Proceedings of the Castle Aching Parish Council, 1905

[alastairq]

.....and, they STILL demand I pay my council tax!!!!

[Nearholmer]

Who, Stevenage Borough Council? Do they have an outreach programme, to tax people who don’t live there?

 

I actually quite like those figures cast into concrete. Given that any modern ‘underpass’ is going to be made from concrete, there is a choice about how to finish it, ranging from ‘leave it plain’, through clad with brick, etc, and that seems like an above average choice to me. We have hundreds of underpasses here, most of them just plain concrete, and some of them are the one set of places that attract graffiti, which is otherwise not an issue, so if even the little bnggers that graffiti things respect these figures (no idea if they do or not) they will be doing something useful.

 

A lot of the trouble with brutalist architecture IMO is the combination of raw (brut) concrete, and neglect. Raw concrete weathers really poorly in our cool, damp climate, and buildings to basically the same shapes and plans fare far better in brick, and neglect is neglect. If you want to see what a refurbished and better maintained example looks and feels like, try The Brunswick Centre near Russell Square in London, it’s actually very pleasant.

[Compound2632]

54 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

Raw concrete weathers really poorly in our cool, damp climate

 

That's the nub. A style developed by avant-garde artists working in the south of France really hasn't travelled well. 

[Edwardian]

1 hour ago, Nearholmer said:

Who, Stevenage Borough Council? Do they have an outreach programme, to tax people who don’t live there?

 

I actually quite like those figures cast into concrete. Given that any modern ‘underpass’ is going to be made from concrete, there is a choice about how to finish it, ranging from ‘leave it plain’, through clad with brick, etc, and that seems like an above average choice to me. We have hundreds of underpasses here, most of them just plain concrete, and some of them are the one set of places that attract graffiti, which is otherwise not an issue, so if even the little bnggers that graffiti things respect these figures (no idea if they do or not) they will be doing something useful.

 

A lot of the trouble with brutalist architecture IMO is the combination of raw (brut) concrete, and neglect. Raw concrete weathers really poorly in our cool, damp climate, and buildings to basically the same shapes and plans fare far better in brick, and neglect is neglect. If you want to see what a refurbished and better maintained example looks and feels like, try The Brunswick Centre near Russell Square in London, it’s actually very pleasant.

 

Bauhaus was fine. In small doses. It was bold, it was brave and it annoyed the Hell out of Hitler. Turning this revolution into a universal architectural language for our towns and cities did not, IMHO, turned out so well.

 

The '50s, '60s and '70s were dominated by architecture that only looked good in the models and, if you were lucky, for the first year or so it's up. That, combined with the social deprivation associated with public high-ruse housing and it's completely understandable why most folk have never been able to love modernist or brutalist architecture. And, IMHO, rightly so.

 

It's all rather a case of, 'yes, I can see how what you are doing is very clever, but it's still the last place I'd want to live or have to look at'

 

I have mixed feelings about Brunswick Square.  I used to live round the corner and occasionally shopped there. A convenience store that sells Duchy Original biscuits? That's London for you. Silly place in many ways when you think about it. 

 

Slanting the accommodation leads to attractive shapes, but it remains a towering monstrosity in the context of Bloomsbury. 

 

[Andy Hayter]

45 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

That's the nub. A style developed by avant-garde artists working in the south of France really hasn't travelled well. 

 

 

It did not even get to the edge of Marseille before failing to travel

 

https://www.bfmtv.com/societe/le-qatar-drague-nos-banlieues-a-coups-de-millions_AN-201112120006.html

[Nearholmer]

16 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

it remains a towering monstrosity in the context of Bloomsbury. 

Hmmm ….. that would explain why it’s actually more or less invisible from most directions (not from a helicopter, clearly), hidden behind other buildings. I used to walk past it every day and for a long time was completely oblivious to its existence (commuting does that to you).

[Edwardian]

23 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

Hmmm ….. that would explain why it’s actually more or less invisible from most directions (not from a helicopter, clearly), hidden behind other buildings. I used to walk past it every day and for a long time was completely oblivious to its existence (commuting does that to you).

 

The fact that you can't see it from a neighbouring street lined by tall Nineteenth Century terraces is probative of nothing. Where you can see it it looks like some giant alien structure has landed in Regency London. There are better places for it. Milton Keynes, perhaps.

 

 

This is what the alien ship landed on

 

 

The Brunswick Centre is not a structure without merit. Whether Bloomsbury was improved by it is another matter, however. 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited May 26, 2022 by Edwardian

[Regularity]

1 hour ago, Edwardian said:

Bauhaus was fine.

Great band from my hometown!

