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4 minutes ago, Bleep1673 said:

Preston Bus Terminal, god help us all

A building beautifully crafted with a design in line with its purpose. 

Rather than these rather over-adorned things covered with unnecessary and inappropriate frilly bits that we've been seeing pics of ?

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On 16/06/2020 at 20:30, The Hallucinating Goose said:

The Berliner Fernsehturm, the symbol of my favourite city. Always gives me a beaming smile when I see it as I'm on the S-bahn heading towards Alexanderplatz. Don't know if easyjet fly into shonefeld anymore but when they did you could see the Fernsehturm from right out by the airport, you can't quite the same from Tegel.

Great journey into the city that, you pass some really iconic parts of Berlin, especially as you get to Treptower Park cos between there and Alexanderplatz, if you know what you're looking for you'll see the molecule man sculpture in the spree, the Oberbaum Bridge, the Kater Blau nightclub/commune and if I remember rightly you see the east side gallery which is a reconstructed section of the Berlin Wall decorated with graffiti art plus some stereotypical communist housing projects. 

The colossal statue of the Red Army soldier standing on the smashed swastika is a sight once seen never forgotten.

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"I'm from a fishing family. Trawlermen are like pirates with biscuits." - Lucy Beaumont.

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On 16/06/2020 at 16:34, Trevorkfevfan said:

I have always admired St Pancras Station frontage, the hotel. Saw an interesting program about its restoration. I have a great admiration for a lot of Victorian Railway archtitecture.

Although he didn't quite match his father's great achievement, George Gilbert Scott Jr. did design these fine buildings. They're my favourite buildings for two reasons a) they're beautiful and b) they're down our street.

Picture by Ian Colquhoun - Chris Coulson. Avenues Design Guide, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=23297316 b

Gilbert_Scott_house.jpg

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"I'm from a fishing family. Trawlermen are like pirates with biscuits." - Lucy Beaumont.

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1 hour ago, Ullman said:

The colossal statue of the Red Army soldier standing on the smashed swastika is a sight once seen never forgotten.

That whole memorial is just mind-blowing, starting at the statue of Mutter Heimat and then walking through the gardens with the soldier always in front of you and up the steps to the soldier. Truly incredible. 

Treptower Park gets a little forgotten by tourists I think which is a shame cos the southeast corner of the city is lovely. If you go just past the memorial you will find Insel der Jugend which is just a tiny island in the river with a footbridge across to it and the gatehouse on the island is an amazing little pub. They sometimes have small concerts and an open air cinema on there as well.

I think you can get a boat from there to Kopenick as well which is one of the older areas of the city, really quiet, narrow cobbled streets, trams, a schloss. You wouldn't think you were in one of the biggest cities in Europe with the incredibly relaxed atmosphere of the place, though its something that's true of a lot of the outlying areas of Berlin. Zehlendorf in the south west really has that kind of a feel about it as well. Such a relaxing city, a big city without a big city atmosphere. 

Sorry, when I get talking about Berlin I can't stop. I love that city. ?

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On 18/06/2020 at 19:15, Ullman said:

Although he didn't quite match his father's great achievement, George Gilbert Scott Jr. did design these fine buildings. They're my favourite buildings for two reasons a) they're beautiful and b) they're down our street.

Picture by Ian Colquhoun - Chris Coulson. Avenues Design Guide, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=23297316 b

Gilbert_Scott_house.jpg

And, unless I am much mistaken, the telephone kiosk is to the K2 design of George Jr's son, Giles, or a development of it.

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7 hours ago, Bleep1673 said:

The word ugly doesn't describe it, a blot on the landscape

What reactive, conservative taste you have.

Most of the buildings illustrated on this thread would have been considered ugly by contemporaries so rest assured you're not alone through the course of history.

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13 hours ago, Wiltshire Warrior Dragon said:

And, unless I am much mistaken, the telephone kiosk is to the K2 design of George Jr's son, Giles, or a development of it.

That's a great spot. Well done. It's in the classic Hull Telephones cream livery too.

"I'm from a fishing family. Trawlermen are like pirates with biscuits." - Lucy Beaumont.

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  • 1 year later...

Gonna stick this here.

The subsequent comments surprised me a little in some of the sport and cons of the two. But putting aside energy inefficiency or disabled access friendly or rainwater runoff issues etc aesthetically I find the difference stark - the current trend to put ###### white or off white rendering over old buildings is horrid.

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20 minutes ago, M j M said:

Gonna stick this here.

The subsequent comments surprised me a little in some of the sport and cons of the two. But putting aside energy inefficiency or disabled access friendly or rainwater runoff issues etc aesthetically I find the difference stark - the current trend to put ###### white or off white rendering over old buildings is horrid.

Also, those multitude of spaces might be because the house on the left has been converted to apartments, making much more efficient use of the building space!

I’m not sure of the original purpose for the quoted post, but all I’ve learned is that we don’t know the full story! 😁

As for rendering on old houses, I think it all depends on whether the surrounding properties have had similar. Something that stands out as modern against period can look out of place I agree. But that might just be my OCD 😬

“There is perhaps no better a demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world.”   Carl Sagan

 

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Slight tangent here but....

One of the great things about some games is that you get to visit buildings in that space that are often favourable representations of those buildings.

