TWO CHEERS FOR TRINITY LEEDS
The Eighth Circle of Hell, a giant superfluity, or a beguiling piece of work? Our critic Walter Grumpius has taken time to digest the impact of the Trinity shopping centre and offers new perspectives …
How long a period for recollection in tranquillity should one allow before committing opinions to print? What constitutes a reasonable moratorium for reflection? Do first impressions and initial gut-feelings gain substance after being tempered by a level of familiarity?
In short, is it too soon to say what one thinks of the new Trinity Leeds development now that it is almost complete, most of its units filled and having recently welcomed its alleged 10,000,000th shopper after just five months?
Late the other evening, passing along Boar Lane after a research trip to a new Leeds Brewery pub, my eyes were drawn upwards by a bewitching show of lights, small stellar flickerings – red, orange, yellow – coming from the glass empyrean of the Trinity Centre. For a while I stood enchanted until the imperatives of train timetables brought me back to earth and hurried me onwards. Well – I reflected to myself on the train home – anything can look good at night; but to be convinced I’d need to see the place in the clear light of day.
So, let me be plain: I am not a fan of shopping – apart from books and records – nor do chain restaurants entice in the slightest. The arrival of a new shopping centre does not thrill in the same way that the inauguration of an art gallery or museum might.
Trinity is not a market; this is not a place for purchasing the necessities of life. It is a giant superfluity.
At least we are spared a portentously monosyllabic name such as the Core or the Cube, but what sort of trinity is represented here: Father, Son and Holy Ghost or Retail, Greed and Luxury Goods? Personal taste however isn’t the point, and although I don’t care for the activity as a way of spending time, it is far from my intention to denigrate shopping. Indeed, if the alternative is Amazon, then the more new shops the better. For me, the sociology of shopping is – and will no doubt remain – a closed book, but to untutored observation on each of my visits the centre has been crammed on all floors. Some of these folk may, like me, have been drawn by simple curiosity about an addition to the cityscape and, in spite of the crowds, a number of the shops seemed light on customers.
The criticism that Trinity would suck the commercial life out of other shopping areas of the city appear a little far-fetched. The Centre has no grocers, greengrocers, butchers, bakers, fishmongers, ironmongers, supermarkets. There is nothing here to challenge the high streets or other shopping centres. But also there is little to tempt a reluctant shopper.
Nor, to be brutally honest, is the public art particularly arresting. The two pieces by Andy Scott seem like preliminary sketch-model meshes rather than the completed animations. To be fair to Scott, it is uncommonly brave of an artist to commit work to such a public theatre. In an art gallery the angles of viewing are controlled or constrained to an extent; one can direct the angles of perception. To put it crudely, the work can be displayed to show its best side. There is no such hiding place for a public piece; it is available to view from all angles and distances. Scott’s Equus Altus sculpture almost convinces when viewed head-on from the second floor gallery. From this vantage it has substance, movement, character, poise and presence and genuinely attracts the eye. It is less beguiling from other angles and becomes quite leaden and dumpy when viewed flankside; the very limited pedestal space causing awkwardness and almost pleading for a visit from an animal welfare organisation.
Scott’s other piece is the Minerva, guarding the Briggate entrance. In Roman mythology Minerva was the goddess of trade and weaving, an appropriate deity for Leeds if a somewhat blasphemous one for Trinity. She was also the goddess of wisdom and as such was traditionally accompanied by an owl, cannily alluded to here in her headdress. The owl, too, has a thematic aptness for Leeds. Conceptually this could have led to an exciting and imaginative work, but alas the sculpture itself is devoid of spark. It lacks movement, elasticity and grace, typified by the forbidding rigidity of the right arm.
So how come any cheers for Trinity at all, let alone two?
The answer lies not so much in the contents as in the building itself and, more particularly, in how it has transfigured the neighbourhood. Imagine for a moment that this was the housing for a new Leeds bus station rather than for luxury shops. The encomia would be deafening. It is a beguiling piece of work and, in my opinion, a significant enhancement on what was there before, the Trinity and Burton Arcades.
