beano wrote:

Show us the good shit, it could be a scene. It doesn't matter it could be a two foot sculpture.

You want me to post a picture of my cock?

Well mine is fucking ugly, so I doubt from my perspective I'll agree but we're all entitled to our own opinions.

Do you have a picture of it from the 30s including one from the present? Maybe we can see the browning of the shaft over time?

Speaking of ornate pubs, this place I once had a hand in had the most ornate toilet ever. Marble urials, the womens weren't very good.



There's a safe that's six foot tall and has 10 foot of track and a cart that rolls into it.

It's called the philharmonic dining rooms and it belonged to friends for at least 17 years hence I was there only through the medium of nepotism.

 

I've spent time in both of those pubs in recent years.

This is my favourite building in Newcastle



An art deco tour de force that is currently in a very sorry state. For shame.

These streamlined flats are a close second

beano wrote:

Ah no doubt, have you played in the LPO or at the Hall igor?  I went in the crown mid walk of shame one sunday. How'd you find your way there, theater again?

I play with the RLPO now and then and ended up in the Belfast pub because I was on trial at Ulster Orchestra back in 2010, which happily coincided with the 2-year long (lol) celebrations of Guinness' 250th anniversary.

Anyhow, how did a thread about 'objets d'art' end up being about something completely different? Unless you count a building as being a particularly large 'objet'?

I am a fan of the brutalist style, popular in the 50s-70s until it became associated with a bleak dystopian future and everyone started hating it. 

Some fine examples:

The Roberts Library at the University of Toronto


The Roger Stevens Building at Leeds Uni:



The Western City Gate in Belgrade:



Most of the time it was used for buildings of authority, since it has a really fortress like vibe going on. But weirdly it got used in other places, like tower blocks and car parks.

Evoluon in Eindhoven. It used to be a science expo type thing built by Philips which I never got to see but knew about because it was the subject of a short film that was used as a colour test transmission for BBC2 that was shown quite often back in the day.

I visited Eindhoven last year with work and got to see inside it as it is a conference venue now (sadly imo).



the original film is on youtube now - god bless it.

Grand Opera House Belfast



interior

Habitat '67 looks like a parkour paradise! If it was a game location it would do my head in, I'd be scouring all the surfaces for items, it would take ages!



That Trelick Tower is amazing! I can't stop looking at it. And the Buffalo City Court Building looks a little like a possible future iteration of a Playstation.

Buffalo City Court building is my spirit animal

Horrible building that everyone inexplicibly wants to save: Preston Bus Station



Somehow it looks less awful in this picture. A trick of the angle perhaps. Christ alive though it needs to be bulldozed.

Presumably it's in the centre of town and if it's bulldozed the bus stops will be moved to somewhere less convenient and a nice shopping mall will go in its place because we need more of those.

Preston Bus Station wants to be saved because it too is a fine example of brutalist architecture. 

A lot of people don't like the style because it ended up becoming associated with social decline and some kind of dystopia. But it was exactly the opposite. After the second world war, once the economy had recovered to the point where we could turn to thinking about building for the future, this style reflected the most cutting edge construction methods available and was a huge departure from what had come before, it really was taking no cues from the past and reflected a modern, forward thinking attitude to the future. 

Some people, like cunting Prince Charles, would prefer if everything looked like a model village, or something 'contemporary' and inoffensive. But to tear these buildings down because they don't fit in with the current eye for design is just a waste, especially as so many of them have almost become landmarks. Many (of the surviving buildings) were designed by the top architectural practices of their time.

If they tore down Preston Bus Station tomorrow and rebuilt it (well they are tearing it down, although the date is still up in the air) this is what you would get, you would get a steel frame shed with a lot of glass panelling. You may think steel frame sheds with lots of glass panelling look nice, but they're ten a penny these days. Today's easthetic is to make every public space look like an airport terminal. But because it will cost more to undo all the fucking about that's been done to the building and restore it to something less shitty looking inside and out, we'll tear it down and no one will ever get to see those one-off concrete balconies, they can look at another glass box instead.

Still doesn't mean it looks nice.