Cutty Sark/bike parallels

When I was travelling in Australia I bought a battered country and western guitar in Tamworth, home of Australian C&W music. That guitar travelled with me everywhere I went after that, all through the outback and down the East Coast, and it was covered with stickers to reflect that. It was also my only company when I injured my leg in Melbourne and was housebound for a month. I loved that guitar, and called it Fred.

British Airways, the clumsy bastards (bring on the litigation), broke it on my journey back. When I opened the box at the airport to find the neck snapped my mum - bless - tried to empathise by saying she knew how I felt because there was a cardigan she bought from a mail order company a week or so earlier and she'd just snagged it.

It is with similar flawless logic that I say 'Greenwich - I know what you're going through with that whole Cutty Sark burning down thing as I've just had my bike nicked.' I also have no qualms about claiming that the fact that the fire was suspicious points to involvement by the little tykes that stole my bike. The tyres were, in fact, probably used as an accelerant in their destructive bike/boat arson spree.

My attitude to the bike reminds me of a Stephen Fry sketch.

Stephen, a politician (fittingly, he recently sat down for a chat with Mr. Blair), is stood behind a podium:

It is with a heavy heart that I stand here today to announce that someone has stolen my car. As a result I and my government have decided to tighten the law to prevent people from stealing my car. It is hoped that with the new measures we are bringing in I will no longer have a problem with people stealing my car.

I must, however, stress that this policy has a sound moral basis, which is stopping people from stealing my car. Some people would argue that people stealing their cars is also wrong and should be taken into account, but I feel that that detracts from the main moral concern, which is to stop people STEALING MY CAR...

And it goes on, rising to a crescendo. Haha.

By all this I really mean to say that it's sad the Cutty Sark has gone, but when the story is covered by the BBC I don't think there's really much I can add.

PS - Fred is now fixed. Apparently a large proportion of the Cutty Sark's timbers were off site for restoration, so there's hope for the boat too.

Who will buy my sweet docklands building

The Guardian today has a two page spread on the price of London's skyscrapers. Click on the title of this post to read it in full, but if you just want a summary...

The HSBC Tower in docklands (surprisingly only finished in 2002, only a year or so before the Gherkin - it's easy to forget just how recent the docklands developments are) has jsut been sold for £1.1bn, making it officially the most expensive building in the UK.

HSBC are still staying there though - renting from the new owners - but the windfall profit of £500m they get from the sale (it only cost £580m to build and furbish) was tempting enough to take.

A closer look at Docklands

I cooked using red wine tonight. It didn't need too much red wine, so there was rather a lot left to consume, so I apologise for any bad typing.

The photo to the right has very little to do with this post. I meant to put it in last time but couldn't remember why. I do remember now: it was to point out that people on the lower floors of some of the Canary Wharf skyscrapers will have their views of Greenwich blocked by the Pan Peninsula Tower. To rectify this they could either:

1. establish the view as a strategic viewing corridor post-haste
2. buy a flat in the tower
3. build wings out of all the money they make and fly, fly, fly...

The connection with this post is the zooming in of the camera. To the left you will see the blindingly shiny Canary Wharf Tower, which I imagine could blind a pilot, so maybe the CAA have a point. The entire tower is covered in sheet metal, which accounts for the glare. ot only that, but also, as illustrated here, even the blinds have a metallic finish. If - God forbid - every blind were to be pulled at the same time I think we could have an aviation disaster on our hands.

A curiosity atop one of the towers is this scaffolding. The scaffolding looks temporary, but the things they're supporting - glass honeycomb structures - don't look at all like a transient part of constructing something else. My best guess is that they're building a penthouse greenhouse. I shall take another look in a few weeks to see if there's any change.

Now here's a peculiar feature. These striking formations, reminiscent of the posters of penrose triangles that every secondary school maths class is legally compelled to have on their walls, are right at the top of an otherwise bland building. Why put them all the way up there, where nobody can appreciate them? May as well not have them at all.