The designers – architects Chapman Taylor and the Eden project team SKM Anthony Hunts – have wittily created a sense of expansive space in what is, in truth, quite a cramped area. Although visitors won’t get wet, the centre is not hermetically enclosed and draughts are freely admitted and the air circulates. Trinity is not a weather-free bubble but a sort of open-plan extension of the surrounding pedestrianised streets with a handsome and convenient undulating umbrella.
Most of the entrances are generous and the use of slopes is inspired. The curved, contoured entrance from Lands Lane is flowingly handsome and the invitation is hard to turn down. The entrance from Boar Lane is scarcely less enticing.
By contrast, the access from Albion Street, grim even before the development, remains akin to entering one of the deeper malebowges of Dante’s Inferno (in Dante Alighieri’s Inferno, a Malebowge is a subdivision of the eighth circle of Hell, Ed) a stygianly-underlit clothing outlet to the right enhancing the impression. A narrow passage from Bank Street recalls a Victorian-era London tube station but adds to the variety. There is a pleasing lack of geometric symmetry to the structure.
One of the true measures of the success of a design lies not only its intrinsic excellence but also in how it harmonises with and enlivens its neighbouring environment. Here again Trinity scores highly. Holy Trinity Church in particular has benefited from the reshaping of its backdrop. The architect was William Etty – not as the renowned architectural historian Nikolas Pevsner erroneously attributed, William Halfpenny, although Halfpenny did submit a design – with a steeple from the late 1830s by RD Chantrell, which replaced a wooden one blown down a year or two earlier (See footnote for the academic reference, Ed). Having stood on Boar Lane since the 1720s, the church used to feel rather camouflaged by its previous neighbours. The new centre however has liberated the church. It stands crystalised, its elegant but simple lines and decorative details clearly defined, its brooding millstone grit lowering with ascetic restraint against the lighter tones of the new build.
Another revelation has been the lightening up of the bottom end of Albion Street. Perhaps this is an optical illusion but the approach to Boar Lane always used to seem like a voyage into gloom. With the new development and by whatever means – perhaps by the refurbishment of the first floor level bridge but more particularly the removal of the overpoweringly ugly escalator that once provided access to the old Leeds Shopping Plaza – the panorama down Albion Street and the elegant sweep of New Station Street round towards the railway has been opened up and provides an altogether more compelling prospect. Take a walk here after dark and even the tower of the car park on New Station Street has been made to look glorious by the simple expedient of applying a few rich variegated pastel shades and some well-appointed lights. It is inconceivable that this simple but attractively effective improvement was not encouraged by the opening of Trinity.
Gentrification of an area in the wake of a new development isn’t invariably a blessing but it has to be said that the Central Arcade opposite the Briggate entrance to Trinity has benefited. What was once a most unprepossessing thoroughfare has tidied itself up pleasingly. Once its units are populated it will form an attractive approach to Kirkgate Market.
I’m not quite sure what to make of the vaguely Daily Telegraphesque logo for Trinity, designed by Fitch. The personal jury is still out. It may be something to do with appropriateness to the brand rather than the design itself that is delaying a judgement.
But to end with a final yippee, the gates by the Trinity Church entrance – which to see in their full glory have to be visited when the centre is closed – are a captivating composition of twisting, twining metal pieces of varying widths that dance playfully against the stern and starkly beautiful straight lines of the church.
So two out of three cheers are due for Trinity, one big emphatic one for the design, one scarcely less enthusiastic one for the effect on the neighbourhood but none – as yet – for the contents.
Academic Footnote:
Pevsner, Nikolaus, “The Buildings of England: Yorkshire West Riding” (2nd edn. Penguin 1967; p.313)
and Wrathwell, Susan, “Pevsner Architecture Guides: Leeds” (Yale University Press, 2005; p. 94)