THE government is expected to decide next week whether to list La Frégate café following the intervention of an expert body specialising in contemporary architecture.
Although the café is too recent to be routinely assessed as a historic building, it will now be considered for listed status after the Twentieth Century Society made representations on its behalf last month.
Jersey Heritage – which makes official recommendations on listings – has sent a report with comments by its local listings advisory panel which are understood to endorse the society’s views.
Under the latest proposals to develop the Waterfront made by the Jersey Development Company, the building by Stirling Prize-winning architect Will Alsop would be removed as part of flood defence enhancement.
Twentieth Century Society director Catherine Croft said that it would be a tragedy if the café were to be demolished. ‘Just occasionally a tiny building can have a big impact – that’s definitely the case here. La Frégate is playful and joyous, and a rare example of a work by one of the most extraordinarily inventive architects of the past few decades,’ she said.
While the society has no formal standing in the Jersey listings process, its expertise has previously been sought for additional advice in relation to a number of important contemporary buildings, including the former Odeon cinema and the historic 1937 airport terminal building, the latter reprieved last year after a campaign by Save Jersey’s Heritage.
Unusually, in the case of La Frégate, the society is understood to have initiated the request to list the café which the Independent said had ‘put Jersey for the first time on the international design map’. Its design was exhibited at the 2011 Sao Paolo International Architecture Biennale.
The voice of the Twentieth Century Society is the latest to be raised in support of retaining a building which, though controversial when it was first erected, has attracted considerable interest since, particularly following the death of Will Alsop in 2018 at the age of 70.
Architects Derek Mason and John Leveridge of Mason Design Partnership worked in association with the Alsop and Störmer practice to develop the café, based on an informal sketch which Alsop had developed with Mr Mason. Mr Mason called La Frégate ‘simply one of the Island’s iconic buildings’.
The view was endorsed by architectural historian Kenneth Powell who called for the building to be relocated, if necessary. He said that he could see no precedent for the loss of an important building designed by Will Alsop.
If listed status is granted, this does not guarantee its protection from development but has the effect of requiring any developer to make a stronger case for its removal.
The Jersey Development Company has previously said that it would look at the feasibility of resiting the café but a spokesperson confirmed yesterday that no progress had been made with the assessment.
