Remember the garbage that was there before? A 100% improvement!Originally Posted by Howie
Remember the garbage that was there before? A 100% improvement!
True - but that is a judgement on what was there before, not what is there now. Nearly all new buildings are an improvement on the dereliction or datedness of what they happen to replace. Now you mention it - it does look kind of dated already. I could imagine it having been built on the campus of one of the new universities in the sixties.
Take your point,but it's just that when anything new comes along in Liverpool,people start going on about how great it used to be!( in thier imagination) Dont forget,the Liver buildings got ****ged off,good style,by some when it first went up!
p.s. some quick examples of how good it used to look.....a giant toilet comes to mind!
Last edited by wsteve55; 09-03-2009 at 03:06 PM.
I have mixed feelings towards the new Mersey Ferries Terminal. At first I disliked it intensely, but having been inside my attitude has warmed a little.
HOWEVER, I really do think this building would have been more suited to have been a joint Mersey Ferries and Isle of Man Steam Packet terminal located at the north end of the Pier Head piazza.
Only in Liverpool could we have a semi international terminal constructed of portacabins whilst the terminal for a 45 minute ferry trip is a substantiual multimillion pound construction. There should have been some joined up thinking between Liverpool City Council, Peel Ports and the Isle of Man Steam Packet.
Some weeks ago I went into the new cafe-bar for a coffee. The large coffee cost around ?2.75. Just over a week ago I had a similar large coffee in St. Peter Port, Guernsey and it only cost ?1.60 in a cafe offering a superior sea view!
Why does it cost ?1.15 more in Liverpool when Guernsey is considered to be an area of considerable affluence?
John
From The Times
September 5, 2009
The Carbuncle Cup: The award for ugliest building goers to...
Tom Dyckhoff applauds the prize that no architect wants to win ? the Carbuncle Cup
"When an architect has done something truly awful, they deserve to be kicked.? Amanda Baillieu, the august editor of the architectural newspaper Building Design, is not known for mincing her words. Faced with a building as eyewateringly dreary as Liverpool?s Pier Head Ferry Terminal, though, words fail her: ?It?s just dross. Look at it. It?s ... agh!?
Belfast-based Hamilton Architects, hang your heads in shame, for you have just won 2009?s Carbuncle Cup. ?We set up the cup four years ago,? says Baillieu, ?as a kind of anti-Stirling Prize. Architects constantly garland themselves with awards. They?re tripping over them. But when you see what?s being built all over the country, you have to think, hold on a minute.? The cup has become to next month?s Stirling Prize what the Razzies, or Golden Raspberries, are to the Oscars, a moment to pr!ck the ego of a profession not known for its shrinking violets. Fellow architects nominate their brethren whose work has not quite come up to the standards of, say, Bob the Builder.
One of this year?s judges, Sean Griffiths, from architects FAT, says Liverpool?s ferry terminal won not just for its derivative design, though this is bad enough: ?Third-rate Zaha Hadid, a crude, jazzy-angled lump of crap, a terrible example of an architecturally illiterate client trying to be groovy and getting it so, so wrong, like a 50-year-old making a fashion faux pas in a disco.?
What makes it worse, he says, is where the thing is, slap-bang on Liverpool?s waterfront, a Unesco World Heritage Site, beside the city?s Three Graces. ?It literally is a monstrous carbuncle on the face of an old friend,? he says, with a knowing nod to the Prince of Wales?s infamous quip. ?And it?s now the gateway to my home city.?
Both the architect and Mersey Travel, which commissioned the building, inevitably feel not the slightest hint of shame. ?We?re proud of it,? says a spokesman for Hamilton Architects. Us too, says another from Mersey Travel, adding: ?We?re not desperately interested in the opinions of two journalists and an architect, to be honest.?
And therein lies the problem. Because the terminal building represents one of two trends that have come to dominate British architecture. They think they got an icon, says Baillieu. Indeed they do. ?With Mersey Travel we?ve jointly faced up to the challenge of designing an iconic building,? says Hamilton Architects, ?one that?s vibrant and multi-use, and the nucleus of the new Pier Head Plaza, drawing the public to a formerly barren public space. It?s in a location that can be viewed from all sides, so it?s been conceived as a strong sculptural form.?
Baillieu says: ?There are too many architects out there doing funny shapes and wonky windows. Truth is, only a handful are skilful enough to do it well.? The crap icon is, alas, now an all-too common sight in our cities, designed by an architect who thinks they?re the next Frank Gehry, for some client who wants the next headline-grabber. Well Liverpool sure got headlines.
The second trend? The ?awful drabness of buildings built under the Private Finance Initiative (PFI)?, says Baillieu, like so many of the new schools and hospitals up and down the country ? or the two university buildings in Nottingham and Edinburgh that came second and third in the cup.