In the game 'The Saboteur' for example the setting is occupied Paris and surrounding areas and when/if you get chance to visit some of these buildings in real life it really does add to the experience and gives you a sense of familiarity that you wouldn't get otherwise.

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The%20Warriors%2060.jpg

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1 hour ago, M j M said:

Gonna stick this here.

The subsequent comments surprised me a little in some of the sport and cons of the two. But putting aside energy inefficiency or disabled access friendly or rainwater runoff issues etc aesthetically I find the difference stark - the current trend to put ###### white or off white rendering over old buildings is horrid.

I used to walk past this site everyday. I have some sympathy for both sides of the argument here. We have ~250 000 people working in Cambridge, and only ~150 000 people living here. In the last few years, there's been several new small towns built in the surrounding area, tens or hundreds of houses built in each of the surrounding villages, many thousands of new houses built in the city itself and in satellite towns like Haverhill. I'm aware of people turning down £100K jobs in the city because they can't afford to live there, and know people doing ridiculous commutes from places 90+ minutes away. We badly need more housing here. It's not the fault of the local council that national economic policy over the last 40+ years has concentrated all those well paid technology/software, biotech/medical jobs into the city.

The house that was knocked down to build those flats was sold for £850K, and was barely habitable. I suspect the one on the right would fetch over a million. This is on a main road, well out from the city centre, with loads of other flats, a petrol station, TA centre, 70s cul-de-sacs - it's not a visually attractive part of town.

We need the six flats that have been built much more than we need million pound Victorian semis. It does seem stupid to have all those parking spaces when there's a cycle path right outside the door, in a city where bikes are by far the fastest way to get around and most people do cycle. But there's no on-street parking at all, and a shared garden for those six flats might not get maintained, particularly when you have a large, beautiful park a minute or so away.

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5 hours ago, M j M said:

Gonna stick this here.

The subsequent comments surprised me a little in some of the sport and cons of the two. But putting aside energy inefficiency or disabled access friendly or rainwater runoff issues etc aesthetically I find the difference stark - the current trend to put ###### white or off white rendering over old buildings is horrid.

Possibly external insulation , rendered over ?

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4 hours ago, Vambo said:

Slight tangent here but....

One of the great things about some games is that you get to visit buildings in that space that are often favourable representations of those buildings.

In the game 'The Saboteur' for example the setting is occupied Paris and surrounding areas and when/if you get chance to visit some of these buildings in real life it really does add to the experience and gives you a sense of familiarity that you wouldn't get otherwise.

You're quite right. I get this more from old films and history books. Ever since I was a kid I've loved spy fiction and a location that always comes up in that of course is my favourite place in the world, Berlin and the two things I've always seen so many films and pictures of are the Fernsehturm in Alexanderplatz and the Brandenburg Gate.

The first time I visited Berlin I actually got humanbumps and genuinely couldn't speak when I first saw the gate. I had to sit down and just take a breath while I looked at it. Then when I walked through it I actually stroked it so I could feel the stone and prove to myself I was really there. Then all the while I was walking down unter den linten I was just staring at the TV tower and I just couldn't stop smiling. I real crazed, beaming smile as well. 

The Fernsehturm link is a video game one as well cos it was a landmark you could build on Sim City so I always knew it from that game before I went there. Yeah, I know exactly what you're talking about. 

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53 minutes ago, voteronniegibbs said:

Berlin a fascinating city. The first time I visited the Lustgarten where you get to see the damage still visible from the WW2 fighting on some of the buildings is amazing and shocking at the same time.

There are some really quite stark and shocking buildings in Berlin. I love the city for the Cold War history myself. The huge white balls on top of Teufelsberg are a dramatic sight. I remember standing on top of one of the towers of the cathedral and staring at them far in the distance for ages just imagining the spying that had been done there. From the cathedral you can see most of the city as you would imagine.

The Funkturm is another structure that really stands out. A heck of a lot of people that go to the city don't visit that one either cos they only know about the tv tower so it is always a much quieter and, I think, much more atmospheric place to visit. 

Hohenschonhausen prison is probably the most incredible place to visit in the city for history buffs. The stasi's secret prison, the empty spot on the old maps of East Berlin. I went on the guided tour of that place and they show you rooms where people were tortured and interrogated and the cells they stayed in. The torture used was psychological not physical and some of the things they did were truly evil. 

I personally wouldn't bother with Checkpoint Charlie, just a tourist attraction surrounded by fat Americans. 

Don't get me talking about Berlin or I won't shut up! 😁

Edited by The Hallucinating Goose
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Short of a roof but a magnificent theatre.

Minack Theatre Porthcurno Cornwall

Minack Theatre Porthcurno

 

Visit my photography site www.padge.smugmug.com

Radio 5 Live: Saturday 14 April 2007

Dave Whelan "In Wigan rugby will always be king"

 

This country's wealth was created by men in overalls, it was destroyed by men in suits.

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Art Deco Midland Hotel Morecombe.

mid_hotel_IMG_5685-600x422.jpg mid_hotel_IMG_5665sm-600x400.jpg smMidland_IMG_5618-600x400.jpg smMidland_IMG_5641-326x450.jpg

 

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Visit my photography site www.padge.smugmug.com

Radio 5 Live: Saturday 14 April 2007

Dave Whelan "In Wigan rugby will always be king"

 

This country's wealth was created by men in overalls, it was destroyed by men in suits.

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