old or new repairs

[MikeG]

I think it is far more complex than that. This is about who determines what is built in cities, and what account is taken of the opinion of locals (usually diddly squat). So fashionable it may have been, but I warrant that Brutalism was only ever fashionable at the architect/ developer/ council/ critic/ academic level, and never amongst the populace who had to live cheek by jowl with the buildings imposed upon them. I can't think of any architectural style which would so unify opinion as Brutalism.

I rode through Silver End this afternoon, through its famous collection of modernist houses. They're not fashionable houses, but they're also not hated in the way Brutalist stuff is. I'm all for preserving them, despite them not appealing to me very much. They respect tradition and the inhabitants of adjacent buildings by working at a similar scale as existing buildings, and by their relationship with the street and each other. Brutalism set out to deliberately stamp all over that sort of stuff, as, indeed, do many pieces of architecture today. I don't see any merit in that.

 

[Flyfisher]

This article about a restoration in Cambridge caught my eye . . .

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-47845898

. . . especially the following comment:

Dr Wright said post-war repairs on the "hidden gem" prevented the Tudor wooden structure from "breathing".
He said: "A lot of the wood literally turned to dust and had to be scraped out, with replacements found."

Am I the only one to interpret “replacements found” to imply they’ve used old, reclaimed timbers during this restoration?

 

[plasticpigeon]

I know a little about Birmingham and Mike is right, it seems that only planners, academics, architects and others that don't have to live with brutalist buildings, champion the brutalist style, the public don't. My older relatives, some of whom have passed now, were all very sad at the destruction of Victorian Birmingham and didn't care for the Brutalist replacements. I've chatted to older people in local pubs and their sentiments were much the same. The whole scheme around the ring road, which included the Library was the grand plan of a megalomaniac egotist Herbert Manzoni who deliberately planned for the road to go through old buildings as he thought buildings should not have a life of more than 20 years so anything old should go on principle. The road was even going to be routed straight through st Chad's cathedral, one of Pugin's early commissions, but the road was eventually routed around it instead. I remeber the library in 1980. It always looked filthy and it smelled of glue as the escalators were always in a state of being fixed. As a child I assumed it was ancient, but it was only 6 years old then. The victorian art gallery on the other hand was an oasis. The Brutalist library was not liked by the locals very much, however it did function quite well as a library, which is more than can be said of the current post modern joke. History repeats itself, and I don't believe the new even bigger glass and steel buildings are popular with the public either, but the powers that be do what the **** they like and ignore the public for the most part.

 

[Flyfisher]

Interesting points. Perhaps the real problem is the very fact that we now have planning controls, planners and, perhaps even architects, especially ‘corporate architects’. I’m being very generalistic here but it seems to me that the historic buildings, cities and townscapes we’ve come to love are basically the result of individuals, not ‘planning experts’. When our house was built in c.1550 there was no planning permission required, just someone with enough money - and pride - to build an attractive property to be proud about. After all, who would want to spend their hard-earned money on building a cheap, nasty, ugly home?

But times have changed. Since the industrial revolution more and more planning controls have been introduced and it is no longer possible for someone with a bit of money to build their own home without negotiating mountains of planning bureaucracy. This bureaucracy, well meaning though it may be, has increased the barriers in the way of anyone wanting to build a home for themselves. The result has been that most house building is now done by companies, often very large companies, that have the time and resources to negotiate all the planning bureaucracy that frightens off most would-be self-builders. But faceless companies have very different motivations than individuals and families seeking a property to call home. They mainly want to make a profit on whatever they build and they will only build to the minimum acceptable standard. Building regs should ensure such ‘boxes’ are basically safe but there is little or no control over the aesthetics. So we get bland housing estates in which the houses only sell because people mostly have no alternative choice, initially at least. Only when they can afford higher mortgages and/or have accumulated some equity are they in the position to buy something they find more desirable . . . which is why ‘period properties’ are so sought after. Not particularly because they are old but because they are different. They have character. They are not bland boxes.

