CR0 1NA

Once again we find ourselves at that time of year when the multiple bars of Croydon host the dreaded themed nights in the hope of raking in money from customers drowned in the eternal glee that is the pre and post Christmas season. The drinking culture in the UK has over the many years of its functioning inevitably generated a very competitive market amongst pubs, bars and clubs of which Croydon has seen the creation and deaths of many. Through the course of just a single year it is standard practice to witness at least two to three new drinking holes opening around Croydon and just as many closing, it seems the required combination of location, logic and luck to maintain a successful bar is not naturally acquired.

From the famous Black Sheep Bar to the lifeless Pop World the South end of Croydon High St hosts a lively street life with a wide selection of bars, yet one building has stubbornly refused to conform for many years now. Located under the Croydon flyover a single rigid black-box of a building currently known only by its postal code CR0 1NA has been the location of at least 4 major clubs over the last seven years; Somthing-pre-Escapade, Escapade, The Hub and Svelte. Each one welcoming you with open arms, promises of joy and enchanting cocktails but they all fracture and collapse eventually. No matter how many times businessman re-brand exactly the same building I fear this space is quite simply doomed to fail, for a success to be fashioned from this space a large architectural overhaul would be required.

Presently you are greeted at CR0 1NA with a very oppressive black paint smothered building, which only aids in disorientating the exterior space and imposing a strong characterless facade. This building could quite easily make a luxury electrical sub-station. However the skeleton is favorable, a small elongated bar upstairs facing onto the street and a much larger bar and dance area downstairs, the upstairs bar in theory would act as window shopping material providing free advertisement whilst the downstairs is the substance. Funnily enough all the business's utilised this set-up and all failed in some way or another, but the failure was always for other reasons. The most obvious example being The Hub's absolutely thoughtless and bait signage of monochrome half circles and aerial font, clearly masterminded by a businessman the signage only helped in completely repelling any custom that was considering going there.

Anyone can have their theories and plans for reinstating CR0 1NA but at the end of the day all it has produced so far is architecture with too much make-up on. Either this building can easily be saved by some make-up wipes and better integration to the street front; clearer and aesthetically pleasing lighting and visibility, or the curse of the CR0 1NA club is hopelessly unmanageable and we should accept the arrival of another restaurant and forget the buildings past architectural embarrassment.

tW

Waiting for Superman

On the corner of the High St. and Tamworth Rd, nestled directly above the railway, a fortress-like piece of architecture mysteriously sits waiting for its Superman, and by Superman I mean appreciation. Forbidden Planet is a sort of cult entertainment meets comic shop space, but to be honest to get a sense of what is going on you really do have to visit, because even if you are not a seasoned science fiction fan long periods of time can be spent browsing the vast collection of characters and colours within. Yet for a piece of Croydon architecture in such a muscular location the real beauty is revealed by the introverted nature of the shops character.

Comic shops are usually thought of as a solely US phenomenon where kids eagerly go on a Saturday morning to get their hands on the latest addition of Superman etc... but their existence in the UK is a quiet one with what appears to be a very private community. Quite often you completely miss these shops in the UK as they appear to depend greatly on the frequency of their veteran customers and not the spontaneous shopper, nevertheless if you have the opportunity  to spend a few minutes in a shop such as Forbidden Plant I highly recommend it. Spare just a minute of your time, stand on the opposite corner where the chinese noodle place is(was?) and really take in this monster of a shop. The white painted expanse is clearly the meat of the shop and the sign just acts as marker more than attraction, but then you will notice the windows, they are truly fantastic with their energetically drawn posters and interesting hero figures, its a god damn cocaine fix of a window display.

As it happens Forbidden Planet is relocating from their legendary fortress in West Croydon into the shop where X Electrical used to be on Church St, a move I guess is influenced by the need to down-size from the large current site. The architecture of the old site was in actual fact the kryptonite that was Forbidden Planets Superman, the angular nature of the shop front as it negotiated the street junction encouraged movement around the exterior of the shop but never luring anyone inside. I know the space and layout of the new site well and although losing volume I feel a more exciting atmosphere might well be created from this situation, Forbidden Planet might in fact gain a wider market base by reeling intrigued people in off the street from the stop-glance-start movement created on the exterior. The windows are key, as long as Forbidden Planet retain their creativity and frequency of attractive window displays the streetscape of Church St will no doubt gain a vibrant new elevation and Croydon will continue to have its very own Superhero.

tW

A Post-it Romance

The Green Dragon pub located at the end of Surrey Street is a fantastic drinking hole for both the fine-ale-rustic-patron and strawberry-beer-contemporary-drinker, the interior is a classic take on traditional pub meets modern vertical space yet on the exterior it seems the Green Dragon has curiously branched into modern art. In an effortless but effective move, the pub decided almost over night after the Croydon riots to allow patrons to write a message of hope on a post-it note and stick it to the window facing onto the street. Needless to say the post-it numbers grew exponentially and in a short space of time became a very powerful cultural statement, which I believe was massively overlooked especially the new social streetscape that was created next to that post-it window. 

The fires were effective only through the fact that they are easily seen and felt, it was the physicality of it that was striking to us, where as the influence of pen and paper can be immense whilst remaining at a human scale. Or as old boy modernist Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe put it ‘Less is More’.

tW

Riot, Reconstruct, Realisation

From the far reaches of Tottenham many of us who live in or around Croydon suddenly found ourselves engulfed by the carnage that was the 2011 London Riots, I luckily found myself in Oslo during that period, although I say ‘luckily’ in the coldest of terms after experiencing the Oslo bombing. Yet the London riots were on a completely different social level to the Oslo bombings, the riots taken hostage by a rabid mob of youthful brain chaos rather than Oslo’s one-man utopian paranoia.

A great deal of damage was done during those nights, not just to the physical architecture and urban environments of Croydon but arguably more to local social and cultural context. I will always remember sitting at my friend Shwar’s house in Oslo when the image of Reeves Corner Furniture Store (Church St.) fully ablaze came alive on the muted television. Interestingly my first thoughts were neither ‘good on em’ or ‘the little blighters’ it was;

Why Reeves Corner?

When I arrived back home I grabbed the opportunity to visit Reeves as soon as I could and it was a shocking site, where Reeves used to stand as your local friendly traffic island you could quite literally now see straight through it. However my thoughts soon turned to the Eagle pub across the road. Why had this pub survived? My only experience of that pub was that it was empty and had terrible karaoke, burning that building down would have opened up such colourful architectural opportunities whilst in West Croydon people witnessed the burning and looting of many independent businesses one of which was Rockbottom (London Rd.). A music shop that has provided me with bass strings and the desire to own more guitars than I could afford for years, the shop counter was a great piece of craftsmanship in its on right using scaffolding poles to frame the counter effectively creating a space within a space sheltering all kinds of musical paraphernalia. Funny the rioters did not burn M&S or River Island, I would love to believe this was because they knew Reeves and Rockbottom were architecturally rich in character but I doubt it very much indeed.

I am no twenty-first century revolutionary but I would not burn down a century old discount furniture store to aid my direction to make a statement. Apart from the fact that a furniture store is ideal fuel for a fire the act itself makes no impact because there is no deeper manifestation. When you think about it architecture once again becomes the first victim, most of us take the urban environment around us for granted but once a riot, storm or graffiti slogan destroys or defaces our homes and familiar architecture we are quickly reminded of the hope and happiness we place in a great many of them. All that remains of these spaces in Croydon now is a series of empty voids amidst what is now a damaged streetscape. But there is still hope in the form of futures. Reeves corner is in a particularly dominant position to make a strong architectural statement through its position as an urban island, I would love to see a new architecture in its place becoming a hybrid of discount furniture store and homage to the riots, an education centre for future Croydon rioters if you will to aid them in understanding which buildings to burn and which buildings to appreciate.

tW

The Strange Death of the Croydon Record Shop

We lived like Kings once.

We had our own audio paradise in South London, although not massive on media attention or glamour you could really get down and dirty with the underground music scene in Croydon, you could feel alive. Whether you thought you were the next Clapton or Biggie you could be sure there existed a place in Croydon for you to go and forever discuss and dream up your musical fantasies. I remember Beano’s record shop on Church St. (now a crèche, Beanies) where friends and myself would spend hours rifling through the endless collection of CD’s that was in reality organised chaos but you always found something you wanted, always. From the music we bought at this shop opinions formed, tastes emerged and the motivation to make our own music grew, an evolution I am sure Hip-Hop and other music fans felt also. Beano’s was not just a reasonably priced record store it was a musical inspiration factory, and Beano’s was just one of a collection of record shops that existed in Croydon about eight years ago.

There were other record shops that existed in Croydon around the same time as Beano’s such as Swag Records (Station Rd.) but most importantly Big Apple Records (Surrey St.), which many believe was the theoretical birthplace of the infamous music genre DubStep. I am sorry to reveal that along with Beano’s, Apple Records and Swag Records no longer exist to pleasure us with their collections of musical delights, but more importantly in addition to the ‘shop’ we have lost the unique social spaces that they provided. The architecture of the record shop is more often than not very simple with nothing in particular to note about style or arrangement but what is there not to love as a music lover, a sign, a volume and a shed load of CD racks. Unappreciated at the time by most people including myself these independent record shops provided orgasmic musical environments for exploring and experience, and now we have HMV and their complete proficiency to categorise and price music like a 5 year old.

On a note as exciting as an album found for £1, I can reveal that there are still at least two independent record shops in Croydon, Memory Lane Records (Frith Rd.) and 101 Records (Keeley Rd.). As far as I am aware that is where the trail ends, for certain there are music shops and small gig venues still alive and strong but the record shop amongst the elements of the Croydon music scene is dying. For Croydon’s Social Urbanism this situation is an issue of great concern when the social space is lost that the record shop provides, part of the foundations that the Croydon music scene is built on also crumbles away in front of our very eyes. Obviously music in Croydon is not going to be swallowed up and disposed of just because the record shops are dying, however I can not help but visualise an increasingly less unique style emerging from Croydon, and that would be a real shame. I can only hope that we gradually become less and less accepting of the prices we have to pay for music in this day and age bringing about the revival of the record shop and that wonderful atmosphere and community that existed alongside it. Demand more than Cher Lloyd!

tW

Old Manhattan

For those who know me the subject of this particular entry is very well known, The Manhattan Bar located on the high street corner of Mint walk. Many hours, maybe even nights have been spent listening to myself rambling on about how ridiculous it is that this particular bar is unoccupied, sounding increasingly more like a old weathered sailor each time as I once again tell the tale of Manhattan 'ey she were a beaut laddy'.

