The Trafford Centre.
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Why didn't I think of that? - a cathedral to commercialism.Originally posted by EdgeleyRob View PostComment
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Just returned from there. It's a complete mess, very difficult to stop in order to make anything out without being trampled underfoot, but there does appear at least one restaurant in a cleverly disguised converted container or portacabin painted red on the elevated section between the QEH/Purcell and RFH, and they've painted the concrete spiral staircase bright yellow, either to draw attention to itOriginally posted by Ferretfancy View Post
or alleviate the concrete monotony of that whole facade. And alleviate is the operative word, with a vengeance! Visually the area is now so busy with people and temporary structures that it's disorientating to try to work out which part of which one is looking up, down, or sideways at. It was almost preferable in its minimalist zen brutalist birthday suit to the casbah it's now become, with trinkets and probably dodgy exotic food merchants' stalls blocking views of the Thames right along the Walkway past the S Bank main buildings, and an all-pervasive outdoor aroma of rock festival. There's a weird palm tree, er, "sculpture" along the eastern side of the RFH, the trunk of which appears built up out of hundreds of outsized beer mats. The National Theatre piazza is scaffolded off and wrapped in cellophane, so goodness knows what is going in there.
I had had higher hopes for the gifts centre/bookshop at Tate Modern, which, as our largest flagship to British art promotion, turns out to be a miniscule disgrace, with even less overpriced choice (read tat) on offer than at Tate Britain, when I visited there 2 years ago. £2.50 for a blank card with Matisse's snail or a Rothko on the front is about it, so one might as well go for cliched charity cards available at a fraction of the distance - at least it's to good causes.
My trip took me past The Shard, which I saw for the first time at close hand. The first impression one gets is that it seems less tall than it actually is - due presumably to the way the building slopes away from the viewer at ground level. Unlike the shining far off image the building presents from the elevations hereabouts, like some cover of a progrock album, close up it has fast acquired a grubby skin, as if London's pollution is already doing its damnedest. But the oddest thing about The Shard is that it looks incomplete. The very top appears as though parts of the structure have either not been fitted on or have fallen off; one would expect a clean point, all four faces converging triangularly at a sharp apex, instead of which the top, if one can so describe it, is surmounted by what resembles a hangman's gibbet, just waiting to have a rope attached. Very strange... very much a building that should not have been built, whether in that location or anywhere.
A wasted cycle trip on a cold day!
Last edited by Serial_Apologist; 10-12-12, 15:50.Comment
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I wonder what most of the people who live a mile or so east of the Shard in the endless estates think, when they look at the ministry of truth/avarice....I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own.
I am not a number, I am a free man.Comment
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Maybe, "They put that up for them, one day they say they'll be pulling all this down, for us"?Originally posted by teamsaint View PostComment
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Originally posted by Serial_Apologist View PostThe Shard, which I saw for the first time at close hand. The first impression one gets is that it seems less tall than it actually is - due presumably to the way the building slopes away from the viewer at ground level.
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A wasted cycle trip on a cold day!
Sorry you had a fruitless ride. Enjoy the feeling of being back safe and warm
The size thing about The Shard that boggles my mind is the comparison between it and the Eiffel Tower. I've seen both many times, and in my mind's eye The Shard seems much taller. But there's almost nothing in it - indeed, counting the antenna, the Eiffel Tower is taller: 1063 feet as against The Shard's 1016 feet. I can't get my head around that....
"...the isle is full of noises,
Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices..."
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That's really surprising. I haven't seen the finished Shard, but the Tower seems much more graceful. Pity the English version in Wembley never got very far.Originally posted by Caliban View Post
The size thing about The Shard that boggles my mind is the comparison between it and the Eiffel Tower. I've seen both many times, and in my mind's eye The Shard seems much taller. But there's almost nothing in it - indeed, counting the antenna, the Eiffel Tower is taller: 1063 feet as against The Shard's 1016 feet. I can't get my head around that....
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As a piece of architecture I quite like the shard
but hate the way that it's been funded and what it represents
Renzo Piano is a great architect IMVComment
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I understand from a friend who attended a Formula 1 dinner on Saturday night (!) that only 20 people were being permitted into Victoria underground station at a time, such were the numbers going into London at 5.30pm. Consequently there was the sort of mayhem there that occurs during the weekday rush hours - crowds building up, people being crushed etc. Then, when he arrived in Covent Garden the vast outdoor spaces were so crowded it was virtually impossible to move there too. Sounded horrendous!Originally posted by Serial_Apologist View Post
I have been to the the top of the Eiffel Tower but wouldn't venture into The Shard even if permitted. Outdoors heights represent no problems for me but I can't stand heights indoors. The Tower at least had the feeling of openness. One day someone will tell me that the glass in these new buildings is thicker than concrete. Until then, they seem like follies in all definitions of that word.Comment
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The Saturday before last I debussed from a Greenline coach at Hyde Park Corner at around 17:40 with the aim of taking the Piccadilly Line to Piccadilly Circus as, due to traffic congestion en route, I was somewhat behind schedule heading for a concert (start time 18:30) at Schott Music in Great Marlborough Street which I was due to record. I was turned away by a TfL operative at the top of the steps leading down to the station. Nobody was being allowed into the station because it was "too busy". I was advised that the nearest station where I could actually board a tube train was Knightsbridge. Fortunately a 137 bus turned up at the Hyde Park Corner stop within 4 minutes and took me to its Oxford Circus terminus, getting me there with around 10 minutes to walk to Schott Music, set up the mics and do a very quick level check just before the start of the recital itself. Next time I will try and get an earlier coach.Originally posted by Lateralthinking1 View PostComment
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The one on the left could be some High Wizard's mitre, or, with a couple of holes, a Ku Klux Klan mask; the one on the right, an object from a 1950s Ealing Comedy!Originally posted by Caliban View Post
Sorry you had a fruitless ride. Enjoy the feeling of being back safe and warm
The size thing about The Shard that boggles my mind is the comparison between it and the Eiffel Tower. I've seen both many times, and in my mind's eye The Shard seems much taller. But there's almost nothing in it - indeed, counting the antenna, the Eiffel Tower is taller: 1063 feet as against The Shard's 1016 feet. I can't get my head around that....
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"...the isle is full of noises,
Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices..."
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CalibanOriginally posted by Caliban View PostWhat could you mean??
One of movies greatest lines -- "It's a good thing we're honest men, Pendlebury "Comment
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Originally posted by Caliban View PostWhat could you mean??
Quiet on the bored today - everyone decorating their Xmas cards as well, one guesses...Comment
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Originally posted by Ferretfancy View Post
It's not the Ealing film I know best - I'm more a "Kind Hearts and Coronets" man
But that line is great and I propose to use it esp. at work, when circumstances demand!
"...the isle is full of noises,
Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices..."
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