Box 3.1: Sheffield – a story

A visitor arriving at Sheffield by train stands inside the lovingly restored, sand stone Victorian station, with its ten ornate wide arches spanning the frontage. Outside, a new square has been carved out of a former carpark and turning point, cut off from the busy dual carriageway through the city centre by a modern high steel wall sculpture-cum-barrier. The functional sculpture acts as a noise shield against the roar of traffic. It is also a gentle waterfall as a film of sparkling water flows down the shiny, undulating steel surface, linking the new space to the city’s steel making past. This popular new square hosts special events, exhibitions and public gatherings, displacing cars with people.

Above the station, straddling the steep hillside, loom the gleaming high rise concrete blocks of the Park Hill estate, a listed monument to the brave 1960s vision of replacing old slums with new hope, now being refitted and reoccupied by old and new residents. Between the station and the estate sits the Olympicsize swimming pool, built in the heady 1980s when Sheffield bravely resisted the Thatcher government's cuts to its budget and hosted the World Student Games. These different monuments unite Sheffield's past and future.

Sheffield's vision is best captured in the giant metallic sculpture inside the Winter Garden made entirely of Sheffield cutlery. Sheffield's fame had already spread by the 1740s as the world's leading knife maker when it invented crucible steel and silver plating. Today, cutlery is replaced by blade making and other ultra-modern manufacture. Its engineering prowess, its super-strong steel, its blades, fuel a new economy. Advanced manufacturing is a race Sheffield wants to win against huge odds, following the boom and bust of the post-war years.