Bring Your Wrecking Balls

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Buck Birdseed
That arch is awful - you can really feel the staunch, bloated weight of those enormous columns.

The columns seem fine to me. It's meant to be monumental- the early industrial era was Great Britain's period of imperial, intellectual and industrial expansion. Ergo, reference to a neo-classical 'imperial' past is appropriate.

Rather better (in terms of form and function) than the abortion that's there now. Goodness knows what that's celebrating- the triumph of prejudice over taste & discernment.

[Buck Birdseed]

Still - no denying Euston is unpleasant or that sixties town planning was criminal and the decade's dime-a-dozen architecture left a lot to be desired. But what decade's isn't?

The attacks on the historically important and architecturally marvellous buildings of the era that smear all over this thread is what depresses me. Isn't the delight in destroying good buildings that happen to not conform with the good taste of the current era what made 60s town planning such a disaster in the first place? Just like many historic milieux were destroyed forty years ago to be replaced by enormous, badly built brick-and-concrete boxes, you lot want to destroy the best raw-concrete architecture of that period and replace it with what? Another set of cookie-cutter shopping centres no doubt. Capitalist architecture has been just as ruinous to good taste as social-democratic messups ever were.

[Az]

I would rather refrain from making a direct connection between the politics, and the architectural styles.

[Imran Siddiqui]

the Berlin Reichstag

Looks cool.

[Odin]

Riechstag:

[molly bloom]

[QUOTE] Originally posted by Buck Birdseed

The attacks on the historically important and architecturally marvellous buildings of the era that smear all over this thread is what depresses me. Isn't the delight in destroying good buildings that happen to not conform with the good taste of the current era what made 60s town planning such a disaster in the first place? [QUOTE]


Actually I think it's the imposition of badly built 'social' solutions de haut en bas replacing existing communities that was very much a problem.

It's not simply the substitution of one taste for another, it's wantonly destroying a perfectly good (and historic) monumental Doric Greek Revival propylaeum with a good approximation of a 'Clockwork Orange' set.

The reasons for demolition were spurious, and the replacement atrocious. I'm all in favour of getting rid of inadequate or average buildings where there is no historic context or validity for keeping them, and when the proposed replacement is going to be at least an improvement, but there is no way in the world you will convince me that the demolition of the Euston Arch offered us an improvement with what we have there now.

Bleak, windswept, determinedly unheroic, it bizarrely enough offers a refelection in a cracked mirror for the modern state of the railways.

[duke o' york]

[conspiracy theory]Apparently in the BBC Sports Personality of the Year awards, every year thousands of anglers vote for the best fisherman in Britain (I think he's called Bob Nudd, but I'm not sure ), but he never wins because, despite his massive success over a long perio d of time, his sport isn't telegenic enough to show at prime time (or any time for that matter).[/conspiracy theory]

I'm betting that Old Trafford, the Manchester United monstrosity, rather than Lancashire's rather charming home turf, wins this particular contest by a long way, but there's no chance that it'll be demolished by Channel 4, or anyone.

[molly bloom]

International Bland and shiny.

Where are stone-throwing inner city intifada youths when they're needed ?

[Provost Harrison]

Originally posted by molly bloom
It's not simply the substitution of one taste for another, it's wantonly destroying a perfectly good (and historic) monumental Doric Greek Revival propylaeum with a good approximation of a 'Clockwork Orange' set.

Ah yes, the Clockwork Orange set, a real place in fact - Thamesmead, South East London (not too far from where I live in fact). Concrete and ugly...again the architects need a bullet between the eyes for this one.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Provost Harrison


Ah yes, the Clockwork Orange set, a real place in fact - Thamesmead, South East London (not too far from where I live in fact). Concrete and ugly...again the architects need a bullet between the eyes for this one.

Also the setting for 'Beautiful Thing' too, if I recall.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Azazel
True, but nowadays noone builds with wood, anyway.

Want to bet? Live in an Earthquake prone area and wood is the building material of choice.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Odin
Riechstag:

I really like the glass dome on the Reichstag especially when it is light up at night. I great symbol of transparancy in government.

[molly bloom]

Manchester's Arndale Centre after the I. R. A. bombing.

Unfortunately some rather good buildings were also damaged.

[:) Smiley]

In general though, I'd prefer a repulsively ugly building, be it Classical, Brutalist, or whatever, over the typical commercial box with giant corporate logo. At least the first is interesting.

[Provost Harrison]

Now the Arndale Centre is truly hideous...