# The Museum of Bristol



## bristol_citizen (Sep 14, 2005)

Did anyone else attend the meeting tonight at the City Museum about the Museum of Bristol the city council are gonna build on the site of the Industrial Museum?
It was hilarious. 
Against the current plans er, 250+ really pissed off Bristolians.
For the plans er, 4 smug panel members all on the payroll of the new Museum of Bristol (none Bristolians - one from Wolverhampton, one from LA, not sure where other 2 from)
This meeting was called "a consultation". 
So what happens next? Will they change the plan? Or will they plough ahead?
You decide.


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## Kevicious (Sep 14, 2005)

bristol_citizen said:
			
		

> This meeting was called "a consultation".
> So what happens next? Will they change the plan? Or will they plough ahead?
> You decide.




This is a trick question, right?

Keep us updated on this one. Would've been there if I'd known about it.


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## Serotonin (Sep 14, 2005)

bristol_citizen said:
			
		

> For the plans er, 4 smug panel members all on the payroll of the new Museum of Bristol (none Bristolians - one from Wolverhampton, one from LA, not sure where other 2 from)



if you aren't sure where they are from how do you know they weren't Bristolians?
 Count there toes or something?


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## Ground Elder (Sep 14, 2005)

So what are their plans and why are people so pissed off about them?


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## bristol_citizen (Sep 15, 2005)

Ground Elder said:
			
		

> So what are their plans and why are people so pissed off about them?



The current Industrial Museum is the only iron building left on Bristol's docks. It is also all that remains of Bristol's former life as a major port.
The current plan, courtesy of very-fashionable Lab Architects will rip the guts out of the building and turn it into a modernist glass-type thing to use as a Disney-style tourist attraction.
Bristol docks have now followed London in being virtually covered in ultra-modern apartments and leisure facilities, the argument seems to be that this building should stay and it's integrity as a working docks building be maintained.


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## WasGeri (Sep 15, 2005)

It's a lovely building and I wouldn't want to see it go - I hope these plans fall through.

I am furious at the way the docks have been developed. Some of the new apartments are totally blocking the view from Hotwells Road - not to mention the fact that they are absolutely hideous in themselves.


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## bristol_citizen (Sep 15, 2005)

Geri said:
			
		

> It's a lovely building and I wouldn't want to see it go - I hope these plans fall through.



I suspect not. The usual shower of vested interests want it to happen. There's £16m of public money wrapped up in this and the current plans ensure it all goes into the pockets of architects and developers who will be given _carte blanche_ to do what they want.
Interestingly the city council's own senior planning officer rejected the current plans last night. But planning officers - the people we pay to sort our city out - have had no say in any major dockside development since the eighties.
They got shafted and sidelined over the Lloyds HQ and have had no influence ever since.


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## Serotonin (Sep 15, 2005)

Geri said:
			
		

> It's a lovely building and I wouldn't want to see it go - I hope these plans fall through.
> 
> I am furious at the way the docks have been developed. Some of the new apartments are totally blocking the view from Hotwells Road - not to mention the fact that they are absolutely hideous in themselves.



As someone who used to live on Hotwells Road, I don't think a lot of the developments are that bad. Hotwells Rd was a pretty run down derelict area until they started the redevleopment.


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## WasGeri (Sep 15, 2005)

Serotonin said:
			
		

> As someone who used to live on Hotwells Road, I don't think a lot of the developments are that bad. Hotwells Rd was a pretty run down derelict area until they started the redevleopment.



As someone who also used to live on Hotwells Road, your opinion means jack shit to me


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## butterfly child (Sep 15, 2005)

I do think Hotwells was in need of having something done to it, but I don't see why those flats had to be built right by the side of the river. 

Apart from the fact that waterside "apartments" are worth more, of course!


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## JTG (Sep 15, 2005)

Area is run down - let's move lots of rich people in then, send house prices/rents skyrocketing and force all the poor people to move somewhere else that's still run down.

That's improved lots of people's lives then.


