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Thread: What's so great about Old Buildings?

  1. #256
    Senior Member petromax's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by dazza View Post
    I now see where you're coming from. Your main objection, is a criticism of the totalitarian structures that errected them in the first place? .......
    No, not really. The buildings (that last) almost all have their strengths. It's their appreciation that is question. It's strange that lovers of old buildings are so vehemently opposed to their often prehistoric politics and how can someone hate a building with a passion one minute and several million minutes later think, well it's ok...

    If you're talking about the NT, I like Denys Lasdun's work; there's an honesty and strength. Royal Festival Hall? Yes, beautiful manners. Grimshaw at Waterloo? I felt it must have looked like a grand steam hall on the drawing board but sadly underscale in truth. I wonder what's happening to it....

    As for the Shell Centre, it can be windy but so can a storm-tossed beach! In neither case does the wind make them ugly (as voted; not 'worst' as quoted)

  2. #257
    Senior Member dazza's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by petromax View Post
    No, not really. The buildings (that last) almost all have their strengths. It's their appreciation that is question. It's strange that lovers of old buildings are so vehemently opposed to their often prehistoric politics and how can someone hate a building with a passion one minute and several million minutes later think, well it's ok... )
    Well, this has often been the criticism with Liverpool's stock of 18th & 19th century buildings, and it's involvement in the slave trade. 'The joints cemented with the blood of Africans...' is often cited. I sometimes wonder whether the fillling in of the Old Dock was an act of forgetting, or a way of erasing earlier memories of the trade? Burying the dead? Even if the reason was entirely commercial, it would have carried with it some psychological benefit in this regard, acknowledged, or otherwise. Perhaps the growth Liverpool's theatre also played an important role in masking, or escaping from these realities? A papering of cracks, eager to present a new and acceptable facade to it's citizens, and visitors alike. In Liverpool today, appreciation of any public building of that age, still carries with it a tang of unpleasantness, which can be traced back to the city's involvement in the trade. I guess this appreciation would undoubtedly be different for a visitor stepping off at Lime Street and breathing in the city at first glance, with fresh eyes, and knowing nothing of the city's past?

    It's not an easy question to answer, so I'll leave off for now...

    Whatever the wrongs of history, applying the morals and ethics of today anachronistically to the past is unhelpful. If you were unburdened with all that you know today, and were forced to live in any period in history, would you behave, and think differently to your peers? I think not, or not that much.

    More recently - I hated the politics behind the dome, and didn't visit it on principle. I think the lottery and taxpayer's ?789,000 could have been put to better use? Now the mother of all white elephants has been reborn as the O2 - a successful gig and entertainment complex. I have a different appreciation of it these days, and it's all happened in recent living memory. So, to borrow a phase from Obama, believe in change.

    Quote Originally Posted by petromax View Post
    If you're talking about the NT, I like Denys Lasdun's work; there's an honesty and strength. Royal Festival Hall? Yes, beautiful manners. Grimshaw at Waterloo? I felt it must have looked like a grand steam hall on the drawing board but sadly underscale in truth. I wonder what's happening to it....
    There's 'honesty and strengh' in Volvo's - doesn't mean I'm going to run out and buy one though! Royal Festival Hall I agree with you. and esp. since it's recent refurb. Grimshaw's Waterloo looks even sader now Eurostar has left.

    Quote Originally Posted by petromax View Post
    As for the Shell Centre, it can be windy but so can a storm-tossed beach! In neither case does the wind make them ugly (as voted; not 'worst' as quoted)
    You like Dungerness then?

  3. #258
    Senior Member petromax's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by dazza View Post
    ...erasing earlier memories...

    ...applying the morals and ethics of today anachronistically to the past is unhelpful....

    More recently - I hated the politics behind the dome...

    ...in Volvo's - doesn't mean I'm going to run out and buy one though...

    You like Dungerness then?
    Can?t feel any regrets for the slave trade - another time another ethic, and I don?t think people know or think much of the horrors of the past when they say how wonderful ?old? buildings are.

    Liverpool?s bloody history had been well-buried until relatively recently. Manchester?s oppressive working conditions are quietly glossed over and London?s ?despotism of Empire? has been glorified and sanitised. The bad stuff has become somewhat invisible at best and irrelevant at worst.

    It?s the appreciation of the architecture of power (ie., building in the language of the ?bosses?) particularly in an egalitarian culture like Liverpool, that I find most surprising.

    Politics of the dome??? Richard Rogers? contribution to Architecture of the People?? A temporary ?tent? of the masses. It was never meant to last - like Ally Pally and Crystal Palace. It simply outstayed it?s meaning.

    oh dear; I own a Volvo...

    Dungeness? depends on which way you?re looking, but Ainsdale?s quite attractive which ever way you face!

