Promoting the highest standards in design and protecting Hackney’s unique heritage 2018 THE HACKNEY SOCIETY SPACENews and views about Hackney’s builtS environment Issue 61 summer 2018 // ISSN 2047-7465

Hackney Station

A newly redeveloped references from Hackney Wick’s historical signify the area’s industrial heritage and station opened in May 2018. Designed industries, particularly its innovative industrial an illuminated glass wall to reflect the by Landolt + Brown Architects with chemistry, and the experience of walking and local waterways. artist Wendy Hardie, the station cycling the neighbouring Hackney Cut canal A new ticket hall has also been built with new has a new subway, lifts and overall and . improved layout. stairwells and lifts providing access to the A new subway running north to south station platforms. The stairwell architecture The principal funder for the £25 million beneath the existing railway line has replaced was inspired by the weeping willows that are project was the London Legacy Development the pre-existing footbridge and will eventually found along the Lee Navigation. Corporation. Hackney and Tower Hamlets open up new pedestrian and cycle links Councils each provided £1 million. between Wallis Road and White Post Lane. contents The designers sought to create something The subway features coloured concrete 01 Hackney Wick Station uniquely relevant to the area. They drew walls imprinted with chemical symbols to 02 Hackney Wick 03 Picture from a Portrait: Demonstrators Help support our work by joining the Hackney Society. Call on calling for an inquiry into the death of 020 7175 1967 or email [email protected] Colin Roach or visit www.hackneysociety.org 03 Publications 04 Noticeboard / Events Hackney Wick By Ralph Ward

‘Step into history. Step into the old blocks of five or six storeys, flat roofed, other so-called fringe areas), its repositioning Smokehouse’ (says the estate agents brick faced often in grey, discreet of the Wick post-2012 to the front row of blurb). The building being described is entrances, modest balconies, all with an the brave new legacy world has had an not actually a former smokehouse, or even unnerving correspondence to their earlier unstoppable effect. Meanwhile, major new old – the name, we are told, ‘tips its hat to CGIs (computer generated images). investment and change is also underway Forman’s’, a long-established Fish Island Development is being tightly controlled to on the Park side of the Cut, as the giant presence for all of six years. Time in the limit block heights and ensure a land use Here East digital business centre continues Wick, after decades of stasis, is suddenly mix, and the opportunities such widespread improbably to grow, and the Legacy moving very fast. More historically pedantic redevelopment offers to remodel the public Corporation commence development of its buyers purchase a flat in the Old Bagel realm are being taken – a new open space new ‘neighbourhoods’ – Sweetwater, and Factory, which until recently was a bagel and shops around Hackney Wick station East Wick – which are intended to become factory, though I don’t recall it then having a (known inevitably as Hackney Hub); new integrated over time with the existing Wick swimming pool on the roof. What was once more legible routes to the canal, new open and Fish Island settlement. for centuries the beating heart of industrial spaces along the Hackney Cut. Several of Will all this work? The housing market East London [the blurb continues] is now an London’s most respected and fashionable is a fickle thing, and is already starting artistic hub where old blends with the new architecture practices feature: Egret West, to stutter. So much housing supply over and a generation of curators have turned this Karakusevic Carson, Hawkins\Brown, such a relatively short timescale carries canal side village into the most exciting place Haworth Tompkins, and more. Awards are uncomfortable risks for developers, and to be in the city. This is where it happens. being won (perhaps in hindsight not the several landowners of some of the most Where beer is served straight from the tank, good thing they first appear to be – didn’t interesting sites in the Wick are cautiously where coffee shops are workplaces and the GLC Trowbridge Estate win something?) holding back on development schemes. where restaurants are housed in barges but Wick Riverside, by Ash Sakula and BUJ Can its limited infrastructure really cope with nestled on the water. Old Smokehouse is the (commissioned by McGraths to replace the arrival of such an expanded population? place to enliven your living. their giant landmark recycling complex New schools have already been built, and by the A12), unquestionably deserves its One of many places in the Wick to enliven new retail and more is planned for the New London Architecture Overall Winner your living, actually, whatever that means. Hackney Hub but this is still some way award for 2017/18. Several of the existing Most of the former business property in the off. Where will people work? How much studio complexes – Oslo and Lion Works, old industrial Wick and Fish Island now has business will really be attracted to the wealth in the Wick, and Works and the consent for redevelopment, generally as of funky new space which is being created? Peanut Factory, on Fish Island – seem to housing with a hint of business and studio London Overground through Hackney be surviving, lending both their artistic and space. Developers clearly believe that there Wick Station is already heaving. Can it take architectural idiosyncrasies to the emerging is a big market for this mixture of former more? In practice flux will continue, and is mix, though tragically, Vittoria Wharf has been industrial vibe, tasteful modern architecture, perhaps a good thing, while these issues part demolished by, of all people, the London faux bohemianism with an artistic edge, and are worked through. Probably for some time Legacy Development Corporation. Essential lust for craft ales, yet all in walking distance to come it will remain this weird hybrid of from the comforting mundanity of Stratford bars – Stour Space, White Post Cafe – seem industry and housing; new and old, public City. The planning forecast is that some secure at least for the time being. The totemic and private, which is oddly reflective of the 5,500 new residents will arrive in the course shell of the Lord Napier is only threatened by Wick over time. Somehow one senses that of this ‘regeneration’. its renovation and reopening, which is in train. the Wick will remain unusual, attractive and A few developments have been completed The trigger for all this is, of course, the interesting, and will always be different, but and already give a very accurate sense of Olympics. While no Olympic investment found the idiosyncrasy and surprise we know and the place to be: polite well proportioned its way to the Wick (or indeed any of the love today will become a thing of the past.

