Referencing our prior discussion of architecture. If we’re going to rebuild our city centres like the Germans - restoring them completely to pre-war beauty - we could start with Birmingham.
WTF is that big red brick building? How did that land in the middle of one of our great cities?
It’s like we abandoned all notions of beauty and harmony after 1945. It’s like we tried to make our towns as hideous as possible
‘The Bull Ring in Birmingham, 1931 and today. Chatwin's great church still stands, but all around lies folly and disaster.’
Portsmouth city centre is a mess post war rebuilding
At the risk of inflaming certain Remainer types, that is what happened when you listened to "experts" who thought they knew best.
Yes. Architecture and town planning in the UK are almost entirely captured by a progressive ‘elite’ that is as stupid as it is narcissistic. They would never allow a Dresden-type rebuilding as they regard it as ‘reactionary pastiche’, they want exciting contemporary city centres with added ugliness, raw bricks, demolished churches, and multi storey concrete homeless shelters
Note that rebuilding of ‘medieval Frankfurt’ was opposed by leftwing German architects (“trying to erase the war”), luckily for the Germans the left was pushed back
Referencing our prior discussion of architecture. If we’re going to rebuild our city centres like the Germans - restoring them completely to pre-war beauty - we could start with Birmingham.
WTF is that big red brick building? How did that land in the middle of one of our great cities?
It’s like we abandoned all notions of beauty and harmony after 1945. It’s like we tried to make our towns as hideous as possible
‘The Bull Ring in Birmingham, 1931 and today. Chatwin's great church still stands, but all around lies folly and disaster.’
James Fox Time Traveller series are brilliant. There is a great one of Nottingham as well.
That’s brilliant. Albeit depressing. One small solace is that modern Brum is somewhat nicer than its nadir in the 1970s. I dimly remember that 70s Bullring. Omg.
There’s a theory that British cities peaked in beauty around 1900. Looks quite true for Birmingham, though 1820 also looks good
Referencing our prior discussion of architecture. If we’re going to rebuild our city centres like the Germans - restoring them completely to pre-war beauty - we could start with Birmingham.
WTF is that big red brick building? How did that land in the middle of one of our great cities?
It’s like we abandoned all notions of beauty and harmony after 1945. It’s like we tried to make our towns as hideous as possible
‘The Bull Ring in Birmingham, 1931 and today. Chatwin's great church still stands, but all around lies folly and disaster.’
O/T but DPD were due to deliver a time sensitive package this morning. Sent a message saying “you weren’t in. We will try tomorrow”. We respond “yes we were”. They send picture of property to prove they knocked. Not only not our property, the picture has the door with the wrong number on it. How fucking stupid can their employees be?
I once had Yodel come to my door, take a photo text me it and walk off seemingly without even knocking - I had chase their deliveryman down the street.
Referencing our prior discussion of architecture. If we’re going to rebuild our city centres like the Germans - restoring them completely to pre-war beauty - we could start with Birmingham.
WTF is that big red brick building? How did that land in the middle of one of our great cities?
It’s like we abandoned all notions of beauty and harmony after 1945. It’s like we tried to make our towns as hideous as possible
‘The Bull Ring in Birmingham, 1931 and today. Chatwin's great church still stands, but all around lies folly and disaster.’
Portsmouth city centre is a mess post war rebuilding
At the risk of inflaming certain Remainer types, that is what happened when you listened to "experts" who thought they knew best.
Yes. Architecture and town planning in the UK are almost entirely captured by a progressive ‘elite’ that is as stupid as it is narcissistic. They would never allow a Dresden-type rebuilding as they regard it as ‘reactionary pastiche’, they want exciting contemporary city centres with added ugliness, raw bricks, demolished churches, and multi storey concrete homeless shelters
Note that rebuilding of ‘medieval Frankfurt’ was opposed by leftwing German architects (“trying to erase the war”), luckily for the Germans the left was pushed back
Town planning rarily is - they mostly have the job of trying to make the utterly incredibly appalling, just appalling - it's rare that planners get the chance to go back and say give us something that is at least half decent
Comments
Note that rebuilding of ‘medieval Frankfurt’ was opposed by leftwing German architects (“trying to erase the war”), luckily for the Germans the left was pushed back
There’s a theory that British cities peaked in beauty around 1900. Looks quite true for Birmingham, though 1820 also looks good
Hero
Or preserve ruins .. St Dunstan in the East and Coventry Cathedral.
Personally I think that Sir Basil Spence's new cathedral at Coventry is as good as most Medieval ones in England.