Indeed, so bad and so numerous has bad British architecture become that it has got its own blog ? badbritisharchitecture.blogspot.com ? whose mission statement is ?I hate the b@stards who make these buildings. So here I am, taking the p!ss out of them.?
What unites both the crap icon and PFI drabness are the same underlying causes: a lack of cash and a lack of care. We?ve just been through a 15-year building boom. The country is awash with new office towers, buy-to-let apartment blocks, health centres and shopping malls that will be with us for generations. Most have been built by clients who may have good intentions ? such as regeneration ? but who are willing to stump up the money and expertise you need to get real quality. ?How do these buildings slip past?? asks Baillieu. Simple.
Planning, like so much local democracy in this country, is knackered. Local council planning departments are so cash-strapped and overworked that they have no time for architectural expertise or proper, proactive consultation with us lot. And the result? Well, see for yourself at bdonline.co.uk. And weep.
Source: Times Online
Dont care,still think it looks great!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It looks like a tiger ready to jump.
It looks ugly as sin!!
Keeping it real!
LIVERPOOL OLD POSTCARDS AND PHOTOS HERE http://s197.photobucket.com/albums/a...To%20Download/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKmGi...eature=related
http://www.thebreastcancersite.com/
i think i should go get my eyes checked
Don't dream it ... be it !
Someone said it made them think of the SuperLambBanana.
The Three Graces and the Liver birds stand at the edge of the city looking outwards as the 'figurehead' of a great and important port and city. their magnificent power and scale dominate the city and the river. The Pier Head is or should be a great and open space.
Anything of any size placed in the way of this set piece 'view' is not going to work.
As it happens, this building is a small building in comparison and it pathetically attempts to match the great scale of the Pier Head buildings; desperately trying to be different and bold and ends up just being half-arsed 'zany' - a bit like the similarly dumb and dinky little canal and odd hard landscape. This is a port for ships not a canal basin for put-puts.
Nevertheless and because the restauranteur had an existing lease, the building is two storeys and high enough to be a nuisance. Even poor old King Edward (??) can't see the water.
Together they make a nonsense of the space and worse; they split it up into small spaces that can't be used for much beyond a few hundred people.
The Albert Dock is not the be all and end of all of the waterfront and the link to it and this building is a seriously expensive mistake.
'Temporarily' board over the canal with massive baltic timbers and quietly leave them there.
I know you everybode have fun. But it's my opinion. And I think it looks so nice.
I can see what you mean.
there used to be kids toys called Transformers .. the shapes could transform into fierce animals.
this is the tiger one-
Last edited by lindylou; 09-09-2009 at 10:05 AM. Reason: adding pic
Petromax, I had mixed views on the canal link. Go back to what was there before the Three Graces, George's Dock. Ideally, this should have been left in place with the Three Graces behind the dock. The Three Graces with boast bobbing up and down in front would have been a better setting. The Three Graces, three monolithic blocks, created dead space around them which, despite many expensive mistakes, has always remained dead space. The Three Graces can be merged more into the city by eliminating the wide urban motorway, The Strand. The space in front to the river is wind swept most of the time and there is little that can be done there, as people naturally move from the wind. The success of the Albert Dock is that the warehouses shelter people from the river wind, with covered walkways right up to the quays. The model that should be adopted in developing the remainder of the docks.
The Canal Link does split the Pier Head space up and acts as a drain against flooding from the river. The put-puts are welcome, however all docks should be back to deep water to accommodate historic, visiting and tall ships. The city has let us down allowing a commercial outfit, Peel Holdings, rape our heritage. They are converting the dock system to an inland barge basins - not what our heritage is about. We need the likes of these in the old docks near the centre......
by Phillip G
by Kebabman
Last edited by Waterways; 09-09-2009 at 11:42 AM.
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?
Giving Liverpool a full Metro - CLICK
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There is a need for sheltered spaces and a need for places to 'brave the elements'.
When the enclosed dock system ran the length of the city, the Pier Head was the one and only place that gave access to the river and the opportunity to 'see the sea', see the ships close at hand; essentially an empty space - a bravely and truly open space subject to the elements. This is the magic of the place.
The various landing stage and ferry termini were unobtrusive and only added to access to the river. The 60's bus depot blocked the view of the water and was the start of the decline leading to the place filling up with 'stuff' in desperate attempts to make the space 'active'.
Liverpool is literally and metaphorically on the edge; outward looking and international. The very brave and confident thing to do would be to sweep all this meaningless bric-a-brac away (or cover it up) to create a world class open space standing at the prow of the city.
A forest of tall ships' masts in Canning, Salthouse and Princes Docks would indeed be a majestic and soaring setting either side of the Three Graces and could be enjoyed in these more enclosed and sheltered areas all year round.
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