Returning Character to our Shop Fronts

I recently bought Lost London: 1870-1945 a wonderful book showcasing a collection of pictures of London from the end of the 19th century and early 20th century. Many of the buildings and streets have since gone. Whilst dreamily flicking through I was in awe of Victorian shop fronts, they had so much character and beauty. Each shop had a hand painted sign, a simple well designed glass front. Many of the buildings had advertisements on signs or painted directly onto them. Why do they look so much nicer than the shop fronts of today. Maybe it is just because the pictures are in black and white and nostalgic but maybe it is something more fundamental than this. Back in Victorian times retail chain stores were not the norm on the high streets of London, most stores were independent. Being independent the shopkeeper would have had to look locally for people to fit their shop front. The signs would have been painted by a local sign painter, the shop fronts made by a local carpenter, the glass made by a local glasswright and fitted by a local glazier, the ornamental ironwork  by a local ironsmith. Each craftsman would input his own individual style into the shop front and each shopkeeper would use different combinations of craftsmen to create their shop front, ending up with every shop front and every high street with its own individual character.

This is a big difference to the character of shop fronts today. Chain stores understandably want all their shop fronts to look the same. Therefore an Argos shop front in Camden will look very similar to an Argos shop front in Lewisham. To get shop fronts which look the same chain stores use the same company to produce their shop fronts. This means that the character of local craftsmen is no longer seen in our high streets. Also our high streets have all the same shops - Pret, Starbucks, McDonalds, Subway, Tescos, Argos, etc… and each chain has the same shop front leading to high streets which  are monotonous, characterless places.

Shop fronts are protected in conservation areas such as Stoke Newington Church Street and Hackney Council does have a design guideline for its conservation areas which highlights the importance of the shop front keeping with the character of the local area and keeping true to the design of the building it is housed in. This is great for conservation areas and Stoke Newington Church Street is better off for it but what about everywhere else this will not affect many of the chain stores or high streets. I would like to see the reintroduction of character into our high streets by creating design guidelines which push shops to use local craftsmen to create the shop fronts, and by local I mean craftsmen that can walk to work. So Argos would have to get a local painter to paint its sign, a local carpenter to make the shop front and so on. Guilds would return and though these the power to dictate the character of the local area returns to the craftsmen from the hands of large chain stores. Since each area will have different craftsmen and different guilds each area will have a different character.