Left:
King's Cross Pond Club, a naturally filtered swimming pool with views
of St. Pancras International and the BT tower. Right: The newly
refurbished departures concourse at King's Cross station.
In
fact, the regeneration process began much earlier than we might
suppose. The British Library moved to the site abutting St. Pancras
station in the late 1990s. I remember visiting with its then director,
who took me down into the just-completed underground stacks: eight
subterranean, temperature-controlled floors, housing a portion of the
library's 150 million books.
Colin
St. John Wilson's design was an effective compromise between soft
Modernism and angular Gothicism that synced the library with its
surrounding environment. It's this harmony that the newer, far more
extensive construction to the north needs to sustain if King's Cross's
character is to be modulated rather than nullified.
The
signs so far are good. Apart from the cartoonish Paul Day statue of
lovers embracing that stands on the platform area, St. Pancras station
is now light and modern -- pleasing as well as functional. King's Cross,
next door, is something of a tour de force, with a huge new vaulted
waiting area and a piazza out front where, with a certain inevitability,
nice liberals are now selling artisanal produce.
The
walkway running from the station northeast to the new King's Place
building on York Way is, however, less successful: walking here by day,
I'm always struck by how the little pop-up installations -- a viewing
platform, an espresso stall, food huts -- seem to loom larger than the
new buildings.
This is partly because of what the
philosopher Walter Benjamin termed "vertical type": in this case,
slogans blazoned all over these temporary structures, exhorting us to
buy and walk and observe and "inherit"-- in short, instructing us on how
to be flaneurs, as if we haven't been doing this stuff all our lives.
The
boxy installations evoke the innumerable railway carriages that
clattered northward from the three great stations -- as well as the
equally myriad narrow boats that oozed through the stygian waters of the
Regent's Canal.
This evocation
somehow counts against the brightly futuristic promise of the new
building developments, and draws us back again to the area's dark past.
King's Cross has this peculiar air, still, of enormous and surly gravity
-- the filth and effluent from the old gasworks that once operated here
compacted to atomic densities -- and an opposing levity: everyone is
hurrying, everyone is going somewhere at speed.
The
Guardian Media Group has its new offices in King's Place, which also
contains an arts venue and exhibition areas, plus the ubiquitous foodie
overkill without which no new public building can pat its glassy,
parametrically designed stomach and announce itself to be complete.
This
publishing company can be seen as the liberal counterweight to the 1
million square feet of office space Google is acquiring in King's Cross
Central (as the redeveloped locale is being styled by its developers).
As
a contributor, I occasionally go into the Guardian's offices, and I've
also taken part in live events at King's Place, after which I've eaten
in its restaurant, looking out at the great scum of oil and pigeon
feathers that swirls over the waters of the canal basin -- a nice
contrast to the acres of blond wood and plate glass within.
There
are shiny new restaurants everywhere, many of them -- Caravan, Dishoom,
the Grain Store -- in striking old industrial spaces. Later this year
Jamie Oliver is opening a canal-side complex in Goods Yard that will
house his company headquarters along with a vast restaurant.
Lisa
Allardice, editor of the Guardian's Review section, told me that when
she moved here with the rest of the paper's staff from the old Gray's
Inn Road offices, "The most exciting thing to do was a trip to the
pharmacy at lunchtime." Now, Allardice is a King's Cross booster: "We
can't move for all the incredible buildings and bright young hipsters
out on a Thursday evening."
The Stanley Buildings were constructed in the 1860s for railway
employees, and were notable for their elegant ironwork balconies and
exterior stairways. By the time I jittered down to Jock's, the last two
had become squats, mostly occupied by my fellow punks.
Author Name
Author Description!
Get Free Email Updates to your Inbox!
Post a Comment