Semi detatched cott

[Flyfisher]

All the fuss was rather hypocritical really - various boys had been getting their kit off and jumping in the river for some years I was told,

Probably because there wasn't too much to see given all that cold water :shock:

 

[JoceAndChris]

Quite true.

 

[Feltwell]

even though St Catz is a blot on the landscape.

Now that's certainly true - the buildings have all the charm and beauty of a 1960's multi-storey car park. A good college though, my long since ex-girlfriend (still a close friend though) really enjoyed her time there.

I'm not quite sure why I can recall that incident - like you most things from those days are a blur!

 

[Gareth Hughes]

Hmmmmm. Here I'm going to have to disagree. St Catherine's is a well-considered and beautifully-detailed, listed, work by Arne Jacobsen
(I've just renewed my subscription to the Twentieth Century Society, so I have to say that, but I also believe it to be true)

 

[JoceAndChris]

If you say it is important then it must be true. Considered and detailed yes, but beautiful??? Hard angles, staring blank panes, pointless sculptures and foul concrete. I never met a student who liked it. Who will like it 100 years from now?

Sorry, I stop at 1925. In fact, make that 1914. You'll have a job to persuade me there is much design worth admiring since then. Excepting, of course, your lovely roof.

Why can't people copy gorgeous old stuff more? I can't stand modern architecture, though modern architects do have a place in my affections.

And while we're at it, please will someone bomb Ikea and all its contents?

xx

PS I don't see much modern stuff in amongst your extraordinary work on Geograph. So conclude you have just been pressured into joining the 20th C soc.
PPS If you were rushing from a burning building and could save one of these two objects which would it be?

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d9/AJ_3101_ant.jpg/180px-AJ_3101_ant.jpg

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/telegraph/multimedia/archive/00786/GoldCross-460_786893c.jpg

 

[Penners]

One huge hoo-ha over two very small t**s.

I gather that Great Tits are now on the increase.

Well, that's what the RSPB were saying yesterday, anyway.

 

[Gareth Hughes]

If you say it is important then it must be true. Considered and detailed yes, but beautiful??? Hard angles, staring blank panes, pointless sculptures and foul concrete. I never met a student who liked it. Who will like it 100 years from now?

Sorry, I stop at 1925. In fact, make that 1914. You'll have a job to persuade me there is much design worth admiring since then. Excepting, of course, your lovely roof.

Why can't people copy gorgeous old stuff more? I can't stand modern architecture, though modern architects do have a place in my affections.

And while we're at it, please will someone bomb Ikea and all its contents?

xx

PS I don't see much modern stuff in amongst your extraordinary work on Geograph. So conclude you have just been pressured into joining the 20th C soc.
PPS If you were rushing from a burning building and could save one of these two objects which would it be?

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d9/AJ_3101_ant.jpg/180px-AJ_3101_ant.jpg

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/telegraph/multimedia/archive/00786/GoldCross-460_786893c.jpg

Neither of them, actually.

The "I've never met a student who liked it" argument isn't far off the quality of arguments advanced for demolishing St Pancras in the 60s (which included, "but it's such a dust trap").
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/6230106.stm
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0PAL/is_515_161/ai_n13499298

I took a long time to come round to the pleasure to be derived from good modern buildings, being a lone and (mostly, rightly) derided neo-Georgian throughout my student career in what I only belately realised is the greatest Art-Deco city in Britain, but as Thomas Hopper said, "an architect should be familiar with all styles and prejudiced in favour of none".

And I certainly haven't been pressured into joining the C20 soc - I was on its committee more than a decade ago.
xx

 

[Feltwell]

I was in Birmingham yesterday, where I was a student in the early 90's (not brainy enough for Oxford! :wink: )

The area around the back of Aston University, near the old Curzon Street station, is completely unrecognisable - it was run down admittedly, but there were some beautiful Victorian industrial buildings round there. I was looking at a soon-to-be demolished one - beautiful details that you'd never get now, like the stone carving above the doors - "Office" at one end, "Workers and Goods" at the other.

