Well, it seems a fair few of you lot are fayns of architectural design, so why not have a new-type intellectually stimulating regular thread? Weekly? Monthly?
'But what's it got to do with bikes??' I hear the Philistines cry. Simple really; our wonderful sport allows us to get out an explore, whether in rural places, or urban environments. And a lot of us do live in towns and cities. Having a bike is one of the best ways to get out and actually explore the World around us, and see all sorts of interesting stuff.
We could have weekly themes, bit like the photography thread. For this inaugural thread, let's just have a celebration of architecture of all sorts. Can be fave buildings of yours, quirky interesting places on your regular routes, or just stuff you like from around the World. Don't have to be big, or grand, just something that speaks to you.
I'll have to start off with a bit of London, of course, but feel free to post pics, yer own if you've got 'em, of buildings and structures, and a bit about why you like them/find them interesting, if you want to.
Some gems close to me:
Canary Wharf Tube Station:
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[url= http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbey_Mills_Pumping_Stations ]Abbey Mills Pumping Station:[/url]
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Kereling house, Bethnal Green; Architect Denys Lasdun, famous for the Royal National Theatre on the South Bank":
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Go!
Can't do piccy posting but a big fan of the various Guggenheims. Esp the one in New York although Bilbao is an upstart pretender.
Local and impossing.
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NOt a lot else inspring up north as it is grim
sorry in order
Darwen Tower
LE mans Crescent , Bolton
Liverpool museum + liver building - you must like that one ?
Manchester library
The very cradle of League Football.
Vandalised and destroyed by Doug Ellis with the help of B'ham city council.
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NOt a lot else inspring up north as it is grim
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and of course
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[url= http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2312/2315311076_c450921a46_z.jp g" target="_blank">
[url= http://www.flickr.com/photos/leecollis/2315311076/ ]Soup Kitchen from underpass[/url] by [url= http://www.flickr.com/people/leecollis/ ]Lee Collis[/url], on Flickr
[url= http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2094/2314500089_0dd99cae43_z.jp g" target="_blank">
[url= http://www.flickr.com/photos/leecollis/2314500089/ ]Soup Kitchen[/url] by [url= http://www.flickr.com/people/leecollis/ ]Lee Collis[/url], on Flickr
and
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nice to see this hasn't turned into an elitist, neo-classical love in.
keep it up guys. 8)
[img] http://www.trendir.com/house-design/cooper-point-eco-home-2.jpg [/img][img] http://earthfirst.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/handmade-house-pacific.jpg [/img][img] http://www.indymedia.org.uk/images/2004/04/288587.jp g" target="_blank">
http://www.trendir.com/house-design/cooper-point-eco-home-2.jpg [/img][img] http://earthfirst.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/handmade-house-pacific.jpg [/img][img] http://www.indymedia.org.uk/images/2004/04/288587.jp g"/> [/img]
The Ark at Hammersmith fascinates in a strange way, can never figure out if it is genius or not.
Abbey Mills is even more impressive when you are in side it, the victorians really did go overboard with that one.
Natural History Museum.
I cant do piccies
yunki -
is that the place overlooking Lustleigh Cleave - pre facelift ?
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Local and impossing.
more like "impossible" as the top has blown off it 🙂
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What an excellent start! 😀
Some brilliant examples too. Gives me a few ideas for future themes.
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Oh well, if you can't beat them...
I know they're obvious but these are two of my favourite recent additions
Just stands out - Interesting up close too with it's double skin.
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Simple shapes just look great and you can't beat a circle for that. Looks amazing from water level directly beneath it too.
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Trailmonkey - No.. the one in the pic is in Pembrokeshire.. I wasn't aware that there was a similar one above the Cleave..
that's interesting.. I'd like to see it.. I'm up that way tomorrow and Saturday.. can you be more accurate about the location..?
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The bestest architecture is the stuff we can ride.
C'mon, piccies is easy!
[b]Balancing Barn:[/b]
[url= http://www.living-architecture.co.uk/uf/scheme/inset/237e9898a.jp g" target="_blank">http://www.living-architecture.co.uk/uf/scheme/inset/237e9898a.jp g"/> [/img][/url]
[b]Velodrome:[/b]
[url= http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Admin/BkFill/Default_image_group/2011/1/31/1296500678736/velodrome-007.jp g" target="_blank">http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Admin/BkFill/Default_image_group/2011/1/31/1296500678736/velodrome-007.jp g"/> [/img][/url]
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Ocrider where is that?
yunki - follow the BW/Rupp ( not quite sure) from Manaton to Water. Look on the OS.
