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    #51
    Alexandra Road, Camden.



    Some great shots of the estate being built in an episode of The Sweeney just on. It's also in an episode of Between The Lines.

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      #52
      UCSD's beautiful library, which I think Ursus first pointed out to me.

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        #53
        My university (Trent) was designed by Ron Thom in what, I would guess, would be included as Brutalist. Most buildings are poured concrete between rough-hewn wood forms, so the wood leaves distinct wood grains in the concrete. It's lovely.

        Below is Champlain College, but Lady Eaton and Otonabee colleges are very similar in style, but not necessarily design.

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          #54
          There's some lovely modernist concrete work in the churches in San Diego. Although I don't know if it quite qualifies as Brutalist, exactly, it looks great. Not enough to make me actually go to church, of course, but still lovely.

          This one is not far from home:



          And this one I cycle past most Sundays



          And this lovely thing that you see from the Interstate driving in to town

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            #55
            http://api.ning.com/files/vtzFJJ0Ijh...rthCascade.jpg
            Not brutalist but deco-y, my favourite lost weegie Modernist building(a sadly long list thanks to Glasgow’s habit of mysterious sudden fires in derelict listed buildings), the 1938 Tait Tower for the Empire Exhibition. Being nearly 100m tall and on the crest of Bellahouston Park made it visible over 100 miles away. So torn down with Wartime, just as well or Glasgow would have been Coventry destroyed without any bother. To me at least, it’s Dan Dare sexy.
            Last edited by Lang Spoon; 28-11-2017, 18:40. Reason: Suddenly can’t post pics

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              #56
              Originally posted by hobbes View Post
              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.

              There's a word for this sort of wrongness.

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                #57
                Originally posted by Tubby Isaacs View Post
                Alexandra Road, Camden.



                Some great shots of the estate being built in an episode of The Sweeney just on. It's also in an episode of Between The Lines.
                That’s really beautiful.

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                  #58
                  I think that's where Harry Brown lived in the Michael Caine film.

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                    #59
                    Spoony, I think that the issue is that url you were issuing is too long



                    It is a stunning structure of which I was previously unaware. What a shame that they tore it down due to the war.

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                      #60
                      Thanks Ursus. There’s few things that make me nostalgic (can you be nostalgic for some time you never knew?) for 1938-39, but I’d love to see that beauty standing.
                      Last edited by Lang Spoon; 29-11-2017, 01:13.

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                        #61
                        Another rendering

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                          #62
                          Wow, the similarly almost 100m Science centre Tower is massively uninspiring compared to that, not least coz it’s closed half the year and most of the time it’s open officially (the whole tower shaft rotates 360 which took about a decade to fix and leaves it too pukey sway like for visitor comfort in high winds). And being on the Riverside it once again avoids being part of a skyline. The only tallish buildings on hilltops in this very hilly city (the west part of the city centre grid was a reasonable stand in for 70s San Francisco in Cloud Atlas, and the drumlin gradients with late Victorian/mostly shit modernist city blocks hanging off them aren’t much less crazy than SF) are public housing blocks overlooking the city centre from the north.

                          The Hilton and most other 15-20 storey commercial buildings are mostly on the lower slopes toward the river as well. A perennial problem though, when someone built a 12 storey Miami Deco escapee block of flats in 30’s Glasgow, they built it at the bottom of Sauchiehall St, where it loses any prominence (but it still looks great).

                          Must drive the Cooncil bigwigs Mad. At least Embra hides its riff raff from sight or tucks them away in low rises mostly. I’d rather there was public housing that was plentiful and that wasn’t shit, even if it means there’s flats looming over George Sq, wrecking everyone’s buzz.
                          Last edited by Lang Spoon; 28-11-2017, 21:25. Reason: May have been plagiarising Hatherley there. On the skyline bit. Did think it years back myself though, honest!

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                            #63
                            Originally posted by Lang Spoon View Post
                            That’s really beautiful.
                            Interested to know, what do you find beautiful about it? Not being sarky, I just can't find any beauty in it. I'd hate to live there.

                            Actually, there's a new thread possibility. Streetview or other images of places I've lived, or live. If I can work out how to post images (I just tried, unsuccessfully), I'll start one.

