A splendoured Pavilion

David Taylor-Gooby leaps to its defence.

UNTIL last week, a mysterious building stood in the centre of Peterlee, shrouded in plastic cladding. The lake at its feet has had its water drained and builders’ machinery lies all around.

Looking at it, you might be forgiven for thinking that, eventually, the renovation of east Durham’s housing stock had started.

Now the veil has been lifted to reveal that it is not a house at the centre of all this building activity, but an abstract work of art – perhaps the most controversial of all the public artworks in the North-East. It is Victor Pasmore’s Apollo Pavilion.

The first question that springs to mind in these economically-straitened times is whether the council could be spending its money on something more useful.

But the £400,000 restoration of the Pavilion is largely covered by a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund, secured through the efforts of the now-defunct District of Easington Council. So a bit of what locals have spent on the Lottery is coming home.

The second question is what is this Pavilion all about?

It is an abstract cubist structure modelled on the ideas first put forward by the Swiss architect Le Corbusier.

Corbusier, born in 1887, was a modernist, and believed that the 20th Century was an age of progress.

Modernist buildings were functional and did not have traditional or natural shapes. They were designed in a geometric or abstract way.

It was this philosophy of progress which inspired his disciples, Erno Goldfinger and Berthold Lubetkin, who had much influence on the rebuilding of Britain and the New Town movement after the Second World War. Their ideas influenced Peterlee, which was designated “a new town” in 1947.

Lubetkin was asked by the then Minister for Housing and Local Government, Lewis Silkin, to design a town which would be the capital of coal mining, and was given a free rein. But Lubetkin came into conflict with the National Coal Board, which would not allow tall buildings to be constructed over coal reserves.

Eventually, Lubetkin gave up and retired to rear pigs, which is interesting since he is mainly remembered today for designing the penguin and gorilla houses in Regent’s Park Zoo, in London.

Peterlee began with fairly conventional houses designed by someone else, but the spirit of Lubetkin lived on. In 1955, the general manager of the Peterlee Development Corporation, Vivian Williams, approached celebrated artist Pasmore, who was professor of painting at Newcastle University, and asked him to improve the design of the new town.

Pasmore was told “to do what you like, but don’t do what we have done before”.

The trouble was that Pasmore was an acclaimed artist, but not an architect.

He wanted to design the Howletch and Sunny Blunts part of Peterlee round the natural contours of the land, giving people views of the sea and easy access to Castle Eden Dene.

But he did not know much about the technicalities of building, and he was undermined by funding cuts and downright dishonest builders. Flat roofs did not suit the North-East climate and often leaked.

Nevertheless his designs achieved acclaim from architects.

Speaking in 1983, Jake Cameron, chief architect to the development corporation, commented that, despite all the technical problems, “the day will come when Pasmore’s south-west area housing development is once again acclaimed as a major forward step in urban design”.

To cap it all, Pasmore wanted to build a centre- piece to his Sunny Blunts scheme. He wanted to highlight the stream and small lake in the centre of the estate. He wanted “an architecture of purely abstract form... a free and anonymous monument which... can lift the activity and psychology of an urban housing community on to a universal plane.”

He certainly had a vision, and this vision became the pavilion. He named it the Apollo Pavilion after the lunar expeditions, which were a timely example of his belief in progress.

After it was completed in 1970, the Pavilion was well looked after, properly lit, and the accompanying lake properly cleaned. The development corporation had enough money and staff. The problems began after the corporation handed the housing stock over to Easington council in 1979, as it had neither the resources nor the expertise to look after it properly.

The pavilion fell into disrepair and became a centre for vandalism and anti-social behaviour.

Local people began to campaign against it. Some wanted it moved, some wanted it demolished, others wanted it blown up.

UNFORTUNATELY for them, the pavilion was made of tougher stuff than many of the houses of Peterlee. Destroying it would have been very costly.

So, in 2002, a group of architects, residents and some councillors tried to do something with it. After several setbacks and some heroic work by council officers, the money was secured from the Lottery fund and, once the plastic cladding is removed, we will be able to see the results. There is to be an opening ceremony and celebration in July, open to all.

There are many things wrong with Peterlee.

I know – I live there, but it symbolises the postwar vision of the new towns. Granted, it has not turned out the way people wanted, but then few visions do.

Most examples of modernist architecture, such as Lubetkin’s penguin and gorilla houses in Regent’s Park, are in posh parts of London.

We have an example here in Peterlee, where ordinary people live, and we should celebrate it.

I was a member of the group that pushed for restoration, and I am proud of what has been done. I have argued that we should have a museum in East Durham. When we do, it should contain not only the achievements of the miners, the co-operative movement, chapels and local government, but also the ideals and vision of our new town.

It is time we stopped moaning about its inadequacies and celebrated its uniqueness and vision, and the Victor Pasmore Apollo Pavilion is part of that. In fact, it is at the heart of that.