  4. #259
    Re-member Ged's Avatar
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    I agree. I don't like a building just because so and so designed it, more often than not i've learned who designed or built a building well after I decided I liked it or not. It mattered not to me whether Waterhouse was a slave trader or not or if the money of Walker was gained through the misery that drinking brings. I like a building for its architectural merits, it's grandness or design rather than who built it and with money from what.
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  5. #260
    Senior Member Waterways's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by dazza View Post
    Well, this has often been the criticism with Liverpool's stock of 18th & 19th century buildings, and it's involvement in the slave trade.
    The prime trade of Liverpool was never slavery. Well the shipment of slaves. It was a sideline. Many leading Liverpool merchants were campaigning against slavery. If the prime trade was slavery, then that would be cutting off your own nose.
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  6. #261
    Senior Member petromax's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Waterways View Post
    The prime trade of Liverpool was never slavery. Well the shipment of slaves. It was a sideline. Many leading Liverpool merchants were campaigning against slavery. If the prime trade was slavery, then that would be cutting off your own nose.
    For a time it was. As irrelevant as it is to this discussion and, as I really can't be bothered to spell out the history of the importance of slave trading to Liverpool, this little quote will have to suffice:

    "Liverpool was late in entering the slave trade but she quickly surpassed London and Bristol to become the number one slave port in the whole of Europe by the 1740s."



    There is little point in this denial in the face of overwhelming evidence and contemporaneous reports but if you're keen to dig further, you will find this quote and a further useful introduction at http://www.bbc.co.uk/liverpool/local...ry/intro.shtml and leave us in peace to talk about architecture

  7. #262
    Senior Member dazza's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by petromax View Post
    Can?t feel any regrets for the slave trade - another time another ethic, and I don?t think people know or think much of the horrors of the past when they say how wonderful ?old? buildings are.
    This was my point about about applying today's values to events in history, and tut tutting.

    Quote Originally Posted by petromax View Post
    Liverpool?s bloody history had been well-buried until relatively recently. Manchester?s oppressive working conditions are quietly glossed over and London?s ?despotism of Empire? has been glorified and sanitised. The bad stuff has become somewhat invisible at best and irrelevant at worst.
    Very true...couldn't have put it better myself

    Quote Originally Posted by petromax View Post
    It?s the appreciation of the architecture of power (ie., building in the language of the ?bosses?) particularly in an egalitarian culture like Liverpool, that I find most surprising.
    'The language of the bosses' is the Albert Dock. Yet now in the last twenty years it's been transformed into one of the most egalitarian spaces in the city. Your thoughts...?

    Conversely, would you consider St George's Hall to be a true egalitarian building? It has all the right credentials, in passing more than a few nods of appreciation to the Parthenon, in embodying democratic city ideals. Yet is was anything but egalitarian in it's conception. It was an institution for the city fathers, as much as the town hall was. But the building's architecture transcends this, as John Soane's Bank of England, in London, never could.

    Quote Originally Posted by petromax View Post
    Politics of the dome??? Richard Rogers? contribution to Architecture of the People?? A temporary ?tent? of the masses. It was never meant to last - like Ally Pally and Crystal Palace. It simply outstayed it?s meaning.
    Like the Eiffel tower?

    Quote Originally Posted by petromax View Post
    oh dear; I own a Volvo...
    Ha ha - sorry, can't help you there.

    Quote Originally Posted by petromax View Post
    Dungeness? depends on which way you?re looking, but Ainsdale?s quite attractive which ever way you face!
    Well, a bit further down the coast Gormley's men all seem to agree on the same view.

  8. #263
    Senior Member dazza's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Ged View Post
    I agree. I don't like a building just because so and so designed it, more often than not i've learned who designed or built a building well after I decided I liked it or not. It mattered not to me whether Waterhouse was a slave trader or not or if the money of Walker was gained through the misery that drinking brings. I like a building for its architectural merits, it's grandness or design rather than who built it and with money from what.
    We shouldn't feel guilty about buildings in the city, yet it sometimes feels like we're on the defensive. I know I've felt like this. I like your attitude better Ged, and funny, I've never put two and two together to connect the 'Walker', with all those Wallker pubs. Beer into Art. You learn something new every day here.

  9. #264
    Senior Member Waterways's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by petromax View Post
    For a time it was.
    It was not. The slave triangle was three sided, with slaves being only one. Then there was the all the other non-African/American trade as well.
    The new Amsterdam at Liverpool?
    Save Liverpool Docks and Waterways - Click

    Deprived of its unique dockland waters Liverpool
    becomes a Venice without canals, just another city, no
    longer of special interest to anyone, least of all the
    tourist. Would we visit a modernised Venice of filled in
    canals to view its modern museum describing
    how it once was?


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  10. #265
    Re-member Ged's Avatar
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    We also shouldn't deny that it's been proven that Liverpool made more income as a city out of trade with Ireland and the Isle of Man during slave trading times. Slave trading might have made the few rich.
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  11. #266
    Pablo42 pablo42's Avatar
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    Who cares about slavery. It happened. My generation had nowt to do with it. I don't apologise for it. I couldn't care less. The slaves taken to America should say thank you to us. They are far better off than if they'd stayed in Africa. Slavery is very much alive even today. I don't hear too many complaints about that. What we got in Liverpool is great architecture, that's all it is. It's not a statement to slavery.