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## inks (Sep 15, 2005)

_"Area is run down - let's move lots of rich people in then, send house prices/rents skyrocketing and force all the poor people to move somewhere else that's still run down."_

I can't think of a single development around Bristol docks that has involved moving anyone out.  From the sand wharf all the way over to St Phillips Marsh (or "Temple Gate" as we must now learn to call it) all the new housing has been built on derelict industrial land.

I know of ony one poor person who got moved out, and that was a tramp who'd lived for years in a tiny hut on the dock near the steam crane.  Poor old boy came back one day to find his hut bulldozed.


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## JTG (Sep 15, 2005)

You rather miss the way in which gentrification works.


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## inks (Sep 15, 2005)

_"The current Industrial Museum is the only iron building left on Bristol's docks."_

The building will remain.  It's getting an extra deck and windows, from what I remember of the plan.  It'll keep it's character I think.

I believe that the old Bristol Marine Engineering building, round the back of the current working dry dock on Spike Island has a steel frame.  It's now a scuba diving shop.  It's not that old though.  Also the Watershed has a steel frame, no?  I'm not sure about that actually.

_"It is also all that remains of Bristol's former life as a major port."_

Apart from several hundred old warehouses that have been converted to other uses, the steam crane, the cranes at the front of the museum, the SS Great Britain, the Pyronaut, the steam tug who's name escapes me, the locks and swing bridges, old railway tracks and a rather large expanse of water.


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## bristol_citizen (Sep 15, 2005)

inks said:
			
		

> _"The current Industrial Museum is the only iron building left on Bristol's docks."_
> 
> The building will remain.  It's getting an extra deck and windows, from what I remember of the plan.  It'll keep it's character I think.
> 
> ...



Apologies. This is what happens when you write things in a hurry from notes scribbled on the back of an envelope:

"The current Industrial Museum is the only _undeveloped_ iron building left on Bristol's docks."

"It is also _the only working example_ that remains of Bristol's former life as a major port."

Not sure how you worked out what's going on from the sketches so far presented. A retired architect said last night that they couldn't work out from the drawings (there are no plans) whether the existing building would remain or not. But then what would they know about building plans?

Not sure a glass building would have the same character as the current warehouse either. How does a modernist glass shed relate to the original or the docks or Bristol? 
And WTF is character anyway? If you mean the building will be roughly the same shape, then you're right. If you mean the new building will be similar to the old building in either form or function then no.


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## bristol_citizen (Sep 15, 2005)

inks said:
			
		

> I can't think of a single development around Bristol docks that has involved moving anyone out.  From the sand wharf all the way over to St Phillips Marsh (or "Temple Gate" as we must now learn to call it) all the new housing has been built on derelict industrial land.



So where did all those people who now live on the peripheral estates - Hartcliffe, Withywood, Southmead, Lawrence Weston etc., come from? There was a deliberate, wholesale post-war policy to move these people out of town. There are people still around who can tell you about the docks in Bristol. They used to be OURS. And very interesting they were too.


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## inks (Sep 15, 2005)

_"It is also the only working example that remains of Bristol's former life as a major port."_

Working in what sense?  It was built as a transit shed on the site of a granary bombed out in WW2.  It is now used as a museum and after the proposed works will continue to be used as a museum.

_"Not sure how you worked out what's going on from the sketches so far presented."_

I went to the exhibition at the Architecture Centre and looked at the scale model of the proposed building after the alterations.

_A retired architect said last night that they couldn't work out from the drawings (there are no plans) whether the existing building would remain or not. But then what would they know about building plans?_

The existing building will remain.  Essentially the current steel skin will be largely replaced with windows on the front elevation facing out over the docks and another floor added tucked slightly back.

You can see the scale model at the Architecture Centre for free until Sunday, 18 September. 

_"Not sure a glass building would have the same character as the current warehouse either. How does a modernist glass shed relate to the original or the docks or Bristol?"_

It'll have a better view out over a scenic part of Bristol.  The building itself is post-war and only spent a few years (at a guess, less than twenty) being used for it's original purpose, it doesn't have any great history as a part of the docks.

How does a post-war steel shed relate to the original docks or Bristol?


