arts and design

Britain’s great urban spaces are ideal for celebrations. Let’s make them special | Rowan Moore

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Every Christmas needs its Grinch. This year, the elegantly clad form of Stephen Bayley, formerly of this newspaper, the man for whom the phrase “design guru” was reportedly coined, has stepped on to the stage, apparently happy to take on the role. Bayley, in his capacity as chair of the Royal Fine Arts Commission Trust, a body that aims to promote “design excellence in architecture and the built environment”, has written to the Times. The object of his dislike is the Christmas market in Trafalgar Square, which he calls a “hurdy-gurdy of kitsch” and “an assembly of tat”.

He objects to the way its huddle of huts stands in front of the “noble view” from the square to the National Gallery. Concerned citizens of (for example) Edinburgh and York have voiced similar concerns about such installations in the historic centres of their cities. Vox pops on Bayley’s remarks mostly didn’t share his view. They were along the lines of “I think it just adds a bit of Christmas spirit” or: “It’s only going to stay here for like one month, so it doesn’t really matter in my opinion.”

Christmas fair in Edinburgh.



Christmas fair in Edinburgh. Photograph: Ian Georgeson

Christmas markets, along with big screens for World Cups and Wimbledon, temporary stages, ice rinks, film screenings and cultural and commercial pop-ups, are part of a wave of structured and sponsored events in the open spaces of British cities that have been growing in popularity for most of this century. Some are promoted by the developers who control what are known as privately owned public spaces, or Pops. Others are mounted by private companies with the approval of local authorities in charge of long-established squares and parks.

Trafalgar Square, whose role in the national consciousness seems to be that of some respected but not especially liked elderly relative, highlights the issues involved. It has a certain dignity and its statues of generals and kings claim it as a place of a particular version of national identity. But no one knows quite what to do with it. Once, before the then mayor of London Ken Livingstone banned the latter activity, it was a place mostly of political demonstrations and pigeon-feeding. Also of aimless daytime lassitude and, thanks to being a terminus for night buses, raucous small hours.

In the nearly two decades since its north side was closed to traffic, in a scheme designed by Norman Foster and his team, London mayors have been keen to liven it up, using it as a stage for the multicultural city to display itself. Celebrations are held there for Diwali, for the Sikh festival of Vaisakhi, for St George’s Day. Applications are welcomed by the mayor’s office from anyone with a plausible idea for using the square.

Most of this, in Trafalgar Square and elsewhere, is welcome. That people in this country are better able to enjoy their urban spaces is progress. The long-envied pavement cafes and lively piazzas of the continent have at last appeared here, in a fashion, if often in a ramshackle way. Not everything is or can be to everyone’s taste – I’m not personally in the market for a desultorily carved wooden owl, available at the Christmas market for £13.50 – but no single aspect of a city can satisfy all people all the time.

Still, it’s possible to see, when surveying the current state of Trafalgar Square, what Bayley is complaining about. It is not the presence of the market, precisely, that’s the problem, so much as the cluelessness with which it and other temporary elements are jammed in among the stonework. These include a crib housed in something like a bus shelter and a makeshift health-and-safety skirt of crush barriers and green tarpaulin around the 25-metre Christmas tree, donated every year by Norway in thanks for British help during the Second World War. If the Norwegians are kind enough to give us a tree – and notwithstanding some gripes that this year’s version is a bit scraggy – we should at least put a tiny bit of thought into whatever goes around its base.

The Christmas tree in Trafalgar Square



The Christmas tree in Trafalgar Square, behind Nelson’s Column. Photograph: Will Oliver/EPA

A Christmas market should be something special, selling lovingly made products you can’t get elsewhere. A Christmas market in Trafalgar Square should be exceptional, the best of its kind. Instead, we get two rows of predictable and generic chalets, too many of them selling the touristic junk that is available 365 days of the year. There is a hollowness to the jollity that comes from the sense that the primary aim is profit for the operators, not fulfilment for the buyers or vendors. Inevitable outlets for bratwurst and glühwein gesture towards the concept’s German and Austrian origins. A visitor from Berlin, interviewed by the Times, was underwhelmed.

Sarah Gaventa, a champion of public space now working on the project to illuminate the Thames bridges, says it is about “gathering, sometimes protesting, not shops, about things you can do together and for free”. One good test of a temporary use is therefore whether it can enjoyed without spending any money. Another is whether it dominates its setting to the exclusion of whatever else might be pleasurable about a place.

As Gaventa also says, any intervention should “respect” where it is. In a park, this should exclude events that devastate the greenery. In Trafalgar Square, it should include the recognition that this is a special location, not another piece of land to be exploited. There are two other Christmas markets a short walk away, in Leicester Square and on the South Bank. Does anyone really, truly need another?

At the very least, there needs to be more intelligence and design in the way that temporary elements go together and a more ambitious bar set for those who seek the privilege of holding events in famous places, but there is a bigger issue here than aesthetics. It is about the ownership of public space and the extent to which it may be colonised by business. The sane answer lies somewhere between zero and 100%. It would make no sense to ban all selling of anything in public squares, but neither do you want them to be year-round outdoor supermarkets and entertainment venues.

Christmas markets may only come once a year, but they need to earn their right to occupy the hearts of great cities.

Rowan Moore is the Observer’s architecture correspondent

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