Britain - The Official Thread

  • Thread starter Ross
  • 12,481 comments
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How will you vote in the 2019 UK General Election?

  • The Brexit Party

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Change UK/The Independent Group

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Conservative Party

    Votes: 3 7.5%

  • Green Party

    Votes: 2 5.0%

  • Labour Party

    Votes: 11 27.5%

  • Liberal Democrats

    Votes: 8 20.0%

  • Other (Wales/Scotland/Northern Ireland)

    Votes: 3 7.5%

  • Other Independents

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Other Parties

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Spoiled Ballot

    Votes: 2 5.0%

  • Will Not/Cannot Vote

    Votes: 11 27.5%
  • Total voters
    40
  • Poll closed .
TenEightyOne
In fairness the brutalist bloom was partly a function of materials rationing - particularly of wood and steel. Concrete was quick and easy when there was a vast need for rebuilding.

I lived near Cuventraay when I was little so I definitely remember the worse side of concrete city centres.
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I think Brutalist was a big mistake, it may have looked OK when the concrete was shiny and new but given the climate they ended up filthy and rain marked. Most of what was built in that era is now being torn down. One place that springs to mind is Birmingham which was a mainly a concrete jungle till the 80's and since then nearly all of it has been removed including most recently the old Library which looked like an industrial water tank!

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UKMikey
Anyone interested in the current scandal over the UKIP leader's girlfriend's remarks? I'm perfectly prepared to give the whole subject a miss if all of you are. Maybe it should be in the political correctness thread.
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She has managed to offend every demographic of society in the space of like 2 text messages! It has put him in quite an untenable position but with 5 UKIP leaders in the space of just over a year I don't think he will go although he has now spilt up with her.
 
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^ I miss the sight of the filthy old substation as I drove up the M1 into the West Midlands. It really let me know that I'd left the south behind. I haven't seen the Bullring (as was) since the nineties but I imagine a lot has changed now.
 
Robin
I think Brutalist was a big mistake, it may have looked OK when the concrete was shiny and new but given the climate they ended up filthy and rain marked. Most of what was built in that era is now being torn down. One place that springs to mind is Birmingham which was a mainly a concrete jungle till the 80's and since then nearly all of it has been removed including most recently the old Library which looked like an industrial water tank!

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Most of Milton Keynes still looks like that.....................
 
Most cities have removed the post-war era buildings, but no, not Swansea.

The Civic Centre was built in the 80s and is a concrete monstrosity built on prime sea front land. It wasn't alone being within metres of the Victorian era prison and the majority of the city centre is still post-war concrete blocks.

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Sprite
I have two within 5 minutes walking distance. If you’re talking about Allotments.

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ExigeEvan
@Keef - Look at Swansea University's new Bay Campus. It's a classic example of a modern build made to look absurdly old.
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Interesting! The square building (Sports Hall?), School of Management, and College of Engineering buildings are similar to what we're building around here. But the residency buildings definitely look old and uninviting.

Here are examples of some Midwestern stuff:

Engineering building, new student dorms with old dorms to the right circa 1960s prison architecture, the student union building, and a non-university area based around a hockey arena. It's refreshing to see more glass with the bricks, even if all the glass is green for some reason. I really have no clue why all the glass is green. The Midwest is plagued by mid-20th century brick architecture which looks prisonesque, but German immigrants apparently liked bricks so developers are modernizing the style. Many legacy universities are maintaining an aesthetic also, especially on the East coast, but at least they have elements of "fancy" colonial style.

As for apartment buildings and neighborhoods, well, they kinda look the same as campus.

EDIT: Brutalism was a problem in the States too but it was more reserved for government and other public buildings. It's yet another gripe I have with government nonsense - of *course* you would expect them to build in a style that is offensively uninviting and almost evil looking. That's government for you. Here we've got my community college to the south, and the county building to the north. For some reason they're the exact same style, and both were built in the 50s-60s. And the Ohio History museum in Columbus. Like, what, who thought this would be a good building to invite people in to peruse?

I'd really love to visit the UK sometime because I think it's really interesting how two countries and people that are almost the same socially have developed such vastly different methods of doing things.
 
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TenEightyOne
Brutalism isn't a problem - bad architecture is a problem. Some brutalist buildings are things of beauty :)
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Yup, came in here to say this. They can look fantastic in the right context and in particular, if the buildings and the area around have been maintained. Brutalist architecture can be absolutely fascinating too. It's not all about grimy bus terminals in the UK - the Guggenheim in New York is also Brutalist architecture:

the-guggenheim-museum.jpg

And when I go to London (getting back to the "Britain" part of the thread) I often walk past the Brunswick, which is a great example of Brutalist architecture integrated with modern life, with thriving bars and restaurants and nice apartments, rather than becoming a monument to the bad old days.

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Something very honest about the use of glass and materials in Brutalist architecture too - certainly more so than building everything from red bricks or just cladding a building in glass.
 