I’d be in favour of completely deregulating the whole planning system to make it really easy for individuals to build their own homes on any piece of land they happen to own. Sure, they’d almost certainly need help - someone to design it and probably to build it - but they would have a direct input into the final home and because of that they would want something personal, different, quirky perhaps, that they could be proud about. Not a ‘formulaic’ basic box with a roof. And the results would gradually propagate throughout our town and cities, wiping away the bland, uniform ‘new towns’ we have been afflicted with.

The problem, of course, is that corporate developers would take advantage of such deregulation and trample over the individual self-builders. That genie is well and truly out of the bottle and it’s hard to see how its power could be curbed, so we are where we are. Doomed to ever more uniform mediocrity.

 

[plasticpigeon]

You've suggested a reason but i'm not sure it stacks up. Individuals do build houses and they are usually pretty awful, least round where I live and I can't see why deregulation would change that. Private companies build commercial premesis which look equally grotesque and again I can't see what regulation has to do with it. Some of the greatest historic buildings in my city were and are municipal buildings. My house was built by a speculative building firm that built many roads, not because of a noble vision (like the Cadbury family had), but simply to make money just like the Bryants and Wimpeys of today. The houses are quite humble but attractively designed. There just seems to have been a change in emphasis in design. Current commercial building designs are often outrageous and expensive, but the emphasis is not on harmony or some rather abstact notion of beauty, but somethings else. Irony perhaps, or some desperation to be different, shocking or subversive. I have no idea why. Housing estates look cheap and nasty with often no element of design in many cases, again I can't see why getting rid of regulation would change appearance, but it might allow them to be built even more cheaply and allow even more to be crammed into a small space like the back to back houses or yore.

 

[livias]

This article about a restoration in Cambridge caught my eye . . .

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-47845898

. . . especially the following comment:

Dr Wright said post-war repairs on the "hidden gem" prevented the Tudor wooden structure from "breathing".
He said: "A lot of the wood literally turned to dust and had to be scraped out, with replacements found."

Am I the only one to interpret “replacements found” to imply they’ve used old, reclaimed timbers during this restoration?

I did the pargeting repair on the outside of this building so I know it well and new timbers were used throughout to do the repairs. It was an exemplary conservation project with any saveable element being kept, regardless of cost. Good thing that Peterhouse College has deep pockets

 

[Flyfisher]

That’s good to hear and I must admit I was surprised to read that quote. Probably just my mis-interpretation then.

 

[Flyfisher]

You've suggested a reason but i'm not sure it stacks up. Individuals do build houses and they are usually pretty awful, least round where I live and I can't see why deregulation would change that. Private companies build commercial premesis which look equally grotesque and again I can't see what regulation has to do with it. Some of the greatest historic buildings in my city were and are municipal buildings. My house was built by a speculative building firm that built many roads, not because of a noble vision (like the Cadbury family had), but simply to make money just like the Bryants and Wimpeys of today. The houses are quite humble but attractively designed. There just seems to have been a change in emphasis in design. Current commercial building designs are often outrageous and expensive, but the emphasis is not on harmony or some rather abstact notion of beauty, but somethings else. Irony perhaps, or some desperation to be different, shocking or subversive. I have no idea why. Housing estates look cheap and nasty with often no element of design in many cases, again I can't see why getting rid of regulation would change appearance, but it might allow them to be built even more cheaply and allow even more to be crammed into a small space like the back to back houses or yore.

I’m not entirely convinced my points stack up either. But something seems to have changed in the way we build today compared to the typical period properties we know, love and nowadays protect by listing. I’m thinking it’s because commercial building companies have come between the prospective homeowner and the building of the house and this has taken the ‘emotion’ out of the design and building process. The resulting characterless ‘boxes’ still sell, of course, because they are almost all that’s affordable to new buyers. You’re quite right that there are many exceptions, perhaps so many that my point is irrelevant, but we still have fields being covered in ‘new housing’ that look pretty bland to me . . . while our stock of ‘period properties’ can only dwindle.

