Elfin's Tuesday Architectural Appreciation thread!! This week- Public Buildings

Chat Forum

[closed]

Elfin's Tuesday Architectural Appreciation thread!! This week- Public Buildings

62 posts & 29 voices | Started 1 year ago by Elfinsafety | Latest reply from Sandwich

Tags:

No tags yet.

Pages: 12 Next »

Elfinsafety - Member

I've seen that some of you like a bit of the old Town Hall or Public Library and that. So, this week's all about public/civic buildings. Show us yer faves, or even stuff that's just hideous. 60's concrete nightmares? Victorian madness? Utter follies that wasted ratepayers' money? Or what about buildings that are actually designed well, and work propply? Anyway, enjoy the Architecture.

I'll start off with a couple of faves local to me (and youse know I never venture outside the M25, but with all this, I don't need to!).

Bethnal Green Library (My mum is actually in there as I type!):

Walthamstow Town Hall:

City Hall of course:

Show us yer civic gems!

Posted 1 year ago #
tiggs121 - Member

Posted 1 year ago #
binners - Member

Manchester Central Library

beautiful building. Though i loath the place having spent what seemed like every waking hour in there doing my dissertation

I like this one down your neck of the woods Fred

Posted 1 year ago #
yossarian - Member

Bet you can't guess where this is!

Posted 1 year ago #
binners - Member

Bolton town hall is quite nice too

Posted 1 year ago #
thepurist - Member

Are we allowed museums or is that a whole separate topic?

Posted 1 year ago #
tiggs121 - Member

Barrow Town Hall?

Posted 1 year ago #
GlitterGary - Member

yossarian - is that Durham?

Posted 1 year ago #
thepurist - Member

How about Scotlandshire town hall?

IMHO the detailing is fantastic but the concept doesn't work as a whole.

Posted 1 year ago #
Elfinsafety - Member

Museums, hmm, not sure, I spose so, as long as they're 'publicly' owned. Many are 'owned' and run by charities rather than local authorities/the State.

Peckham Library is mental. It's got little pods inside.

Posted 1 year ago #
Harry_the_Spider - Member

Manchester Town Hall

Posted 1 year ago #
bagpuss72 - Member

Looks a bit weird from the outside but there's a lovely stained glass window and its all bean bags and light and airy inside

Ramsbottom Library by the way.....

pps: The Rake race goes up past if it any of you do that or is that Roadies and I've just said a swear word.....

Posted 1 year ago #
bagpuss72 - Member

I know its modern but we have electricity and everything now in Bury.... real carriages that move without horses

Posted 1 year ago #
Three_Fish - Member

The Civic Centre; Baltic and The Sage in Newcastle...

Posted 1 year ago #
Fortunateson09 - Member

IMHO the detailing is fantastic but the concept doesn't work as a whole.

I had fun spinning that out to 3000 words recently...

I've never been, but the Geisel Library always looks like an exciting bit of brutalism to me.

Posted 1 year ago #
binners - Member

This one will be a 'marmite' one I'm sure..Manchester Civil Justice Building

I like it because i think it looks like a court should look. A bit imposing

Posted 1 year ago #
willard - Member

The old County Council offices for Suffolk, now sadly awaiting destruction or redevelopment. Horrible inside, imposing on the outside.

Also, Shire Hall, Woodbridge. I liked it so much I got married there.

Posted 1 year ago #
Mr Woppit - Member

Will Self's favourite, apparently.

Posted 1 year ago #
BFITH - Member

Casa del Fascio, Como, Italy:

Posted 1 year ago #
Harry_the_Spider - Member

I think that the Manchester Civil Justice building looks like a chest of drawers after a robbery.

Posted 1 year ago #
Elfinsafety - Member

We done stations a couple of weeks ago, Woppit. Nice example though.

I'm assuming this falls under the 'publicly owned' remit:

I have never been tried there.

Or here:

Posted 1 year ago #
Mr Woppit - Member

Madrid Barajas

Posted 1 year ago #
Elfinsafety - Member

I don't think you're quite getting this, Woppit. Stations is a different subsection. Although I'm not sure, are Spanish railways state owned? That would make the buildings publicly owned I pose. But this is more about yer town halls, libraries and that. Another stunning example mind, i'll give you that.

Edit: Just learned it's an airport. Even more innapropriate!

I'll be doing a 'Ports' edition soon, then you can post it up there. Good to see the appreciation for architecture though.

Posted 1 year ago #
binners - Member

Wythenshaw Pavilion

Its fallen into the state a lot of municipal buildings are in. A travesty really. I'd love to buy it and do something nice with it. Only trouble is, its in Wythenshaw. Still... there's room for a machine gun turret on top. And you could have boiling oil next to the window ready to pour on the hordes of marauding scallies

Posted 1 year ago #
ernie_lynch - Member

An increasingly rare publicly owned architectural sight, but one which I often deeply appreciate

Posted 1 year ago #
Elfinsafety - Member

Good call there Ernie; public loos are disappearing from our high streets. Some of them really are little gems though.

These are in Rothesay on the Isle of Bute, wherever that is:

It would surely be a privilege, to urinate in such an ornate setting.

Posted 1 year ago #
ernie_lynch - Member

I think this one's got goldfish in the cisterns......which should give you something interesting to look at whilst having a slash

Posted 1 year ago #
binners - Member

You can get a beer in these ones Fred

And you can get all sorts of things in the ones Hora frequents

Posted 1 year ago #
spasmic gherkin - Member

I wandered around manchester library with a friend a couple of years back, enthusing about how nice it was compared to brum's. he thought i was exaggerating, so i took him for a look. you know that look someone has when they can taste sick?

the brutalism style doesn't really work with what's around it, and doesn't help brum's image of being a concrete horror show. but the real bad points are the dreadful little precinct underneath it, and the way the facilities seem to just have been thrown in there at random.

i'm undecided on the new one - looks a bit like someone had some fancy trellis they wanted shot of, though the skylight in the pavement so's you can watch someone play the piano down there's a nice grandiose touch.

Posted 1 year ago #
thepurist - Member

Ceausescu's Palace of Parliament - as public buildings go, they don't get much bigger or more controversial.

Posted 1 year ago #
Bregante - Member

A building from my childhood

Posted 1 year ago #
Elfinsafety - Member

If I am ever fabulously wealthy, I am going to have a proper marble urinal installed in my house.

But I digress.

Come on Ernie, you live in an area of Great Architectural Significance...

Posted 1 year ago #
40mpg - Member

Southampton Geothermal Energy Plant, using the architectural equivalent of blitzkrieg to highlight its environmental contribution situated slap bang in the middle of a shopping mall car park. Southampton's Town Planners should be merited for their forward thinking with this contribution to the City's skyline.

Posted 1 year ago #
binners - Member

40mpg - I thought the law clearly stated that all environmental buildings HAVE to be painted green. Now i know why

Posted 1 year ago #
Elfinsafety - Member

And you can get all sorts of things in the ones Hora frequents

Most unsavoury.

We've got a bierkeller like that here too, Binners:

Über, über trendy.

Posted 1 year ago #

RSS feed for this topic

Pages: 12 Next »

Topic Closed

This topic has been closed to new replies.

Singletrack Mountain Bike Magazine

Chat Forum

Elfin's Tuesday Architectural Appreciation thread!! This week- Public Buildings

Topic Closed

Don't miss…

Singletrack

Website & Forums

Exits