It's Elfin's Tuesday Architectural Appreciation thread! Doorways and gateways.

Here it is so stop clamouring! 😀

Well, today’s AA topic was suggested by Wingnut who got too excited last night and coon’t wait and demanded the AA at bloody just gone midnight silly Billy.

Doorways, gateways, entrances and portals. That’s today’s theme. I thought it was a great suggestion.

Royal Courts of Justice, Aldwych:

Rotherhithe Tunnel:

Natural History Museum:

Now I’m going to be out for much of today so youse’ll have to behave yourselves and be nice. Binners, would you look after the shop while I’m gone please? Oh, and Harry Spider is banned. Cheers.

Carlo Scarpa’s gate to the Venician School of Architecture

It doesn’t actually exist as a building – and this picture doesn’t explain it properly, but…… Diller and Scoffido’s ‘Slow House’ is designed so that when you stand at the door (red bit) the shape of the rest of the building means the whole house hides behind the door. So the sense is of just standing in front of a lone door in the landscape, and when you open it there house is inside. Like a reverse Narnian wardrobe.

12C door Torbryan Chuch House Inn, Devon

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It’s a bit early in the morning to be getting all Georgia O’Keefe on us Mr Safety !

Excellent start already!

Gaudi was good at gates and entrances and that:

Warrington Town Hall gates. Designed and built for Buckingham Palace, but Vicky decided she didn’t like them, so they were cast out to the provinces to have drunken Bazza and Tommo’s vomiting on them

and some Parisian gorgeousness

This is a church near me. I have always loved these gates:

Brandenburg Gate

Venice Police Station

Ankor Watt

Mosque

HoP

Area 51 entrance, that doesn’t exist, phah.

Entrance to Auschwitz

And of course…

Entrances on a grand scale

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Welcome to Rhodes.
The Colossus of Rhodes – scale has been exaggerated for artistic effect. The actual statue is believed to have been 30m high.

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Welcome to America.
Statue of Liberty.

In Patrick Keiler’s film London, Robinson goes to Vauxhall Park to listen to the gatepost (6.04mins). Later, in the aftermath of the 1992 election, the talking gateposts fall silent. It think it probably the only time a picture of gatepost has made me feel really sad.

Entrance to Narnia

muppetWrangler – Member
Entrances on a grand scale

Is that the Biffin Bridge? 😆

Oh…erm… could you use the back door please Mr Murdoch

Entrance to Eau Rouge

Built in honour/fear of Louis XIV

Oh…erm… could you use the back door please Mr Murdoch

He’s been making free and frequent use of the back door of the residents of that residence for about 40 years

This is the front door to a house my sister and her husband had built. It’s 5.5m tall, but I’m rather ambivalent about the door, and the house in general.

Video here, if anyone’s interested in the architect talking about the design (and her husband talking about “making a statement” :lol:)

Video

Vernon gate in Derby.

In 1827, the new County Gaol opened at the end of Vernon Street. The name changed to HM Prison Derby in 1886 and for more than 100 years, was home to generations of thieves, fraudsters and murderers. Crowds flocked from outlying villages; some even came by train to watch the victims being brought from the prison on to the scaffold for their execution. The more notorious the criminal, the bigger the crowd. At first executions took place in the middle of the road at the far end of Friar Gate and then in front of the Old County Gaol.

The last public execution at Derby of Richard Thorley for the murder of Eliza Morrow took place in 1862 and the last judicial execution in 1907. In the 18th and 19th centuries, public executions attracted a great deal of attention and came to be regarded by some members of the community as a ‘good day out.’

From 1919 to 1929 the prison acted as a military prison.

In 1933, it literally went to the dogs. Derby Greyhound Stadium was opened by the Preston Greyhound Racing Association Ltd, with a track boasting two “very palatial” clubs, one on the grandstand side and one on the popular side. It gave the area a new lease of life and Derby people their first opportunity to enjoy dog racing. And many of them grasped it with both hands.

All that remains today of the former prison is its façade; hiding the beautiful offices within.

The original design for the Arch de Triumph – it looks like the toilets has a window pointing out of the elephant’s arse. “garde à l’eau!”

Stow Church

Belas Knap longbarrow – entering the womb of the neolithic underworld

The Alhambra in Spain

Santo Domingo church. Soria. Castilla y León. Spain

yossarian – that’s Garry Neville’s house isn’t it?

NASA V.A.B.

Cardington

Gaping Gill

Tracy Island

My house (just to annoy Elfi 😉 )

Holy Villiage entrance, London

Not that grand, but worth a mention for how they’re currently treated 🙁