Toxteth and Turner: "Turner Prize winners show how the soul can be put back into regeneration schemes"

An extraordinary project was nominated for the Turner Prize:
Futures Forum: Toxteth and Turner: "It has taken the Turner prize to highlight that there is an alternative to replacing low-income housing with expensive flats."

And the winner is
Turner Prize | Tate

... the very same people behind the rejuvenated housing estate:
Turner Prize 2015 winner is Assemble for helping Liverpool's Toxteth estate | Daily Mail Online
Assemble win Turner Prize with run-down housing estate
Turner Prize: Assemble win for Liverpool housing scheme - BBC News
Urban regenerators Assemble become first 'non-artists' to win Turner prize | Art and design | The Guardian
Turner Prize: Liverpool’s Toxteth estate regeneration collective Assemble win prestigious art prize | Art | Culture | The Independent

This comment is from yesterday's Liverpool Echo:

Bill Gleeson: Turner Prize winners show how the soul can be put back into regeneration schemes

• • 08:30, 10 DEC 2015
• • OPINION
  • 
  • BY BILLGLEESON

We have long seen how the culture and history of a place can be imaginatively harnessed for regenerative projects

Granby Four streets in Toxteth have won the Turner Prize for their regeneration. Beaconsfield Street

Restoration has been a key idea in world art and literature throughout the ages.

You find the theme in anything from the Biblical prophets to William Shakespeare and James Joyce and beyond.

Economic regeneration, such as we have seen in many parts of our inner-cities over recent decades, often links into this theme of restoration, as with the Albert Dock in Liverpool, Salford Quays and Canary Wharf on London’s Isle of Dogs. These once deeply derelict places have been given a new lease of life.

We have long seen how the culture and history of a place can be imaginatively harnessed for regenerative projects, with museums and art galleries at the forefront of such schemes.

While many regeneration schemes have involved major institutions, such as Tate Liverpool or the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, what is really fantastic about the Liverpool project that won this year’s Turner Prize, is to see how a community-based regeneration scheme in Toxteth has been able to incorporate the imaginative work of a collective of artists to enhance life in the inner-city.

Unveiled in Glasgow earlier this week, the prestigious £25,000 prize went to Assemble, a group of young architects, who, unusually for Turner Prize winners, are doing something useful. In contrast, some former winners, such as Damien Hirst’s and Martin Creed’s pieces have been very abstract.

The restoration of Victorian terraced houses in the streets around Granby using many crafted materials certainly beats sticking up more soulless brick or concrete boxes designed to cram in as many people as possible. Indeed, just last week, the Royal Institute of British Architects warned about the proliferation of homes that are, they say, too small for purpose.

The Toxteth scheme, known as Granby 4 Streets, shows what can be done when people are empowered and their imagination is called upon.

Better still, many of the crafted materials, including fireplaces, balustrades and doorknobs, are made at an on site workshop, which is beginning to sell some of its wares online.

Such imaginative projects don’t just restore the physical buildings, they restore the soul too and inspire others to follow their example by building communities that people really want to live in and take pride in.

Long may it last.

Bill Gleeson: Turner Prize winners show how the soul can be put back into regeneration schemes - Bill Gleeson - Liverpool Echo
Granby 4 Streets wins Turner Prize - Liverpool Echo
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