My other ‘hobby horse’ is the emphasis on ‘affordable housing’ - not because the basis concept is not important, clearly it is, but because it seems to have been hijacked by developers as an excuse to build even cheaper and smaller houses (as you’ve pointed out) on minimal plots, basically for more profit by commercial interests. But who would ‘self-build’ such houses if they had a choice? I’d bet almost no-one. So my basic point - even though I’m not entirely convinced - is that if there was less regulation making it easier for people to ‘self-build’ then the quality of house building would improve because the owner/occupiers would have a greater vested interest in the final design, instead of just having to take what the corporate developers push onto the market for their own purposes, ie profit. Cut out the middle-man (corporate developers, planning controls, etc) and the money that people have to spend on today’s tiny ‘affordable’ housing would go a great deal further and be used to build larger, bespoke, quality homes instead.

 

[george2019]

I know a little about Birmingham and Mike is right, it seems that only planners, academics, architects and others that don't have to live with brutalist buildings, champion the brutalist style, the public don't. My older relatives, some of whom have passed now, were all very sad at the destruction of Victorian Birmingham and didn't care for the Brutalist replacements. ...

I completely get that. I'm not sure sure you could (or should) separate that destruction from the architectural merits of Brutalism... but for me, I am young enough to group 'Brutalist' buildings to the generic 'old' category, so perhaps I see them differently. They are not better than what was there before, but they have an unique style that is impressive, clean(-ish) and showed a great deal of nerve in the structure and form. Like I say, knocking them down is a fashion so the best should be preserved.

 

[Pennyviz]

My other ‘hobby horse’ is the emphasis on ‘affordable housing’ - not because the basis concept is not important, clearly it is, but because it seems to have been hijacked by developers as an excuse to build even cheaper and smaller houses (as you’ve pointed out) on minimal plots, basically for more profit by commercial interests. But who would ‘self-build’ such houses if they had a choice? I’d bet almost no-one. So my basic point - even though I’m not entirely convinced - is that if there was less regulation making it easier for people to ‘self-build’ then the quality of house building would improve because the owner/occupiers would have a greater vested interest in the final design, instead of just having to take what the corporate developers push onto the market for their own purposes, ie profit. Cut out the middle-man (corporate developers, planning controls, etc) and the money that people have to spend on today’s tiny ‘affordable’ housing would go a great deal further and be used to build larger, bespoke, quality homes instead.

Hmm not sure about that, people need to live somewhere and there are countless places in the world (and throughout history) where such cheap housing would be considered luxury. A lot of people simply can't afford to even buy, even if it is a cheap small house or flat.

Not denying that developers are making a bob or two million from it though.

Penny

 

[wobs]

I'm fine with identifiable, but not this current obsession we have in this country with completely out of character additions just to make sure people can tell the difference.
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cathedral old.gif
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cathedral proposed.gif
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Be careful what you joke about. Proposals for Notre Dame are not far off this:
"Some suggest it could become a ‘super-slender needle touching heaven’s clouds,’ a crystal spire, or even build a roof made entirely out of glass."


Read more: https://metro.co.uk/2019/04/20/norman-foster-wants-give-notre-dame-contemporary-makeover-9277353/?ito=cbshare

Saturday's Times had an illustration of what Foster proposed.

 

[Flyfisher]

At least a stainless steel structure would be fireproof :wink:

I wonder what the decision process will be and who will decide?

Could put it to a public vote I suppose, but then they might end up with the architectural equivalent of Boaty McBoatface :lol:

 

[malcolm]

The pledges for the new roof so far are more than half the build cost of the Burj Khalifa. Would be a shame not to do something a bit fancy.

 

[Me!]

Be careful what you joke about. Proposals for Notre Dame are not far off this:
"Some suggest it could become a ‘super-slender needle touching heaven’s clouds,’ a crystal spire, or even build a roof made entirely out of glass."

Ah, so a Shard on the roof then, not a Gherkin!

 

[wobs]

Be careful what you joke about. Proposals for Notre Dame are not far off this:
"Some suggest it could become a ‘super-slender needle touching heaven’s clouds,’ a crystal spire, or even build a roof made entirely out of glass."

Ah, so a Shard on the roof then, not a Gherkin!

Although the picture in the Times had the roof resembling the Gerkin laid on it's side.

 

[Gothichome]

Well they did place a glass pyramid in front of the Louvre, why not a glass spire filled with crystal prisms.

 

[TheSpid]

Just in case anyone remembers the original reason for this post - we went from this to this - all new oak

 

[Gothichome]

Well that looks good Spid, it will stand another couple centuries.