There has appeared in my home town yet another ‘monstrous carbuncle’ to add to the other monstrous carbuncles that ‘outrage the eye’ everywhere you look.
The New Barnsley Central Library. It is a box. In fact one part of it is called ‘The Box’. The walls of the stairs are finished concrete. Already the water feature outside is looking tawdry. Nothing ages as quickly as Modernism. But that is dignifying it with a name. It is simply a box. Or a rectangle. To go with the new college which is a rectangle also.
Yes, Prince Charles’s famous quote ‘like seeing a monstrous carbuncle on the face an old friend’. Well she died years ago. But I do remember her – The Cooperative Building with her ornate mouldings and intricate brickwork. The Alhambra Theatre with her carved classical figures, huge scrolls. The row of Edwardian business houses that led down to the town. Lost in the alleyways there. Playing in the rubble of the old art-deco ABC cinema. All gone. Buried and built upon. Now it’s throw ’em up in a month. To last a few years.
How I yearn for a renaissance of traditional stone buildings. I suppose it’s expensive, but still it is, or should be, to do with Civic Pride.
Nominated by Miles Plastic
I am so with you with this nom, Miles!
Before moving out of the Birmingham area a few months ago I have to say that one of the worst pieces of “contemporary architecture” ever to see the light of day was the new “Library of Birmingham”
It was built about 6 years ago at a cost of around £200m, and it looks like someone has dumped some random giant Lego bricks on top of each other, and wrapped it all in garish 1970s wallpaper!
Once inside its not too bad, but fucking hell from the outside its agony for the eyes!
Of course all the arty-farty types loved it, but the council tax payers of the city thought it was shit, and is currently running at a loss!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_of_Birmingham
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Now that is bad. Birmingham has outdone Barnsley with that.
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When all the good songs and stories have been written, and Art and Architecture has peaked, the only way is down. Also, older buildings constructed at low or even zero carbon cost to their environment are not making any money for cuntish corporations peddling ‘Green Technology,’ so we have to knock-em-down to make way for profi… I mean, ‘progress’.
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There’s a shocker called The Hive in Worcester, supposedly the home of council offices and a library, a monolith of cuntish proportions and an abomination that it’s in the same skyline as the cathedral , the spire (Glover’s needle) and the Malvern Hills,it looks like an upside down egg box covered in gold leaf. Council cunts.
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Looks like my morning diamond cutter…
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That cunt who “defended his chickens” is the very same cunt who has been helping Gina “the cunt” Miller sue the British government, and has therefore been directly responsible for the delay of Brexit.
I hope they throw him to the family of that fox that he murdered, along with Miller.
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Entered In Error.
Stupid Cunt (me, obviously!).
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You can hardly expect modern architecture to be up to much when all the most promising students are stabbing the fuck out of each other.
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It’s a sad state of affairs and no mistake Fred.
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It’s called a competitive tendering process for the commissions
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It’s hideous Miles. Even the inside looks like the departure lounge of an airport.
I’ll bet you only Dickie Bird and Michael Parkinson use it. Can anyone else read in Barnsley?
https://www.barnsley.gov.uk/services/libraries/find-a-library/library-at-the-lightbox/
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There is one good thing in it Bertie (Miserable).. There is one very good thing in it. I rub his plimsole when I walk in like a faithful rubs a holy statue;
https://images.app.goo.gl/J1Jy3dzNEJFdDmsL8
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Id like to see that!
Nice one Miles!👍👍👍
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Agree with this!
That ‘carbuncle’ quote was aimed at a bridge in Brinnington where i grew up just drove past it earlier!
Modern architecture is shite!
I love historic buildings, go to chester loads of old tudor buildings, even up to roman structures, yorks got nice architecture/historic buildings.
This is what the japs an yanks come for not the royal family!
Modern shite looks like it theyre filming blade runner or something.
But then i despise most modern things, so unfair maybe?..
Naw as usual im right!
Fuck off modern architecture and modern architects.
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A great cunting on my wavelength that not just applies to commercial buildings, but look at these thousands of new homes being thrown up across the UK.
Monocouche (pre-coloured render), cement boarding, fake slate roof, grey uPVC windows. They all look the bloody same and will look so “2010’s” in a few years to come. In the 2000’s the new builds had cedar cladding (now an insipid, weathered grey) and silly multicoloured perspex panels. They look so dated now.
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I have seen a couple of fake tithe barns, very well made and the only way to spot the difference is they are built on dwarf wall footings.
One of my favourites was ab extension on a 14th century brick farmhouse, perfect brick match, reclaimed stone window sills my only criticism of the whole project was the fact you couldn’t tell it had been done, it was perfect!