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## inks (Sep 15, 2005)

_"So where did all those people who now live on the peripheral estates - Hartcliffe, Withywood, Southmead, Lawrence Weston etc., come from?"_

I used to know the answers to some of that but I can't remember.

Not one of the brown-field sites around the docks that have been developed were previously residential though.  No-one has been moved out as a result of these.

I think that some of the original Hartcliffe residents (although I'm straining my memory here and might be wrong) were moved out of Redcliffe when the dual carriageway got hammered through Redcliffe Hill but it could hardly be said that this was part of moving poor people out of the area.  They were replaced by a big road and a council housing development that remains a large area of social housing right bang in the city centre.

_"There was a deliberate, wholesale post-war policy to move these people out of town."_ 

If you say so.  However, not one of these people previously lived on the brownfield sites around the docks that have been developed for 'yuppie' housing because they have not previously had a residential use.  You are mixing up the development of post-war peripheral estates (1950-60) with the much later development of the docks (1990 - present day).

It's worth noting that the post-war estates you mentioned would have been built at the same time as the transit shed that is currently the Industrial Museum. 

_There are people still around who can tell you about the docks in Bristol. They used to be OURS. And very interesting they were too."_

When were they OURS - which year, exactly?


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## bristol_citizen (Sep 16, 2005)

inks said:
			
		

> Working in what sense?  It was built as a transit shed on the site of a granary bombed out in WW2.  It is now used as a museum and after the proposed works will continue to be used as a museum.



Working in the sense that it's a museum based on Bristol's working docks. It's been built-up on a shoestring budget by some very committed and knowledgable volunteers and staff over a period of about 30 years. 




			
				inks said:
			
		

> I went to the exhibition at the Architecture Centre and looked at the scale model of the proposed building after the alterations.



So did I. Unfortunately it's meaningless. (Love your term 'alterations' though. You should work in local govt. PR)




			
				inks said:
			
		

> The existing building will remain.  Essentially the current steel skin will be largely replaced with windows on the front elevation facing out over the docks and another floor added tucked slightly back.



The steel isn't the skin, it's the bones. The new building will be entirely different.




			
				inks said:
			
		

> You can see the scale model at the Architecture Centre for free until Sunday, 18 September.



Surprisingly enough I've seen it thanks.




			
				inks said:
			
		

> It'll have a better view out over a scenic part of Bristol.



I think you'll find the Industrial Museum's staff and volunteers have an even better view of Bristol in mind...




			
				inks said:
			
		

> The building itself is post-war and only spent a few years (at a guess, less than twenty) being used for it's original purpose, it doesn't have any great history as a part of the docks.



It does now 'cause 30 years' work has been put into it by staff and volunteers.




			
				inks said:
			
		

> How does a post-war steel shed relate to the original docks or Bristol?



Give 'em the £16m they've spent the last 30 years working for and they'll show you.


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## bristol_citizen (Sep 16, 2005)

inks said:
			
		

> Not one of the brown-field sites around the docks that have been developed were previously residential though.  No-one has been moved out as a result of these.



No that's where people worked and then they lived nearby. You cannot refute that the centre of Bristol was fundamentally a working class area until the 60's surely?




			
				inks said:
			
		

> You are mixing up the development of post-war peripheral estates (1950-60) with the much later development of the docks (1990 - present day).



I'm not mixing anything up. I'm looking at a 50 year process of gentrification/development. Incidentally you are mixing up the development of the docks. Pre 1990 we got the Watershed, Arnolfini, Bathurst Basin, Redcliffe Backs, Xmas Steps. A whole load of dock side development (praised as being world class too). Post 1990 starting with the Lloyds HQ we've got the private developer-led new wave (pretty naff on-the-whole)




			
				inks said:
			
		

> It's worth noting that the post-war estates you mentioned would have been built at the same time as the transit shed that is currently the Industrial Museum.



I know. Nobody claims the building has any intrinsic architectural value. It's more about the vision and ideas that are behind it and the fact that now £16m is on the table all kinds of Johnny-Come-Latelys are suddenly at the table to spend it. 
You've obviously made the effort to see the establishment's proposal. Why not make the same effort to hear the other proposals? Although unfortunately they don't have a budget to build a scale model or hand out glossy brochures. Funny that innit?




			
				inks said:
			
		

> When were they OURS - which year, exactly?



