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| Subject: Yar | |
Author: Ed Harris (Venezia) | [ Next Thread |
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] Date Posted: 14:52:41 10/26/04 Tue In reply to: Dave (UK) 's message, "Germans and buildings" on 14:37:50 10/26/04 Tue I wholeheartedly agree. We have done more damage to London than the Germans ever did. Indeed, it started before the war, when the old palaces along the Strand were torn down in favour of the new Art Deco monstrosities which we see now. Ditto Regent Street, which used to be one of the finest streets on Earth, all Pugin from All Soul's Church to Picadilly Circus. But what we did with the gaps in our city after the war was worse. I've been to Dresden, which was more or less melted by the RAF, except for the bits which were evaporated. They have rebuilt it to its original baroque blue-prints (as they say round here, "com'era, dov'era"), and it is wonderful. And what did we do in London? The South Bank. Centre Point Tower. Euston Tower. Those high-rise buildings around Regents Park. That phallic thing next to Hyde Park which makes me froth at the mouth in righteous indignation every time I am misguided enough to attempt to take a young lady boating on the Serpentine. If anyone wants to see what Britain has really become - and I direct this at those of you from the Commonwealth who visit London occasionally - I ask you to visit something called the Brunswick Centre in Bloomsbury. Next to Russell Square. And you know the worst? Euston station, because the Luftwaffe didn't even hit it. In the 1960s, we just thought that a neo-Gothic palace with the finest iron-vaulted ceiling on Earth was a bit old hat, and so just tore it down and replaced it with the current concrete cube. I can imagine Her Majesty as she cut the red ribbon back in '64 thinking of Windsor Castle and muttering under her breath, "who's got the world's finest vaulted ceiling NOW, suckers!" And worse than that is that they tore down the old marble arch at the entrance to the station. There was no reason for it, it just didn't appear on the developers plans... it was finer than Marble Arch by the Park, and had stood there for a century, and everyone assumed that it was a silly mistake which would never happen. Then the inhabitants of NW1 woke up one morning to find it gone, and it was too late. Now we have a plastic bus-shelter with tramps in it. The Luftwaffe were amateurs compared to the GLC when it came to destroying all that was best in London. Maggie had a good go at getting rid of the whole ghastly institution; but now that Red Ken is back, bringing his Edifice Complex along with him, it won't be long before London is as ugly as Birmingham. [ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ] |
| [> [> [> [> Subject: Not just London... | |
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Author: Dave (UK) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 16:03:22 10/26/04 Tue Of course, after Birmingham, some of the worst crimes against architecture have been, and continue to be committed, in Glasgow. Countless masterpieces have been demolished over the years, and of course the 60s planners were responsible for erasing a significant amount of Victorian gothic while driving a motorway through the city centre. I am only thankful that the 60s planners did not proceed with the whole plan, which was to demolish the whole of the grid city centre (the finest example of a Victorian city in Europe I believe), and replace it with a two-dimensional array of grey Stalinist cereal boxes. I have seen the proposals, I can only conclude that during the 60s, everyone involved in architecture and planning were so high on LSD that their designs seemed more worthy of merit than they were. Even today, we have buildings of international importance that are on a UN list of endangered buildings – one of which is Alexander “Greek” Thomson’s St. Vincent Street Church, which is owned by the City Council! [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> [> [> [> Subject: Glasgow | |
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Author: Ed Harris (Venezia) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 16:14:02 10/26/04 Tue Quite. In my opinion, Glasgow is still a finer city than Edinbirgh, whatever they say. After all, it was the second city of the Empire. The 1960s planners got away with a lot, though, and I take some confort from the fact that many of them are now old and infirm, and have lived to see their beloved concrete become grimy and streaked beyond our ability to clean, in a way in which the Victorian red brick which they hate so much has not. Here's a good game which I play with some of my friends who study architecture, and should be repeated with anyone who hangs around with budding young architects: 1) Take them all to one of the bridges across the Thames, preferably Waterloo Bridge since it is on the bend and has views both up and down the river. 2) Listen carefully to which buildings they draw to your attention. 3) Those who wave a friendly hand at the Palace of Westminster, St Paul's, Blackfriar's Bridge, the County Hall and St Brides, these you may buy drinks and invite to parties. 4) Those who feel that the new Hungerford Bridge, the National Theatre, the Royal Festival Hall, the London Eye, that new Gherkin thing, Nat West Tower, the MPs' new office building (Portcullis House, is it called?) and the Vauxhall developments, these you must push off the bridge and drown before they graduate and start to do any serious damage. This four-point plan worked well until I came across a chap who liked both in equal measure. But he was from Edinburgh and can be forgiven, therefore, for being a bit eccentric. [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> [> [> [> Subject: Indeed | |
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Author: Dave (UK) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 16:38:19 10/26/04 Tue I actually quite like the Swiss Re tower (Gherkin) and Portcullis house, but I am saddened at the loss of what used to stand at these two sites. The Royal festival hall is junk, like most buildings from that period. The space rocket thing was the only piece of the festival worth preserving in my opinion. It reminds me of the art deco kitsch at the Empire Exhibition in Glasgow in 1938 too, all of which has been lost. What was wrong with County Hall exactly? Why did Commissar Ken move London Government from a purpose built building on the most recognisable waterfronts in the world, to an egg-shaped greenhouse next to Tower Bridge? Is it more of this “transparent democracy” metaphorical rubbish? [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> [> [> [> [> Subject: 1960's planners in Toronto | |
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Author: Jim (Canada) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 17:13:14 10/26/04 Tue Downtown Toronto, though never bombed, has been almost completely rebuilt since the 1960's. Many of the grand Victorian buildings were demolished and replaced with modern office towers. A 1966 plan to construct a downtown expressway ring would have involved demolition of more, but that was stopped after massive protests in the 1970's. Parts of the expressway system proceed towards the city centre and stop just outside downtown because the rest was cancelled. One good thing that did happen was that many of the beautiful columns and edifaces from demolished downtown buildings were saved and transported to a public garden in the suburbs and then erected again there as monuments. I live near this garden and I often walk through it. It seems funny to walk through a park and see a huge column or ediface with 60 King Street West engraved on it! (a street in downtown). It was still a good idea to save some of the beautiful architecture by relocating them as decorative monuments in a public park rather than just eliminating them completely. Urban planning is my profession, by the way (post 1960's). [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Subject: Movement of monuments... | |
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Author: Ed Harris (Venezia) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 19:18:59 10/26/04 Tue It's not as bizarre as what they did in India in the 1950s. A fair majority of British structures in the major cities had royal coats of arms, reliefs depicting the King-Emperors etc. etc. They couldn't easily get rid of them, but didn't want them cluttering up their independent country's towns. So, most of them were picked up and moved to the suburban parks and what-not. Walking through Victoria Gardens in Bangalore, or the MG Gardens outside Calcutta, you occasionally come round a clump of pipal or gum trees and find the front only of a large building over the doorframe of which is a seven foot statue of Queen Vic. These Indian public parks have become a graveyard for imperial statuary, and walking through deserted bibighars or phulavaariya is rather sad... rather like that poem by Shelley: "And on the pedestal these words appear: 'My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings: Look upon my works, ye Mighty, and despair'. Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away." But I grow sentimental... [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> [> [> [> Subject: Coventry is the ugliest of them all | |
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Author: Chris (BARBADOS) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 17:00:50 10/26/04 Tue I would have to say that Coventry has even uglier buildings than Birmingham. At least Birmingham managed to salvage some older buildings in the Market Street area. Between the Germans and the city planners, the city looks like it was inspired by Orwell's 1984. [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |