RULING FROM A RENTED HOUSE

The tenth anniversary of the opening of The Senedd building of the National Assembly for Wales will be marked on St David’s Day, 1 March 2016. The building may be presented as the product of architectural patronage and representative of the collective aspiration of the people at that time. Any such claim is contested in a draft paper available on the Academia.com website. 

https://www.academia.edu/21105408/Ruling_From_a_Rented_House

That is a case study  of the process of housing the newly devolved regional government of Wales from 1997 to 2006. It examines the proposition that the location of the National Assembly and subsequent commissioning of a new debating chamber designed by the Richard Rogers Partnership was the consequential outcome of a series of events rather than the intentional creation of a building which might symbolise a new form of regional democracy. 

The events under examination may be summarised as follows;

·        At the outset there was an attempt to minimise the anticipated costs of housing the Assembly and a dispute arose on the value of the assumed location, Cardiff City Hall.

·        A wider bidding process then ensued between rival locations within and outside the capital which may be seen to have been divisive.

·        The final decision was made between a location at The Pierhead, Cardiff or Bute Square, Cardiff, the final choice favouring the former. In either case the seat of regional government would be part of a commercial property development.

·        A competition was then mounted to select an architect for the debating chamber, The Senedd, which would be built at the The Pierhead.

·        During its procurement and construction concern over mounting costs resulted in the dismissal and alienation of the architect.

·        In the course of events there were several changes of leadership and little continuity or personal commitment to the new building.

·        In the ensuing political and public debate concerning the building some politicians adopted the language of architectural patronage to defend and rationalise decisions.

A conspicuous failure was in the implementation of the project and the failure of provincial civil servants and their advisers to properly understand and appreciate the aspirational elements that were being articulated by the architects. Independent adjudication concluded that advisers to the Welsh Office were substantially at fault in the dispute that arose with the Rogers Partnership.


The paper offers some observations on the true cost of housing the Assembly. 

A report published in March 2008 by the Wales Audit Office stated that the cost of the Senedd increased from £12M in 1997 to £69.6M in 2006. That was an increase of 580% compared with the original budget forecast in April 1997 (phase 1) and was four years and 10 months late. 

The conclusions of the Audit Office may be considered generous in some respects.

It will be noted that in the course of events the figure originally stated in the 1997 White Paper as the indicative cost of ‘setting up’ the Assembly was £12m-£17m

The lower figure of £12m formed the basis for bids to house the Assembly.                                                        

The following figures may more accurately reflect the actual cost

Capitalised rental of Crickhowell House                    

£1.5m pa                                                                               £25m

(Note ‘market value’ of capitalised rent circa £40m to investor – see below)

Concession of 200 car parking spaces                                       £0.688m

Initial costs of alteration to accommodate Assembly              £14.8m (to2000)

Expenditure on Pierhead Building                                 £3m??

Construction of TheSenedd                                                            £69.6m

                                                                                Total Circa           £112m+                                 £112m+

This can then be expressed as;

·         936% over the original budget of £12m or

·         658% over the upper limit set for Cardiff City Hall at £17m

The foregoing may then be seen to more accurately reflect the costs of ‘setting up’ the regional government.

Since that‘setting up’ the Welsh Government has also established new sub-regional offices in Merthyr Tydfil, Llandudno Junction, Carmarthen and Abersystwyth. The total cost was in the region of £91.5m which included Llandudno Junction (6,500 m2) at £22m and Aberystwyth at £21m[i].

Coupled with the capital cost of the ‘decentralisation’ of the Welsh Government administration were financial incentives for staff required to move if their posts were relocated. Relocation packages for staff moving to the Merthyr Tydfil office cost £2.9m alone - £2.1m of which was for excess travel fares. It was reported that "there was so much resistance from staff due to move from their Cardiff offices to Merthyr Tydfil", excess fares were subsidised for five years instead of the standard three[ii].

The overall value for money from the programme was "uncertain", according to a report by the Auditor General for Wales on the Assembly relocation strategy of 25 March 2014[iii]

A conclusion of that report was that:

“The Location Strategy had clear objectives, but the Welsh Government did not establish effective governance arrangements until 2008 and underestimated the cost of the Programme”[iv]

Finally some overall comment is made on ownership. In March 2014 it was announced that Ty Hywel (formerly Crickhowell House)had been acquired by a family of private investors based in Kuwait for £40.5m from the owners, Aprirose[i]

We have then a situation where the Senedd building, which it was claimed would, in its symbolic form, represent the open, modern democracy of Wales, is inextricably joined to a rented building. This then presents an interesting variation on David Harvey’s observations on collective symbolic capital and monopoly rents(Harvey 2012 pps 103-109).

---

[i]http://www.walesonline.co.uk/business/business-news/national-assembly-wales-office-acquired-6770330

---

[i]http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/empty-rooms-new-welsh-government-1798510

[ii]http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-26721637

[iii]http://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north-wales-news/llandudno-junction-915m-welsh-government-6875070

[iv]https://www.audit.wales/system/files/publications/WAO_Welsh_Government_Location_Strategy_Report_English_2014.pdf

Harvey, D. 2012. Rebel Cities. London: Verso.

 

THE PRESERVATION OF PENYLAN

In a blog of December 2013 the observation was made that Westville Walk should be protected to the same degree as Waterloo Gardens and Roath Mill Gardens [1]. Since then there has been active local engagement in the proposed works to alleviate possible flooding  and, in the light of recent inundation, every likelihood that such works progress with urgency. It is hoped that such works do not detract from the unique character of what is an exemplary piece of urbanism.

The argument that was put for the protection of Westville Walk was that it was created at the same time as the other parks, forms part of the same conservation area and, to all appearances, remain very much of a piece. Logically the criteria applied in the designation of the conservation area could then be extended to that part of Penylan also created at the same time. The attributes of the housing within the present conservation area are identical to those of the adjoining streets built around the 1910's. These are catalogued in the Conservation Area Appraisal for Roath Mill Gardens [2].

What is emphasised there is the exceptional degree of unity in the residential and other development of that era and the strong sense of both public and private spaces within the area. The frontages of the buildings consist of modest front gardens, divided from the street by low boundary walls comprised of pressed red brick some with iron railings. Many front gardens have hedges behind these walls. The buildings have an inherent quality given by the use of a specific palette of building materials and many architectural details that are characteristic of the area.

There is an overall architectural cohesion through a relatively uniform building height and a roofscape comprising steeply pitched Welsh slate roofs, the substantial chimneys of pressed red brick with red pots and large gables facing the street. There is a variety in the ornamentation of those gables, some having half timbering, stucco or the characteristic  red hanging tiles with a partial or full fish-scale pattern. Combined with overhanging eaves and the polygonal double bay windows beneath the gables these create a heavy and constantly changing shadow and rich texture to the elevations. These are further enhanced by the recessed and open fronted porches facing onto the street which have an abundant display of decoration. Externally they are commonly surrounded with stonework and internally with tiled dadoes, often in an Art Nouveau style. Many of the porch floors and front garden paths of many buildings retain their original patterned encaustic tiles.

Whilst appearing similar the buildings therefore reveal a variety of  rich and interesting detail particular to that period before WWI when Cardiff reached its relative peak of prosperity. The cohesion and quality of such residential development was imposed by the landed estates upon which such houses was built, in this case largely that of the Tredegar Estate. The demand for suburban villas of such quality came from the aspirant bourgeoisie of Edwardian Cardiff. It is very much of a piece with the civic architecture of Cathays Park  in marking the apex of Cardiff's prosperity as a port. In this respect Penylan is as unique as the celebrated developments of the Georgian or Regency  periods elsewhere in being a product of its time.  It is, surprisingly, one of the very few suburbs in Britain which retains such qualities and essential character of the Edwardian suburb.

The case for the conservation of a much wider area of Penylan  is therefore the retention of symbolic and cultural capital of the city. This is, essentially, the same line of reasoning that supports the designation of Bath or Blaenavon as World Heritage Centres. That is that the area has cultural significance and exhibits an important interchange of human values on developments in town-planning and  landscape design. It is an example of a type of building, architectural ensemble and urban landscape which illustrates a significant stage in the human history of the city and nation. Furthermore it can be argued that it represents a cultural tradition and, perhaps, 'a civilization which has largely disappeared'.

