History
Formerly the South Dock, during the 1980s it underwent significant brownfield re-development in the early 1980s with the building of many low rise apartment blocks in the area around the South Dock. On the site of the Sainsbury's superstore, once stood the Weaver building. Built in 1897 by the French architect François Hennebique It was used for corn storage and it was the first steel reinforced concrete building built in Europe.
Originally the city council decided to fill in the South Dock. This was done by a developer whose brother was a councillor at the local council. Later on, the same company was paid to dig out the South Dock again to create the marina. The developer is now imprisoned in Swansea Prison.
The re-excavated South Dock was laid out into the award-winning Maritime Quarter by architect Robin Campbell, then head of Environmental Design at Swansea Council. The brief was to make the area an extension of Swansea City centre, and not a separate suburb, and to work in walk ways through the overall development being created by numerous building companies. Campbell also worked in partnership with the developers to incorporate art designed by local artists into the buildings, and the creation of an observatory.
Read more about this topic: Maritime Quarter
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“... all big changes in human history have been arrived at slowly and through many compromises.”
—Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962)
“Most events recorded in history are more remarkable than important, like eclipses of the sun and moon, by which all are attracted, but whose effects no one takes the trouble to calculate.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The history of the Victorian Age will never be written: we know too much about it.”
—Lytton Strachey (1880–1932)