That a world-renowned school of contemporary dance should sit in unfashionable Deptford is the first in a series of paradoxes that characterise Herzog & de Meuron's Laban Centre. In truth, it is eminently sensible that dancers, like other artists, inhabit relatively affordable areas of our expensive capital, just as it is entirely natural that they swap urban anonymity (a mazy old building in adjacent New Cross) for the strange glamour of their new Deptford landmark. Lewisham council has seen value in promoting the school to a flagship arts-led regeneration scheme. The presence of artists leads to the sort of gentrification that prices them out -a conundrum that is not confined to Deptford. Less palatable is what 'regeneration' means here, for the ugly brick diddy boxes that follow do not have the economic justification of those at Salford Quays. The area that the Laban sits in, around Deptford Creek (picturesquely Dickensian - Oliver! was filmed here) is far from derelict, It contains those semi-industrial edge functions essential to a working city, and their creeping replacement by investment vehicles for bankers increases rateable value at the expense of the integrity and vitality of the city.
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