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    #26
    Im half sure it was always built with the more senior respectable Glasgow working class in mind. Fuckers in cooncil must have been some bastards to make half the flats duplexes with stairs. No like any cunt in Glasgow to get arthritis.

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      #27
      It was definitely 'respectable'. Nobody there went to my school, and it was outside the confines of 'Temple' (about 1/2 a mile northwest and fucking nuts), and equidistant from the polis station, to the north. It was also close to a couple of fantastic butchers, a cracking wee record shop, which itself was next to a sports shop, which if I remember rightly only sold screw-in studs, weird* French football shirts, and every Subbuteo team going.

      *Not weird, garish.
      Last edited by Gerontophile; 27-11-2017, 21:26.

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        #28
        I lived up and off the road in Kelvindale for a few years (the same boring post war harled wall tenement street where some psycho bam would murder an Irish student about 20 years later). Only ever saw much of boring as Knightswood down past Anniesland Cross, if I ever had the pleasure of Temple, must have blissfully missed it.

        Drumcondra in Dublin gives me a similar vibe to Anniesland on Gt Western Road. Mibees just the railway bridge over the old airport road but.
        Last edited by Lang Spoon; 27-11-2017, 21:35.

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          #29
          Originally posted by Lang Spoon View Post
          The (pointless in themselves but very pretty) abstract roof sculptures and massive diagonal treelike struts lifting the building off the ground at Unite d’Habitation in Marseilles is probably the daddy of the whole thing.
          Le Corbusier is more (in)famous these days in the French-speaking world for his rabid anti-Semitism and Vichy past than his architectural achievements.

          https://blogs.mediapart.fr/michelrot...er-un-fasciste

          Ses amis les plus proches sont fascistes, vichystes et antisémites, comme lui. Ils appartiennent tous à la frange d’extrême droite des émeutiers du 6 février 1934 qui pour Le Corbusier, furent «le réveil de la propreté».
          En 1940, il écrit à sa mère : (la défaite est une) « miraculeuse victoire. Si nous avions vaincu par les armes, la pourriture triomphait, plus rien de propre n’aurait jamais pu prétendre à vivre».
          Et encore, peu après le vote sur le statut des juifs : « Les juifs passent un sale moment ! Leur soif aveugle de l’argent avait pourri le pays! »
          «L’argent, les Juifs, la franc-maçonnerie, tout subira la loi juste. Ces forteresses honteuses seront démantelées.»
          « Hitler peut couronner sa vie par une œuvre grandiose : l’aménagement de l’Europe ». Et encore : «Il s’est fait un vrai miracle avec Pétain. Tout aurait pu s’écrouler, s’anéantir dans l’anarchie. Tout est sauvé et l’action est dans le pays.»

          http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...ect-claim.html

          Mr Jarcy said that in "Plans" Le Corbusier wrote in support of Nazi anti-Semitism and in "Prelude" co-wrote "hateful editorials".
          In August 1940, the architect wrote to his mother that "money, Jews (partly responsible), Freemasonry, all will feel just law".
          In October that year, he added: "Hitler can crown his life with a great work: the planned layout of Europe."

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            #30
            Heh, it’s funny how Italian fascist architecture has only come in for rehabilitation recently enough (the white concrete monumental repetition in rectangles City of Glasgow College, which dominates a massive block between social housing and Strathclyde Uni edge of the central grid being one of the few British examples I can think of right now). Never heard of Corbs ever needing any rehab for past misdeeds but, I guess folk were so happy with what he was knocking up in post-war Marseilles that he got to design the UN building with nary a hair turned. Of course that institution has never had a problem with ex Nazi types.

            Like your man Philip Johnson in the States, and then almost every contemporary architect whose has commissions from states as cuddly as China to full on boiling your dissidents like Central Asia or the Worker’s Paradise Gulf. Even if not a full on fascist bam, like the big beasts of the beforetime, being a full on Internationally Renowned Architect seems to require a fair bit of nose holding when it comes to patrons or utility of the building. Not giving two fucks about the welfare of the construction team, and even less toward the building’s long-term maintenance or purpose.

            Apparently, one day in the long long ago, even famous, nay Iconic UK architects would design for public infrastructure or industry. Now it’s spec luxury flats from Hong Kong to Battersea. At best.
            Last edited by Lang Spoon; 27-11-2017, 23:03.

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              #31
              As a nightschool teacher said to me once, "an architect's ideal client is a fascist".

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                #32
                This is a good book, for a good readable series. Loads of different strands covered.

