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Brutal functionality...

Paul Robertson

Entry posted by Paul Robertson

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I have one space left for a scratchbuilt building. I've always been fascinated by the harbour control centre at Folkstone. Call it ugly or misunderstood beauty this bit of brutalist architecture stood guard over the harbour for all the time I can remember in the last 70s 80s and 90s only recently succumbing to the demolition man with the wholes ale redevelopment of the harbour.

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(a brand new control tower) 

 

The control tower for Dover harbour looks like something from a second rate regional airport compared to the striking outlines of what Folkstone was given. With its radar rotating round it looks like the control room wants to either set sail itself or take off to France without getting its feet wet! 

 

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(it seemed to sprout antenna over its life time) 

 

There was quite a boxy (=easy to build) office building underneath. Not sure I will have room to recreate all of it as I plan to sit it at the top of the cliffs over the tunnel mouth. But some representation I think will be possible. 

 

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(rear shot showing covered parking area) 

 

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(a rear detail) 

 

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(and all boxed up just before demolition) 

 

It will be fun having a crack at this. I might need to build my cliffs first to see how much room I have to play with. Then out with the calculator and ruler to work out some rough scaled dimensions. Having now scratch built the station and Linkspan I feel more confident taking this on! 

 

If you have any memories of it or better still a dimensioned drawing I'd be grateful for your help 

 

 

Thanks for reading

 

As an adjunct to this just found an article that explained the actual history of this building. It wasn't harbour control for the port but instead controlled the pilots in the Dover Strait area. https://www.flickr.com/photos/tesselate/sets/72157645569502707/with/14785308103/ article can be found here. But since I like the look of it I think I will repurpose it as Seahaven Harbour Control Tower instead. 

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SteveyDee68

Mike (above) took the words right out of my mouth!

 

Surprised that it wasn't given listed status, as brutalist architecture is started to be recognised as something sometimes worth preserving! That would have made an amazing museum, for example, with the cabin giving views out to sea.

 

Having said that, Bury police HQ was a brutalist affair but was also recently demolished (I think possibly asbestos was a factor)

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Enterprisingwestern
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Apologies for drifting slightly, but if we don't have one of everything, as mammoth a task as that might be, then we are editing history to our own requirements.

 

Mike.

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Paul Robertson
3 hours ago, SteveyDee68 said:

Mike (above) took the words right out of my mouth!

 

Surprised that it wasn't given listed status, as brutalist architecture is started to be recognised as something sometimes worth preserving! That would have made an amazing museum, for example, with the cabin giving views out to sea.

 

Having said that, Bury police HQ was a brutalist affair but was also recently demolished (I think possibly asbestos was a factor)

Once I've built my cliff I'll give it a go at preserving it at 1:148 scale!

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