What must then be considered are the measures to ensure that the area is not vulnerable and subject to irreversible change. The debate should naturally concern those of us who have chosen to live in the area. If we do not look after it UNESCO will not. In a local context it is as important an area as Cathedral Road, Church Road, Whitchurch or the later Rhiwbina Garden Village . A precedent has perhaps also been set by the inclusion of late Victorian housing within the nearby Roath Park Conservation area.

In such engagement we might consider the position that we are not so much caring for the past but the future. We could, for example, consider the Brundtland definition of 'sustainable development' beloved of our sloganeering politicians as that 'which meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs'.  

If we permit the gradual erosion of the fine detail and quality of an area of Penylan we deny our children's children beauty.

---

[1] http://rhcroydon.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/troubled-over-bridge-water.html

[2]  https://www.cardiff.gov.uk/ENG/resident/Planning/Documents/Roath%20Mill%20Gardens-A.pdf

---

A WAR OF CHOICE

Richard N Haas, President, Council on Foreign Relations offered the following distinction between a “war of necessity” and a “war of choice.” The former are unavoidable, involve critical national interests, there are no alternatives to the use of main force, and a certain and considerable price would be paid as a consequence of inaction. The Second World War is the prime example. The War of Choice, on the other hand, tends to involve less vital interests and viable alternative policies are available, be they diplomacy, inaction, or other sanctions.

Haas acknowledged that subjectivity was unavoidable in such characterizations. However, the key point is that his distinction is not one between wars that are judged to have been 'good' and wars that are judged to have been 'bad' or between those seen as 'successes' and those seen as 'failures'. In short the retrospective assessment as to whether a war was worth fighting or well fought has no bearing on what kind of war it was. Our verdict of policies is inevitably shaped retrospectively on the outcomes and the balance between results and costs. However, hindsight should not be required to understand what was done and why. This does not of course matter when it comes to wars of necessity as, by definition, such wars must be fought. Wars of Choice, on the other hand, place full responsibility on decision-makers due to the considerable human, military, and economic costs associated with armed conflict. Such decisions should be made in the light of a rigorous public assessment of the likely costs and benefits of action and the possibility that other policies might be implemented. Wars of Choice are not then eliminated but it should be better understood that they must be the exception, not the rule, to ensure that there is adequate will and ability to fight Wars of Necessity when they materialize.

In a retrospective assessment of the Falklands conflict of 1982 it was noted by The Spectator (31 March 2012) that it coloured domestic politics in changing attitudes to foreign policy and war itself. Much debate has concerned its contribution to the re-election of Thatcher and her Conservative government in 1993. A more general point to be considered is the opportunity the Falklands ‘victory’ afforded her successors. That was in signalling the apparent reversal of Britain's steady international decline since the Suez debacle of 1956. Through the 1970's, Europe aside, Britain's politicians were primarily preoccupied with the domestic challenges of industrial decline and unrest; economic recession and an IMF bail-out. And, lest we forget, the war on domestic terrorism emanating from Ulster which is still euphemistically referred to as ‘The Troubles’. The Falklands reinstated foreign affairs as a measure of successful leadership and that has remained the case ever since.

 “Everywhere I went after the war,” Thatcher wrote in her memoirs, “Britain's name meant something more than it had.”. 

Whereas America's costly defeat in Vietnam had made war seem messy and unpredictable. Thatcher's apparent victory in the Falklands reinstated the notion that war could achieve political ends quickly and efficiently. The fatalistic anti-militarism that had prevailed in Westminster was replaced with the refrain that Britain's noble and professional armed forces were the “best in the world”.

