Things That Should Not Have Been Built in Britain

[mercia]

a horrible excrescence has appeared on the roof of the Royal Festival Hall

is that the Roi des Belges ?

http://aroomforlondon.co.uk/about/what-is-a-room-for-london

[salymap]

I suppose they had to do something with those two abandoned chalk pits either end of the Dartford Crossing, (in itself quite an impressive feature, even though a blot on the previous landscape). Hence Lakeside and Bluewater. But have you seen what they've done to once-beloved St Mary Cray, saly, on the NE outskirts of Orpington? It's a kind of nightmare vision of the future: a once cosy Kentish village, Georgian and mediaeval half-timbered houses clustered around a Norman churchyard, exiting onto a massive shopping and industrial estate, out of all scale to the original, complete with supermarkets, takeaways, storage facilities, (there's even a Waterstones), huge parking facilities interspersed with mini soft landscaping crossable only by the most daring on foot, skirted by a jewel carriageway!

I know St Mary Cray S-A because a dear old Aunt had a retiremnt flat there, before she was shunted off into a home. Ths was bcause a new daughter in law turfed her out of the family home in a nice road in PettsWood.

And our bus to Orpingon, which I haven't travelled on for about ten years now, goes through Foots Cray and Crittell's Corner. I visited local cousin's grandparents there in the 1930s when they had a little cottage
with a pretty garden.

Sorry for others, who don't know what I'm talking about but many thanks to S-A for updating me. x

[mercia]

funny old place St Mary Cray with that huge railway viaduct towering over, and a faint aroma from the Sunblest bread factory
I used to play the organ in the RC church there

[Serial_Apologist]

funny old place St Mary Cray with that huge railway viaduct towering over, and a faint aroma from the Sunblest bread factory
I used to play the organ in the RC church there

A chippy up a quaint old side street incongruously duplicates as the local post office one would expect to be sited in the new retail area, serving decent fish 'n' chips at global prices, mercia!

[mercia]

Sunblest bread factory

oops, not Sunblest but Tip Top

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Mary_Cray

[Flosshilde]

is that the Roi des Belges ?

http://aroomforlondon.co.uk/the-boat/the-design

A foretaste of what might happen if climate change isn't slowed or halted (or reversed)?

[mercia]

I don't like the National Theatre, but its probably a listed building isn't it ?

answer - yes, since 1994

actually it's probably the materials as much as the design I don't like

[Serial_Apologist]

is that the Roi des Belges ?

http://aroomforlondon.co.uk/the-boat/the-design

It's funny - I go past this at least once a week en route to one or another of the freebie live jazz events on offer in the QEH/Purcell lobby, yet it never occurs to look up. There's a roof garden up there now, too.

[Serial_Apologist]

oops, not Sunblest but Tip Top
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Mary_Cray

Goodness - a Wiki entry for Smary Cray! Who'd a-thought it??? Gives a pretty good impression too, if ironically unintentionally understated!

[Serial_Apologist]

A foretaste of what might happen if climate change isn't slowed or halted (or reversed)?

[Resurrection Man]

Each and every modern windmill - all ugly and technically useless.

Do you mean wind-turbines? On-shore, I'd agree. Offshore, no, they are very useful.

[MrGongGong]

As you walk across the bridge to the South Bank, a horrible excrescence has appeared on the roof of the Royal Festival Hall, sticking out on the left front of the building.
It's a cantilevered glass and metal structure,apparently built on short stilts, with a glass balcony. Apparently this is a B & B ! Or at least it's an expensive hotel room, whatever it is it completely destroys the aspect of the building. With the South Bank's deficit being what it is, I suppose they need the money !

It's NOT on the roof of the RFH it's on the lovely QEH
and is this rather wonderful project ........... as mentioned before

http://www.aroomforlondon.co.uk/

There always was a roof garden on the RFH
BUT it was closed many years before the restoration due to the height of the balustrade
now it has been reopened

[amateur51]

Do you mean wind-turbines? On-shore, I'd agree. Offshore, no, they are very useful.

I think they can be rather beautiful too but that's down to a matter of taste. I prefer them to pylons

[Flosshilde]

I used to think they were quite beautiful, & essential, but when I was coming back from Rome we flew* quite low over some, & it was obvious how much damage the infrastructure - roads, foundations etc - did. So I'm now not so sure about them. And when they are so ubiquitous that I can stand at the highest point in my local park & see them wherever I look their beauty becomes somewhat diminished. As for the ones at sea, the damage the construction and foundations do to the seabed must also be not insignificant.

*There's a moral in this somewhere

[MrGongGong]

. As for the ones at sea, the damage the construction and foundations do to the seabed must also be not insignificant.

I think compared to burning coal, industrial fishing or dumping waste it's insignificant
I think we should reopen Battersea power station WITHOUT filters (or pigs ) on the chimneys , build a nuclear power station in Regents Park and dig an open cast coal mine in Greenwich ..........