Robin
Another reason they build in this style, as any home builder will often say, is because people like it and it sells. They don't what something too out there or architecturally daring. Also it makes the house look established and more mature.
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This. I'd happily live in a super modern looking building or something older that really stood out (our house is from ~1910 but isn't especially beautiful, sadly) but most people don't want to. Case in point; a friend of mine recently decided to move to a bigger home and had the choice of some beautiful old buildings that were well established and solidly built. Instead she went for a mock Tudor style house on an estate built in the 90s and the place is already falling apart. Her and all of her mumsy friends love the house just because it's big (although they still had to convert the garage into a utility room, which always annoys me), I think it looks appalling.

It's this sort of place:

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I can't think of much worse myself but there's never any shortage of buyers for these sorts of homes.
 
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Moglet
This. I'd happily live in a super modern looking building that really stood out but most people don't want to. Case in point; a friend of mine recently decided to move to a bigger home and had the choice of some beautiful old buildings that were well established and solidly built. Instead she went for a mock Tudor style house on an estate built in the 90s and the place is already falling apart. Her and all of her mumsy friends love the house just because it's big (although they still had to convert the garage into a utility room, which always annoys me), I think it looks appalling.

I can't think of much worse myself but there's never any shortage of buyers for these sorts of homes.
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I agree with your sentiments, but i can see why people do it. House prices in the UK, as you know, are extortionate, often down to the value of the land on our small over populated island. The actual volume of the houses people are buying is usually the biggest factor in their sales decisions after you consider location. People seem to prefer big over nice - or rather suitably sized for their family/future family over 'compromised and a bit cramped but well built and nice'.

I think developers also have an almost strangle-hold on the land-available-to-build market, so they can just throw up cheaply built unimaginative estates that look okay enough when new but quickly start to become tatty and problematic. There's little chance for the public to buy land and have their own design built unless their pockets are very deep.
 
TheCracker
I agree with your sentiments, but i can see why people do it. House prices in the UK, as you know, are extortionate, often down to the value of the land on our small over populated island. The actual volume of the houses people are buying is usually the biggest factor in their sales decisions after you consider location. People seem to prefer big over nice - or rather suitably sized for their family/future family over 'compromised and a bit cramped but well built and nice'.

I think developers also have an almost strangle-hold on the land-available-to-build market, so they can just throw up cheaply built unimaginative estates that look okay enough when new but quickly start to become tatty and problematic. There's little chance for the public to buy land and have their own design built unless their pockets are very deep.
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Oh I can absolutely see why people do it, especially if they have a family. Having the space (and often a good location close to a school) is way more important than how the house looks, and often there are very few realistic alternatives to mass built estates for busy families. Any comment I make on the size of a house vs. the size of a family would make me a hypocrite anyway as we've got a 4 bedroom place for the 2 of us and it is a fairly boring looking house from the outside.
 
Moglet
Any comment I make on the size of a house vs. the size of a family would make me a hypocrite anyway as we've got a 4 bedroom place for the 2 of us and it is a fairly boring looking house from the outside.
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Oh, totally the same with us. We moved from a characterful bay-windowed Victorian terrace to a '60s brick box with absolutely zero character. Just for a bit more inside space and a reasonable sized garden for the beasties.
 
Robin
Anyone watch the Trump interview with Piers Morgan last night? Apparently he loves our country, frankly we need all the 'love' we can get right about now!

The Twitter fallout was pretty hilarious...

https://twitter.com/search?q=TrumpMorgan
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Piers is going to make a charitable donation for the most bitter response from all the media outlets that failed to score the exclusive interview:lol:
 
Johnnypenso
Piers is going to make a charitable donation for the most bitter response from all the media outlets that failed to score the exclusive interview:lol:
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What about responses from people who just think he's a massive ****?
 
I can think of another phrase, but I doubt it's AUP-friendly. I'll just mention Scaramucci and Bannon and let your mind do the rest.
 
There was an Earthquake in South Wales a few hours ago, it measured 4.4 and it was felt as far as North Wales and Cornwall, Swansea residents have reported 'violent shaking', I felt a little tremor here in Wrexham which is almost 150 miles away, it only lasted for around 5 seconds but it was enough for me to wonder what it was.
 
MUSC4EVER
There was an Earthquake in South Wales a few hours ago, it measured 4.4 and it was felt as far as North Wales and Cornwall, Swansea residents have reported 'violent shaking', I felt a little tremor here in Wrexham which is almost 150 miles away, it only lasted for around 5 seconds but it was enough for me to wonder what it was.
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Did a new Greggs open?
 
Apparently the weather is getting snowy and cold, not that anyone has mentioned it or over-reacted to it at all. :rolleyes: The drive in to work was fun this morning; the traction control was working overtime.
 
The press are going to town on the hysteria. Went to the supermarket and there certainly wasn't bare shelves or panic buying.
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And there has been another earthquake, this time in Cumbria.
 

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