london

gotta ask, what were you doing at wormwood scrubs

Yeah the Shard looks a bit disappointing in grey weather (contrast to the Gherkin which looks good all the time) but those photos in bright sunlight make you realise what the architects were getting at. Looking forward to seeing it properly illuminated at night.

I don't think I like this building very much. Maybe I'll get used to its presence eventually.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Wormwood_Scrubs.JPG

was walking around the common land that HMP Wormwood Scrubs is named after. didn't really go anywhere near the prison (having missed the turn and there being only so many places you can get across the central line, the next one was too far west for the prison)

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

(Trellick Tower's in that picture, which is looking north east ish, shard is behind the trees on the right)

I can't wait until christmas, surely they'll light it up like a huge tree.

xp

large part of the park is designated a model aircraft flying zone (someone was flying noisy jet there on saturday) and also labelled as MOD land on the maps.

i was surprised to learn that the shard is gonna be the tallest building in europe.

love the shard as well, people who whinge about how out-of-place or capitalist it is can do one

Nah, come on, it's a filthy spindle - razor ad city boy filth.

the glass is cheap or sthing which is why it looks kind of dull when it doesn't happen to precisely reflect the sun

its really REALLY out of place - at least it doesn't make sense when looking at it from shabby London Bridge station.

i don't think it's too bad but it is to renzo piano what say neu! 2 is to klaus dinger

the thrustingness that is nauseating makes me feel unwell. I'm fairly free about things generally but I wd like a nasty vicious cock in my horizontal vision?

the apogee is the worst part, there are a few canted plasticky triangular bits that are supposed to signify/homage the sails of london's mercantile history

kinda like the new Utd kit

yes!

what 21st century forms and commodities will be given tribute in the showpiece architecture of the 23rd century

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the glass is cheap or sthing

why oh why didn't they fit the best - everest.

i actually love the way it's out of the way of the usual city cluster of high rises. it makes it seem less obtrusive, like it's not disrupting an already familiar skyline; but at the same time it can suddenly appear from the most unexpected locations.

I'm fairly free about things generally but I wd like a nasty vicious cock in my horizontal vision?

...yes please?

its out-of-placeness is what makes it, if all of london was glass skyscrapers it'd be boring but there's something pleasingly ryugyong about the shard

i mean, i like creepiness, i like gleaming edifices, i like cocks => i lik the shard

I was very drunk when I wrote that, it perhaps wasn't the best expression! I mentally lump it in with the Strata building, the one with those fans at the top, which reminds me of gilette razor packaging, and so has an association of the deoderant and sweat of the city boys squash or gym changing room. As sleek expressions of financification, with the tacit fuck yous to environmentally considerate building and the huge amount of empty office and living space in London that they contain, they also reek of similar attitudes in banking and our Citified government. They are the physical expressions of that, not just implicitly, but in their form as well. I think that's what I was trying to get at in the stupid phrase 'vicious cock'.

That said, when walking across Hyde Park from Kensington to Mayfair, it does provide, in conjunction with the London eye, the curious image of a gigantic spinning wheel that has just fallen off its spindle - which is actually quite pleasing.

'philishave' seems used a bit for the strata tower. Looks quite cheap up close, really feels like it will eventually fit well into elephant's rich patchwork of wrong.

handy elephant-locator when navigating south-eastern streets. I like that.

The Strata tower is the worst building in London, both aesthetically and in terms of what it represents.

The Strata Inhabit website (the information site for residents of the building) won the "Website of the Year" award at the Property Management Awards ceremnony held at Lords on 5th December 2011.[17]

xpost
a utility droid?

doesnt john terry have the penthouse of the strata

Do people live in the strata yet? I can't really imagine it. S'pose it'd be a plausible new Ballard High-Rise ("As he sat on his balcony eating John Terry's dog, Dr Robert Laing reflected on the unusual events that had taken place within this huge apartment building during the previous three months.")

Is 'what it represents' the purging of Elephant + Heygate + Aylesbury, public/private 'affordable homes' developer lies, etc ? Then otm.

IRLlol

Is 'what it represents' the purging of Elephant + Heygate + Aylesbury, public/private 'affordable homes' developer lies, etc ? Then otm.

Yep. I mean god knows the Elephant needs to be pretty much flattened and started over with but I'm sure there are ways to do that without basically building ludicrous penthouses back-to-back with extreme poverty that you're half-heartedly trying to shift 10mins down the road.

