Introduction
The art of creating buildings is one of the most complex and challenging activities that individuals or organizations encounter. It involves fundamentals, preparations, designing, construction, and use among other things. In creating excellent buildings, clients need to be competent and should seek advice from experts (Cuff, 1992).
The National Centre for Popular Music opened a series of new cultural buildings to celebrate the millennium in 1999. Like the Millennium Dome, the visitors were very optimistic. The £15m building was financially unviable and closed in 2000. The result of a RIBA competition created an iconic form in the city of Sheffield. This was the winning scheme by Branson Coates. However, the business plan was fatally flawed. Therefore, the building was eventually taken over by Sheffield Hallam University and reopened as a student Union (Gibson & Connell, 2005; Brabazon & Mallinder, 2006).
Implications for architects, clients, and public buildings
The National Centre for Popular Music in Sheffield consisted of four huge stainless steel drums, which occupied an atrium area and an upper floor with a glazed roof. The tops of the drums were built to rotate into the wind. The unique building had many nicknames. Some local people called it a drum. Others referred to it as a curling stone or a kettle. Later on, it was referred to as the museum after things changed leading to its closure. Every drum performed its own function (Brabazon & Mallinder, 2006). For example, the first drum called soundscape, which was created by Martin Ware, used it as a touring project. The other two called Perspectives were used for making music for different purposes, and the last one was supposed to be used in showing music to people all over the world (Hager, 2005).
There was a shop, a bar, a cafe, and an office and exhibition space on the ground floor. The museum was on the top floor. The accommodation of changing exhibitions within the last drum was never fulfilled. This was due to the untimely closure of the National Centre for Popular Music. When asked why the building never succeeded to meet its objectives, the architects blamed the people who were responsible for making the exhibition. This was not true because there were other reasons. Notably, in many areas, the architects were the cause. For instance, in designing the central stair, it was not able to accommodate everything in the display. Visitors too were not able to choose artists of their choice to perform. For example, there are instances where visitors were forced to put their ears in a hole to guess the singer by listening to their voices. There are many other reasons that led to the closure of the National Centre for Popular Music. Furthermore, there was no public support from both local and national clients. The residents never or rarely promoted the project. Some even criticized it by nicknaming it with funny names (Banham, 2000).
The building was not designed to fit its function. The forms and materials used were not innovators. People referred to it as a museum, but in a real sense, it was not or it was because the music was more into the culture. This shows how they perceived the building. They did not consider the place to be interactive and highly technical where they could learn or get educated. In this scenario, the architects should be answerable. In addition, the media (newspapers and radios) did not broadcast or advertise to promote popular culture. People saw it as a bad way to present popular music and that the building was not supposed to be a center, where historical or economic development ideas were discussed (Shepherd, 2003).
Another problem that the National Centre for Popular Music faced was poor infrastructure. The inability to construct facilities that could back up the popular music’s function in society, as well as the lack of long-term strategies was instrumental in its failure. If the government had intervened by enacting and implementing long-term strategic policies immediately after the estimated number of visitors failed to attend, the center may have not been closed. The failure came about as a result of poor advice from the project’s incompetent advisors. Furthermore, the curators did not focus on how people perceived popular music, how it was represented, and its use. If the top management is poor, the middle and lower levels are likely to be even worse. This is exactly what happened in the National Centre for Popular Music (Smith, 2006).
The music was integrated into the culture that even the visitor’s expectations were disappointed. There was no creativity in the music. In this case, the center did not put more effort to make sure that it portrayed the potential of culture and broad educative effect in contexts. The Centre’s location was also a pullback. Poor infrastructure was a barrier to many activities in the area. It was not accessible due to the poor road network. There were no surprises for the visitors and it reached a point when the visitors got bored with the Centre (Hale, Thornt & Gatton, 2010).
It also reached a point where people had to be given some incentives in order to organize activities in the area. The client and the architects should have considered the location and with their competency in the field, make wise strategic decisions before the construction of the National Centre for Popular Music. A local producer and DJ, Winston Hazell confirmed the site where the center is at a place that has neither animation nor cultural consumption. He was heard saying that one had no reason to go to such a place unless he or she was called to a boring meeting or had an office there. He had further noted that the area did not meet Montgomery’s criteria. Montgomery’s criteria were a study that focused on four locations, which were international. Here, the cultural quarters divide among themselves the benefits of good urban places, offering very vital and dependable sets of activities (Andersson, 2012).
The architects should have built a multi-functional center that would have brought broad cultural music into the big picture. There is a difference between the quarter where the National Centre for Popular Music was and the other quarters. In this case, the quarter had focussed on production. On the other hand, the other quarters were commercialized with shops, bars and cafes (Bell, 2004).
One of the Center’s objectives was to be a place that would attract visitors from all corners of the country. It never worked for them, and the region was even forced to lower the incentives. In this case, there was no way they could expect the national movement of the population to be high whereas the local movement was low. In attracting visitors, a nearby region (Manchester) was in a good location with advanced transport facilities and an international airport. Manchester had also an established culture that incorporated media. The media infrastructure comprised the newspaper industry and the Granada television. This helped the city on its own pop music of the late 1980s (Hatherley, 2011).
Manchester was more advanced and densely populated. Other than focusing on cultural production and consumption, it accessed music in the cultural context, expanded the foundation of the economy and many other aspects. Manchester’s way of life makes one draw a mental picture where the two regions contrast markedly. Popular music is portrayed as a way of awareness or means of showing the cultural change. The mono-culture quarter, which required financial support from the public, shows the low level of development in the region (Adams Media Inc, 2009). The center was referred to as a museum. This indicated that it had failed to perform, or it was unable to meet its set goals. This included being a multi-functional Centre with academic institutions and broad contextual cultural music for local and national consumption.
The city’s social and economic growth was a result of the integration of urban economies and cultures. This led to commercial centers, which were rich economically. The architects who had built the National Centre for Popular Music were supposed to lay plans strategically. For instance, they should have put in mind the future expectations of the center to avoid certain cases. Such cases include the central stair being narrow that it could not allow visitors to view musicians performing. They should have built the center in a way to accommodate many functions and not just for one shop, one bar, and one cafeteria. It could have been effective to meet or correct this. However, this could be possible if the architects had paid pre-visits to other centers performing the same tasks in order to gather ideas on the way forward (Hatherley, 2011).
Competent architects with experience were the most preferable because they could have created a design that would fit all the functions that the Centre intended to hold. Blaming and criticizing the exhibition as an instrumental reason for the Center’s failure was very untrue. They played a part or were among the reasons why the National Centre for Popular Music never excelled. The other reason included overestimation of the capacity of the number of visitors to the Centre from a consultant’s report. In addition, there were high charges as entry fees, a limited number of exhibits, lack of public space for parking the visitors’ vehicles and poor media infrastructure (Hatherley, 2011).
Conclusion
After learning the reasons that made the Centre collapse, the city council of Sheffield launched a new cultural strategy to set the city’s direction. The council’s vision for the city of Sheffield is to make it the Centre of European culture. The council is set to help the community to be successful. This will ensure that all citizens, communities, and businesses fully participate in the realization of a strong economy. The council will aim to stick with innovative and high-quality design all through the buildings in the city. It will also make sure that the environment is green with open public spaces for public use. The cultural policy of Sheffield is meant to create high-quality cultural spaces for people living there.
References
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