bye bye, Nimrud, bye bye

[Dave2002]

UPVC Window! Windows are the eyes of a house - you only have to walk down any Victorian road to see the utter vandalism that has been inflicted on the vast majority of houses by owners installing dreadful, ugly double glazed plastic windows.

You may not have noticed but we live in what is a so-called democracy, and the assumption in our wonderful capitalist society is that anyone who owns a house can, within reason, do what they like with it. Are you proposing that we have a new force of Aesthetic Police, to go alongside our Community Police Officers who will actively monitor and prevent the kind of "vandalism" which you seem to be objecting to. You have also tried to use "poetic" and emotive language. Windows are not eyes, even if at times you think they look as though they are.

[teamsaint]

I bought a 1960s house, with upvc windows, but ripped them out and then put some tatty old wooden windows in , to give it some "character."

[Dave2002]

I bought a 1960s house, with upvc windows, but ripped them out and then put some tatty old wooden windows in , to give it some "character."

Perhaps you should have spent more money and put on a thatched roof as well. Lol!

Don't worry - I'm only jesting.

[P. G. Tipps]

Perhaps you should have spent more money and put on a thatched roof as well. Lol!

Don't worry - I'm only jesting.

Are you really?

A world without 'modern' inventions (like plastic) would be a nightmare for those who prefer cheap and carefree to expensive and time-consuming. I'm sure our ancestors would have been appalled at our lack of invention and discovery if Mankind had finally settled for what they had to endure!

However, the wanton destruction of what remains of past civilisations is an utter abomination. A reminder of the achievements of the past is good for the modern soul, demonstrating just how clever and advanced were some of our ancient and not-so-ancient ancestors. We owe so much to them ... in fact our very lives.

Sadly, cruel savagery and criminal vandalism seems to remain stubbornly unvanquished alongside every civilisation, past and present, and IS, which appears to have suddenly emerged from hidden pre-neolithic caves and brought to life the most nightmarish Old Testament passages, is just the latest, horrifying example.

[MrGongGong]

How I agree!

If people are fortunate enough to live in beautiful houses, they have a responsibility to preserve their beauty for the rest of us to enjoy, too.

Like this ?



or this?

[greenilex]

I suspect the first morning of school after year zero might be a silent experience.

For everyone going back for the summer, good luck and let's pick the best bits out of the muesli as usual.

[jean]

Like this ?



or this?

Where have I ever said that the only beautiful houses were built 200 years ago and must be slavishly copied if there is to be any beauty in the world?

[Flosshilde]

Like this ?


or this?[/IMG]

I assume that your first 'this' is Poundbury, or something similar (as it's one of your hobby-horses ); in which case it doesn't fit Jean's comment, since it's a recreation or imitation, which almost always looks wrong. The second 'this' does, however. I would guess that it's from the first quarter of the 20th century (or thereabouts) & could be as ruined by the wrong sort of window reploacement as a genuine 18th century building.

[DracoM]

What amazes me is that the ISIS ethos seems to be set at obliterating the proud, mighty-achieving inventors and sustainers of the indisputably great past of their region. The mathematicians, architects, engineers, poets, traders? Do they seriously believe that the only valid cultural identity starts with them? In which case, what do they intend to build? Or do they believe that an ideology is the only identity required to unite a people / faith? Are they intent upon returning the region to its fairly primitive agricultural past without infrastructure sophisticated enough to sustain a modern nation?

History might otherwise merely find mass graves of the triumphantly massacred as a marker.

[MrGongGong]

Where have I ever said that the only beautiful houses were built 200 years ago and must be slavishly copied if there is to be any beauty in the world?

It was a joke
I never implied that you suggested anything of the sort

[french frank]

Me, I think Burke's take on societal evolution was more sophisticated than that of the immature idealists behind that Revolution...

A more elegant intervention - not unusually! - than I was intending, but essentially the same viewpoint.

UPVC Window! Windows are the eyes of a house - you only have to walk down any Victorian road to see the utter vandalism that has been inflicted on the vast majority of houses by owners installing dreadful, ugly double glazed plastic windows.

I had to decide what to do with the Crittal windows - and opted for uPVC but with customised dimensions recreating the original proportions (houses round our way aren't quite as posh as yours, johnb, nor as old - c.1890). What is really awful (some people are worse than me ) is Tudor leaded panes, or Georgian panes (pains). I have replaced several interior doors (found in skips) but wasn't keen on restoring the outside lavvie and reinstating the third bedroom, instead of having a bathroom at all - is that wicked?

I have thought this about some of HG's posts before, and I'd be happy to be proved wrong.

Perhaps we should think of this one as 'provocative, but stimulating'?

[jean]

The iconoclasm of ISIS follows precisely that of our own dear Puritans, doesn't it?

[DracoM]

No it doesn't.
ISIS massacre thousands as a matter of policy.
Did the Puritans?

[mercia]

I may have missed the point - has Nimrud been destroyed in order to stimulate creativity or make way for social housing ?

[jean]

No it doesn't.
ISIS massacre thousands as a matter of policy.
Did the Puritans?

I thought the subject of this thread was specifically their destruction of cultural artefacts. That's why I use the word iconoclasm.