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                  #33
                  Originally posted by Lang Spoon View Post
                  Heh, it’s funny how Italian fascist architecture has only come in for rehabilitation recently enough (the white concrete monumental repetition in rectangles City of Glasgow College, which dominates a massive block between social housing and Strathclyde Uni edge of the central grid being one of the few British examples I can think of right now). Never heard of Corbs ever needing any rehab for past misdeeds but, I guess folk were so happy with what he was knocking up in post-war Marseilles that he got to design the UN building with nary a hair turned. Of course that institution has never had a problem with ex Nazi types.

                  Like your man Philip Johnson in the States, and then almost every contemporary architect whose has commissions from states as cuddly as China to full on boiling your dissidents like Central Asia or the Worker’s Paradise Gulf. Even if not a full on fascist bam, like the big beasts of the beforetime, being a full on Internationally Renowned Architect seems to require a fair bit of nose holding when it comes to patrons or utility of the building. Not giving two fucks about the welfare of the construction team, and even less toward the building’s long-term utility.

                  Apparently, one day in the long long ago, even famous, nay Iconic UK architects would design for public infrastructure or industry. Now it’s spec luxury flats from Hong Kong to Battersea. At best.
                  le Corbusier didn't design the United Nations Building in New York on his own he worked with Oscar Niemeyer. Harsh to compare it with building in the Gulf. I think the workers were unionised for one thing.

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                    #34
                    I wasn’t comparing the UN building with Dubai etc drek, but the Gulf shite (and no de nazification for yer man) showing the amorality of the profession. For me anyway, I can separate modernism and liking it from the bad thoughts it’s makers may have felt. Corbs might have been more explicitly politically repellent than Hadid or Koolhaas, but they could work in some ethically dodgy locales for the right commission.
                    Last edited by Lang Spoon; 27-11-2017, 23:38.

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                      #35
                      Hard to find a decent shot of it, but this is an interesting Brutalist building. In the City, an extension to Chartered Accountants Hall, by William Whitfield.



                      The pre-existing part of the hall looks like this.

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                        #36
                        We've talked about the former government buildings in Marsham Street, Westminster. Long demolished now, much unloved. This is a nice shot. Check out who was in there.

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                          #37
                          Mind you, I also hate the minimalist giant room with bare white walls that also seems to be the default finish.
                          I dream of a big, white-walled minimalist home. My wife and child preclude it, unfortunately. They have a unique gift to create clutter and disorder wherever they are.
                          My dream is a room with just one really comfy leather chair, a big telly and a sonos.
                          This is maybe a bit fussy - I wouldn't have all those vases and shit on the TV stand, but has basically the right idea.

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                            #38
                            As for Brutalist buildings, is there anything more exciting and cool than the sheer scale of things inside the National Theatre or the Barbican Centre? Moving from low ceilinged bunker-like areas into huge open geometrically defined spaces is breathtaking.
                            My favourite thing about Tate Modern is the huge brick facade and imposing chimney that makes you feel almost like you're heading underground to get into the building. Then you break out into the Turbine Hall and the space opens out to industrial scales.
                            It's that opposition that I love most in London's Brutalist buildings. (I know Tate Modern isn't actually Brutalist, but it has similar features, as does the new bit on the back.)

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                              #39
                              The Trellick Tower, Maida Vale:



                              Used to see this all the time when I worked in Kilburn. To me, just ugly.

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                                #40
                                Maida Vale? Are you an estate agent?

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                                  #41
                                  Definitely not. Is that still Kilburn then?

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                                    #42
                                    Oh it says Kensal Town on Wiki. Is that what I knew as Kensal Rise, or Kensal Green? I also didn't realise it's an enlarged copy of a block in Poplar.

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                                      #43
                                      The Grade II-listed Apollo Pavillion in Peterlee, a classic case of brutalist design beloved by architects and hated by the locals:

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                                        #44
                                        The old Department for the Environment looks a lot like the Shire Hall buildings in Mold, Flintshire. Everyone hates them. We can see them from our house

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                                          #45
                                          I like that, and it looks in good condition. But you'd probably expect something a bit more venerable for a county hall. This is what Herefordshire has

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                                            #46
                                            Sits, do you know there's another near copy in Poplar, called the Balfron Tower. That's listed as Grade 2*, so presumably pretty safe. The other Brutalist icon down the road, Robin Hood Gardens, never got listed and is being demolished.

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                                              #47
                                              Robin Hood Gardens in Poplar's worth a shout. Though the truth is it's scruffy and smelly and pretty run-down.

                                              Glad the Roger Stephens building at Leeds Uni is still as I remember it

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                                                #48
                                                Typed that post just as Tubby was typing his. Spooky

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                                                  #49
                                                  Yeah, Robin Hood Gardens didn't look in great condition when I went to see it.

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                                                    #50
                                                    Hobbes is massively right on this thread.

                                                    That is all.

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