Last close-up now. Docklands is reviled as a cluster of 80's grandiose glass block buildings with no imagination. I think this photo demonstrates that, although the style of the time was perhaps to build rather conservatively shaped structures, this doesn't mean that the architects didn't put at least some thought into providing variety; the differences in texture between the buildings certainly add interest.

Strategic view #5 - Greenwich Park London Panorama

I said a few weeks a go that I would systematically visit the 'viewing place' for each of London's strategic viewing corridors to give a 'qualitative visual assessment' of the view towards the 'strategically important landmark.' The landmark in Greenwich's case is St Paul's Cathedral. It is also worth noting that the view is also 'the only designated London Panorama that is part
of a formal, axial arrangement.' For this gumph and more I recommend reading chaper six of this.

One slightly less gumphy bit is this:

The background of the view is currently unimpeded, offering a clear silhouette of St Paul’s Cathedral with Tower Bridge in its immediate foreground. The ability to see light between the upper parts of the various elements makes it easy to recognise and appreciate the landmarks within the context of the City.

It's very true. A lot of the other protected views are, I think, slightly silly as they protect the view of St Paul's specifically, even though you can hardly make it out (going by the photos in the official papers). Anyway, below is the proof that you can indeed see the outline f St Paul's:

Shame about the tower in the foreground though - how did that get past the planners? I smell the stench of corruption.

But what's my opinion of this protected view? Well, I think it'll take some beating. As the panoramic photo at the top shows, I'm not alone in thinking it's worth sitting and enjoying. I myself cycled 25 odd miles (in a round trip, which I grossly underestimated) to get there. It's 4 views in 1:

1. City of London
2. Docklands
3. Parkland and Maritime Greenwich
4. Millenium dome

I don't think the Millenium Dome's anything to write homw about; in fact, I think it looks like an ugly industrial facility - it's far too flat and undecorated to look like anything elses - but I imagine some people like to see it.

Question: will views of the Gherkin ever be protected? I noticed in one of the Waterloo panorama shots that English Heritage have been parading about that the Gherkin will be virtually obscured from the West by the Leadenhall building. With all the furore about St Paul's and the Tower of London I think people seeking to protect the London skyline's integrity forget that they are not the only buildings worth looking at.

Oh - and to whoever commented, you'll be glad to know that from Tuesday, cycling to work will take me through Southwark, so taking a look at some of the buildings you suggested is a definite possibility. Vive la diversification.

Lebensraum

Through accident more than by design I found myself taking lots of photos of accomodation over the weekend. I've already voiced my doubts about Pan's Labyrinth Peninsula being able to attract adequate punters due to the dire nature of the surrounding hubbub. Leaving the nightlife etc. aside, the design is also not hugely distinctive. They're tall buildings, and a bit bit glittery, so don't get me wrong - I give a lot of points out for tallness and glitteriness. But they're hardly going to win international awards.

So what of the other residential buildings I've looked at?

Worst of the bunch are these, to the south of the main docklands complex. The houses around where I used to go to school were yellow brick, probably built in the 60's, and about as entertaining to look at as a turd (apart from that one day when we watched through the chemistry lab windows a dare-devil ladder acrobat with a HUGE drill install cavity wall insulation in one of them). These blocks of flats seem to be aiming for the same look, but figured 15 storeys is better than 2. How ridiculous do those roofs look??

Second from bottom is this riverside warehouse conversion. I took the photo to show Broadgate Tower looking not unlike the radiator of a Rolls Royce (not so long ago I saw a latest model Rolls outside the Tate Britain - an uglier concoction of car and... car I have never seen.) Took ages to find that link to the Rolls photo - why is it that bluechip companies known for excellence in design insist on having such bloated flash websites?

But the warehouse conversion... the top floors really are extremely ugly. There are some great warehouse conversions out there - Butlers Wharf, Catherine Docks, the ones across the canal from me - but the ones in this photo are certainly not among them.

