sidcow Posted February 8 VT Supporter Share Posted February 8 How about the Midlands ATE. It's fabulous 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OutByEaster? Posted February 8 Moderator Share Posted February 8 8 minutes ago, tinker said: Brutality at its best. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisp65 Posted February 8 Share Posted February 8 23 minutes ago, sidcow said: If you're not accepting New Street Station, how about it's signal box? It's a beauty: the signal box is ok, its not the best, but yes it is brutalism we’re doing as much damage as the Victorians did at the moment, demolishing heritage to chuck up crap designed to last as long as the finance needed to build it 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stevo985 Posted February 8 VT Supporter Share Posted February 8 16 hours ago, chrisp65 said: Nerd alert, I genuinely enjoy brutalism. I don’t really know much about New Street Station, but was it really brutalist? I’ve had a bit of a google out of interest, and I’m not seeing any pictures of a brutalist railway station architecture. I even looked it up on Wikipedia and it names the architects but doesn’t suggest it’s brutalist. There’s a car park and an office block, they’re not really brutalist either they’re just shitty typical build. There is a brutalist signal box, it ain’t great, but it is deliberate intended brutalism. Brutalism is gorgeous, anyone got any pictures of New Street as brutalism? Or are we just shorthanding shitty concrete 1960’s and brutalism as the same thing? No it wasn't, I just conflated the two things in my post. My fault 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stevo985 Posted February 8 VT Supporter Share Posted February 8 I can see the argument for why Brutalism is great and cool and everything, but that style is why people think Birmingham is shit if we're honest. Most people think it's ugly. Despite appreciating some Brutalist buildings (I spent many lectures in the Roger Stevens building below), I'd largely agree with them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisp65 Posted February 8 Share Posted February 8 This is really stuff for the architecture thread. There’s rubbish in every style of building. 95% of everything the Tudors and the Victorians did was cheap shit that has long gone. It doesn’t mean Tudor architecture is shit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xann Posted February 8 Share Posted February 8 Buildings in general don't do well with pollution. In a time with less particulate matter in the atmosphere, and drones to scrub them up, the surviving Brutalist structures would be better appreciated, I think? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stevo985 Posted February 8 VT Supporter Share Posted February 8 (edited) 1 hour ago, chrisp65 said: This is really stuff for the architecture thread. There’s rubbish in every style of building. 95% of everything the Tudors and the Victorians did was cheap shit that has long gone. It doesn’t mean Tudor architecture is shit. There is, but even the good brutalist stuff is considered ugly by most people. That's the problem Edited February 8 by Stevo985 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bickster Posted February 8 Moderator Share Posted February 8 Just now, Stevo985 said: There is, but even the good brutalist stuff is considered ugly by most people. That's the problem "Most people" is not a metric you should use to judge future cultural heritage Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisp65 Posted February 8 Share Posted February 8 There are self cleaning concretes that have been on the market literally decades. They cost a bit more initially, so what happens is we use the cheap stuff and say there will be a cleaning budget. There’s rarely a cleaning budget. But yeah, if you have the vision, you can have clean concrete: But it’s not just self cleaning, it self cleans by breaking down the nitrous oxides from traffic pollution in to inert non polluting chemicals. They began using it as a road surface in Belgium and it reduced street level pollution. You can also stick fibre in concrete, so it lets light through. But again, we use the cheap stuff and declare we don’t like concrete. We don’t look at a shit housing estate and say we don’t like bricks though. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjmooney Posted February 8 VT Supporter Share Posted February 8 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bickster Posted February 8 Moderator Share Posted February 8 On the subject of Brutalism and Birmingham Library, it was only ever a Brutalist building because of Government cuts, specifically Govt cuts to the funding of Birmingham in order to promote investment into other areas of the UK like the North East. The original design idea was that it should be clad in Portland Stone, if that had been the case I suspect it would never have been earmarked for demolition in the first place, it would never have been described by the uncultured as a dump and would have been considered an iconic building in Birmingham 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bickster Posted February 8 Moderator Share Posted February 8 A personal favourite of mine. Building or sculpture? Architecture or Art? La Tete Carrée (Square Head) - The Library of Nice Its claim is to be a number of firsts First building to be made entirely of aluminium First building to be raised using Naval Dockyard technology FIrst inhabited monumental sculpture 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wainy316 Posted February 8 Share Posted February 8 The library is great reprentation of 3 different eras of architecture 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lichfield Dean Posted February 8 VT Supporter Share Posted February 8 1 hour ago, bickster said: On the subject of Brutalism and Birmingham Library, it was only ever a Brutalist building because of Government cuts, specifically Govt cuts to the funding of Birmingham in order to promote investment into other areas of the UK like the North East. The original design idea was that it should be clad in Portland Stone, if that had been the case I suspect it would never have been earmarked for demolition in the first place, it would never have been described by the uncultured as a dump and would have been considered an iconic building in Birmingham It would have been an inverted pyramid in white marble in landscaped grounds. Instead it was made of concrete and had a bunch of other substandard buildings stuck around it (like the Adrian Boult and the Copthorne). I think the original vision for it probably would have been amazing. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisp65 Posted February 8 Share Posted February 8 8 hours ago, sidcow said: How about the Midlands ATE. It's fabulous They’ve not quite had the courage of their convictions for me there. They either needed to continue the horizontal ribbon window all the way up, or if they we switching to vertical glazing for the tall section then **** go for it and have enough stories to make it vertical not square. Or at least not stop the glazing a whole storey from the top creating a clunky finish. First few floors 8/10 Upper storeys 4/10 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sidcow Posted February 8 VT Supporter Share Posted February 8 (edited) And then there is Muirhead Tower at Birmingham Uni if you've not had your full fill of gloomy. Edited February 8 by sidcow Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisp65 Posted February 8 Share Posted February 8 I wouldn’t say that was Brutalism* *not an expert, I’m going with some sort of constructionist modernist sort of thing 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjmooney Posted February 8 VT Supporter Share Posted February 8 1 hour ago, Wainy316 said: The library is great reprentation of 3 different eras of architecture I like all of them. I used the first two, but not the third. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sidcow Posted February 8 VT Supporter Share Posted February 8 You'll be pleased to know this building is due a refurb. Probably more modernist than Brutalist though? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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