Tuesday 4 September 2012

Bye-bye BBC NBH

With the BBC all long since moved out to Media City, their former home of BBC New Broadcasting House on Oxford Road is being demolished. This brown and grey building going under the hammer (literally) was only completed in 1975 but is now being demolished, rather than reused - a dreadful waste.
In the 1980s my first BBC job was at the equipment department in west London. We used to send out stock (from capacitors to mixing desks) to engineers at all the BBC sites, from Ascension Island to Aberdeen. NBH was the code for New Broadcasting House in Manchester, home to BBC local radio and tv.  A few years later I was enjoying recordings of concerts and sitcoms here. I was last inside when we were on a fascinating tour of the building and its facilities during its latter days.
It was then sold for £10 million in 2011. A complex of hotel, shops, and apartments is due to be built here but of most interest to me is that there will also be a public space for broadcasts and exhibitions.
A lesson to be learned by namers of buildings everywhere is that what may be new at the time it is built, is not so new when it comes to demolition time, however many decades later.

15 comments:

  1. I have a few fond memories of the place. Back in '02 I went to a Northern Film Network meeting where a controversial local gangster movie was beign screened. A few patrons took offense to the graphic content, and an argument broke out between the actors, who'd come along for the launch, and some of the audience.

    A few years later I went to an info day about a trainee scheme (that I didn't get on), and heard a talk from Gordon Burns, who's had a fascinating career in journalism.

    The building was a bit old-fashioned, but it will be missed.

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  2. I'm afraid I can't agree wit h you about this building. It is one of the ugliest buildings in the city and needed to go. Maybe the office part could have been reused but the studio spaces would have been difficult to find a new use for. I am so pleased that is blot of the landscape has gone. Hopefully the MMU building almost opposite can be razed as well. I am so pleased that it is going.

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  3. This was really interesting to see!
    We have lived one year in the village Kinmuck in Aberdeenshire. The building was hundreds of years old "Friends cottage". Of course it was cold and moist but we were talking now here in Finland, when also in our town about 30-40 years old buildings have to destroy because of moisture and mildew, about those really old buildings there, how strongly they are standing on their place.
    And I agree with Tom that many new buildings are just ugly no spirit at all made as cheaply as possible. But it is such a waste anyway.
    ( I apologize my poor English, I hope, I could speak better about this interesting subject :)
    Happy Tuesday to you!

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  4. Hi there - its remarkable how quickly these buildings can become "old hat" - although it does make me wonder if they would actually last very long anyway -compared to Stonehenge that is!!

    Cheers - Stewart M - Australia

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  5. I agree that it was a hideous looking building but from an environmentalist point of view I still consider it a dreadful waste of finite resources to just knock things down for landfill and start again.

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  6. I hope that the new buildings stand the test of time. So many of the new residential buildings over here seem to be thrown together and age very quickly.

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  7. I've heard that the new "public space" inside what is planned for thew site will actually be "private"

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  8. Well, you were at the right place at the right time to capture this most interesting view of demolition in action. Super to look at.

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  9. If only they'd been able to reuse this space somehow, I wonder if the updates were so daunting that demolition seemed easier - though I agree it seems a waste. I love the shot, but it's indeed another signal of the old days passing by.

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  10. It is a shame to demolish a building that could be repurposed. But I guess the new needs don't fit. - Margy

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  11. i agree with powell river .... i have been there way back .... reminds my old days at london !

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  12. A promise in the making.

    Please have a good Thursday.

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  13. I too have memories of being inside NBH and not all pleasant ones. Still, it does mark the end of an era for me at least, but what I found odd is the warnings you can see about asbestos and yet they're bringing it crashing down without a care as to where the dust goes.

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  14. Gosh, that looks like something I saw on the news.....

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