Won't bother posting a photo but these are also pretty naff. An original and geometrically interesting design in search of function, balance, character and memorability. Slightly better is this block, but only by virtue of the circular balconies. Not sure of the utilility of these - you can't have a conversation with the corner of the building in the way - but they look nice from below. What might have been better would be to alternate, floor by floor, butting the balcomies at the corners and in the middle of the walls. Did I mention I wanted to be an architect when I was bout 12?

OK - enough filler. Now we move on to the stars of the city living show.

Surprisingly for a skyscraper themed blog, they are all low-rise.

The triangular buildings in the bottom left are great! in the shadow of all these monoliths (and one building that looks like a giant microchip) are some chalet style buildings. Anachronistic given the setting, but this just adds to their charm. The photo doesn't do it justice, but they're brightly coloured too.

In third place are these flats, again down by the river. I'm no architectural expert, but it's quite obvious they're inspired by the Habitat '67 building in Montreal - the hive of flats that was meant to revolutionise the built environment... but didn't. With this being one exception. I would guess it's in wapping, and I'll add it to my 'to visit' list. It doesn't stand out, but it's probably one of London's more adventurous buildings.

Now on to the joint winners.

About 3 years ago, a few months after moving to Bow, I too a walk along the canal to meet Karen and Muzo in Victoria Park. Whilst walking along I was slightly perplexed by the buildings across the canal, which seemed to be packed with hundreds of nubile young women (not that I'm complaining). Since then I've discovered that these are the accommodation village for Queen Mary University.

I went to Uni in Warwick, where most of the accommodation lives and breathes sensible in bucketloads. Queen Mary's halls are refreshingly original, bright and welcoming and, I would guess, manage to avoid the Peckham trap: creating a futuristic architectural utopia at the expense of incubating crime and ill-feeling.

I can't be complementary enough about the buildings - interesting self-consistent, harmonious materials, colours and shapes. Little quirky features (such as the bar joining both halves of the turquoize one) which seem to serve no practical purpose, but add interest all the same.

They're wonderful. I'll try and find out who the architect is. On the off chance that someone would want to visit them, they are here.

Pan's people*

*May in fact be a 'tower', not a 'people'

As I was saying, I now have a bike-lock, so leaving the bike unattended holds no fear for me! (well, a lot less than before. I thought I'd got a good bike-lock; a Factor 8 no less. But I've since discovered the factors go up to 15. Slightly more comforting is that I am a medium when it comes to bike helmet sizes. I think head size is one area in life where being average is distinctly better than being at the big or the small end.)

Previous to today my entrance to Canary Wharf has either been via the DLR station or the cavernous tube station. Some of these occasions have been fairly recently (I sometimes meet Keith to go to the cinema at East India Quay as it's roughly halfway between us. Exactlty halfway would probably be Poplar, which it's probably best to avoid, what with being pushed in front of trains). But not once during these visits have I seen the messiness that lies just behind the wall of tall buildings.

One of the main culprits as far as unitidiness goes is the new Pan Peninsula Tower, high-rise luxury living with - the placards drum this into you - it's own cinema, holistic health spa, cocktail lounge and signature restaurant (Could that be a world first - I've heard of a signature tune, and even a signature dish, but not a signature restaurant. does this mean they will also have many other restaurants which will be forced to be mediocre and forgettable in order to guarantee the signature status of the waterside restaurant?).

It's actually a pair of towers (as evidenced by the following photo), so god knows why they call it a Tower. Interestingly, there was some work going on at the weekend, unlike the new city-scrapers. I took a short video of the lift going up and down to prove it, but can't be bothered uploading it... but you'll believe me, won't you.