Is 'what it represents' the purging of Elephant + Heygate + Aylesbury, public/private 'affordable homes' developer lies, etc ? Then otm.

Yes it certainly includes that. There is a huge amount of free office space in London. Developments like this are grotesque both in the specifics of motivation and how they are accomplished and also then in the more general philosophy of what they represent. I have nothing against skyscrapers! they're great expressions of humans' futuristic streak, but I wd like to see structures more disruptive to the notions of delusory and in fact destructive super achievement than these chrome and glass yuppie chic buildings. fat chance I know.

And in fact I'm not sure it's the case that they are any more expressions of futurity or desirable in any form. so maybe I have got something against skyscrapers.

in other things London related (and I'm sure everywhere else too) but these gigantic union jacks everywhere give me the heebie-jeebies. not in a surfeit of nationalism sort of way, but because it makes everywhere look like the oft-repeated image of a dystopic, which consists of taking the images of the post-war 1940s and creating a decaying future from them. clearly 1984 is the template. you end up feeling like you're walking around a page from V for Vendetta or something.

Not getting into what it represents, but I think the shard looks quite nice. Loads of people were hating on the Gherkin when it was first built too, and now everyone likes it.

these gigantic union jacks everywhere give me the heebie-jeebies.

Completely agree with this though. I've always liked the fact that the British are less ostentatious with their patriotism than those of many other countries, and I find any reversal of that a bit upsetting.

On a different train that's taking me out past Peckham and there's a great view of the Shard next to all the City skyscrapers and they look tiny in comparison. I've only just appreciated quite how tall it is.

Loads of people were hating on the Gherkin when it was first built too, and now everyone likes it.

Nah I'll keep hating on it thx.

Shard is really hilarious from platform 4 at London Bridge.

Please to identify this building, seen walking northbound around Crouch Hill.

https://p.twimg.com/Awa35BECEAEOano.jpg:large

Ally Pally, innit?

Yep, definitely.

I saw popular beat combo Slayer at that very venue a month ago.

Me too. I used to live right by there. Got too expensive though.

I used to live on the other side - Turnpike Lane/Wood Green - and walk quite a lot up by Ally Pally. There's a curious feel of the esplanade at the top. Something to do with the blue railings and types of lamp posts if I'm remembering rightly. Also perhaps the pitch n putt. I guess that might have been intentional. The lower parts remind me of the half utilised rather scrubby edge-of-town, council-run greensward-plus-football-pitch (no net, leaning posts, sagging crossbar) you get in a lot of smaller English towns.

You can walk very pleasantly from there to Hampstead Heath, pretty much without going near a road, and get a very decent sense of Tottenham to Hampstead north London, and even from there walk fairly pleasantly down into Regent's Park. Then you can go and stand on the Marylebone Road and suck in the fumes of one of the most polluted roads in London as recompense.

Is it worth a trip up Ally Pally to just go for a wander and a walk? I do like a good park, and spent a very pleasant couple of hours in Crystal Palace park last month when I was down, and that doesn't even have its palace any more (though dinosaurs!).

the Strata building, the one with those fans at the top

I was wondering what that was (but not enough to look it up, obv). It's horrible.

definitely, the walk up there is very pleasant + views when you get there

never done it from the hampstead direction though, only from finsbury park

Right, that's our Sunday morning hangover-buster sorted next time we're down. The Crystal Palace thing was a diversion just to kill a couple of hours as we were visiting friends in the area and got on the wrong bus to the wrong part of CP, and it turned out to be a lovely afternoon stroll. I love going past Ally Pally on the train and always mean to head up for a wander.

if you start at finsbury park, i recommend the parkland walk for the first stretch - http://www.haringey.gov.uk/index/community_and_leisure/greenspaces/parks_and_open_spaces_parks_facilities/parklandwalk.htm

Ally Pally, I saw my first gig there (Queen, December 1979) then watched the place burn down 6 months later in a conflagration visible all the way across London. The place was an empty burnt-out shell for years afterwards, then they rebuilt it for Antiques Roadshow suitability. Do they still have a deer pen in the park?

That walk along the abandoned train line really is fantastic. We did it a few years ago with the Psychogeographic Rolling Society and someone at the Tube Station let us into the overgrown station above.