A LOTTERY OF GRANDES IDEES

For Somerset House, new life; for St George's

Hall, new light; Jacob Rothschild wants ideas

for the profits from the nation's new pastime

IN A LITTLE over a year, the National Lottery has become the most successful in the world. How have we at the National Heritage Memorial Fund been spending our share of the proceeds?

The underfunding of arts and heritage is inevitably reflected in a backlog of repairs and maintenance. We must catch up on the years of neglect, but we should guard against the Fund becoming a dull and dreary repairs organisation. Neither should we become a slave to political cor- rectness, nor be too sensitive about accusa- tions of elitism, fearful of standing up and being bold. We must from time to time take risks and have the courage to support those all too rare leaps of the imagination which can lead to truly memorable, lasting and excellent projects.

How does one measure 'value for money'? One factor is comparative market value; another is relativity. Just one of the late President Mitterrand's grands projets, the new Bastille Opera House, cost the French taxpayer £350 million — about 25 times the cost of keeping the Churchill papers in this country.

We should think hard about what our own 'grand projects' might be — it would be a dreadful missed opportunity if Lot- tery monies failed to create some. In a famous phrase, Canning spoke of calling 'the new world . . . to redress the balance of the Old'. But, far more than in most countries, the good use of our past has become one of the greatest assets of our future. So our 'grand projects' do not nec- essarily need to be new; they can be on our doorstep and in need of care, atten- tion and imagination. Take two such examples in London: the Royal Naval Col- lege at Greenwich and Somerset House.

The Royal Naval College is probably Britain's finest group of public buildings. Since they were put up for sale, the howls of protest have persuaded the Government to set up a robust advisory group to look at the bids which have been submitted. We must live in hope that these buildings will once again become, as their historic importance and architectural splendour deserve, a piv- otal centre of national life. With its Chapel, Painted Hall and great parade ground, Greenwich is an ideal setting for national ceremony. Its domes and colonnades pro- vide a unique backdrop for public events. It is an ideal site for hosting major national and international conferences, such as the G7 summit or heads of the European Union nations' meetings.

The wider objective must be to increase public access wherever possible and to cre- ate for Greenwich a national as well as an international role. In a speech given in the House of Lords, the Admiral of the Fleet Lord Lewin advocated the setting up of a trust to administer the whole site. The trust would take on a long lease of the Royal Naval College from the Government and then sublease space to the University of Greenwich. The trustees would be respon- sible for implementing the noble objectives that he and others have described. As Lord Lewin has suggested, if money is needed for such a purpose, could this not be an appropriate use of Lottery funds?

Then there is Somerset House, Cham- bers's masterpiece on the Thames, whose future has been under consideration for some time. The south block, the section that overlooks the Embankment with its wonderful river terrace, is potentially one of the most thrilling spectacles in London. Opening it up would restore to the public a sense of the river in all its magnificence and would provide a whole new public space for people to walk, sit at tables and watch the progress of the various millennial projects taking place. Increased public access to Somerset House would bring much wider appreciation of one of Lon- don's most important buildings. Parking restrictions would reveal the spectacular Great Quadrangle — one of the best but least enjoyed urban spaces in the metropo- lis. The Piranesi-like rooms in the south wing, some of which are used merely to store wills and print leaflets for the Inland Revenue, could be reordered as public gal- leries, partly to display collections from the Courtauld Institute and partly to make room for other collections.

People should be able to walk with ease from the Strand through Somerset House to the Embankment. Along the way, they could enjoy the Quadrangle, the works of art in the south block and views stretching from St Paul's to beyond the Houses of Parliament. The cost would be a fraction of any of the French grand projets and, if approached, we would be able to contribute to the cost of such a transformation.

Another idea has been to introduce the concept of specific 'themes'. We recently launched our urban parks programme as our first theme, to help improve many of the nation's neglected open spaces in towns and cities. Parks make up part of this coun- try's popular heritage that touches most people's lives. In the 19th century, our parks were the envy of the world. Now underfunded and undervalued, many have become wildernesses resembling Central Park in New York in its worst days. The famous Philips Park in Manchester, with its lodge gates boarded up, epitomises the state of many urban parks today.

Again, what about illumination by night of heritage buildings? Consider, for example, St George's Hall, Liverpool, one of the great monuments of neo-classical architecture and described by Pevsner as 'holding its own in comparison with any classical building of these years in Europe'. It would be a tragedy if the fabric of this stupendous building were allowed to deteriorate beyond repair, but might it not in any event make sense to spend some money in creating a brilliant new lighting scheme which would bring this whole area to life at night? The Parthenon in Athens is an icon through its visibility both day and night to those who live in Athens, though very few Athenians actually visit it. St George's Hall could become Liverpool's Parthenon. Research shows that improved 'Don't wony about the colour — it's for my python.' lighting brings people out at night and also reduces crime. A night-time economy is des- perately needed for urban revitalisation.

There will always be those who do not have the opportunity of visiting the National Gallery or the British Museum. Information technology allows an institu- tion to make its presence felt throughout the country and indeed across the world. Could the Lottery help, for example, to bring museums to those who cannot come to them? We should perhaps make a start by making accessible the most important works of art, collections of natural history and science-based collections. These col- lections would then be made available in schools, colleges and libraries on CD- Rom. This would be an intermediate step towards direct electronic access to a nationwide database. A general study should be made of how best to ensure that a practicable number of works is selected, with proper commentary, how these should be put on disc and how the discs should be broadly organised on a similar system to facilitate non-specialist use. A study of this sort to establish an overall framework could perhaps be funded from a Lottery source, as well as applications from individual museums. Let us hope that curators will dazzle us with their applica- tions in this area.

Our country is incredibly rich in its collec- tions. Vast quantities of material are in store, barely accessible even to the museum curator, or presented more for the specialist than the general public. Again, information technology provides an opportunity to sweep through the nation's attics and cellars and open them up as never before. To make the best use of the information, do we not need a new museum loan service, which would match up institutions with works of art they are unable to show with other insti- tutions who do not have enough to show? Such a loan service need not have a collec- tion of its own but would draw on the vast collections throughout Britain. It could develop and maintain a database of objects available for loan, provide a network for the nation's museum community and, possibly, make grants supporting relocation of individ- ual objects or groups of objects.

We stand accused of living in an insular and unheroic age. We dare not build like the Victorians, for example. This should be the decade of the Lottery entrepreneur, of pro- ject champions or 'spark plugs', as the Amer- icans call them; and for once we have the resources to back good ideas. Our Lottery mania could be used to great effect if the Lottery distributors were to make good and imaginative use of the immense opportunity which has been presented to them, but the onus is also on all of us to come up with good 'themes' and ideas. Is it too much to hope that in a few years this new and unex- pected factor in our lives will have helped in some measure, in the words of that great Victorian critic Matthew Arnold, to 'rekindle the warm glow of our national life'?

Lord Rothschild is chairman of the National Heritage Memorial Fund. His article is based on his recent Sunday Times Eastword Lecture'.