I'm not sure how much living is done in docklands. I've known one or two people who've lived there or there abouts over the past few years, and the complaint is always the same - that there's never anything to do, particularly at the weekend. The way I see it, it doesn't matter how luxurious the flat is if getting there after a night out means a long taxi ride. Maybe there will start to be a culture change in the area, with it becoming a rich man's playground, rather than just a rich man's office. The closest to a club they have in docklands at present is a hotel 'club and restaurant,' and I can't help thinking the area will need to become a lot more vibrant before it can attract clientele who could probably easily afford a comparable flat closer to the west end.

See what I did there - undermined years of market research.

2 signs to finish off. The first is a spelling mistake (see if you can spot it) which is funny simply because of the general rule: the bigger the font a spelling mistake is printed in, the funnier it is. That's the rule!!

(At work today a job description and advert for a new job was sent round all the staff and contained more hilarity than its font-size alone merited:

Duties will include liaising with internal staff, dairy management and producing error free documentation.

Talk about falling on your own sword.)

The second sign is below, from a different building project, but worthy of mention. It makes me think of the swimming pool docu-soap in The Day Today, with Stephen Coogan saying "In 1976 no-one died, ...". Can't help wondering what the last reportable accident was. Decapitated scaffolder?

Also , I notice they stopped counting last August. This could mean one of 2 things:

1. Construction workers have been dying every month since then, and they don't want to blight their record by taking them into account.
2. Nobody's done any work since August.

My money's on 2.

From Portobello to docklands

Some people will have been reading this blog feeling distinctly miffed. I do of course refer to those who live outside the City of London, by which I mean 'the square mile' which constitutes the old city, now the financial district. Only around 9,200 people live in the City, represented on the council by the 'Chief Commoner'. The population was 208,000 in 1700, but dropped steadily until reaching a minimum of 4,234 in 1971. The population roughly halved in the second world war! Anyway, this means most people in Lonon don't live in the City, and therefore qualify for a good miffery due to my ignoring where they live.

It's true that I have focused almost exclusively on the City, being that I live pretty close to it (25mins walk) but, for a couple of completely distinct reasons, I have branched out this week.

Since last March, when I took part in Shoot Shoreditch, organised by bunch-of-wankers-with-a-really-good-idea Shoot Experience (so good they're now doing overseas franchises), I have been on their mailing list, which lets me know of upcoming photographic treasurehunts. There was a free one in Portobello this weekend, and as Laura lives near there I thought we could do it... and we did. The photo at the top of this post (Island Records graffiti) is my favourite out of the entries we submitted, but the one relevant to the london skyline theme of this blog is Trellick Tower (right).

It's 98m tall, so is just below the arbitrary threshold I set for inclusion in the blog, but what the hell - it's distinctive enough to make the grade I think. Skyscrapernews, ever a source of interesting facts, reveals that 'the walkways between the service shaft and main tower every two floors are based on the dimensions of train carriages to make the users of them feel more comfortable and familiar with their surroundings.' Brilliant rationale, and thoroughly needed as I doubt many people in the seventies would have had much experience of walking down corridors by themselves, what with schools, hospitals and office buildings of any type not having being invented yet. And being in a train hundreds of feet up in the air would have been a completely normal, everyday sort of experience.

As illustrated by the strategic placement of a 'woof!' in the photo, a possible further inspiration could be a dog. In particular, Odie from Garfield. The resemblance, I think you'll agree, is really quite striking.

Also, I was about to suggest that the tower's architect Erno Goldfinger (a friend of Ian Fleming's, and the inspiration for the Bond villain) may have stood in the Docklands area all those years ago, peering out to the South West, and seen the buildings to the left, and thought they'd look good rolled into one. But, as it turns out, Guy's hospital (the one on the right) at least, was built after Trellick Tower.

It wasn't a good theory anyway.

The second reason for the diversification of the geographical areas covered by the blog is that I have now bought a bike-lock, so when cycling down to Docklands I can leave the bike and wander around on foot to examine how construction is progressing.

More on that later.