Like people, buildings have different ways of ageing. Some do it gracefully. Some look old before their time. Some die young. And some, like the University Arms hotel in Cambridge, go through something very like a midlife crisis.
There were no signs of trouble to begin with. Built in 1834, the University Arms spent the first 130 years of its existence as a solid, Regency-style hotel. Late 19th- and early 20th-century additions gave it impressive scale, with turrets to match, but its character remained intact. Given its landmark position — on the main road from the railway station to the centre of town, with a commanding elevation on the broad grass expanse of Parker’s Piece — that was just as well.
Then the 1960s struck, and the University Arms began a disastrous flirtation with Modernism. It ditched the original Regency building and replaced it with a zigzag façade that concealed a car park as well as the entrance. This was not a wise move — Pevsner drily remarks that it was “not [the architects’] best work” — but for 50 years it soldiered on with its new look, before succumbing in 2014 to another redevelopment, which has just been completed.