Friargate development

Does anyone know if there is any historic significance to the rearing horse sculpture at junction 6 of the ring road. It's really eye-catching on the approach to the City Centre and hopefully won't disappear when they eventually develop the area for the Friargate project.

"This sculpture of a rearing horse created in 1986, stands on one of the traffic islands of Coventry's inner ring road. The artist (Simon Evans), one of four winners of a council-run competition to mark "Industry Year" in 1986 was reportedly not pleased with the offer prize of a £25.00 book token, since the work cost £600.00. At that time he was a student on a sculpture course at Coventry University" Found by Google search

Thanks Midland Red. I had tried google but somehow missed the info you found. I should think the winning student was extremely angry at his prize for doing it. I love that sculpture though it was neglected for many years and was going very rusty and when it was painted black it was a big improvement.

Yes, it does look good - I must get down there with t'camera and add it to my gallery

This looks interesting - from an article in Estates Gazette.com it appears that our council have hatched some plan to get this development going by relocating to 200,000 sq ft office space in it. Not sure that this is a good way to spark regeneration. What if it leaves behind a huge gaping hole of emptiness in the already somewhat empty area within the ring road?

And all this bang in the middle of their announcement two days ago that a further 200 employees were to be made redundant!

Too true!

People don't half get worked up over something that *never* was going to happen - that was just a masterplan, an idea, for where new buildings could go and for a new layout. Some of the ideas are good and did solve some of the problems the city centre has, but it suffered from being based on a survey that asked people what they wanted. And the result was a bizarre garden city crossed with skyscrapers. We've already got a weird city that feels like someone plonked down a 1950s council estate on a medieval city! I actually think all these grand plans don't address the fundamental problems in Coventry. It has no streets. Cities are all about streets. They are the veins through which the lifeblood of a city flows. I think a good start would be to look at somewhere like Bristol, which was also destroyed by planners and bombs, but feels a lot more joined up (It has streets!) and lively. Coventry centre just feels increasingly abandoned, and now it appears our council are also planning to abandon it! I'm afraid Coventry IS a city, and it's a decent sized one, so you're going to get large buildings and modern buildings. I don't object to them. We only notice what's on the ground level anyway. What I do not like is when that ground level is dead. So back on topic: what do people think of the council's apparent plan to move out the 'inside ringroad' area? Does it mean we'll be stuck with more vacant sites for decades?

Cities that don't change are generally stagnant. Coventry was a well-preserved medieval city because it stagnated in the 17th century. I'd say it stagnated from the 1970s onwards, and hence has been left in this pretty bad state for decades now without really improving. People will never like contemporary buildings and always yearn for something from a mythical past (Do you think the people working in the grim Victorian mills really cared about the lavish architecture their owners used?). I personally like some of the modern buildings in Coventry (AXA tower, the blue glass building by the ringroad near Greyfriar's Green to name two.).

I preferred the old gas showroom myself

Hi Dutchman, I just had a little chuckle over that one. I too well remember the old gas showrooms, as was mentioned on the forum a while ago. All the modern buildings going up are too clinical for me. The new generation have no time to stop and tell you directions. No locks any more just cards you slip in a slot. OK I know we have to move with the times but it is back to the old adage - Coventry losing its identity. Perhaps you should all move to Bristol! Oh dear there is not enough room on the soapbox today. I had better get off .

Has anyone got a picture of this legendary gas showroom? Coventry has a lot of identity. The architecture of the Belgrade Theatre and other buildings are very much of a period, and whether you like that style or not, they are 'identity', and parts of the precinct that I don't like (The market) are also identity. I very much hope that this listed building can be made to look good when it's redeveloped. There are a lot of interesting period features dotted around. Much of what I dislike about the city centre is due to the poor layout and dubious developments from the 2000s. When you say it's losing its identity, you mean it's not the same as you remember it or not in the style you like. It's a medium sized European city. It's never going to consist of streets of quaint old shopfronts. Those days are long gone, and even if the Germans hadn't damaged the place, it's likely most of it would have been swept away anyway - Victorian cities are build on top medieval towns, some of which are on top of the the remains of Roman cities that were deserted when the Romans left. These places change when there's an economic and population boom. Maybe these days we'd adopt an approach whereby the new is build alongside the old, but that wasn't really the case in the past - growing cities need land for new facilities and a University could be considered a more important use of land than a few old shops. If anything, these days the city centre would be demolished and turned into a vast shopping mall. Now that _would_ be losing identity.

At the time this picture was taken it was both gas and electricity showroom Pictures of Coventry

Nice one Dutchman, at least it was not all glass and metal

The Rex Buildings opposite - not to be confused with the pre-war cinema - were also far more interesting than the featureless glass box which has replaced them.