From its contribution to the static defence of Europe from the Soviet Union through the Cold War Britain's appetite for active conflict was reinstated. Consciously or otherwise, Thatcher’s triumphalism informed Britain’s subsequent engagement in a series of military interventions. From the short, sharp excursions of the first Gulf war, Kosovo, Sierra Leone etc. the ‘successful’ run of expeditionary wars ended in Afghanistan and Iraq. The constantly changing rationales offered for fighting indeterminate and elusive enemies yielded inevitably disappointingly political results. In consequence the Falklands war- a swift victory over another nation state for a simple cause —is now regarded with almost as much pride and nostalgia in Britain as the 1966 World Cup.

Opinion polls suggest that the British public remain firmly opposed to any concession on the governance of the islands and that any compromise with Argentina would be impossible while the war is a living memory. Leaving aside the direct cost of that ‘victory’ the British Government’s commitment to the Falkland islanders' right of self-determination, including the garrison and air and sea links to Britain, is currently estimated at £200m a year. That it be viewed retrospectively as a War of Necessity and its ongoing defence generally accepted and supported as a matter of  choice by the wider public can be attributed, in part, to that  war's lasting emotional impact.

For the current generation of Britain's leaders, who mostly reached (what passes for) political consciousness in the early 1980s, that conflict left its mark. The Tory party (and it would appear many Labour politicians) revere Thatcher. This week’s vote in favour of military intervention in Syria was resoundingly presented by its supporters as a matter of necessity. It has ever been thus. However, by virtue of the level of public opposition and open debate, it may be more correctly seen to be one of choice. The disparity between the Parliamentary vote and public opinion suggests the, albeit cynical, conclusion that the engagement is all about retaining some of Thatcher’s swagger in the international community. 

In making that commitment those that voted favour should be reminded that they are not buying Britain a place at the big table- we are merely renting a chair indefinitely.

In that respect British foreign policy merely clings to the tatters of its former imperial glory. A lot of innocent people get killed to allow a few third rate people to travel first class.

TAN 99 - Consultation on possible revision of urban planning guidance in Wales

It has been announced that public consultation will be undertaken on the revision and updating of Technical Advice Note 99. Although first published in 2011 the advice provided appears to remain applicable and the provincial government feels that only minor amendment and addition may be necessary.  However, the Minister for Built Up Areas needs to urgently address a potential underspend on his departmental budget in this financial year. It would therefore be helpful if some suggestions could be made which might involve fact finding missions to some warmer and sunnier places this winter. You are reminded that it is 'Blues at Home' in the forthcoming Six Nations Tournament and he already has a freebie to Dublin so a meeting of minds between this and other Third World Countries would be preferred.

The original TAN 99 of 2011 is reproduced below for your convenience.

HOTEL DU NERD

Last week I stayed at the CitizenM hotel in New York which was, pound for pound, one of the worst hotels I’ve ever stayed in. Imagine if you can an achingly pretentious multi storey version of those Formula1 hotels in France. In place of porters, concierges, bellboys and all the traditional personnel one might associate with a hotel you are ‘greeted’ by a couple of IT assistants in i T- shirts lounging at touch screens. Once a swipe card has been dispensed by The Machine you are pretty much on your own.

Thrice rejected as the venue for the North American Free Style Cat Swinging Contest it offers the smallest hotel rooms I think I’ve ever seen. A large bed is flanked by two walls and a window with possibly the most mediocre view in the city. If you had difficulty checking in and are not adept at using an i-pad you are in some difficulty as one is provided on a bedside shelf and operates pretty much everything in the room. I would assume that many computer illiterate guests have been found frozen to death having fallen asleep in an air conditioned gale.

There is no bathroom as such but a translucent oval pod small enough to simultaneously have a shit, shave and shampoo. The pod did, however, have adjustable mood lighting so if your idea of a big night in New York is lying on an oversized bed changing the colour of your toilet with an i- pad this could be the place for you.

Bizarrely this failed edifice of hipsterdom is located within what must be the most uncool ten blocks of New York – the trashy flashy canyons of ‘Theatreland’ north of Times Square. It might be less incongruous if it were in Tribeca, SoHo or wherever in New York knobheads consider groovy in any given week. As it is it seems hard to reconcile its style pretensions with its location on 50^th off Broadway. Mid-town looks sound on a map but unless you want to go to the theatre twice a day (which would be going some at around a hundred bucks a pop) it isn’t really convenient.

