Starting the selection
To attempt to identify Britain's best buildings is a difficult task at best - and a virtually impossible one when the list has to be reduced to four. So how has it been done? Well - with great difficulty and with the realisation that, no matter what attempt is made to make the selection procedure objective, the choice can only in the end be a very personal one.
'... the painful process of deciding ... began.'
How to start the selection was pretty obvious. The buildings should represent different regions, different times and different building types and technologies. So in consultation with many people - in and outside the BBC - a long initial list was drawn up. The challenge then was to whittle down this list of exemplary buildings.
Many were duplicated, in terms of location, age, style or type - which led to the first elimination process. For example, if the final list of four was to contain a cathedral or castle it could only contain one of each, so the painful process of deciding on, for example, a single cathedral, began. What criteria could we use to help us choose between Wells, Salisbury, Canterbury, Lincoln or Durham?
The choice between buildings of seemingly equal value and interest was clearly going to be mainly subjective, but there were nevertheless a few objective tests to apply. Buildings that were the first, the biggest or the best examples of their type had an edge - a rather crude criterion perhaps, but this type of pre-eminence did - I'm afraid - help. Also, buildings were chosen on the basis of how they would look on television. For example, if a great building was partially covered in scaffolding, or was for various reasons not photogenic or fully accessible (either to the film crew or visiting public), it was ruled out - or in some cases ruled itself out.
Last - and this became increasingly important to me as the debate went on - was the demand that each selected building should have a good tale to tell. I wanted a story that was larger and richer than the history of the building's own making and use, a story that touched on bigger ideas, that threw light on the aspirations and concerns of its age, and on the social, political or artistic history of Britain.
Published: 2002-11-01