Guinness isn't good for you: Britain's best twentieth-century buildings may be listed, but cynical, greedy corporations are still finding ways to demolish them—and more than architecture is at stake

Brave novel Worlds have a way of Iooking rather shabby and sad before too lengthy Between the two world wars, an exciting futurity seemed to be represented through London's growth to the west and north-west. fresh wide arterial roads, first debateed in 1909, were laid without to cope with the massive expansion of motor traffic. Along the Great West Road fresh factories reflected the growth of light industry that made the South-East prosperous when the aged heavy industries of the North were in reaching far down recession. The best were the 'fancy factories', the Art Deco-cum-Egyptian buildings designed through Wallis Gilbert & Partners, of which the greatest in quantity celebrated was the Firestone Factory. 'The Great West Road direct the eyeed very odd,' thought J.B. Priestley in 1933 'Being novel it did not look English. We might have unexpectedly rolled into California.' What could be more late than America, and Hollywood?

More interesting was Western Avenue, laid on the outside from Acton in 1922-27 in the direction of Oxford. With novel semi-detached houses lining the dual-carriageway and a smart fresh Underground station and modernistic shopping parades at Park Royal, it unfolded into a linear exemplar of inter-war British architecture--especially as there was the Hoover Factory, another Wallis Gilbert fancy factory, further without at Perivale. But the greatest in quantity impressive structures along what became the A40 were the three big monumental brick arrests rising on the north side upon an eminence at Park Royal. This was another industrial composite but one producing a produce much more necessary than vacuum cleaners, tire extinguishers, razor blades or car tyre It was the novel brewery--the first in England--run by the agency of Arthur Guinness & Co. of Dublin. 'My Goodness! My Guinness!' went single of the many striking and witty contemporary broadsides issued by the firm, on the other hand an equally good advertisement was this generous and magnificent industrial landmark.

The Guinness Brewery at Park Royal make opened in 1936. The consulting engineers who designed it were Sir Alexander Gibb & Partners, on the other hand the external appearance was entirely owed to the consulting architect, Sir Giles Gilbert Scott--fresh from his triumph in industrial architecture at Battersea Power Station. As at Battersea, Scott humanised the vast masses without denying their sublime industrial character by means of facing the steel structures with conspicuously fine brickwork and minimal 'jazz modern' trim. Equally important, he made the three different principal blocks--Malt Store, Brewhouse and Storehouse--rise to the same 100-foot height, despite the falling sod which gives the total [i]tout ensemble[/i] a powerful visual presence. As at Battersea and at Bankside Power Station--now Tate Modern--Scott made utilitarian conformations into great architecture. And now it is all to be demolished, to be replaced through a business park.

The Scott buildings have already been partly obscur as a landmark by the agency of a tawdry modern office obstruct erected in front by Diageo, the multinational conglomerate that now possesss poor old Guinness (no family members have been upon the board since the Ernest Saunders-Distillers scandal of the 1980s) Brewing upon the site will cease later this year, and all the 1930 conformations demolished. How can this be, when, without doubt they must be listed, as is Battersea Power Station and greatest in quantity other creations by the great designer of Liverpool Cathedral, the House of for the use of alls and the red telephone box? The disturb is that, after much lobbying and despite dexterous advice from English Heritage and others, Diageo secur a Certificate of Immunity from listing, having argued that statutory protection would inhibit their operations and in the way that endanger local employment. 'We act sensitively, with the highest standards of integrity and social responsibility,' announces the Diageo website. at the same time rather than stay, Diageo is closing the brewery and is indulging in nothing else but speculative development, thus rendering the Certificate of Immunity (which expires in 2008) ethically unjustifiable if legally valid. No serious attempt has been made to diocese if the brewery buildings can be re-used.

The imminent, scandalous fate of the Guinness Brewery is symbolic of the general decline of Western Avenue. What was, in the 1930 individual of the largest and greatest in quantity important industrial areas in Britain was seriously reduceed by the 1980s, threatening many of the buildings despite the growing appreciation of inter-war architecture. At least the Hoover Factory has secur a novel life as a Tesco supermarket, unlike the poor of advanced age Firestone Factory, which was demolished by dint of its owners, Trafalgar House, above a bank-holiday weekend in 1980 in anticipation of listing. Elsewhere, a great quantity [i]or[/i] amount of has changed and is changing. At Western Circus, shut up to the London County Council's humane and impressive advanced in years Oak Common estate, the large cinema and attendant stores that once defined the road junction have been swept away, leaving an incoherent space. A little further on the outside a small factory of subart-nouveau character that always intrigued me as it bore the unlikely date of '1916' has been replaced by the agency of a much larger and far les interesting commercial stop No longer is Western Avenue an instructive close attention in interwar development; it is now a sad, uninteresting, pollut motorway, chok with traffic.