Silly question. Talk to some people. Find out about Bristol docks. They were pretty ungovernable by all accounts.


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## J77 (Sep 16, 2005)

*My tuppence...*




			
				Geri said:
			
		

> As someone who also used to live on Hotwells Road, your opinion means jack shit to me


As someone who travels that way everyday...

The new developements aren't really extensive on Hotwell Road - there's just that really posh and expensive one opposite the SSGB. I even like this one, looks nice and doesn't block any views unless from those of the traffic queued across the roundabout.

The real hideous new builds are those on the same side of the dock as the industrial museum - the nasty red and blue ones (The Point). These are going to be so dated in a few years. Kinda feel sorry for those who have bought them - the view of the cathedral is now blocked by the new council buildings (I quite like these - the circular one with the cut through it is cool), and they had to put up with the pile-driving of the foundations - oh well.

I also think they'll do a good job with the old gas works at the end of Hotwell Road - even though one of them is going to be an M&S 'local' style shop 

Finally, the industrial museum should be left as it is!


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## butterfly child (Sep 16, 2005)

J77 said:
			
		

> I also think they'll do a good job with the old gas works at the end of Hotwell Road - even though one of them is going to be an M&S 'local' style shop



I'd love to have an M&S Simply Food store on my doorstep!

I've never thought of Hotwells as a working class area, always felt it was "a bit posh". So I'm not sure you can compare what is going on there now with other places where regeneration is taking place. 

Not that I know anything.


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## Serotonin (Sep 16, 2005)

Geri said:
			
		

> As someone who also used to live on Hotwells Road, your opinion means jack shit to me



You really are an inadequate unpleasant little twat aren't you?

Was there any need for such angsty pathetic vitriol?

No wonder this forum only ever has about 6 regular posters. Its like a 6th form circle jerk.


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## Zaskar (Sep 16, 2005)

Just because something is old should we keep it ?  Of course not, this luddite obsession of Bristol Citizen would see us all still living in benders and poo.

The docks were a mess when i came to bristol in 1980, now they feature amazing museums and art, great plazas, many interesting bulidings blended with reminders from the past.  It is better than the wreck that it was.  So what if the falts are pricey, so what if people have made money from the work.... BA, do you ever leave the house and / or your ivory socialist make believe go back neaderthal tower ?

As for yuppie flats, well one of my friends is a council tenent in the 'yuppie' flats, a proportion have to be.

And geri, you make me look almost pallitable with your persistent childish jibes.  This talk board needs some new blood and the usual suspects need to stop being so pompous and precious, or shut up... (I cant believe I said that!  Hoho)


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## bristol_citizen (Sep 16, 2005)

Zaskar said:
			
		

> BA, do you ever leave the house and / or your ivory socialist make believe go back neaderthal tower ?



WTF? Is this English?


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## inks (Sep 16, 2005)

FFS, stop rowing.

_"Silly question. Talk to some people. Find out about Bristol docks. They were pretty ungovernable by all accounts."_

I already know more about the docks than most.

Their heyday was sometime ago.  By 1870 they'd started winding down as ships were too big to make it up the Avon Gorge safely.  In 1884 Bristol Council accepted that the docks were essentially past their use-by date and bought out the rival establishments at Portishead and Avonmouth.

I think it'd be quite hard to find someone who could tell me about the docks when they were ungovernable and full of smugglers, press gangs and slave traders.


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## Zaskar (Sep 16, 2005)

BA, forgive my bluntness but i refer to your conversational zeitgiest and it's turgid polemic and dogma.

Inks, yes, point taken.


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## bristol_citizen (Sep 16, 2005)

Zaskar said:
			
		

> BA, forgive my bluntness but i refer to your conversational zeitgiest and it's turgid polemic and dogma.
> 
> Inks, yes, point taken.



I think you'll find it's zeitgeist. Care to tell us what a conversational zeitgeist is?

