Untitled - Now Then

Sometimes I wonder what the hell’s happening in this city. It seems like we want to destroy our architectural curiosities and replace them with wafer-thin bland structures so devoid of character they can’t be registered by the human
eyes. It’s like we’re actively whitewashing the city with concentrated blandness, homogenising it to the point of it becoming an architectural version of Gap or Burtons clothing.
I think sometimes we can get caught up trying to please everyone to the point where all we achieve is a sterile sprawl that says nothing about our city. I say hooray for people with crazy ideas and ambitious projects because it’s those
people that give a city its warmth and its character.
A beacon of light and sanity in these mad days has been ‘Go’ magazine, and specifically their passionate involvement in debating the future of Tinsley cooling towers.
Sadly as most people know the towers are set for demolition this year. But instead of watching the project break down go magazine decided to end the project on a high note. They set up the cooling tower collectables stall in
Sheffield’s Millennium Galleries. A two week shop selling very limited edition gift shop inspired goods by a selection of artists, illustrators and designers; Conway and Young, Kid Acne, Phlegm, people will always need plates, Royal Stock,
and Syd and Mallory’s. The shop had everything from tea towels and t-shirts to jigsaws, and paper models.
The response was mind-blowing. People came and cleared out every last thing from the shop half way through the first day of it’s opening. It was madness, a borderline stampede, and it showed how much enthusiasm the people of
Sheffield can have for something good.
So as the city threatens to become so uniform and boring that the air turns grey and all the birds drop out the sky, at least we can say we stood up for it’s history, its unique qualities, and passionate ideas when we had the chance to…