That said the CitizenM is convenient for three subways- two with trains and one which sells those smelly sandwiches just beyond the adjacent adult shop and 'gentleman’s club' . Walking from the hotel involves thrusting your way through crowds and the general ambience after dark is Bladerunner with Burgers. That general vibe can be vicariously enjoyed from what the hotel boasts as its 21^st floor rooftop bar. That would be great if it were not completely surrounded by buildings on not less than 60 floors. What view there is gives a fleeting glimpse of Blackpool down through mediocre high rise buildings. A notable feature of the rooftop bar is the only surly bar staff left in New York. All the good ones are working elsewhere for the mandatory 20% tip expected for simply filling a glass and advising you to have a good day.

I chose this hotel because it had the best rating on Booking.Com. Mea Culpa. Having skipped the small print as usual I got stuffed on arrival for taxes on top of the figure advertised by Booking.Com and, as is frequently the case, the general impression is that any discount offered by Booking.Com pretty much ensures you’ll get one of the worst rooms available in the place. The high rating of the hotel on Booking.Com can only be explained by the sort of nerds who think that a swipe card and a bedside i-pad are the last word in hospitality.

The next time I travel I shall revert to the services of Messrs Thomas Cook and ensure that the establishment favoured with my patronage has a full complement of native bearers to carry my steamer trunks to the suite.

WHEN HITLER DROVE PAST MY HOUSE

75 years ago to this month Adolf Hitler made his one and only visit to Paris. Given that every facet of Adolf and the Third Reich appear to have been exhaustively examined by authors and late night cable television programmers the exact date of his day trip to France remains, bizarrely, a matter of dispute among historians. A date consistently given for the visit is 23^rd June 1940, which was the day after the French formally conceded defeat at Compiegne. An alternative date favoured by others is Friday June 28^th 1940. Albert Speer, Hitlers architect who accompanied him on the jolly states that it was ‘three days after the beginning of the armistice’ which would make it the 28^th as the surrender of France took full effect on the 25^th. Speer should know as he was there but then, as the Nuremburg Trials were to show, he did have probably one of the most selective memories in judicial history. [1]

That said a dawn visit on Sunday 23rd, a day after France had ignominiously surrendered, looks entirely plausible from the fragmentary film of the event and accounts of it. There is a grainy clip of Hitler’s entourage crossing the Place de Concorde en-route to the Champs Elysees and passing only two startled gendarmes and a priest crossing the road. Nowhere is it suggested that the streets have been cleared and a general curfew imposed to afford Hitler a private view of his latest acquisition. It is simply an eerily empty, stunned and silent city.

Nowadays it would probably take longer to get from Le Bourget to the Eiffel Tower and back than Hitler spent in Paris that morning. By Speer’s reckoning and other accounts they were in and out from the airport in 3 hours – 6am until 9am- which was the only time Hitler spent in Paris. The route that he and his entourage took around the city was pretty much the bog standard whistle stop ‘greatest hits’ that day visitors still take.  That morning it went from le Bourget airport to Opera Garnier, Madeleine, Place de Concorde, Champs Elysees, Arc de Triomphe, Trocadera (group pose for picture with Eiffel Tower) Invalides, Boulevard St Germain, Odeon, Luxembourg, Pantheon, Ile d Cite, The Marais, Montmartre (pause for view of Paris) then back to the airport at le Bourget.

The tour has been well documented as regards the visits to the major sites and much of that commentary relates to Hitlers fascination with the monumental structures and vistas, his personal knowledge of the kitschier bits – Garniers Opera House, Napoleons Tomb and Sacre Coeur- and his disinterest in the Sainte Chapelle, Notre Dame and the Place des Vosges. The part that has only recently come to my attention was that later detour through The Marais which I found curiously shocking. The images of Hitler posing at the Trocadero or driving up the Champs Elysees have become part of the familiar iconography of WWII, the victor viewing the spoils. C’est la guerre etc. Finding out that he drove down the rue des Francs Bourgeois past the flat I once called home is a violation of space that seems strangely altogether more personal. It is an act of trespass as offensive as his driving down the Old Road hill in Skewen or around Penylan, Cardiff. The Marais has now been completely gentrified but for nearly ten years I had some of the best days and nights of my life around there.