What's going up instead certainly didn't please my eye.

This seems to be happening all over the West Midlands - everyone thinks that it's just the 1950's / 60's monstrosities such as the Bullring that are being demolished. Well they are, but an awful lot of fine industrial buildings from the Victorian heyday are also going.

My only consolation was that a lone survivor near Curzon Street, the Woodman pub, is still there. Lovely Victorian pub that is almost completely original both inside and out. Serves good beer to.

 

[Gareth Hughes]

The area around the back of Aston University, near the old Curzon Street station, is completely unrecognisable - it was run down admittedly, but there were some beautiful Victorian industrial buildings round there. I was looking at a soon-to-be demolished one - beautiful details that you'd never get now, like the stone carving above the doors - "Office" at one end, "Workers and Goods" at the other.

This one by any chance?
http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/552363
Interesting and "of its time" certainly, but I'm finding it difficult to really label it "beautiful"

 

[Penners]

This one by any chance?
http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/552363
Interesting and "of its time" certainly, but I'm finding it difficult to really label it "beautiful"

Hmmm - I think I agree that "beautiful" is the wrong word. "Modestly imposing" perhaps? What I like the is trouble that was taken to include attractive detailing, lifting the building above the mundane.

Brummie Selfridges isn't mundane either. It's interesting and... I suppose the mot du moment is "organic". But I confess that I find it rather coarse, in an "Oi - look at me!" sort of way.

 

[Feltwell]

I'm a sucker for Victorian industrial buildings, I admit my appreciation of them is probably greater than most. I like the fact that so much attention went into the details to make the building stand out - which had no real function for the business - whereas now for the same purpose you'd get a steel frame clad in profiled sheets on an industrial estate.

Give me a nicely detailed and interesting old industrial building any day, stately homes bore me rigid ! The functional outbuildings and servants areas are interesting, the "posh bits" you can keep!

Yes Gareth, that was the building I saw, but there were plenty of others round there that are now gone. I don't mourn the passing of the old Bullring though!

Penners, I quite like the Selfridges building - it's different, if a bit "shouty" as you say. Nothing interesting seems to be appearing around Curzon Street though.

 

[JoceAndChris]

xx

I stand rather severely corrected. Never mind, I'm used to it.

xxx

 

[Gareth Hughes]

xx

I stand rather severely corrected. Never mind, I'm used to it.

xxx

Don't mention wide experience of severe correction, we've only just got Penners settled back down :lol:

Old Fred Drift's been having a field day with this topic though...

 

[Feltwell]

Old Fred Drift's been having a field day with this topic though...

He's a busy chap!

 

[JoceAndChris]

I've just been reading about the C20 soc. I love the bit where they invite members to suggest an event; events are my forte. Now this is going to keep me busy all afternoon.

 

[JoceAndChris]

the greatest Art-Deco city in Britain

???
Bored, now, of looking at Art Deco buildings in various cities- please put me out of my misery.

 

[Gareth Hughes]

The one the gin comes from (though it didn't turn out quite as in the artist's impressions, and of course is 20 years+ too late to really be Art Deco when it was briefly fashionable)
View attachment 2View attachment 1

 

[JoceAndChris]

What beautiful pictures. Who made those? I want to go to Plymouth now and drink copious quantities of gin whilst admiring art deco.

When can we go?

 

[Gareth Hughes]

JDM Harvey did the pics in 1942.

There aren't any decent photos on Geograph of how it turned out in reality, so you'll have to trust me that this is far more enjoyable than it looks:
http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/829229

The series of which this is part is better, and far more sympathetic to Plymouth's peculiar (in every sense) charms:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/21420471@N02/2908826905/

Plym does have some proper (ie pre-War) Deco too:

http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1135244
http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1012090
http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1180743

 

[MdB]

What beautiful pictures. Who made those? I want to go to Plymouth now and drink copious quantities of gin whilst admiring art deco.

When can we go?

Don't. You will be very very disappointed....

When I was there, it was what I thought was 1960's concrete in a very poor state of repair. It is now 2000 concrete, a lot having been redeveloped.