, under and overpasses and lakeside cafes makes the mundane act of getting from A to B exciting.
Certainly that’s one of the attractions to me of the City’s highwalks, and I’m glad to see I’m not the only person who feels it. (It’s worth reading the whole post, which is a ringing endorsement of Brutalist modernism, not as retro nostalgia, but as an urgently-needed, still-progressive pedestrian-centric mode of thinking, “wholly part of the future we were promised and denied”.)
(Speaking of which, thanks for all the encouragement I’ve received so far. Coming soon on highwalks: some maps.)