Down the rue des Francs-Bourgeois he went, amusingly interpreted by Hemingway in ‘A Moveable Feast’ as ‘the street of the opinionated middle classes’ which was, to some extent, what it eventually became.  However, in 1940 it must have been well gloomy and the antithesis of Hitlers preferred urban typology being pretty much end to end with ancient monuments and mediaeval in scale and form. It was not, by several accounts, the best part of his little outing and he didn't brighten up until they got back around to the Napoleonic colonnades of the rue Rivoli.

Even stranger is that The Marais was as close as Paris got to having a Jewish ghetto in the area known as The Pletzl and an immediate point to ponder on was how different things would have been if someone had got out of bed earlier that day in 1940 and shot the twat on his way to the Place des Vosges. That was just one of the places Hitler passed which had a major synagogue. The other was the rue Pavee and its 1913 synagogue was by perhaps THE architect of Parisian art nouveau, Hector Guimard. That was dynamited by French fascists the following year along with other Paris synagogues. Less than two years later in March 1942 deportations of Jews commenced from Drancy and Bobigny to ‘unknown destinations’ in Germany and Poland. Most of the occupants of the Marais sleeping that morning would be rounded up by the French police to be corralled in the Velodrome de Hiver in the Grand Rafle of July 1942 before being deported to concentration camps. The Vel D’Hiver was finally torn down in 1959 only after the French authorities had shown how even handed they were. It had been used as a detention centre for anti-colonialist Algerians in 1958.

The high street of The Pletzl, the rue des Rosiers, runs parallel with Francs Bourgeois and was in its day a dominantly Jewish thoroughfare. It was still having more than its share of anti-semitic aggravation many years after Hitlers fleeting visit and the attention of his Vichy chums. On 9 August 1982 two assailants threw a grenade and fired machine guns into Jo Goldenberg’s restaurant. They killed six people and injured 22 others. Several Jewish premises suffered less lethal attacks subsequently. In my time there many Jews were leaving Paris for Israel where they felt a lot safer. I bought my flat from an Israeli architect who was going ‘home’ and the trend seemed to increase after 9/11. Jo Goldenbergs closed in 2006. It probably had more to do with the relentless gentrification of the area rather than a falling demand for kosher cooking. Property values at that end of the Marais were rising swiftly on a tide of Pink Pounds – sorry – Euros- in the Noughties. The last time I minced up the rue de Rosiers it had been hard landscaped to an inch of its life and the Hammam St Paul, The Sept Lezards jazz club , the falafel and kosher pizza shops all been boutiqued. There was a traditional baker still in operation and I wonder what Hitler would have thought of the window display.

He only had the one apparently...................

A short film of Hitlers tour of Paris is at;

https://youtu.be/003iC7VZmYc

---

[1]  Inside the Third Reich  Albert Speer 1970 Weidenfield & Nicholson pps 247-249

also

When Paris Went Dark    Ronald Rossbottom 2014 John Murray  pps 72-90

50/50 VISION of a HALF AND HALF CAPITAL

The Towns of Wales by Harold Carter, 1965, University of Wales Press
Cardiff: Half and Half a Capital by Rhodri Morgan. 1994, Gwasg Gomer

In 1965 Harold Carter made some prescient observations on the role of Cardiff as the capital of Wales in the final pages of The Towns of Wales.  It was then only ten years since Cardiff had been so designated and Carter suggested that there were two major sources from which a national capital should derive its importance;

·        Its primary practical function as the centre of government and administration and

·        Its symbolic function of creating and maintaining national unity as the focus of national sentiment

In the fifty years since Harold Carter made that observation Cardiff has consolidated its position as the largest urban and commercial centre in Wales and withstood challenges as to its legitimacy as a regional capital on both counts.