  12. #267
    Senior Member petromax's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Waterways View Post
    It was not. The slave triangle was three sided, with slaves being only one. Then there was the all the other non-African/American trade as well.
    You don't think absolutely everyone knows that? Do you think it absolved those involved because slaves didn't come into Liverpool, although they were transported in Liverpool ships to work in southern states, to produce cheap cotton to be ship back to Liverpool? Grow up.

    Anyway...

    The slave trade ended with the abolition of 1807. Liverpool's 'great buildings' are largely 19th or even 20th century, so if we could just move on...

  13. #268
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    Slavery is very much alike the War. Terrible things happened. We don't blame old people for what happened then. I certainly aint ashamed.

  14. #269
    Senior Member petromax's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by dazza View Post
    ...'The language of the bosses' is the Albert Dock. Yet now in the last twenty years it's been transformed into one of the most egalitarian spaces in the city. Your thoughts...?
    A great achievment but not great architecture or architecture of power - more like architecture of accommodation (Hartley was an Engineer)

    It's more of a monument to graft and effort, so-called 'full employmen't and a kind of prosperity despite the working conditions. Maybe see this from Boys from the Black Stuff http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pY_pgqX8qyo

    The last twenty years have been a metaphor for 'saving the city' and the subsequent reclamation by the people.


    Quote Originally Posted by dazza View Post
    Conversely, would you consider St George's Hall to be a true egalitarian building? It has all the right credentials, in passing more than a few nods of appreciation to the Parthenon, in embodying democratic city ideals.
    Not at all. 'Artibus. Legibus. Coniliis'. This is an elitist building if ever there was one, yet people love it. Does it remind us of the certainty of childhood - parental authority even? Maybe the paternalism of the victorian philanthropists - the Walkers, the Pictons? or the 'proper and respectable' humanist values of (the abolitionist) Roscoe or of Gladstone? besides Ancient Greek democracy was hardly universal suffrage.

    Quote Originally Posted by dazza View Post
    Yet is was anything but egalitarian in it's conception. It was an institution for the city fathers, as much as the town hall was. But the building's architecture transcends this, as John Soane's Bank of England, in London, never could.
    I don't think it ever transcended it roots but it is certainly thought of differently now. It's been taken over by the people. Is it as 'great' as it ever was?

  15. #270
    Senior Member dazza's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by petromax View Post
    [Albert Dock] a great achievment but not great architecture or architecture of power - more like architecture of accommodation, (Hartley was an Engineer)...It's more of a monument to graft and effort, so-called 'full employmen't and a kind of prosperity despite the working conditions.
    For it's type, I think it is great architecture. Vitruvius's classical benchmark for architecture of 'firmitas, utilitas, venustas' [Commodity, Firmness and Delight] - although, I prefer [Firmness, Utility and Venus-like] which seems to be closer to the original. The word 'Delight', as translated, often wrong-foots most scholars to think that works of architecture need to be 'elegant', 'refined', 'proportioned', 'harmonious' when 'Venustas' simply means qualities possessed by the goddess Venus, ie: beauty. Our ideal of beauty is never constant. What's beautiful to us, would not be to our ancestor's, and vice versa. There's beauty in honesty; in structures laid bare, in monumentalism, in the palette of materials used, even beauty in industry. I would would be happy to class the Albert Dock, as a work of architecture, without adding, or taking anything away. Jesse Hartley will do fine as an engineer, just as Calatrava will do do today.

    You may not think it is beautiful, that's fine. Most people [I think] would agree with you. I think A.D. is beautiful, in it's own special way. So, let's agree to differ?

    Quote Originally Posted by petromax View Post
    Not at all. 'Artibus. Legibus. Coniliis'. This is an elitist building if ever there was one, yet people love it.
    So what? What's that got to do with whether people love it or not? It's a beautiful building - whether it started life as a Mecanno factory, a posh den of Victorian iniquity, an Abattoir, or a holding pen for the poor, matter's not a jot.

    Quote Originally Posted by petromax View Post
    [of St George's Hall] Maybe the paternalism of the victorian philanthropists - the Walkers, the Pictons? or the 'proper and respectable' humanist values of (the abolitionist) Roscoe or of Gladstone?
    Well, they had an existing paternalism already established with the church, and monarchy [as 'role' model], if you're going down that road? St.George's Hall was inspired by a temple; the original pediment had sculptures of Britannia with Commerce and the Arts that looked down on Lime Street, as the new city gods. Often in public buildings it was the royal coat of arms of the sovereign, that was displayed.

    Who really cares about this anyway? If I took a group of school kids to see the Pyramids, in Egypt, I'm fairly certain they'd all say it was pretty cool. Architecture of Power, is it not? Sir, I don't like this building, due to the anti-egalitarian threat is poses.

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