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Originally Posted by Lisnaholic
^ Thanks, MLM, but I'd give the win to your Birmingham Law Courts to be honest.
More importantly, thanks for opening this thread; I also love walking around looking at buildings, so when I saw this thread I thought, "Aha! A true kindred spirit!"  |
Cheers, glad it seems to have taken off.
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On that count, I'm sorry to say that I don't share MLM's opinion of London's "Gerkin." Sorry, MLM, but it's actually one of my least favourite additions to London; the drab surface of glass, the lack of interesting detail, but mostly the shape. Bad enough that everyone immediately thinks "penis", what's worse is that it disregards all the language of straight lines with which it is surrounded. The size of it is also an issue with me; if it was shrunk down to the size of a telephone box, I think I could live with it appearing on a streetcorner, or as an ATM kiosk in front of a bank.
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Even though I don't think it's bad looking, this is true, but it's why I like it. As I said, it's instantly recognisable. As soon as I see it I think 'City of London'. In the same way I think Paris if I see the Eiffel Tower, not that I'm saying it's as iconic as that, but skylines need some recognisable big hitters in them for me. I'm sure they could have built a 300m rectangular glass tower, but that would have been boring in my opinion.
Tbh people say similar things about our Selfridges store aka the 'flies eyes', not a similar style of building but it also divides opinion but I love it, because as soon as you see it, you know where it is.
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If you're going to put curves into buildings, I prefer to see them used more discreetly. This building, for example, has quite simple geometry that neatly accomodates just a couple of curves within its straight lines:-
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How about The Armadillo in Glasgow? A bit curvy:
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