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                              #64
                              I can't speak for Spoony, but I love the clean and unusual geometrical lines of that Alexandra Road estate. It looks like a vorticist painting.

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                                #65
                                There's a word for this sort of wrongness.
                                You're quite right.
                                I'd probably lose the rug too.

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                                  #66
                                  What Fussbudget said. If damp proof and well-maintained, they’d be great. A solution to high density and still preserving a terrace type thing, and a garden feeling. Kinda Babylon effect. And that curve. I don’t see what’s bad about that and good about a back to back Victorian terrace with way less interior space.

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                                    #67
                                    What makes that more threatening or dangerous (since Jane Jacobs, modern architects and planners are a classic target for blaming society’s ills) than a narrow unlit alleyway between the back yards of Coronation St type terracing that seems to give Simon Jenkins types a stiffy?

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                                      #68
                                      This estate in Pimlico, Lillington Gardens, was highly praised for providing high density without high rise. It feel very nice to walk around, but I don't know how big the flats are inside.

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                                        #69
                                        Pimlico is your place for interesting social housing. One estate was designed by Lutyens.

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                                          #70
                                          If they were built post the 50s horrorshows of the MacMillan Admin (to get the housebuilding stats up they threw up smaller gaffs with substandard materials) public housing is probably larger than modern “luxury” apartments. Cos evil bastard Nicholas Ridley (father of evil bank killing climate change denying wank Matt) abolished minimum sized private housing. At the very least, social housing has to abide by the minimum size required by a 60’s docker. Which probably causes admin problems when private developments in distress (Leith Docks, Glasgow Harbour, Crosbies Yard in similar market happily decides minimum space Ireland) end up allocating properties to councils or housing associations.
                                          Last edited by Lang Spoon; 29-11-2017, 00:13.

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                                            #71
                                            Again, not brutalist at all, even earlier than Tait Tower, but I love this. Seems almost Gaudi in its flowing buttressing (wrong word). Not much form follows function here, it’s more like the mad Bremen brickwork than Bauhaus.

                                            Einstein Observatory Tower, Potsdam.

                                            Last edited by Lang Spoon; 29-11-2017, 00:44.

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                                              #72
                                              According to lore, Mendelsohn took Einstein on a long tour of the completed structure, waiting for some sign of approval. The design, while logical and perfectly sufficient to its purpose, stood out like an "ungainly spaceship" in the suburbs of Potsdam. Einstein said nothing until hours later, during a meeting with the building committee, when he whispered his one-word judgment: "Organic". Mendelsohn himself said that he had designed it out of some unknown urge, letting it emerge from "the mystique around Einstein's universe".
                                              .

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                                                #73
                                                Originally posted by Eggchaser View Post
                                                There's a word for this sort of wrongness.
                                                Unlivable?

                                                It's an Architectural Digest fantasy. No piles of bills on counters or tables. No electrical cords, no shoes left beside the couch, no dents in cushions. Nothing that says humanity — or humility. I spent my teens it such a house, or an attempt at one. Inevitably — and fortunately — the house lost.

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                                                  #74
                                                  This is the architect Bart Prince's personal residence in Albuquerque. It's bizarre and lovely from almost any angle. I'd live in this in a second.

                                                  Unless you've had something spicy for dinner, google around for the house he designed for Barbi Benton in Aspen. It's....interesting inside.

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                                                    #75
                                                    - Edit: In reply to Amor -

                                                    But it's something to aspire to, because it looks infinitely better than clutter, or unnecessary noisy decor. Giant windows to the outside (ideally some big natural scenery: ocean or mountains) can replace most of the decor.

                                                    Piles of bills and things can get shoved into a drawer somewhere.

                                                    I spent my teens in the opposite house, all William Morris style wallpaper, patterned lino, scalloped crown moulding. All piles of 3 year old Oxford-Didcot train timetables, 5 month old Radio Timeses, wrinkled and inedible apples and shrivelled oranges in bowls, unused candlesticks on more sconced mantlepieces, uncountable tatty cheap paperbacks, and in the cellar at least 4 oscilloscopes - most recovered from skips, at least 3 of which didn't work. It was a dream to be able to just hide everything in drawers. I still want to go to my parents' house and throw about 80% of their possessions out. All my youth I dreamed of clean, largely empty rooms.

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