There are some good builders out there.
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It’s not just the outsides. We are thinking of moving and regularly look at houses on Right Move. The inside of every new house has a grey carpet, the bathrooms are grey, the kitchens are grey or black. It’d be like living in a black and white movie. Fucking soulless, dreary as hell.
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It used to be the aesthetics of a building had something to do with the structural design. Now they seem to go out of their way to make a ridiculous exterior which is usually hung at, great expense, off of a pretty rudimentary construction beneath.
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As you know I supply equipment to the construction industry and have seen a few follys in my time.
A multi millionaire purchased a defunct stately home in my area and embarked upon a “Project”.
The foundations were dug at approximately 80 meters in depth and then piles installed (Yep its going to be big) The builders have only ever built two houses before, they normally build large industrial structures, so any way the structure emerged from mother earth and towered a good 40 meters above ground zero.
A lovely cast box concrete design that was being lovingly clad in brick and plate glass whilst the creme de le creme roof system was being installed.
This was no ordinary roof, but an engineered heat exchanger designed to pre heat water for the house but also an echo friendly water catchment system that stored brown water for use in the facilities in the “House” any way as the monstrosity neared completion it was noted that the “House” was going for a wander and clay heave was having a rather adverse effect on the structure.
the whole sub structure was excavated and porous aggregates used to back fill and stabilize the structure.
Next issue was the water catchment tanks at the top of the almost finished building developed leaks, so water damaged the interiors down to the sub cellars.
This was eventually rectified only for them to find that the complicated service duct network around the estate made from c4 cast concrete was flooded and all services were not only submerged but in danger of damage, this was also rectified (Laid to spec, the people installing them had questioned the merits of this venture).
Now this is not the end of the folly, I cant say the exact figure spent on the project but I would hazard around £70 million in all (purchase, construction, landscaping,renovation, infrastructure)
It looks bloody awful and not in keeping with anywhere on this planet, but (saves punchline for later)
And his wife hates it!
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80m deep foundations and then piles installed. This doesn’t sound right – are you sure??
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They had to get through the till to the underlying brick clay somehow!
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as per Komodo;s comment they went through 3 strata of clay two reds one grey and hit what I can only describe as primevil slime it was black horrible stinky shit, Weild clay is strange shit.
All newbuilds in the area are now piled extensions are pile beam and block and in the summer the water table is 30cm below ground level,
I have been to some jobs where they have cut through earth fissures in the clay and we have had water projecting almost a meter (horizontally) into excavations. Talk about all hands to the pumps
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Lol, glad to hear my guess was right! Sounds to me like that black Weald clay might be worth distilling for oil. Bet that would be a popular move!
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you are pretty much on the ball, Fracking has been abandoned in the area, I use the weild as an accurate but inaccurate description of the area, contractors working on the site had to sign a non disclosure document, I did not and being a Land Rover fan I am not particularly keen on the owner ( see what I did there)
However ………
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The owner’s a bit of a rat, if I understand you correctly. I’d love to see core logs from the vicinity, but discretion is my middle name…
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This is what made watching Grand Designs such a pleasure – an over moneyed git throwing money into a bottomless pit.
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100% with this one. Norman Foster should be hanged from one of his own constructions, and that Iranian cow should be stripped of her qualifications and made to build practice targets for the artillery. Worth noting that the abortions built during post WW2 slum clearance are mostly decrepit now, while the tenements, built pre-1900, that survived clearance, are still sound and functional. As they were designed to be.
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Some parts of Charles’s famous speech;
I sometimes can’t help wondering whether planning permission would be forthcoming nowadays for some of his designs. But with the present, welcome reaction to the modern movement, which seems to be taking place in our society, it would be forthcoming. For at last people are beginning to see that it is possible, and important in human terms, to respect old buildings, street plans and traditional scales and at the same time not to feel guilty about a preference for facades, ornaments and soft materials. At last, after witnessing the wholesale destruction of Georgian and Victorian housing in most of our cities, people have begun to realise that it is possible to restore old buildings and, what is more, that there are architects willing to undertake such projects.
For far too long, it seems to me, some planners and architects have consistently ignored the feelings and wishes of the mass of ordinary people in this country. Perhaps, when you think about it, it is hardly surprising as architects tend to have been trained to design buildings from scratch – to tear down and rebuild. Except in Interior Design courses students are not taught to rehabilitate, nor do they ever meet the ultimate users of buildings in their training – indeed, they can often go through their whole career without doing so. Consequently a large number of us have developed a feeling that architects tend to design houses for the approval of fellow architects and critics, not for the tenants. The same feelings, by the way, have been shared by disabled people who consider that with a little extra thought, consultation and planning, their already difficult lives could be made that much less complicated. Having said that, I am told that the Department of the Environment is preparing an amendment to the Building Regulations which will mean that in future buildings will have to be designed so that they are accessible, which in turn will make it easier for architects who are working for clients. This is excellent news and could ultimately transform the lives of over two million people throughout the country.
