Preston Bus Station

I'd not been out on a proper architectural expedition for a while, neither had I visited Preston before, so this trip, justified by an invite to P Town's first mini zine fest. was a special one. It was always set to be really. I'd been telling anyone who'd listen that I needed to see this place in the flesh for years now. A brutalist icon and thus a modernist pilgrimage.

Preston's really lovely by the way. I know I was there for less than twenty four hours but it made a good first impression, in spite of the hype. A sentence few have typed out I expect. It felt dense enough to be walkable and lively, but not so much to be claustrophobic. Of course it has its fair share of modernist architecture, more than I expected at least. I shall be returning.

Onto the bus station itself: embarrassingly and very predictably, I literally could not stop myself from smiling as I wandered through the concourse. It's so massive! It'd had an air of mysticism to me prior, in friends and art - Preston Field Audio's ambient works there, or Blackhaine's use of the place. Such a complete, coherent and surprisingly sympathetically preserved (undoubtedly due to its recent listing) example of British Brutalism, and in Lancashire's heartlands!

A place like that exemplifies everything that I respect in Brutalism. Robust and ambitious public spaces. Excessive not in their ornamentation and frills, but in the vast space occupied to serve its users. This is a space that serves its purpose extremely well. It's so excessively ambitious that it houses a two-storey car park above its concourse!

I could attempt to make some overarching point here, but all I'll say is this trip's left me inspired.