Tag Archives: Architecture

Thamesmead no more.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/nov/30/cockney-riviera-botched-regeneration-brutalist-utopia-thamesmead

Brutalist and utopia are never two words to be used in the same sentence without negative connotations, but it’s a recurring theme with these building projects. We did, however, experience the “aesthetically pleasing” luxuries of A Clockwork Orange (1971) because of these architectural faux pas. 

Once again: “As we walked along the flatblock marina, I was calm on the outside but thinking all the time. So now it was to be Georgie the General, saying what we should do, and what not to do, and Dim as his mindless, grinning bulldog. But, suddenly, I viddied that thinking was for the gloopy ones, and that the oomny ones used like inspiration and what Bog sends. For now it was lovely music that came to my aid. There was a window open, with a stereo on, and I viddied right at once what to do.”

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Ugly Edinburgh.

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The reveal of the buildings on this list wasn’t much of a shock, and I am humbled by the fact that two of them I work in, and another – see photo above – I pass at least four times a day (I even wrote a shitty blog about it a while back).

If you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain – someone said that once (Dolly Parton and David Brent). Only through the contrast with the rotten can we appreciate the palatial.

FYI: I presently write this from a building on the list.

https://www.edinburghlive.co.uk/news/edinburgh-news/gallery/edinburgh-eyesores-here-eight-ugliest-17742367?fbclid=IwAR0IIAoxwAD7GarjG8dxBlCXiAkQTBG-t4901H4UPK9WN4L1NU0mzYsyhqQ

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Chesser House, Edinburgh.

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This Orwellian building on Gorgie Road was an eyesore by day. Home to Edinburgh Council ministries, it was a depressing affair trudging past here every morning, the gruesome monument ruining my Fleetwood Mac U.S. Route 66 fantasies.

At night, though, it was gleaming, almost cosy and welcoming. Weird.

And it’s now being converted to yet more apartments. As is the rest of Edinburgh in its present ‘gentrification’ frenzy. Nostalgia will no doubt kick in one day and I’ll start to mourn the metamorphosis of Chesser House.

At this moment in time, though, I’m not bothered. I’ll give it a decade.

Further reading:

https://regencyresidential.co.uk/news/penthouse-plans-for-superflats-in-edinburgh/

https://www.urbanrealm.com/news/7345/Edinburgh_office_to_residential_push_gathers_pace_with_Chesser_House_conversion.html

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Persevere Court, Leith.

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I was pointlessly waddling around Leith and Newhaven again this afternoon in search of existential equilibrium. Sadly, I did not find such a level of spiritual enlightenment. I did, however, locate another treat that adorns the view from Ocean Terminal. They tell me the bad boys go by the name of ‘Persevere Court’. The first thing that popped into my head was: are sprinkler systems installed? The second: the colour scheme must have been designed by someone who has frequented far too many Ryanair flights.

Outrageous scenes.

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Hutchison House, Edinburgh.

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Grim as fuck, this one. It smacks of the ’60s – poverty and deprivation in the so-called swinging era. It’s the type of building a skag head would chuck himself off. Some things need demolished; this is one of them. Yuk.

 

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Habitat 67.

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I squirm at this but can’t stop staring. 146 apartments in Montreal, a breathing Lego kit with its own ecosystem. Designed by Moshe Safdie, this was meant to revolutionise affordable housing but its legacy is the opposite – a unit can set you back up to $1 million.

I guess it looks better than most dilapidated high-rises but for fuck’s sake, your crib is a tourist attraction. Every time you look out the window an army of Jimmy Stewarts are outside looking in, a Rear Window (1954) role reversal. Disturbing. What if you’re caught with a prossie?

If this is a glimpse of the future, I don’t wish to stick around for it.

Further reading:

https://www.mtlblog.com/lifestyle/what-a-1000000-apartment-looks-like-in-montreals-habitat-67

http://www.towertrip.com/inside-the-most-beautiful-habitat-67-unit-that-just-hit-the-market/

 

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In a nutshell. Leith, Edinburgh.

Rambling around Leith today taking snaps. The port district is ugly but it has character. I would wager it has the highest concentration of junkies and creatives per square mile than anywhere else in Scotland. Everyone knows someone who’s on the smack, yet conversely their next-door neighbour will have aspirations of being this generation’s Bukowski.

The pubs also ‘suffer’ from deflation.

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The Buzludzha monument.

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No, that’s not a UFO or something out of Prometheus (2012); it’s the awfully baffling Buzludzha monument in Bulgaria, an admittedly futuristic remnant in the brutalist architectural style from the country’s wretched dalliance with communism. Like all pillars of the Eastern Bloc age, it reveals the hubris and folly of the state. No wonder that vast Soviet experiment went tits-up when instead of making the economics work, governments were concentrating on this nonsense. The thing, whatever it is, cost a fucking fortune.

The monument’s interior – mosaics of commie stalwarts – is closed to the public. The official line is that it’s now too dangerous to enter, but one suspects it’s frankly too embarrassing a spectacle.

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It does reveal a truth, though – the lengths totalitarian states will go to awe the worker bees into submission.

Further reading:

https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/buzludzha-monument

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-forgotten-communist-monoliths-of-bulgaria

https://www.lonelyplanet.com/bulgaria/veliko-tarnovo-central-mountains/travel-tips-and-articles/bulgarias-ufo-the-spell-of-the-abandoned-buzludzha-monument/40625c8c-8a11-5710-a052-1479d276292a

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