Enabling the client community to be involved in the detailed process of design rather than exclusively the local authority, is I am sure the kind of development we should be examining more closely. Apart from anything else, there is an assumption that if people have played a part in creating something they might conceivably treat it as their own possession and look after it, thus making an attempt at reducing the problem of vandalism. What I believe is important about community architecture is that it has shown ‘ordinary’ people that their views are worth having; that architects and planners do not necessarily have the monopoly of knowing best about taste, style and planning; that they need not be made to feel guilty or ignorant if their natural preference is for the more ‘traditional’ designs – for a small garden, for courtyards, arches and porches; and that there is a growing number of architects prepared to listen and to offer imaginative ideas.
On that note, I can’t help thinking how much more worthwhile it would be if a community approach could have been used in the Mansion House Square project. It would be a tragedy if the character and skyline of our capital city were to be further ruined and St Paul’s dwarfed by yet another giant glass stump, better suited to downtown Chicago than the City of London.
It is hard to imagine that London before the last war must have had one of the most beautiful skylines of any great city, if those who recall it are to be believed. Those who do, say that the affinity between buildings and the earth, in spite of the City’s immense size, was so close and organic that the houses looked almost as though they had grown out of the earth and had not been imposed upon it – grown moreover, in such a way that as few trees as possible were thrust out of the way.
Those who knew it then and loved it, as so many British love Venice without concrete stumps and glass towers, and those who can imagine what it was like, must associate with the sentiments in one of Aldous Huxley’s earliest and most successful novels, Antic Hay, where the main character, an unsuccessful architect, reveals a model of London as Christopher Wren wanted to rebuild it after the Great Fire, and describes how Wren was so obsessed with the opportunity the fire gave the city to rebuild itself into a greater and more glorious vision.
What, then, are we doing to our capital city now? What have we done to it since the bombing during the war? What are we shortly to do to one of its most famous areas – Trafalgar Square? Instead of designing an extension to the elegant facade of the National Gallery which complements it and continues the concept of columns and domes, it looks as if we may be presented with a kind of municipal fire station, complete with the sort of tower that contains the siren. I would understand better this type of high-tech approach if you demolished the whole of Trafalgar Square and started again with a single architect responsible for the entire layout, but what is proposed is like a monstrous carbuncle on the face of a much-loved and elegant friend.
Apart from anything else, it defeats me why anyone wishing to display the early Renaissance pictures belonging to the gallery should do so in a new gallery so manifestly at odds with the whole spirit of that age of astonishing proportion. Why can’t we have those curves and arches that express feeling in design? What is wrong with them? Why has everything got to be vertical, straight, unbending, only at right angles – and functional?
As if the National Gallery extension wasn’t enough they are now apparently planning to redevelop the large, oval-bellied 19th century building, known as the Grand Hotel, which stands on the south west corner of Trafalgar Square and which was saved from demolition in 1974 after a campaign to rescue it. As with the National Gallery, I believe the plan is to put this redevelopment out to competition, in which case we can only criticise the judges and not the architects, for I suspect there will be some entries representative of the present-day school of Romantic Pragmatism, which could at least provide an alternative.
Goethe once said “there is nothing more dreadful than imagination without taste”. In this 150th anniversary year, which provides an opportunity for a fresh look at the path ahead and in which by now you are probably regretting having asked me to take part, may I express the earnest hope that the next 150 years will see a new harmony between imagination and taste and in the relationship between the architects and the people of this country.
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I think the quality of architecture will only go down, all the trainees are being stabbed!
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Soon it will be the era of nouveau mudhuts.
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Hey mudhuts can be tit shaped buildings! They kinda already are, they just have to be bigger and have actual plumbing and maybe not be made of fucking mud
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Mr Plastic………… it was remiss of you not to include the bus station…….. and the previous bus station………. and no doubt in a few years time, the next bus station. The current one isn’t a box, and won’t be architecturally sympathetic to all the other boxes under construction. As for the lightbox, which pill*ck amongst the planners decided to put the computer monitors in front of floor to ceiling windows with a blazing sun coming through them? And they’re smaller than the previous ones!!
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Alot of modern architecture is dick shaped unfortunately, personally I’d like to see more Tit and ass shaped buildings but thats just me…
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It looks like a mosque. Probably filled with korans. Much of Birmingham is a cunt so this fits right in.
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