The Midland Goods Shed: welcome to the Guardian's new space for debate, culture and curiosity (original) (raw)
Seductive, intoxicating and so very bitter. It arrived from the Ottoman empire, and changed our notions of democracy forever. The Turks called it kahve; the English named it coffee.
On a tiny medieval London street Pasqua Rosée set up business in 1652 and the English coffeehouse was born. Or more precisely a flimsy, leaky pop-up; Pasqua Rosée’s coffeehouse was a smoke filled shack, lodged against the churchyard wall of St Michaels. But the idea worked. Hundreds more followed. The allure wasn’t so much the exotic beverage, but what it came to symbolise, what it made possible.
Coffee was an idea, a philosophy, a new way of being. The coffeehouse became a convenor, connecting strangers, igniting curiosity. Coffee brought people together to contemplate and debate the intimate and global questions of the age. ‘What news have you?’ became the ubiquitous greeting. News was born here, in the coffeehouse of 18th century Britain – newspapers started life as a kind of political theatre, read out loud to jesting crowds.
Newspapers and coffee were the lifeblood of an emerging public realm. Public as a definition of spaces and experiences open and shared by everyone: not circumscribed by kin, patronage or client relationships. A truly public place is one where communities and solidarity can be imagined, shaped and built. A place where anyone can deliberate on the political decisions that govern our lives. A place that gives life to democracy.
Wind the clock forward a few centuries and these notions of public are under threat. People are losing confidence in the ability of our public and corporate institutions to serve the collective interest. The forum of the newspaper to hold power to account is under threat too: the digital revolution is disrupting the economic model of producing news. This is what’s at stake: that a diverse independent media is stripped out, leaving an elite of oligarchs to dominate the distribution of information behind the barrier of a paywall. This amounts to the privatisation of trusted, accurate information, so that it becomes the preserve of a wealthy minority – the equivalent of a gated community.
The Guardian’s founding purpose has never been more relevant. We are dedicated to the defense and enrichment of the public realm. What began in Manchester in 1821 is now a global media platform reaching hundreds of millions of people a year. A platform for fearless quality journalism which brings to life these abstract notions of the public realm in experiences of debate, discussion, sharing of ideas and learning; in print, online – and now, live.
East Handyside Canopy and Midland Goods Shed at King’s Cross. Photograph: John Sturrock
We believe a change in our relationship with our readers is required to ensure that the Guardian continues to expand its role in serving the vibrant, powerful concept of the public realm, across the world. It is the fight for a truly public realm – free speech, equality, reform – which is so inspiring in our age, from Burma to Egypt.
This is our vision: around the world, the Guardian will host and create the forums and opportunities that bring people together; to explore, debate and shape the vital intimate and global issues of our age. From a renovated train station in King’s Cross to pop-ups in far flung global cities, we’re building platforms for Guardian readers – a bold response to the disintegrating fabric of our public realm.
This is a new venture that is for democracy and ideas, what Etsy is for small producers and what Kickstarter represents for entrepreneurs. While there is so much at stake for the free exchange of information and ideas, there is at least the promise of our era being defined by a certain civic agency, the flourishing of human imagination and initiative. People no longer just want to consume: they want to help shape, co-produce and enhance the products, knowledge and ideas that define our lives.
Scaffolding covers the interior of the Midland Goods Shed as it undergoes extensive renovations. Photograph: John Sturrock
This story begins opposite our newsroom in King’s Cross: the 30,000 square feet Midland Goods Shed was built in 1850, as a temporary home for King’s Cross passenger terminal. People, potatoes and fish arrived by train and continued their journey by canal, horse and cart. By 1869 it had been repurposed as the bottling warehouse for Kilner jars. A century later, the sidings were long removed, the shed left empty and deteriorating.
Outside of the unused and decrepit Midland Goods Shed in 2011. Photograph: Jonathan Robinson/Guardian
Today, the Midland Goods Shed is at the heart of one of London’s most dramatically changing neighbourhoods, a knowledge and learning quarter is taking shape with one of the greatest concentrations of institutions dedicated to human imagination, learning and ingenuity anywhere in the world. Our friends and neighbours include the University of the Arts, Google, the Crick Institute and the British Library.
The interior of the Midland Goods Shed offices. Photograph: John Sturrock
This is the ambition. We are transforming the Midland Goods Shed into an open amphitheater for festivals, acoustic gigs and debate, as well as including an intimate restaurant with a changing programme of chefs in residence, an armchair cinema, a 3D printing and fabrication lab, a rooftop garden, galleries and a dozen atmospheric spaces hosting events in everything from photojournalism to ceramics, from breaking news to works of fiction.
And of course, coffee.
The rooftop of the Midland Goods Shed in July 2014. Photograph: Jonathan Robinson/Guardian
We hope this space will serve as a forum for a vibrant, iconoclastic, playful and diverse mix of formats and ideas; powered by our journalists and an eclectic mix of partners ranging from Central St Martins and Birkbeck, University of London, to Technology will Save Us, 5x15 and The School of Life. A place of surprise and discovery, experience and encounter, as much about the events it hosts, as the conversations and encounters that fill the spaces in between. A place to learn, to make, to participate. To share ideas, skills and aspirations. To deliberate on political decisions. To understand and shape the news. And above all: a place with the ambition to enrich and affirm our common life.
This project is fundamentally about re-framing our relationships with our readers. A place for our audience to call their own. We’re just getting started – and we need you. Your help, ideas, challenge, ingenuity. Help us name it, build it, inhabit it. It is no more than a raw building site. But if you don’t mind kitting yourself out in our hard hats and protective gear, we’d love to meet for a coffee and show you around.
We believe that the open exchange of information, ideas and opinions has the power to change the world for the better. One word, one encounter, one conversation at a time.
You’re invited.
Jonathan Robinson: send me an email or message me on twitter – we’d love to hear your ideas.