FW: SCOT-BRUT

From: steve cox [mailto:steve@coxarchitecture.co.uk]
Sent: 26 February 2014 23:25
To: 'Stevecox3.peachy@blogger.com'
Subject: SCOT-BRUT

Just got totally side-tracked for two hours by this fascinating compendium of Scottish Brutalism.  Have cherry picked some favourite images but there’s a lot more than just images to go back for.

Keybridge House

Although I couldn’t find details on their website, this Lambeth Council press release confirms that they have given permission for demolition of the existing building and the construction of 419 flats and a primary school in its place.

http://lambethnews.wordpress.com/2014/01/29/keybridge-house-plan-brings-homes-jobs-and-site-for-a-new-school/

We objected to the demolition (see earlier post) and were backed up by the 20^th Century society.  English Heritage were less forthcoming although they did think it was important that someone make a record of the building before it was destroyed...

Lambeth Planning Department’s view was that the building had no policy protection, appeared on no ‘list’ and thus could not be saved.

The information that BT uploaded for us to show that they had performed due diligence on the ‘re-use’ option certainly highlighted the limitations of the existing structure but ultimately was more convincing as a demonstration of how much less profitable this might have been for the developer rather than how impossible.

There were of course a lot of objections to the proposals which looked like they could have given the council pause, most notably that the proposed primary school, which provides the ‘planning gain’, is too close to an existing primary school and that, of the 419 new flats, only 19 are affordable.

Archinect #2

Here’s the reason I got into Archinect in the first place:

http://archinect.com/forum/thread/63183/name-that-architect-and-building

A very very very long thread in which contributors post a picture of a building and everyone has to guess who the architect is.  I never got a single one but enjoyed the commentary and the buildings.

Seems to have quite a few broken image links now but keep scrolling down and you’ll find some.

Archinect

Just seen that our ‘structural integrity’ post on Archinect was chosen as one of the 13 ‘editor’s picks’ of 2013.

Bunkers, Brutalism and Bloodymindedness - Concrete Poetry with Jonathan Meades

Three rousing cheers for Jonathan Meades' bravura exploration and championing of Brutalism in particular and ballsy architecture in general .  Both episodes availalbe for six more days here - BBC4

Sensing Spaces - Royal Academy, London

There seemed to be a certain buzz of customer satisfaction at this architecture installation show although the only really successful, really architectural work, for me, was this by Pezo von Ellrichshausen

 ..having the kind allusive, fairy-tale quality (you can climb up or down spiral stairs in the legs or the enclosed ramps behind) that certain other installations aspired too but with more originality and architectural punch.

Souto De Moura and Siza's contributions were disappointingly underpowered whilst Grafton Architects did a perplexing inversion of what you might have expected... by way of massive but clearly fake slabs of 'concrete' floating a couple of metres above the gallery floor...

Above - Grafton Architects. Below - Li Xiaodon's stick-y laberynth

Below - Kengo Kuma

below - Alvaro Siza pulls out all the stops...

i took way too many photos and...

...then didn't post them for ages.

here's the last (and most significant?) of the buildings collected on my Lambeth Walk at the end of last year...or was it the beginning of this...time eludes my comprehension once again

Architect George Finch died fairly (there it is again) recently - some info here and images below of his Lambeth Towers in all it's Tudormodern glory:

 lil'benchy

another view of the Caja Costarricense del Seguro Social building

Caja Costarricense del Seguro Social, San Jose, Arch. Alberto Linner

Costa Rican Architect Juan Cardenas got in touch to say that the building below (which i'd been trying to track down for ages) was not as I thought by Paolo Mendes da Rocha but by Costa Rican Alberto Linner....which along with some links helped to turn up much more detailed images of this striking building...SEE HERE

This is a continuation of the previous walk-about post which, from the Ethelred Estate (below) onwards turned into something of an embarrassement of riches...

I think someone deserves credit for working with the existing building rather than just buldozing the thing as might easily have happened

Then we stumble upon the home of the Forensic Science Service, Metropolitan Laboratory, on the Lambeth Road

and after all that, the best is yet to come!

Courtland Grove Baptist Chapel, formerly Zions Hill Baptist Chapel of 1840 (yes, I can read the labels on the front of the building)

doh, van's in the way...

This post will follow the route of my walk yesterday from Clapham Common to the Imperial War Museum.

Image immediately above and next few below all on the Wandsworth Road...

What's been allowed to happen to the former South Bank University building is, I believe, something of a disaster....

Open wide....

This may originally have been Springfield Methodist Church and may now be in use as a dance theatre.

 

Little buildings like this. even if they're not anything exceptional, I think add a lot of character to an area and should be retained wherever possible.

 

This type of interwar social housing does vary in quality.  They tend to get starker and more utilitarian the larger they are. Most, however, are rather well designed with what seems, to the modern mind at least, to be a near-telepathic relationship between intention and execution, with even the humblest example being better realized than most of the 'exclusive' offerings from our current millenium...

For example....

You can just see above that the brickwork is brought to the point of a triangle where it (almost) meets the partion between the two (nice and robustly detailed...) balconies. I also like the curved glazed brickwork below, although it's probably not original.

I think this stair-tower has featured before, although not whilst being mopped or (possibly) with Keybridge House in the background.  If you didn't know that KH is under threat of demolition then you do now, so post your objection to Lambeth Council right away! Or cut and paste ours from the previous post.  The image below makes a very nice screensaver.

If you ever see a good-looking balustrade like this...

 

..chances are it doesn't comply with the building regulations which have pretty much made it impossible to design an attriactive one, so it's about time (at least for private residential work) the rules were relaxed...right?

I know of at least two similar estates to the one below, which I like a lot although they definately have a 'defensible space' issue.  This one didn't feel too safe even on the middle of a bright sunny wednesday, although it. like the others, is beautiful in it's way.

 Personalisation 01...

  ...and 02.

Bit of random lattice-work

Bit of 'contempory':

 I'm definately not a fan of stick-work but it is a well designed bit of infill.

Couple of pleasing random details....

The above is a side entrance to the Beefeater Gin Distillery and my route around it first revealed this very striking, but not very visible facade...

...then this Victorian red-brick part with a curved extension under construction

 ...which I'm guessing is the visitor centre slated for completion in 2013. Keep moving guys, only five weeks to go before Christmas...

 Doesn't seem like this bit of Victoriana commanded a lot of respect at the time of the side extension...

 The Durning Library

Some benefactor invested in this building

have a little look inside...

And on to the first significant piece of 20C housing (encountered on the walk, that is), the massive Ethelred Estate bordered in part by Black Prince Road and characterized principally by heavily modelled low rise blocks around elevated paved piazzas.

some background can be found here