These high rise blocks of flats, known as Cruddas Park, were built as part Smith’s vision of a “city in the sky” to replace slum terraces, and one of the blocks of flats was also to be Smith’s home at the end of his life. However, it also included five of Tyneside’s most famous blocks, which were due for refurbishment, but were then demolished after private investors pulled out in the wake of the current economic crisis. Much of the demolition was to rows of Victorian terraces, in an area notorious for crime and poverty.
Rather than returning the ski lift to its original location, the work is to be sited on the vast and exposed slopes to the west, where an area of the city called Scotswood has recently been completely demolished and sits waiting for its redevelopment. The structure will contain a single chair, that will ride on a continual loop between its supporting columns, without stopping, without a destination, on a continual endless journey. On the Way to Utopia will create an imagined version of the unrealised ski lift as working model of a 1970s ski lift. The plan for this leisure facility was never realised, although the hills are marked on OS maps as ski slopes. Spoil excavated during the construction of the Central Motorway East and other works will be used to provide a new facility for the city – a practice slope for skiers…The hill, made up of about 500,000 tons of spoil, will rise some 50 feet above the existing highest part of the Town Moor and provide an artificial ski slop of at least 150 yards
In Diversion No 1: Newcastle upon Tyne Roadworks Report (April 1972), it is noted that the Town Moor will have a ski slope: In the 1970s work began on the construction of the Central Motorway East. Part of this legacy was a massive transport infrastructure programme that included the development of a central motorway – a monolithic structure of ‘double decker’ roads and underground routes supported on massive concrete columns.
#BRAINBREAD 2 CONNECTION FAILED SERIES#
Much of the town centre was redesigned with the intention of completely separating pedestrian and car through a series of underpasses and ‘walkways in the sky’. Under Smith, Newcastle’s was the first English council to have a planning department (headed by one Wilfred Burns) and much effort was put into the regeneration of the city to create a ‘Brasilia of the North’. Smith's era provided a legacy of modernism within Tyneside, much of which is now being demolished. His rise to prominence and subsequent downfall is well documented, as is his vision for the transformation of the slums and urban centre of the city. Smith was a prominent figure in the Labour party and was the leader of Newcastle City Council from 1960 – 1965. Dan Smith: A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To Utopia) On the Way to Utopia is an excerpt from the title of an experimental feature film / documentary from the Amber collective of Newcastle that explores the Newcastle Council Leader T Dan Smith who, in 1974, was sent to prison for corruption.
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