George Ferguson: The new structure needs to be about hope for the future

How do we replace the Millennium Masts? It is not often that architects see their creations demolished within a few years – we generally try to build to last for generations.

However our design for the masted structure in Bristol's city centre exceeded its brief purpose for nearly a decade.

My practice designed it to herald the new @Bristol Millennium project on Canons Marsh. It was designed as a distinctive signpost and display structure to inform, and to encourage the Millennium Commission and others to cough up the lottery funding required. To that extent it certainly did its job.

When the project started it was decided to move it to the city centre as a feature that represented the masts of the sailing ships that used to crowd the city's harbour. Multiply it by many times and you may get an idea of the sort of scene that would have greeted you when the Frome was open to seafaring ships. In the absence of a clear centre to the city since the removal of the High Cross and the subsequent devastation of the old city centre during the Blitz, I found myself thinking of it as the heart of the modern city.

Within a year of it being moved, I chose to stand under the structure to share for the new millennium with fellow Bristolians. It was a moment of hilarity at midnight and my thoughts were about what the world would be like in the new millennium, a young woman standing next to me saw me looking up at the sails and said how dreadful it was.

I told her of my involvement, we both collapsed in laughter – it was a moment I shall never forget and one that always makes me smile. If the subject of this hilarious brief encounter is reading this, please do get in touch and we shall have a drink on it!

Anyway the structure comes down as I write, which isn't bad considering we only expected it to last for five years at the most and it has been living on borrowed time since. Now is the time to think what we do put in its place.

Having established this as a pivotal point in Bristol, we should do something that marks it as such. It is not necessarily a structure but a happening that replaces it.

Maybe we should erect a stage, or even a plinth to invite citizens to perform as a couple of thousand people have been doing in Trafalgar Square, or maybe it should become Bristol's Speaker's Corner?

If a structure is to replace our masts and sails then I believe it should be one that is about hope for the future, as is the dramatic stainless steel Spire in central Dublin that has proved to be so popular.

I just write this to spark off ideas of the way we replace something that has become part of Bristol. Get your thinking caps on.