Fabulous trail too 8)
I like the building, but surprised they got planning permission for this at [url= http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craiglockhart_Hydropathic ]Craiglockhart campus[/url] in Edinurgh...
[url= http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4028/4296889327_6b33764d44_z.jp g" target="_blank">
& a place more interesting than I realised when visiting it as a nipper, the Italian chapel in Orkney -
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Paint work inside is amazing
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The Tricorn Centre, Portsmouth. They said it was ugly. But there was a nightclub at the top where we went every weekend. I played gigs there.
And I also met my lovely wife there in 1986..
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Now a big flat car park 🙁
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nice to see some appreciation for my profession! 🙂 Ill be back to post some of my favs later...
Loddrik [url= http://www.singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/ideas-for-places-to-go-mountain-biking-in-france#post-2284161 ]Cirque de l'Infernet,Saint Guilhem le Desert[/url]
I've spent quite a lot of time working in both of these places
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The sheer level of detail is fantastic, and all cast in Terracotta. Every time I visit I end up spotting some thing new.
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Utter poohole to work in, but sooo iconic. The guy responsible for stripping the roof off needs standing against a wall and shooting. I would love to have seen it in it's heyday. What's left of the interiors of the turbine halls is beautiful, and the control rooms are simply gobsmacking.
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Something subterranean. The tunnels underneath Manchester:
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and the Beatham tower at night from the town hall
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All photo's by Andrew Brooks for the Hidden Manchester exhibition at Urbis last year. Stunning!!!
A surprisingly random choice of "lol cat" there.
I was trying to go architectural but could not find anything, however that gave me a LOL so I thought I should post it.
Binners that second (and third) pic looks like a screenshot from some scary FPS.
I wanna look round these manchester tunnels, quite a few about I beleive.
Donk. You can get tours of them. They were built as underground canals in the industrial revolution. They're HUUUUUUUUGE!! Masterpieces of victorian engineering that were never used. Apart froma brief life as air raid shelters during the second world war. You wouldn't even know they're there
Taking the whole tunnels thing a stage further - especially with ref. to one of Elfin's original post - I reckon the whole London tube network could count. So many of the stations are architecturally interesting and great examples "of their era", once you strip away the grime and all the extraneous tat that's been bolted on top.
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Work.
Always thought it was a bit interesting - definitely not to everyone's taste, as all good architecture should be.
Rachel
can't find any decent pics of it, but my son's school is pretty kool (for a skool)
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I'm going to go a bit european... Berlin to be exact, a city that became a semi-blank canvas to people's ideas of modern, nestled closely with some stunning pre-war buildings.
Firstly the Mary-Elisabeth-Lueders Haus:
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Next up, the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtniskirche between Zoo Station and the old East Berlin border (you may remember seeing it briefly in Octopussy).
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[url= http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1233/961605485_8b5818e110.jp g" target="_blank">
[url= http://www.flickr.com/photos/cheesyfeet/961605485/ ]Lloyds Building reflected in Willis Building5[/url] by [url= http://www.flickr.com/people/cheesyfeet/ ]gary_foulger[/url], on Flickr
My old secondary school...top right hand 2 windows was where I spent my last few years.
Bottom row of windows...the classes where the kids who used to beat the shit out of us had their schooling. I've always had a fondness for the building though.
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Barcelona Pavillion - a seminal work:
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Around the South west i've seen many pieces of Old Architecture that amazed me. From the engine houses of the Cornish tin mines, to Berry Pompery castle perched on the edge of an inland Cliff.
Nothing really modern screamed at me and when i went to Edinburgh the whole City screamed at me from it's Architectural greatness. The imposing Scott Monument, the columned building of the new town, the National Monuments(Edinburgh's disgrace) uncompleted grandness.
I left Edinburgh passing the impressive Forth Rail bridge, itself a piece of Architectural beauty but nothing man made really does it for me in a way that natures own Architects and builders do.
The humble Wasp for example will build a piece so wonderful is truly amazes me every time i see one.
On the outside many arching pieces of chewed up wood create a shell to the nest.
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Then on the inside the intricate design of the many tiers and Hexagon cells that makes up the comb.
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Then there's the elaborate towering termite hills..
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Maybe all those years in the building trade have bored me of building a touch.
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i've always liked a bit of Calatrava
Inmos Microprocessor Factory - Richard Rogers
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The Barcelona Pavilion was built in the mid '80s, from archive photographs and drawings as the original building was dismantled and shipped back to Germany and ....... who knows?