[Nearholmer]

There are several other buildings in the area which must have seemed pretty blooming alien when they were built, some of them far more domineering, ranging from whopping great chunks of Victorian gothic, a gigantic faux chateau with its very ugly backside exposed (Hotel Russell), through to the immense pile of late deco that is the senate house at the uni. It might be argued that part of what makes the area interesting is the variety, and it’s not as if the Georgian has been anything like expunged.

 

Leave it where it is, as a conversation piece.

 

Have a browse through this lot, but take a deep breath first https://www.simonphipps.co.uk/#central-college-of-commerce

There are a couple of MK examples in there (Cofferidge Close and Old Groveway) but being a bit later they use brick for mellowness, and they are well integrated with trees and landscape. I know both of them and they are actually very good, and popular places to live.

 

As I said earlier, IMO it’s raw concrete that’s the problem.

Edited May 26, 2022 by Nearholmer

[monkeysarefun]

3 hours ago, Edwardian said:

The '50s, '60s and '70s were dominated by architecture that only looked good in the models and, if you were lucky, for the first year or so it's up

Maybe it's the glinting Harbour  location with the screeching cockatoos flying in and out the attached botanical garden  etc  but this one never  fails to lift me  up every time I see it.

The entrance is a bit of an afterthought though, it's not that grand set of stairs, they lead nowhere, the front door is actually in a dark dinghy tunnel beneath them , a bit of an afterthought but most people don't actually go inside I guess.

[Edwardian]

1 hour ago, monkeysarefun said:

Maybe it's the glinting Harbour  location with the screeching cockatoos flying in and out the attached botanical garden  etc  but this one never  fails to lift me  up every time I see it.

The entrance is a bit of an afterthought though, it's not that grand set of stairs, they lead nowhere, the front door is actually in a dark dinghy tunnel beneath them , a bit of an afterthought but most people don't actually go inside I guess.

 

Good design is trend-proof and ageless.

 

Poor design isn't:

 

 

[Adam88]

In a parallel universe Ian Nairn would be living with us in Castle Aching.

[Nearholmer]

 

(image lifted from wikipedia)

 

But, big show-offy things are one thing, the bit that architects seem to struggle with is the home for the ordinary person. Once architects get let loose on ordinary places to live, they tend to glue them all together to create a big showy-offy thing, which I’ll admit is what the Brunswick Centre is. OTOH, if the same job is given to designers working for commercial developers, they tend to devise another form of unpleasantness.

 

Ordinary homes that work at all levels, from the outside to be seen, from the inside to be lived in, and grouped in a way that is both practical and uplifting are surprisingly rare.

 

 

Edited May 26, 2022 by Nearholmer

[wagonman]

40 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

 

Ordinary homes that work at all levels, from the outside to be seen, from the inside to be lived in, and grouped in a way that is both practical and uplifting are surprisingly rare.

 

 

 

I think the Alexandra Road development is one that does match your criteria. As for the Faraday Memorial thingy, marooned on a roundabout at the Elephant & Castle, I confess familiarity breeds ...

[Nearholmer]

For years, I knew the E&C one simply as ‘E&C Substation’, and didn’t realise that the exterior was a memorial, I thought it was just a bit odd, and somewhat impractical.

 

Is it brutalist architecture though? I can’t see how it can be, because it goes way beyond plain functionality.

[Caley Jim]

3 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

As I said earlier, IMO it’s raw concrete that’s the problem.

I used to live in Cumbernauld where the town centre was/is a concrete monstrosity.

 

 

Internally was originally bare concrete and despite several (unsuccessful) attempts being made to make it less cold and uninviting it remained so in my experience.  It has won the Plook on the Plinth Award twice and is the town most frequently nominated for the award.   I now understand it is to be pulled down.

 

Jim

[Welchester]

1 hour ago, Nearholmer said:

 

(image lifted from wikipedia)

 

But, big show-offy things are one thing, the bit that architects seem to struggle with is the home for the ordinary person. Once architects get let loose on ordinary places to live, they tend to glue them all together to create a big showy-offy thing, which I’ll admit is what the Brunswick Centre is. OTOH, if the same job is given to designers working for commercial developers, they tend to devise another form of unpleasantness.

 

Ordinary homes that work at all levels, from the outside to be seen, from the inside to be lived in, and grouped in a way that is both practical and uplifting are surprisingly rare.

 

 

 

Nice station on the right. I used to enjoy seeing the 2884 when crossing that footbridge.

[Hroth]

3 hours ago, Edwardian said:

 

Good design is trend-proof and ageless.

 

Poor design isn't:

 

 

 

I'd venture to suggest that the Mk1 Mini van is an example of the former!

(not that it didn't have a few faults...)

[Nearholmer]

Which is why I gave the post a smile/chuckle.

[monkeysarefun]

3 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

But, big show-offy things are one thing, the bit that architects seem to struggle with is the home for the ordinary person. Once architects get let loose on ordinary places to live, they tend to glue them all together to create a big showy-offy thing,

 

Back in more enightened times when our state government committed to providing  social housing, the Sirius Towers in The Rocks were built. Lauded for its Brutalism....