Unbelievably the Manhattan Bar has been empty for what I can guess is at least 5 years, a sleepy piece of architecture just sitting there in the middle of so many successful social drinking holes like the Ship and the The Green Dragon where I have watched it endlessly simmer. The architecture of the Manahttan Bar is to be honest incredibly disappointing, the usual beige bricks retaining the venacular with occasional dado rail sand blocks greet the viewer from the outside nicely fitting into any main stream developers catalog, and for the love of God what is that vaulted topped column piece of post-modern filth over the front two doors! If you walk past the likelihood of you noticing Manhattan are low, occasionally a comment regarding the orange trim on the windows can be heard but that is about as far as the great discussion ever goes outside of architecture folk, but the real potential is a social aspect.

The beauty of the Manahattan is how little work actually needs doing to get the place going again, a simple bar that sells a restricted variety of drinks, well thought out seating and a good music system is all that is required, the urban environment will provide the catalyst. I dare say it would make an amazing addition to the music scene in Croydon in the way of a music venue, the Cartoon is dead, The Scream Lounge is limited in scale and the record shops are in decline and the boring architecture would play right into the hands of making a statement, a beige canvas on which to rule Croydon. Alas until someone realizes Manhattan as the next successful bar in Croydon like my friends and I have dreamed, it will continue to only aid in creating yet another void within Croydon's urban fabric, a void that becomes non-space and urban fabric is the least forgiving of non-space.

tW

Surrey Street Market

Urban scent upon urban scent, the foreground of relentless market vendor verbal batterings, but relax for what a fantastic place you have found yourself in. Non-other than Surrey Street Market.

In what could only be roughly a 100m stretch of road in Central Croydon we find this wonderful market. Vibrant by day selling everything from sweet potatoes to knock-off football shirts, to an urban skeleton of a market at night with not a sign of ever existing at all. Filtering perpendicular to Church St and what essentially is the primary drinking holes of south Croydon, the market is an overwhelming example of successful social and architectural environments. People are noticeably happier here to talk to you about anything and everything and you can barely find a moment when the vendors themselves are not handing out the banter to each other or changing up a tenner. It is so sad to see this sort of human exchange gradually fading away before my very eyes throughout the rest of Croydon, the act of discussing the weekends football or cheekily trying to convince the vendor for one more banana in your bowl-for-a-pound dissipating. I dare anyone to try a perk up an interesting conversation in one of the many power house shops on the high street, it just doesn't amount to anything real, the goal is make money in those places, they are damn good at it and it does not involve speaking to you.

My favorite activity is to simply walk through the market to reach the bus stop at the bottom of Church St with no plan of buying, just observing and absorbing the market environment, I hardly have to emphasis the architectural tiredness of the normal high street in comparison. In plan and section the street is an exceptional piece of organic market layout, the permanent shops which line either side of the road provide solidity whilst the diurnal market stalls provide a transparency which one must experience, to say they are as if weaved yet anarchic is to only provide a descriptive foundation. I advise anyone not to be discouraged by the crammed street-scape and walk Surrey Street Market more frequently, you will not regret or forget it and you might even walk away with fresh food for dinner and a beer in your belly.

tW

Bring a Bottle

So we begin. and where better to begin than with a small fragment of Croydon that no longer exists, except in photographs and hazy wine memories.

As I hope will become evident as this blog unfolds and I become better at being an architectural spy, Croydon is more like a brick house than a concrete one and by that I mean it should be considered by its many parts and not as one big slab. At least at this scale you can get a greater sense of the many faces and facades that allow Croydon to function as a fascinating multi-cultural town in South London.

The Wine Vaults was by all accounts a cosy cellaresque drinking hole sandwiched rather uncomfortably in the belly of M&S on the west end of Croydon high street. I never had the pleasure of visiting the Wine Vaults myself but heard many a good review of the place and how underrated and unnoticed it had become. The Vault has closed now, not long after I took this photo around a year ago, subtracting from Croydon another invaluable independent business with the void left behind undoubtedly destined to become yet another storage room for the all consuming M&S machine. The worrying issue for the urban environment is this decrease in smaller businesses, for when large busnisses and their respective architectures meet ugly things occur as companies battle for attention and flex their muscle. Although we do not always notice these smaller businesses they are much more personal on a social level and fill the urban voids wonderfully with their unique aesthetics. We need these small hideaways and I can assure anyone that Croydon would be an incredibly uniform looking place without them, and besides would it not have been amazing to have casually had a large glass of red amongst the vaults only to then surface like a boozy caterpillar in the middle of a giant advertising salad. I certainly would have loved it!


tW