Sheffields ugly buildings

[drummonds]

virtually any pub built on a post war council estate. they mainly look like pre-fabs. fortunately most only survived for 2 or 3 decades. the white hart is particularly naff.

 

---------- Post added 28-08-2015 at 15:49 ----------

 

He hasn't, is the short answer to that.

Architects Jack Lynn and Ivor Smith are responsible for that particular monstrosity known as Hyde Park Flats, having been 'inspired' by the very much better at doing things, Le Corbusier.

 

hyde park flats were designed by an architect? next you'll be telling me an architect designed the kelvin as well.

Edited August 28, 2015 by drummonds

[Fogey]

My number one hate building is St Pauls Tower, it is awful from every angle and for such an insultingly inelegant building to dominate the Sheffield skyline is unforgivable, but where it really makes me enraged is when I view it from Leopold Street and it dominates the skyline even over the Town Hall, it is appalling.

 

Other dislikes include the Novotel, the Sinclair building on West Street and two that really wind me up is the extension to Sheffield Hallam's Adsetts Centre which mimics the materiality of the Adsetts Centre without matching the quality of the original building. Also I hate the entrance to the Odeon which is a really naff commercial add on when compared to the unity of the white tile clad complex of the Odeon + car park + Academy.

[Guest]

I like the cheese grater.

 

Most the buildings mentioned here are new and posted by reactionaries who don't like anything new and would be hard pushed to praise anything younger than 25 years. It's so easy and safe and destructive to be against everything and to criticise everything. And so depressing too.

 

At least some try to incorporate a design element. Unlike the Howard Building, which imo is a big lump of bricks.

Woah there, matey. There are so many sweeping statements in one small paragraph that I think you might just have set a new record.

 

A dislike of plasticy cuboids and glassy boxes being sicked up all over the place, along with buildings more sensitive to the demands of the architects' CVs and portfolios than the sites' context, doesn't necessarily equate to 'being against everything', not liking 'anything new' and it certainly doesn't make one a reactionary!

 

There are plenty of modern developments and redevelopments popping up around the country - and even in Sheffield, if you look hard enough - that don't look like they've been built from Ikea flatpacks. The updating of Park Hill, for example, seems to combine a sensitivity to the structure's historical context while giving it a fresh and attractive upgrade (shame it doesn't seem to be progressing very quickly, mind you). The amphitheatre below it, and the work around the Cholera grounds is similarly pleasant, as well as serving to open up a relatively neglected area to visitors and residents.

 

What's easy and safe is recreating the same cheap-looking offices and hotel boxes and scattering them across the city centre like so many toadstools, then standing back and watching the universities turn the city centre into an extended campus that looks like it's sponsored by Argos and Gerald Ratner.

 

---------- Post added 28-08-2015 at 16:01 ----------

 

Serious question here … how to you upload images from Google earth? This is something I've never got the hang of. Does it involve the F buttons at the top of my typewriter, none of which I have the foggiest idea of their raison d'être?

I used Google Maps, not sure if there's a difference.

 

First, line up the image you want to use. If you look at one of the images I linked to, in the upper left-hand corner you should see a set of three dots like a set of traffic lights. Click on that, then click on 'share or embed image'. I also ticked the 'short URL' box.

 

I've just noticed that it says you can also just copy the link straight from the browser address bar, which would be much easier, of course.

 

---------- Post added 28-08-2015 at 16:08 ----------

 

What do you think of that horrible building just finished

by church near University roundabout?? What is it??

I think it's called 'The Carbuncle'. It's part of the Engineering department. It was built to look like that so the engineering students have something to chuckle at on their way to the Mappin Building.

[tzijlstra]

Wow, so much hate for modern architecture on here, makes me laugh a lot

[TJC1]

I was unaware that the great Corbusier had ever worked in Sheffield ,so thrilled.

 

He hasnt personally. Le corbusier replicas are everywhere. Brutalist architecture.

Edited August 28, 2015 by TJC1
...

[drummonds]

Wow, so much hate for modern architecture on here, makes me laugh a lot

 

no. it is hatred of bad architecture. isn't it odd how the old town hall building has stood the test of time for 125 years whilst the new extension was demolished after 25 years because it looked crap.

[TJC1]

He hasn't, is the short answer to that.

Architects Jack Lynn and Ivor Smith are responsible for that particular monstrosity known as Hyde Park Flats, having been 'inspired' by the very much better at doing things, Le Corbusier.

 

Unité d'Habitation.

 

---------- Post added 28-08-2015 at 16:19 ----------

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unité_d%27habitation

 

Or is it park hill flats?

[Fogey]

Wow, so much hate for modern architecture on here, makes me laugh a lot

 

A good understanding of why people hate Modern Architecture can be gained from the short life of the millennium gallery. When completed and first opened it was a beautiful restrained graceful daylit building, carefully composed with a sense of order, beauty and promenade. Over time more and more crap has been plastered on to it and in to it by people looking to grab attention and sell us stuff without any understanding or consideration for the careful styling, detailing and overall composition of the building. Add to this the tendency to not spend money on maintaining anything that isn't made of carved stone and eventually all such buildings become unpleasant eyesores that people struggle to see the qualities of. Eventually people associate modernism with unpleasant views and environments and so automatically resort to saying such things are an eyesore. Its a kind of prejudice.

[tzijlstra]

no. it is hatred of bad architecture. isn't it odd how the old town hall building has stood the test of time for 125 years whilst the new extension was demolished after 25 years because it looked crap.

 

Odd because both the Diamond and the Information Commons are brilliant examples of functionalist buildings that stand out and alter what was a very drab roundabout environment into a modern and vibrant place that is being used by tens of thousands of people on a daily basis?

 

Just as a pointer, where the IC is now, were some old Victorian buildings that were well past their use-by date and are 13 in a dozen in the area, where the Diamond now is was a derelict building site, where the Jessop West building is was nothing and a very old hospital that was well past saving (and what could be saved has been). But no, we should have left it alone! Why let one of the biggest employers in the city build new things! Why can't they leave it all as it was and get the new students to work from portakabins!

 

I am delighted with the forward thinking that the University is showing, if they didn't we'd all be looking at these sorts of uninspired office-block buildings (this particular one I used to work in, trust me, uninspiring isn't anywhere near enough of an insult.)

 

By the way, a challenge: Name me 10 buildings that were built in the last ten years in Sheffield that you nay-shouters like?

Edited August 28, 2015 by tzijlstra

[TJC1]

Odd because both the Diamond and the Information Commons are brilliant examples of functionalist buildings that stand out and alter what was a very drab roundabout environment into a modern and vibrant place that is being used by tens of thousands of people on a daily basis?

 

Just as a pointer, where the IC is now, were some old Victorian buildings that were well past their use-by date and are 13 in a dozen in the area, where the Diamond now is was a derelict building site, where the Jessop West building is was nothing and a very old hospital that was well past saving (and what could be saved has been). But no, we should have left it alone! Why let one of the biggest employers in the city build new things! Why can't they leave it all as it was and get the new students to work from portakabins!

 

I am delighted with the forward thinking that the University is showing, if they didn't we'd all be looking at these sorts of uninspired office-block buildings (this particular one I used to work in, trust me, uninspiring isn't anywhere near enough of an insult.)

 

By the way, a challenge: Name me 10 buildings that were built in the last ten years in Sheffield that you nay-shouters like?

 

Love the diamond. A vision of the future!

 

---------- Post added 28-08-2015 at 16:38 ----------

 

So much of sheff should be flattened. Whats that huge building near the interchange?

Really ugly dirty one...terrible.