The character of splendid buildings is never the same as they were before disaster struck
If the Leaning Tower of Pisa fell down tomorrow, would you rebuild it at an angle? Or as it was conceived in the Middle Ages, a strictly vertical structure that got taller and taller over the centuries? Or would you not reconstruct it at all, and let history be history? I say we rebuild in some form.
But this academic question has taken on a true-life relevance with the demolition of the Crooked House pub in the Black Country, after a fire. Andy Street, the mayor of the West Midlands, has called for it to be rebuilt “brick by brick”. Here, I have doubts.
Of course, it’s enormously sad when any old building disappears. In Britain, historic architecture of all kinds forms the background to daily life, and even minor examples will be important to those who live nearby. In our fast-changing world, long-familiar sights are a point of continuity with the past. Naturally their disappearance is mourned.
“Britain’s wonkiest pub” was on a par with the Crooked House in Canterbury, anthropomorphically described by Dickens – who loved idiosyncrasies, human and inanimate – as “bulging over the road … leaning forward, trying to see who was passing on the narrow pavement below”.