A Surveyors’ Triptych: 

2. Good Government Building  

Compared to most students of architecture, I was of modest means. Archie Moore’s the name – yes, after the pugilist. My father was a huge fan of the ring. Pity for him, I came out a sensitive boy. What my father didn’t realise is that feelings are the most practical things in the world. And they can be the most vicious. I’d take a round with Cassius Clay over a therapist, any day. 

He had a point though, my father – what am I talking about, he practically had quills – but one stuck under my brain like keys under a mat: I was always drawn to power, too, the power of harmonious clashes. Oh, not half-naked men, but bare-chested bricks, half-dancing half-brawling with the Great British weather, with glass extensions, with new-fangled cladding. In other words, I loved a good government building.  

Because that’s what good government buildings are: power, at once horrifying and cosy. Have you ever truly gazed upon Manchester Clock Tower? Have you seen its legs akimbo, its middle finger both saluting and come hithering? Have you seen the Central Library opposite, its dome encircling in a chokehold embrace? My fellow students, even my dear old professors, didn’t seem to see what I saw, so there was nothing for it: I compiled a list.  

But what counts as a good government building, I hear you muse. Excellent question – first rule of architecture, define your terms. Well, at the time of compiling the list, I defined: a) ‘good’ as technically impressive and aesthetically powerful (not necessarily pleasing); b) ‘government’ as any body with most of its limbs in the public sector (you know what the hokey-cokey of privatisation’s like); and c) ‘building’ as any structure capable of housing people. I deliberately steered well away from engineering feats so as not to follow in the footsteps of Robert Blyth and the Bridge of Breadth (oh, I write with a wry smile now). 

I commenced with libraries: Cheethams, with its network of timber arteries lulling you into its majestic Marxist bowels; John Rylands with its Gothic skin crawling about its evil mouth swallowing you whole; and the top of its class, the aforementioned Central. I went on to galleries: Whitworth, squatting arrogantly, puffing its barrel chest out, shoulders back; and Manchester Art Gallery, its bleak pillars like teeth baring out of its stony jaws. Each building a juxtaposition of comfort and hostility, a show of the might and fright of the state. How wonderful, and how awful, that our technocrats wield all this bricked-up power. Do the buildings contain their power or do they launch it into the skies, spill it into the streets? These were the questions my list posed. How ‘good’ (in the moral sense) is a good government building? 

I mulled rather too much. My marks took a good (ha!) dip but, worse, I was overtaken – oh, yes, by emotion, but I mean by him. That sly swine Robin Balustrade. They say people disproportionately wind up in professions allied to their name. Well, he did just that – the thief! While maintaining his occupation of the top of the class, Robin must have got wind of my project (alas, Architecture is a parochial, though beautiful, village) and decide to compile a list of his own: beautiful administrative properties. BAPs! Although his concept was less refined, less philosophical than mine, his would go on the map because those wags at Manchester Architectural Guild love a good (oh it stings!) acronym. I grew sick imagining it: MAG’s BAPs for all to see. 

The final nail (it still pierces my heart) was that Robin got to number one before me and revealed its magnificence, its beauty, its goodness with the perfect description… can I repeat it here? It’s not for the faint-hearted. Oh if I must… “a Manc-Gothic monstrosity of love”. Genius! Because that’s what Manchester Town Hall stands for, of course. Haven’t you returned the stare of its countless unblinking all-watching windowed eyes? Haven’t you followed the fingers of its decorative spires, reaching resolutely through the rain, caressing the very air we breathe? Monstrous love, indeed.  

And given freely to Robin! The very goodest government building had displayed itself to my rival. I was as a scorned lover. I cried with yearning when she chimed her hourly hearty dooms. I wept as the rain conspired in puddles at her feet. I scattered flowers into bracelets before her on every anniversary I could think of, which was most days.  

A crew gathered. I answered questions technical and romantic (ah, there is no clear dividing line) with passionate forthrightness. The ignominy is etched on my brow. This was not Architectural Digest.  

Channel 5. 1st March 2017. 7pm. The Man Who Fell in Love with A Good Government Building. After soundbites from Richard Rogers and Ruby Wax, the last gleaming gloating word was delivered by Robin Balustrade to the corny soundtrack of Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance”.  

I didn’t speak for weeks. Until my psychologist unlocked me a little. Some people have a turn of phrase, she had a turn of perspective. 

“Isn’t this a good government building?” she asked, feeling out my blueprints.  

I glanced at the 1980s exposed yellowing brick, the tasteless timber panels, the single-glazed barred windows. Not really, I thought, expecting a patronising lecture about how value stems from the service delivery rather than the “shell” itself. But she went one leap further. 

“Aren’t all buildings good government buildings?” 

“What do you mean!?” I couldn’t help but exclaim in a ‘how dare you’ tone. She’d hit a wall. 

“Take my house,” she said. 

I guffawed.  

“It was built with planning permission under buildings regulations by a company incorporated by the government sold by way of a mortgage of legal tender backed by the state paid off each month by two employees of the public sector. If need be, my home would be served notice under environmental protection legislation or even compulsory purchased.” 

Whatever edifice I’d erected around a corner of my experience tumbled around my ears.  

“And despite this, because of this, I can think of no better word befitting the stage of my family drama, my daughter’s childhood, our loves and losses, than ‘good’.” 

By God, she was right. The brute force and intimate care of the government reached far further than I ever had imagined. This called for a new list! Except it would be interminable. It would include every building.  

Down to wherever you’re sitting comfortably right now.  

Can you feel the reach?  

Doesn’t it send a shiver down your plaster?  

Doesn’t it warm the cockles of your hearth?