In the transition from the colonial governance of the Welsh Office to the form of devolution narrowly secured in the referendum of 1997 this was of course a close run thing. The failure to reach agreement on the use of Cardiff City Hall as home for the National Assembly re-opened the debate as to whether it should be the centre of government. The arguments for and against this were rehearsed by Carter in 1965 who concluded that the designation of a capital city in a modern state would inevitably generate conflict between the effectiveness as centre of government and as a symbol of nationhood. He noted that another problem particular to Wales was the nature of its urban culture or, more correctly, the absence of it. 

The first proposition that he put to support this was that Wales, as a nation, had not grown from a single nuclear area which was widely recognised as a capital. The desire for a ‘capital’ was then (in the 1950’s) largely a practical or administrative consideration with some recognition or concession that if Wales was a ‘nation’ it should have a capital.

Carter’s second proposition concerned what was then a lack of independent political existence and, to some extent, remains valid. The question is to what extent political power must be devolved for Wales to be considered an independent sovereign state. As matters stand, the designation of Cardiff as a ‘capital’ in the political sense appears to remain one of administrative convenience, albeit one which now has its own civil service. It is the centre of a regional tier of government within the sovereign state of Britain. Carter’s conclusion that any real claim to be the political capital was questionable can then only be contested as to the degree of autonomy currently enjoyed.

The third proposition put by Carter raises deeper rooted questions in suggesting that the indigenous culture of Wales was essentially non-urban and that towns have tended to be the centres of English speech and attitudes. There is then an inherent problem that urban centres cannot be symbolic of a non-urban culture. There is that strain of nationalist sentiment that romanticises an often imagined past and commends virtues associated with a society and way of living of which there is little left outside heritage compounds. Carter notes that this volkisch sentiment may coalesce with the residue of C19th nonconformity and be represented as ‘a Welsh way of life’ and “However real and valuable this may be, it certainly is not epitomised by modern urban society (p355)”.

On the matter of nonconformity and its influence on Welsh life a point may be noted in passing on the development of Cardiff from the mid C19th. The 2nd Marquess of Bute was an autocratic high church Tory but his tolerance of other religions was evidenced by mosques, synagogues, catholic churches and other places of worship that were built on his lands in and around Cardiff. What are very hard to find on any of the former Bute estates in Cardiff are nonconformist chapels. This probably reflected the establishment view of the 2^nd Marquess and his ilk that chapels were where radical politics were fermented and disseminated.

The relevance of this passing point is that the nonconformist chapel can be said to be one of the defining features of the Welsh cultural landscape. That is to say that chapel buildings define both the urban and rural view elsewhere but, due to Bute estate policy, did not and do not define the urban landscape of Cardiff. Those chapels that do exist appear in the main to have been built on areas of land not controlled by Bute. Over the larger area the dominant religious buildings were churches aplenty – Anglican/ Church in Wales or Methodist but most distinctly churches not chapels. In this respect Cardiff did not LOOK like other Victorian settlements in Wales.

Returning to Carter’s propositions he stated in conclusion that, in terms of national pride, the title of capital must inevitably be awarded to a settlement of some size which might reasonably fulfil the functions which it inherits. In the 1950’s the conflicting and irreconcilable desires thus gathered around the determination to give the nation a capital. Cardiff – the head of the economic hierarchy- was the obvious answer, yet it meant accepting an urban symbol of non-urban culture, an anglicised capital of the Welsh nation. It also housed several national institutions including the National Museum and the University of Wales giving it some more general cultural legitimacy. Perhaps, however, the most obvious symbol of national sentiment was Cardiff Arms Park at that time. To most people this is now a given but should be noted that in 1955 even that had not been the ‘national’ stadium.

“The year before capital status was granted, resentment of the city had grown amongst rugby supporters in the west after the Welsh Rugby Union decided to hold all future international matches in Cardiff because the facilities and profits were better there. This may not have been universally popular but it did at least give Cardiff some relevance in the wider Welsh community. In the absence of the traditional apparatus of a nation state, sport played an integral role in developing and sustaining a popular sense of Welsh national identity.”(Johnes,M.  Making of Cardiff, 2012)

This was reiterated by Rhodri Morgan in his 1994 book, Cardiff: Half-and-half a Capital (p17). 