 

 

But later governments with other priorities got narked at social welfare recipients getting to live somewhere close to the city for free so  kicked them to the outer suburbs where they belong.

 

However their plan to knock the nasty building down was thwarted by heritage orders and community outrage  and so  its now luxury apartments for rich people who deserve to live there .

 

After all, how dare the poor be allowed a view that would have almost taken Telly Savalas' breath away.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited May 26, 2022 by monkeysarefun

[Johnson044]

14 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

 

(image lifted from wikipedia)

 

But, big show-offy things are one thing, the bit that architects seem to struggle with is the home for the ordinary person. Once architects get let loose on ordinary places to live, they tend to glue them all together to create a big showy-offy thing, which I’ll admit is what the Brunswick Centre is. OTOH, if the same job is given to designers working for commercial developers, they tend to devise another form of unpleasantness.

 

Ordinary homes that work at all levels, from the outside to be seen, from the inside to be lived in, and grouped in a way that is both practical and uplifting are surprisingly rare.

 

 

Indeed!

[Edwardian]

An early insight, for me, was repeatedly coming across architects' practices housed in beautiful old buildings; they did not choose to work in the sort of office they made their living designing for the rest of us to work in. At the very least it argued a lack of conviction in what they were doing. 

 

Back in the post-war decades, architects at least believed they were designing a better future, albeit that out-of-touch arrogance left them isolated in not so much an ivory tower, but a brutalist concrete one. For them the Luftwaffe had been a gift, an opportunity and a mere start; they would wreak much, much more destruction upon the fabric of our towns and cities. However, generally only architects, planners and corrupt local politicians and construction companies ever thought the Modernist re-imagining of British towns was an improving step towards utopia.  The citizenry, on the whole, never bought in and went from an, at best, indifferent start to an outright contempt for the ugly weather-stained progeny of post-war architectural hubris. 

 

You see, it's all down to artistic snobbery. Now in the case of music, were you a composer, to win critical acceptance you might need to be avant garde. As a music lover, that is fine, because it's the easiest thing in the world to avoid purchases, concerts or programmes that contain your atonal sh1te. If you are an architect, however, we all have to live with your award-winning, critically acclaimed eyesores every day of our lives. 

 

That might leave us longing for Quinlan Terry to an accompaniment of derisive snorts about 'backward looking historical pastiche' from the architectural elite and the guardians of taste, yet I know where I'd rather live and work and the sort of buildings I'd prefer to walk by on the street or view from my window. There's a lot to be said for middle-brow!

 

So, it comes to this IMHO. Good quality design can be from any period or style or school.  That includes modernism. BTW, I'm a huge fan of Robinson College, Cambridge, which evokes the brooding form of a mediaeval fortress, yet is entirely modern (though I was nonetheless glad that my alma mater was genuinely mediaeval).

 

 

There are, however, two problems.  First, modernism by definition represented a revolutionary break from the past.  Some revivalist Victorian architecture was criticised here.  Again, this was not universally good or sympathetically placed, yet in terms of both the styles and materials employed it represented the growth of traditions and continuity. That is not to say architecture has to do this, but where your chosen architecture is in deliberate defiance of what went before, there are only so many places you can build it without doing violence to the setting it is imposed upon, however good an individual example it may be.

 

Second, much of modernist architecture is not of good quality. Most of it is dull, formulaic and uninspired. Mere boxes. How many soulless hospitals, airports, office blocks, housing blocks, shops and, most sadly, schools ,do we see every day of our lives that represent the ultimate dreary legacy of modernist utopian theorising? This architecture serves only to impoverish our townscapes and our souls. Sad facts only exacerbated by the fact, as noted, that it doesn't even wear well.   

 

 

Edited May 27, 2022 by Edwardian
spelling

[Compound2632]

12 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

much of modernist architecture is not of good quality. 

 

There was a lot of very poor quality architecture in previous centuries - much of which has been swept away. That's only just starting to happen with modernist buildings.

 

Remember too that tastes change - Scott's Midland Grand Hotel was reviled and came close to demolition; now it is celebrated; far more so than the Italianate pile that is his Foreign Office.

Edited May 27, 2022 by Compound2632

[Edwardian]

Just now, Compound2632 said:

 

 

Remember too that tastes change - Scott's Midland Grand Hotel was reviled and came close to demolition; 

 

 

Yes, by Modernists!

[Compound2632]

12 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

Yes, by Modernists!

 

Just as the Italianate style forced on him by Palmerston was reviled by the Gothicist Scott himself. 

 

As for those Roman hooligans who destroyed the fourth-century Basilica of St Peter to make way for a carbuncle in a style as hideous as that of any modernist...

Edited May 27, 2022 by Compound2632