Skyscrapers in London

[molly bloom]

Vorsprung durch technik:

These large, looming discs, which locals fondly call "concrete ears" but which are perhaps better known as sound mirrors, sit facing out to sea at Greatstone, Kent. In a perilous condition, following years of gravel extraction which has led to them lilting further towards collapse into a yawning watery grave before them, at last they have been saved. Repair work is due to be finished this month.

English Heritage has become the knight in shining armour, ensuring a fairytale ending by contributing a whopping £500,000 to the rescue kitty. A new fund, the Aggregates Levy Sustainability Fund (ALSF) is currently being piloted by English Heritage. It’s a tax on the extraction of aggregates which is used to bring about environmental benefits that mitigate the damage such extraction can cause. The ALSF is intended to reduce this damage by improving areas where extraction has taken place, as in this case, as well as helping to reduce demand for aggregates through the promotion of recycling and re-use and research into new methods of extraction.

http://www.c20society.org.uk/docs/building/sound.html

War and peace:

[Sikander]

I like the observatory.

[Patroklos]

Unlikely, given the materials used in its construction.

Fine, TNT is more fun anyways...

[Provost Harrison]

I think it's a pretty cool building...just isn't a skyscraper is it, like the thread title suggests

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Provost Harrison
I think it's a pretty cool building...just isn't a skyscraper is it, like the thread title suggests

No indeed it isn't, thankfully. So far London has been lucky (for the most part) to have avoided this current trend for seeing which city can have the largest architecturally undistinguished penis substitute in the world. So far...

It still is a largely horizontal city, best appreciated from the ground and not a window cleaner's harness or a hang glider in Shropshire.


Smithfield:

[molly bloom]

Small can be beautiful and refreshing...


Pure Pinter for now people! :

[molly bloom]

http://www.pullmancourt.org.uk/

Pullman Court, Streatham:

[Heresson]

Originally posted by Asher
Skyscrappers f*cking rule!

Phallic obsession.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by molly bloom



No indeed it isn't, thankfully. So far London has been lucky (for the most part) to have avoided this current trend for seeing which city can have the largest architecturally undistinguished penis substitute in the world. So far...

It still is a largely horizontal city, best appreciated from the ground and not a window cleaner's harness or a hang glider in Shropshire.


Smithfield:

Are you saying that Minneapolis would be immediately more beautiful if all the floors above, say the 10th, were lopped off?

I find your apparent insistance that the key to beauty is that all structures be below a certain height a bit baffling.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Heresson
Phallic obsession.

He is gay.

[Heresson]

(shocked)

[Impaler[WrG]]

Arcologies

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Geronimo


Are you saying that Minneapolis would be immediately more beautiful if all the floors above, say the 10th, were lopped off?

I find your apparent insistance that the key to beauty is that all structures be below a certain height a bit baffling.

Minneapolis might be immediately more beautiful if say, it were covered in a large set of drapes- I wouldn't know. I've never been to Minneapolis.

As for the latter part of your statement, it entirely misrepresents what I've said.

I have not said that the key to beauty (which is a personal thing, as we've seen from the divergent opinions about the Einstein Observatory in Potsdam whose picture I posted) is subterranean dwellings or low-rise buildings.


What I have pointed out is that London was until recent times, a city that was without particularly tall buildings- certainly buildings as tall as the largest American skyscrapers, whether in Chicago or New York. And this has nothing to do with 'modernity' because many landmark buildings of the modern movement aren't skyscrapers.

I have said that the removal or relaxation of planning regulations and ignoring or bypassing public consultation in a specific area of London (the London Docklands Development Zone) resulted in a building free-for-all, which also had a knock-on effect in the City Of London, when businesses sited there relocated to buildings in Docklands which were being offered at absurdly low prices per square foot of office space because no one had wanted to work there before there was a decent transport infrastructure in place.

[Provost Harrison]

Skyscrapers dammit!

[Provost Harrison]

Well molly, your view is going to get a whole lot worse if this prediction of what Docklands will look like in 2008 is anything to go by