Cardiff Arms Park’s position as the ‘national’ rugby stadium was consolidated through further works ahead of the 1958 British Empire and Commonwealth Games which brought the overall capacity of the stadium to 60,000. The rebuilding of Cardiff Arms Park into a modern National Stadium in the 1970s coupled with the success of the national rugby team gradually made the city a more genuine focus for Wales and Welsh pride. That was a factor, albeit coupled with the economic rationale that underpinned the City Council’s support for its reconstruction as the Millennium Stadium when the Welsh Rugby Union considered building a new stadium at Island Farm in Bridgend ahead of its bid to host the 1999 Rugby World Cup.

Antipathy to the city has, however, persisted and remains an underlying factor fifty years after Carter made his observations. It informs the discussions relating to the recognition of the city region which is, again, largely a matter of political distinction. In the social, cultural and economic landscape city regions have been a given throughout history as is the centrepital force exerted by major settlements referred to in earlier blogs. What Carter highlighted in his 1965 work was that the two periods of significant urbanisation in Wales were;

·        Imposed during the Norman/ Angevin occupation and,

·        Exploitative in the course of industrialisation.

Given that Cardiff is also centred on the pre-urban nuclei of Roman fortification and the Victorian port was built by the Irish for a Scot some consideration might be given to that theory that it must inevitably be viewed as an alien settlement in Wales. It was, and remains, one of the least Welsh place in Wales.  On the other hand Carter's notion that an antipathy to urbanism is embedded in the DNA of the Welsh may be considered fanciful. It may well be in there somewhere and, indeed, have much to do with the terrain of Wales, the inherent challenges that this presented to communication historically and the concomitant parochialism of its scattered communities. In recent years the capital has been the object of envy and resentment not pride among many in its hinterland. This may have much more to do with recent political relationships and perceptions of economic disparity between the city and other parts of Wales.  

It is worth then revisiting Rhodri Morgan's 1994 piece which raised many supplementary questions almost thirty years after Carter's observations. It closes with comment on forms of political autonomy for Wales which preceded the devolution referendum by some 3 years and Rhodri's ascent to the status of First Minster of Wales by three more. The questions it raises appear to remain relevant even now, not least the question raised above as to the degree of 'indpendence' that has been achieved to date and whether that has consolidated or supplemented the status of Cardiff as a 'capital'. As Rhodri Morgan notes in the closing page;

"Perhaps it is easier to assert the right to a share of political control if you do not feel in the beggars can't be choosers position" (p82)

It might be said that Wales remains, over fifteen years after devolution, the beggar at the back door of a bankrupt kingdom. Economically it is not independent but is in fact saturated with a dependency culture. 

Furthermore the devolution process itself emphasised or even exaggerated the 'half-and-half' aspect of the country, let alone Cardiff's status as its capital;

 “…….an unfortunate fault line between the city and the National Assembly- a relationship whose dysfunctional side has been symbolic of Cardiff’s relationship with Wales itself. You can, according to taste, blame this dysfunctionality on inescapable institutional rivalry or on personalities, on Assembly Ministers or on the adversarial approach of the city’s leader, Russell Goodway, in the Assembly’s early years. That the relationship has been a little fractious should not surprise anyone as there is always tension between city governments and the tier above.” (Talfan- Davies, At Arms Length, 2008, p285)

Harold Carter’s 1965 study was a hugely important contribution to understanding the spatial structure and character of human settlement in Wales through a detailed examination of the patterns of its component parts and the process of its development. However, in revisiting his observations on Cardiff one must also consider the sources and instruments of power deployed in the subsequent re-shaping of the south of the city Cardiff and its evolution as a ‘capital’. Revisiting Carter’s work is a reminder that urban morphology must necessarily be supplemented by consideration of institutional structures and how settlements have, historically, been shaped by those who command the necessary resources. The 50th anniversary of its publication should be officially marked and more widely celebrated by the architecture  and planning professions in Wales 

????

---