Hunched over tabletop models, a team of civic planning officials meticulously examine the latest redevelopment proposals intended to reshape the city's post-war landscape. Leading the effort was John Hawthorne (second from left), the city's Chief Architect, whose traditional vision of renewed housing blocks and modest civic buildings, represented here, was soon to be abandoned.
Just weeks after this photograph was taken in 1960, Hawthorne's restrained masterplan fell out of favour with council leaders seeking bolder, more avant-garde designs. In a controversial shake-up, the architect was unceremoniously dismissed and replaced by the confrontational Thomas Danielson. His harsh structures would come to dominate the North East's reworked cityscape, for better or worse.
This candid image captures some of the city planners' last moments studying their measured, conservative concepts before Danielson's polarising, explosive interpretation of urban progress took the reins instead.
A pivotal transition frozen in time.
