I recently had the pleasure of seeing Belfast by bus. "Why, that’s not unusual at all!" you might say. "Stop wasting my time and get back to work." Now, it’s not for me to speculate about these things, but perhaps you might be more intrigued if I reveal that I was on a tourist bus, and I was going on a tour of Art Spaces in Belfast, which is something you don’t get to see/do every day.
The wheels on the bus went round and round as we were shuttled from studio to studio of varying degrees of interest. By the end, I staggered off the bus and skipped the last destination. Now, before you think me ungrateful, I had been on the bus for about four hours, and I am a gentle sort whop can’t stand up to such punishment.
I am also a childish sort, the kind of person who simply MUST sit on the roof of a double-decker bus if it is humanly possible. So I did. And it was great! It didn’t rain, it was reasonably hot, and I got some great views of local kids in East Belfast shouting obscenities at the ‘tourists’. A great day’s entertainment, all in all.
However, the real entertainment came from being on the Bus in the city centre. I’d never really been in a bus through the city centre on a busy Saturday, and especially not from about two meters in the air. And I found the experience liberating! Aside from the childish pleasure of looking at people who had no idea I could see them, I was able to look into all the buildings and see the stuff you’re not supposed to see. Stuff like store-rooms, offices and empty rooms. You know, mysterious stuff. The kick comes from seeing stuff that somehow seems forbidden. Like if you start a new job in a shop or something, and you get to see a part of the building that you would never see as a customer; it seems alluring and enticing. It also becomes boring very quickly, but let’s not focus on that.
Aside from just peeping in through windows, I craned my head back as far as it could go and just sat on the bus looking at the glorious buildings we have. All kinds of architecture sitting side by side, out of necessity rather than choice, but all solemn and dignified. Art deco, Victorian, gleaming steel and glass, they all can be seen in the city centre, and they all have their secrets. I’m not going to spoil it for you, but one day, why don’t you just try LOOKING at the buildings – they all have something to say.
It made me feel a bit despondent towards the architectural future of Belfast, with the prospect of a unified, homogenised style that can be seen in any city centre throughout the UK. Like the Victoria Centre, which whilst admittedly is impressive in size and stature, looks like every new shopping centre in the country. Why can’t architects attempt to design buildings that reflect the character of the city they exist in? Would it be too much to ask for buildings that actually look like they should be in Belfast? Just a thought…
And a thought that continues to resonate with me. A number of weeks later, I found myself on a boat in the Lagan, taking the Titanic boat tour. Initially sceptical of doing such a ‘touristy’ thing, I soon succumbed to the prospect of actually enjoying being a tourist in my own home. Sailing up the Lagan, round the docks and the old shipyards, it stuck me how much of what I associate with Belfast is changing. Admittedly, this is nothing new, but in this most historic of areas, the sight of one solitary Harland and Wolff emblem on the side of a crumbling building prompted a flood of memories.
And all this will be lost. Whilst speaking to one of the artists on the Art Tour, he told me that, "They’ll probably tear down all the studios. And then they’ll replace them with apartments called ‘The Studio’. And people can live in them and feel smug." And they’ll probably do the same thing in the docks.
Screaming in the face of economic sense, all I can think of is "PRESERVATION". I want to be able to look at all these buildings and hear their stories. I want to look up and know I’m in Belfast. It scares me when I think that we are erasing our past. It’s funny how things look when you’re floating above sea level.