\n Seeing the city from this position shows the juxtaposition of surviving historical landmarks and buildings that have since disappeared into local memory.\n<\/p>\n
\n Standing proud as the prime architectural landmark of the city is the Civic Centre.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
\n Views from Marlands crane – April 1990 054 (Image: Echo)\n<\/p>\n
\n Its splendid Portland stone and famous clock tower appear very much as they do now, gazing out upon busy streets, double-decker buses and the bordering parklands in a way that would be very familiar today.\n<\/p>\n
\n Pan around the skyline, though, and glaring gaps between this and a modern city are evident.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
\n Among the largest of such sentimental scenes is the vast Toys ‘R’ Us superstore, with its jagged frontage and sprawling surface car park.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
\n This elbowed frontage was once the weekend highlight of generations of local kids \u2014 although the large shell is still present, the store has been closed for many years now.\n<\/p>\n
\n The pictures also capture the hard-edged, stepped concrete profile of Wyndham Court, a piece of brutalist architecture that is unequivocally a part of the citys built fabric, even though not everyone likes it.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
\n But remarkable too is what isn’t there – Westquay.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
\n Views from Marlands crane – April 1990 054 (Image: Echo)\n<\/p>\n
\n This section of the massive shopping centre that now dominates the city’s modern retail life is entirely missing.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
\n Instead, we get a rare poke around this industrial landscape in the years before it was bulldozed and rebuilt into the retail nirvana we know today.\n<\/p>\n
\n Behind the railway lines and multi-storey car parks, the industrial life blood of the city is on full show.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
\n The waterfront and docks extend into the distance with the twin chimneys of the old power station on the other side of the water forming a skyline silhouette that has long since disappeared.\n<\/p>\n
\n As the camera sweeps down to the waterfront, the magnitude of the city’s industrial past is jaw dropping – most notably the vast Pirelli cableworks.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
\n A vast site sprawling beneath the old city walls these warren of factory bulk were one of Southampton’s biggest employers – and one of its defining sights – for decades.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
\n Views from Marlands crane – April 1990 054 (Image: Echo)\n<\/p>\n
\n In the foreground lies the reason for this view; The Marlands itself coming into view.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
\n Covered in scaffolding – including a large “Wimpey” construction banner – the bare bones and newly-installed roofs of the shopping centre get ready to change the streetscape in perpetuity.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
\n These images catch Southampton in a rare state of transition, perfectly divided between its\u00a0 mid-century configuration and the modern commercial centre it was fast becoming.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Seeing the city from this position shows the juxtaposition of surviving historical landmarks and buildings that have since…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":549689,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[6225,6485,6486,1120,96,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-549688","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-artsanddesign","11":"tag-design","12":"tag-entertainment","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom","15":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549688","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=549688"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549688\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/549689"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=549688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=549688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=549688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}