Anyway folks... It's all getting rather heated on the local history thread now isn't it? I'm almost tempted to start a Colston Hall thread as well it's so exhilarating.


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## bristol_citizen (Sep 16, 2005)

inks said:
			
		

> FFS, stop rowing.
> 
> _"Silly question. Talk to some people. Find out about Bristol docks. They were pretty ungovernable by all accounts."_
> 
> ...



They were pretty hairy right up to the post-war period when they were dismantled along with the communities.
As for the arguing. It's not me who started throwing abuse about. I thought we were having a reasonably intelligent chat?


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## inks (Sep 16, 2005)

_"As for the arguing. It's not me who started throwing abuse about. I thought we were having a reasonably intelligent chat?"_

Sure, that comment about rowing wasn't aimed at you.

_"They were pretty hairy right up to the post-war period... "_

Quite possibly, although there can't have been much actual trade happening in the port at that time, surely?

_"... when they were dismantled along with the communities."

This kind of loaded language is something to be careful with.  It implies that there were communities around the dock area that were deliberately got rid of.

I can't think of where these communities were.

In other areas, Liverpool for example, as dockers got more prosperous as the business mechanised after WW2 they moved away from the dock areas to wealthier areas.

In Bristol the dock trade moved to Avonmouth and Portishead so the dockers would have followed I'd imagine.

With the complete decline of trade in Bristol docks the community around that trade is going to disperse, one way or another.  I'd imagine that that process would have been well underway before the twentieth century rather than post-WW2.

And the only location which at a guess was a dock community originally (although a posh one when the docks were at their height a long time ago) which got redeveloped was Redcliffe and that got turned into a modern council estate.

The dock area now is widely used by ordinary, everyday citizens.  From office workers and students drinking along the Watershed strip on a weekend to greens going to the organic food fair to day-trippers at various events and parents with their children during the holidays going round @Bristol it's kind of busy.  The whole area has probably never been as open to everyone as it used to be.

One thing about all the housing development in the dock area where you do have a point is the lack of social housing.

As far as I know the only social housing is in the 1980's Rownham Mead development on Cumberland Basin (where there are some units mixed in) and the old WCA warehouse by Redcliffe Bridge which was entirely developed into flats by Bristol Churches HA just before they went bust.

Oh, and the Foyer on Bristol Bridge.

There might be more social housing in the new developments that I'm not aware of though._


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## Zaskar (Sep 16, 2005)

Ha, sorry Bristol citizen I dont spell check my posts and I am a bit careless and dyspraxic since my confinement, as for the rest, well i think there is another thread underway that answers your question.


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## bristol_citizen (Sep 17, 2005)

inks said:
			
		

> I can't think of where these communities were.



What used to be in the areas that are now Broadmead (sorry Mechants Quarter), Castle Park, Wine Street, the Victoria Street end of Redcliffe, Bridewell, Newfoundland Street etc? Think of any area in the centre that was thrown up in the 50's, 60's and 70's (and there's a lot of them).


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## butterfly child (Sep 17, 2005)

Serotonin said:
			
		

> You really are an inadequate unpleasant little twat aren't you?



Er, actually, she's not.

You were the one who made this personal, Geri said she didn't care about your opinion, so you call her an inadequate, unpleasant twat?

Do you say that to everyone who diagrees with your opinion?

Christonabike


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## fat hamster (Sep 17, 2005)

Relax, bc - it's only a troll. Don't feed it.


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## Serotonin (Sep 17, 2005)

fat hamster said:
			
		

> Relax, bc - it's only a troll. Don't feed it.




Oh look the forums resident censor is still at it.

Whats the matter Fat Hamster? Change aggravating your aspergers again?


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## Serotonin (Sep 17, 2005)

butterfly child said:
			
		

> Er, actually, she's not.
> 
> You were the one who made this personal, Geri said she didn't care about your opinion, so you call her an inadequate, unpleasant twat?
> 
> ...




If she didn't care about my opinion, exactly what was her motive for posting that then? She obviously cared enough to make an unpleasant and very pointless post.