I remember that when I went there in '87 I was amazed at the vibrant colour of the marble as until that time I'd only ever seen it in B+W photos.
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Canary Wharf is the only tube station I've travelled to as my chosen destination.
that bridge looks familiar, is it in Seville ?
Love walking under these, Torres Kio in Madrid. I can see them from where I'm sitting:
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Bit of an old photo, there's a Calatrava Pylon thingy in the middle of the square behind the stone obelisk now.
Glasgow School of Art 8)
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Harry' next to the prison- are they building flats? (that block/scaffolding)- it would be a 'interesting' view wouldn't it?
I was talking to a taxi driver once (who picked me up from Salford van hire) and his stories of the lags and partners round there was alittle hair raising
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Both stunning inside and out
Trail monkey - yes it's in Seville - it's the Alamillo bridge
legend has it - Falling Water was designed as the owner drove up the FLWs office to check on the progress of the drawings.
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A few pics I took in toronto last year. First the art college:
[url= http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4026/4615788410_8d760ae6ec.jp g" target="_blank">
[url= http://www.flickr.com/photos/the_accidental/4615788410/ ]Toronto[/url] by [url= http://www.flickr.com/people/the_accidental/ ]the accidental martini[/url], on Flickr
and the AGO:
[url= http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4064/4615172289_f0601c47aa.jp g" target="_blank">
[url= http://www.flickr.com/photos/the_accidental/4615172289/ ]AGO Front[/url] by [url= http://www.flickr.com/people/the_accidental/ ]the accidental martini[/url], on Flickr
And the new bits of the museum are cool too:
[url= http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4057/4615168029_282f3abd8b.jp g" target="_blank">
[url= http://www.flickr.com/photos/the_accidental/4615168029/ ]ROM[/url] by [url= http://www.flickr.com/people/the_accidental/ ]the accidental martini[/url], on Flickr
What a great thread Elf! Some fab photos, esp the ones of Manchester underground tunnels.
I love this structure - the perspective, the fact that seeing it means I'm going biking, and the colour - one day my new bike will be powder coated this colour 🙂
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Plumber, my wife works at John Rylands. After a while it stops being beautiful and becomes a darks and miserable cave of a place.
Fantastic building for a casual visit though
Love this building, it's near work and it sells beer. In fact I'm off for a pint now.
[url= http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4056/4271737745_20e78368d6.jp g" target="_blank">
[url= http://www.flickr.com/photos/joanneferrari/4271737745/ ]Hub Bub[/url] by [url= http://www.flickr.com/people/joanneferrari/ ]joanne.ferrari[/url], on Flickr
Wow!
After some of the negativity on here recently, it's wonderful to see so many folk getting involved in this, and posting some stunning examples of the sheer diversity of Human creativity. The range of different styles displayed here is immense. Loving every one of them. And Sharki's diversion into the world of Nature is fascinating; perhaps a 'Natural Architecture' future thread?
So pleased this has gone well. Think I'm gonna have to do this every week now! Great bit of participation by everyone who's contributed. Thanks. But please put down the locations!
It's difficult for me to see beyond London sometimes, so spoiled am I for architecture, but I've seen some great stuff abroad (Beyond the M25) too! 🙂
Vikingskipet (Viking Ship) in Hamar, Norway. Built for the 1994 Winter Olympics, as a speed-skating rink. Also used for track cycling; Chris Boardman broke the World Hour Record in 1993.
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Gotta have a bit of Gaudi:
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My fave building in New York:
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that jumbo size dentist's drill!!
Duomo, Florence
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Millau Bridge
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Marin Civic Centre
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Love this building, it's near work and it sells beer. In fact I'm off for a pint now.
Mossimus; that's just down the road from me!! Great little venue.
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They know how to do it in Iceland.
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Best place I have ever lived.
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Hull?
Hull?
😆
Wells Cathedral Chapter House
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San Francisco you ignorami - is that word? If not can I make it up?
Buzz - that takes me back! I used to sing in there. The undercroft is directly underneath and shares the octagonal walls, but looks like a cave.
Brilliant thread elfin, wish I'd thought of it. I love buildings and structures, and there's some fabulous examples here, and great photos too. Size isn't always everything, though:
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The bandstand in John Coles Park, Chippenham.
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Pulteney Bridge and Wier, Bath.
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Elfin should have no difficulty with this one
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Or this
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Cabot Circus, Bristol
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And one a little older, Silbury Hill, Wiltshire.
Maxxi in Rome.
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Speke Hall
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Little Morton Hall
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Selly Manor
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Gawsworth Hall
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Click on the pic:
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Click on the pic:
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