Accessibility links Skip to main content Keyboard shortcuts for audio player Open Navigation Menu Newsletters NPR Shop Close Navigation Menu Home News Expand/collapse submenu for News National World Politics Business Health Science Climate Race Culture Expand/collapse submenu for Culture Books Movies Television Pop Culture Food Art & Design Performing Arts Life Kit Gaming Music Expand/collapse submenu for Music The Best Music of 2025 All Songs Considered Tiny Desk Music Features Live Sessions Podcasts & Shows Expand/collapse submenu for Podcasts & Shows Daily Morning Edition Weekend Edition Saturday Weekend Edition Sunday All Things Considered Fresh Air Up First Featured Embedded The NPR Politics Podcast Throughline Trump's Terms More Podcasts & Shows Search Newsletters NPR Shop The Best Music of 2025 All Songs Considered Tiny Desk Music Features Live Sessions About NPR Diversity Support Careers Press Ethics Britain's 'ugliest landmark' becomes protected historic monument Once derided as Britain's ugliest building, London's Southbank Centre is now a protected historic monument -- beloved by symphony-goers as well as skateboarders, who've taken over its Brutalist ramps. World Britain's 'ugliest landmark' becomes protected historic monument February 12, 20264:50 AM ET Heard on Morning Edition Lauren Frayer Britain's 'ugliest landmark' becomes protected historic monument Listen · 2:18 2:18 Transcript Toggle more options Download Embed Embed "> <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/nx-s1-5708834/nx-s1-9645745" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player"> Transcript Once derided as Britain's ugliest building, London's Southbank Centre is now a protected historic monument — beloved by symphony-goers as well as skateboarders, who've taken over its Brutalist ramps. Sponsor Message
A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
Southbank Centre is a big brutalist landmark in London. It now has protected status, but the reception has been mixed, as NPR's Lauren Frayer learned.
LAUREN FRAYER, BYLINE: I'm standing on a bridge over the River Thames, looking at the skyline - the baroque dome of St. Paul's Cathedral, the gleaming glass towers. Looming out of the fog on the southern bank of the river is a big brown complex of rectangles.
CATHERINE CROFT: It's concrete, kind of craggy, almost like more of a landscape than a single building.
FRAYER: Catherine Croft runs Twentieth Century Society, a group that fought 35 years to get this craggy complex Grade II listed status, which means any renovations face strict oversight. She says the Southbank Centre is Britain's best example of brutalism, a postwar style exuding honesty, no frills, clean lines. But for passerby Jeremy Ackland (ph), it's like that quintessentially British spread Marmite. You either love it or hate it.
JEREMY ACKLAND: I don't care for it.
FRAYER: Why?
ACKLAND: Well, I used to work in that redbrick building there years ago. And I used to have to stare at it all day, and I got fed up of it then. Mind you, that was 40 years ago.
FRAYER: When the Southbank Centre opened in 1967, the Daily Mail dubbed it Britain's ugliest building.
Has it grown on people?
BEV GILBERT: No. It's still fairly ugly, but...
(LAUGHTER)
FRAYER: Also walking by is Bev Gilbert (ph).
GILBERT: I have to say, when you look across the skyline, I mean, some of the new stuff was weird when it first went up. You know, like - oh, what's that one called? The Walkie Talkie or whatever.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Yeah. All of them.
GILBERT: And the Shard and all of those. But actually, they look quite nice now, whereas that still looks brutalist.
FRAYER: But that 1960s public housing vibe is in now. Croft says there's nostalgia for a style that prioritized transparency and the public good.
CROFT: Wanting to have a sort of honesty about what something is made from, to see the bones and the structure of a building from the outside without having to buy a ticket or going to a performance.
FRAYER: The complex houses concert halls, galleries, a poetry library. And the skateboarders who've colonized the ramps underneath? Some of them campaigned to get this building protected, too.
Lauren Frayer, NPR News, London.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ACROSS THE RIVER THAMES")
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