02 Picture from a Portrait: Demonstrators calling for an Independent Inquiry into the Death of Colin Roach

By Laurie Elks © David Hoffman

Our 50th anniversary publication, Hackney: Portrait of a Community 1967-2017, was published in October 2017. This is one of the photos from the book. Few events cast a greater shadow over Hackney in 1984 than Duncan Campbell covered the demonstrations and the conflict that the death of Colin Roach. The 21-year-old died the previous year followed from this distrust over many years for Time Out and City in very puzzling circumstances in the foyer of Limits and later for The Guardian. His chapter in the book (1984: police station. An inquest later concluded that he had committed The Inquiry into the Death of Colin Roach) and David Hoffman’s vivid suicide, but the angry local reaction that his death provoked was image bring those troubled times back to life. a symptom of the deep distrust between the local police and the black community.

Publications

The Corners The Chameleon by The Lido by Hackney by Hackney Samuel Fisher is a love author Libby Page is a photographer story about books. The debut novel focusing on Chris Dorley- author is co-founder of the threatened closure of a Brown contains Burley Fisher Books in lido. Orion, £12.99. photographs of Kingsland Road. Salt, street corners in East London. Each image £9.99. is the result of multiple shots taken on the same corner. Mini Press, £30.

03 Jewish congregation Beth Hamedrash Ohel identifying and creating a register of existing Noticeboard Yisroel in 1953, and on 18 December 1955 council-owned buildings where ‘swift boxes’ it was consecrated as the Northwold Road could be fitted retrospectively. RIBA London Awards Synagogue. The synagogue closed in 1989. A number of new buildings in Hackney are In 1992 Sunstone Health and Leisure Club Former Swan among the winners of the 2018 Royal Institute refitted the building as a women-only gym, of British Architects London Awards. They which closed in 2014. The first production in include: Kings Crescent Estate Phases 1 and the building, which is to be renamed Tower 2 by Henley Halebrown and Karakusevic Car- Theatre, will be in Autumn 2018. son Architects; Block by Henley Halebrown for the Benyon Estate; Ivydale Pri- Mary Wollstonecraft mary School by Hawkins\Brown, Karakusevic The Mary on the Green Campaign, which Carson Architects and Henley Halebrown; has been pressing for a memorial to Mary The Makers House by Liddicoat & Goldhill Wollstonecraft, has selected Maggi Ham- (see Spaces 56); and Vex by Chance de Silva bling to create a statue on . The Bobof community has been given & Scanner (see Spaces 59). Another winner In 2020, an exhibition will be held of art permission to demolish the building at was the restoration of Hackney Town Hall by inspired by the life and work of the great 73 Clapton Common and to build a three- Hawkins\Brown. The Kings Crescent Estate feminist. storey synagogue. The existing building was also won the Mayor of London’s Prize at the formerly a pub, The Swan. New London Awards on 4 July. Church Crescent Clowns Gallery Hackney Society Events Hackney Society AGM Tuesday 11 September 2018, 7.00pm Booking essential. Book via hackneysociety.org Stokey: A Jewish Village Sunday 7 October 2018, 3pm Walk with Rachel Kolsky Booking essential. Book via hackneysociety. org FREE for Hackney Society members, £5 for non-members.

Historic has designated four 1980s properties in as Grade II listed. Designed by Colquhoun and Miller, the Thanks to Kopykat for sponsoring this issue A collection of eggs painted with clown houses – at 23, 23a, 24 and 25 Church Kopykat Printing Limited faces has been moved to the Clowns Gallery Crescent – are among 17 new postmod- 76 Rivington Street, London EC2A 3AY and Museum in Holy Trinity Church in . ern listings. Tel: 020 7739 2451 Fax: 020 7729 5925 Formerly the eggs were housed at Wookey www.kopykat.co.uk Hole in Somerset. The museum is open Audio Walk Kopykat based in Shoreditch specialises in com- on the first Friday of the month from noon Home-City Stories is an app-based audio pany stationery and high quality marketing mate- until 5pm. walk that starts at the Geffrye Museum and rial, we cover onsite litho printing, digital printing, weaves its way on and around Kingsland copying and direct mail, environmentally we have Tower Theatre recently been awarded Green Mark accreditation Road before finishing at Hackney Archives. and we print using vegetable based inks, The walk draws on research at Queen Mary without the use of alcohol University of London, in collaboration with and deliver in an LPG vehicle. the Geffrye Museum of the Home, Hackney Archives and current and former residents. kopykat Swifts Design and Print Hackney Council has announced a set of pro- posals designed to help halt and reverse the Spaces is published by the Hackney Society. decline of swifts in the borough due to habitat Views expressed in the articles are not loss. The birds are now officially classified necessarily those of the Society. as endangered in the UK. Swifts are unique Edited by: Monica Blake among birds in that they rely almost 100% Layout by: [email protected] on the built environment for nesting space. Contributors: Monica Blake, Laurie Elks and As older buildings are renovated and newer Ralph Ward The Tower Theatre Company has ac- buildings are totally sealed, available nesting Photos: Monica Blake and David Hoffman quired Sunstone House on Northwold sites for swifts to raise their young have fallen The Hackney Society, The Round Chapel, 1d Glenarm Road, London E5 0LY Road as its new home. Dating from the dramatically. The Council will now take action T: 020 7175 1967 E: [email protected] late 19th century, the building was originally in three key areas – through the planning W: www.hackneysociety.org a Methodist church. The chapel, which process; through ensuring that permanent The Hackney Society is a registered Charity was badly war damaged and derelict, was swift nests are built into all suitable new (No 107459) and Company limited by extensively repaired and renovated by the council housing developments; and through guarantee (No 04574188)