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

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Manchester Central Library

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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

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Bet you can't guess where this is!

Bolton town hall is quite nice too

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

Barrow Town Hall?

yossarian - is that Durham?

How about Scotlandshire town hall?

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

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.

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Manchester Town Hall

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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..... 😯

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Will Self's favourite, apparently.

Casa del Fascio, Como, Italy:

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

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

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

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I have never been tried there. 🙂

Or here:

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Madrid Barajas

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.

Wythenshaw Pavilion

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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

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

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

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

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

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

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You can get a beer in these ones Fred 😀

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

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

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A building from my childhood

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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...

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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.

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

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:

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Über, über trendy.

And a few from adulthood

Leeds
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Shrewsbury

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Manchester
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That brings back memories Bregante, I did 8 Months at Leeds (Armley) Prison back in 1995.
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Doing a refurb of A Wing, not a prisoner!

I think I confused "publicly owned" with "publicly used". Or should that be "yer" publicly used "innit"?

Hadn't considered prisons, nice work Bregante! 🙂

The Scrubs:

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Some listed 60's concrete - well i like it.

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Haven't got any pictures,but Inverness Town House is worth a google. Like Willard earlier, I liked it so much I gor married there!

If I ever marry, it shall be here:

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Not strictly a public building - Manchester University, Fallowfield Campus. "The Toast Rack"

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The much maligned Birmingham Central library.

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Always loved the library building, especially as a youngster skateboarding around the hollow interior. The fact that jug eared twunt Prince Charles hates the place for not conforming to his neo classical ideals makes it all the more special.

Birmingham University, which I'm sure jug ears would love.

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This is the art deco swimming baths at the bottom of the road where I grew up

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And this is the interior. The pool used to get boarded up during the winter and the baths were used as a venue for music ( The Beatles played there ) and as a venue for the local 5 a side league - Monday nights, 20 minute games, packed to the rafters, great stuff.

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