As for calling her a twat, well she isn't going to care is she, seeing as my opinion means nothing to her.


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## inks (Sep 17, 2005)

Ahem!

Perhaps you could take this over to the troll thread that fat hamster has kindly started?

It's not especially important on the grand scale of things that a thread about the proposed remodelling of the Industrial Museum isn't derailed but it's sparked an interesting discussion.


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## Mrs Magpie (Sep 17, 2005)

Serotonin said:
			
		

> Oh look the forums resident censor is still at it.
> 
> Whats the matter Fat Hamster? Change aggravating your aspergers again?


Oh fuck off. One month ban.


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## inks (Sep 17, 2005)

Anyway, where were we?

Ah, in Broadmead!

_"What used to be in the areas that are now Broadmead (sorry Mechants Quarter), Castle Park, Wine Street, the Victoria Street end of Redcliffe, Bridewell, Newfoundland Street etc? Think of any area in the centre that was thrown up in the 50's, 60's and 70's (and there's a lot of them)."_

To a point, yes, but as you know these areas were cleared by German bombers rather than as part of a development plan.

After WW2 the decision was made to replace these mixed commercial / retail / residential areas with retail and commercial developments.

I don't think this is sufficient to say that there was a deliberate intention to get poor people out of the city centre when large council estates were built around Redcliffe Hill and Kingsdown.  We might just have to agree to differ on that.

It's clear that during the 1990's a clear intention developed to bring residential use back into the city centre and for this to be done by commercial developers.  Clearly commercial developers are only interested in making as much cash as possible so they're going to build for and market to wealthy people.

The Council could have used the profits from selling the land for development to get more social housing but they seem to have focused on cultural / tourist developments instead.

Which brings us back to the Industrial Museum.  Like the Watershed, Arnolfini, the urban beach opposite the Hippodrome, the new pedestrian bridges, @Bristol and so on the Industrial Museum is being remodelled to make it more tourist friendly.


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## inks (Sep 18, 2005)

While I was in town yesterday I went over to the Industrial Museum for a close look at the building.

It isn't metal framed, the structure is concrete.

If you go into the walkthrough area in the middle of the museum and look up you can see big steel I-beams supporting the first floor.  These beams holding up the floor are probably the only steel elements in the building's structure.

The skin of the current building is a mix of brick infilling and steel sheets which I think are some sort of large sliding doors.  Perhaps it might be these steel sliding doors which are the only remaining examples of their type in the dock area?  Off the top of my head I can't think of any similar ones.

These will be lost if the current re-modelling goes ahead as planned.  From the design on display in the architecture centre most of the skin of the building, at least at the front, will be replaced with big sheets of glass.


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## FruitandNut (Sep 25, 2005)

bristol citizen - Having lived in Bristol from 1962 until 1987 I tend to agree with your 'gentrification' description of much of the central area of the city.   Having said that, the place was very run down in large areas, how much as a result of lack of funds and how much by design is a moot point.    I watched the Tudor houses at the bottom of Christmas Steps decay through neglect before being pulled down for office development.   

ps.  I hope the city patriarchs keep the 'Green Banana' bridge and the old Bristol Prison entrance facade, perhaps incorporating the latter into some development.   My first employer, now long dead, told me that his maternal grandmother as a young girl saw a public hanging just outside the gates, a wooden staging was erected on the cobblestones.


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## bristol_citizen (Oct 14, 2005)

There is a petition against the city council's current Museum of Bristol proposals here.

Including those collected on paper there's well over 1,000 signatures already.


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## bristol_citizen (Jan 5, 2006)

<bump!!!!>
"The design for a see-through museum was infantile and insulting," says the Evening Post as the plans go south along with £100k spent so far.
No link yet unfortunately, will post later.


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## DaveCinzano (Jan 9, 2006)

here it is


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## Zaskar (Jan 10, 2006)

I like the old building, and also the new.  I dont think we should be slaves to the past, it is just an old crappy wharehouse after all.  The utility of the building is the most important thing.

As alluded to above it will probably be built whatever.  As with the rest of the development in that area I think that will be a good thing.


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