York has some of the most attractive historic buildings and streetscapes in the country. Robust planning controls protect them. But should we still value and keep the front – the façade – of a historic building when the rest of it is no longer of use or in a poor condition? And what can we learn from examples of reuse of façades in York? The preservation of a historic façade as part of a new building is known by conservationists as ‘facadism’.
It can be a controversial approach. On one hand it ensures the survival of historic fabric. The façade of the Banana Warehouse on Piccadilly - a former warehouse of 1925, when the River Foss was York’s industrial working river, and bananas a valued imperial product - is currently clamped upright since the rest of the building has been demolished.
It is set to be preserved as an entrance to a , part of a 160-bed newbuild hotel. For those who oppose it, facadism is seen as a skin-deep appreciation of heritage, a tactic favoured by some developers to fob off campaigners, preserving a small part of a building to justify demolition and redevelopment of the rest. When clagged onto a new boxy hotel rising to five-storeys, the Banana Warehouse façade will certainly offer a surprising and striking historic front to draw the eye.
It might prompt us to consider how the city has changed over a century, and remind us of York’s transforming commercial prowess - in place of the international trade of goods, the city now benefits .