... and not necessarily in A-Z format :ouch:! ;)

Well, the one I'm totally puzzled about is this:

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02039/orbit_2039842b.jpg

London 2012 Olympics: UK's tallest sculpture completed on Olympic Park - Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/olympics/8855623/London-2012-Olympics-UKs-tallest-sculpture-completed-on-Olympic-Park.html)

is it beautiful? Innovative? Cutting edge engineering? A phenomenon like the Eiffel Tower no-one liked at first?

It looks like leftover bits from somewhere.

"Stick them over there".

And they messed up by making it a staircase on the way down.

Turn it into a massive slide and they'll make a fortune as all the kids (big ones, of course ;) ) pay to get the lift up, grab a beer, then go "WHEEEEEEEE" all the way down again!

i thought it was a roller coaster closed up for shipment.

It's an inelegant mess, justified by a bunch of poncy, emperor's-clothes PR 'art' twaddle designed to make people think they're looking at something other than a chaotic and ugly heap of scrap metal.

And that's from someone who thinks the Olympic Games were a good thing.

Should have been rejected from the outset, in favour of something a lot more graceful. At least the Eiffel Tower has an air of majesty about it.

agreed Hellsbrink. when I first saw it I thought it was in fact some sort of giant mutant helter skelter. I was very disappointed to find out that it wasn't cos I would have loved to have had a go on it!

Looks like Tuco Ramirez to me.

Beautiful? NO. Cutting edge engineering? NO. A phenomenon like the Eiffel Tower? NO. Just my opinions, though I suspect that many others share them.

As an exercise in steel fabrication and erection, it's quite well done, but I would never describe it as art, in the normally accepted sense.

The Atomium in Brussels, built in 1958, is a more visually pleasing construction I feel.

Atomium - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomium)

But for sheer innovation, daring and artistic quality, the Colossus of Rhodes built 2300 years ago, wins hands down for me. That huge statue rightfully became one of the Seven Wonders of the World, and was built without the modern convenience of tower cranes, welding, or computer aided structural analysis. Yet it stood for years until felled by an earthquake, and its ruins survived for another 800 years.

Colossus of Rhodes - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossus_of_Rhodes)

Jazz, Couldn't agree more.
Hopefully it will be demolished on completion of the games to avoid years of embarrssment?

Could it be moved, by public subscription, to the gates of Kensington Palace Gardens?

It's so bad it's almost offensive.:(

The brown pylon in Paris has at least some style, borrowed no doubt from the Blackpool pylon.

Challenging art is good and should provoke arguments for and agin. However, I can't find any passionate debate about this carbuncle either like or dislike.

If it's part of the legacy of the Games..........

SGC

Battersea Power Station at full bore on a dark and rainy night in bomb damaged London.

To design anything pleasing is anathema to today's architects. Unless their work is deemed controversial, they feel they are failures.

I learn for the first time it's "artistic" because frankly up to now I thought LOCOG ran out of money and couldn't afford to demolish a derelict electricity pylon that happened to be near the stadium.

Seriously, wasn't Anish Kapoor the artistically endowed gentleman who defaced the beautiful Basilica di San Giorgio in Venice in 2011 with a column of smoke, at the Bienniale ? which according to one report "looked like a wisp of steam rising from a pot of pasta" and which cost...aaaargh.

Like many on here I thought it was a helter skelter. Most dissapointed to find out otherwise.

I think it was two or more straight pylons and somebody put them in the same box overnight - leaving them vulnerable to the Muddle Fairy.

It just goes to prove she can tangle big things as well as electrical wires.


One still remembers looking up from the spot under the Skylon. They don't make pointy things like that anymore.

Skylon's the limit for Festival of Britain rerun | Art and design | The Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2011/jan/19/festival-of-britain-anniversary-skylon)

Dr.Who probably has the answer

As a picture of two electricity pylons mating whilst on acid, I think it is rather good.
As anything else, it is pretentious crap.

This is something of a memorable building. I love it. Gaudi's Casa Batlló.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/41/Casabatllo2.jpg/360px-Casabatllo2.jpg

But Gaudi's work makes you want to touch it. That Olympic thing makes you want to tidy it up.

I bow to nobody in my admiration for Gaudi, however regarding the Sagrada Familiar it's now thought that it will be completed around 2028, and not to Gaudi's plans either. And will have the AVE/TGV running under it...

I suspect in years to come, we'll be quite fond of this structure.:uhoh:

Especially if they turn it into the Helter Skelter!!

That would excuse it...

we'll be quite fond of this structure

Scavengers will, once they nick it for scrap metal.

If it was a true tribute to the Olympic spirit, it would mean walking up the helter-skelter and taking the lift back down. ;)

Auto-correct tried to change helter- skelter into belter-shelter then, when I put it right, it changed it to heater-smelter. With originality like that, perhaps the iPad should be set on auto and displayed in Tate Modern?

It looks like someone forgot to order the external cladding in time to finish for the opening ceremony. Instead of being a nice looking observation platform, some pony tailed, coke snorting marketing type redefined it as an 'art' piece. Problem solved!

If they granted engineering degrees with the same ease that they grant architect degrees the planet would collapse...

It looks like someone forgot to order the external cladding in time to finish for the opening ceremony.

Why? They haven't finished Lloyd's yet. Funny if to get a job there, one had to wear their bowls on the outside.

Well, Gaudi... one certainly has to be a free spirit, and a proud one to start building like that. Adorable, though I've never been close enough to touch any of them. [sigh]

Neither to Hundertwasser's which is as fascinating.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ac/Quixote_winery.jpg (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ac/Quixote_winery.jpg)

File:Quixote winery.jpg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Quixote_winery.jpg)

P.S I mean you look at these and do not have the feeling that it's 'weird for weird's sake'?


.

Aahh, yes, Friedensreich Regentag Dunkelbunt Hundertwasser.

He used to lecture at uni naked. Look up his "Sacred Shit"

Hundertwasser actually made some sense. I certainly agreed with some of it. If you want weird look up Josef Beuys.

Went to an art show of his once. The friend with me mistook a fire extinguisher as a Josef Beuys piece of art.

this bridge is one of the only modern man made structures that would stand for over a millineum without maintainance http://bridgepros.com/photogallery/davefrieder/HELL%20GATE%20BRIDGE-1.jpg

and we can not forget this beautiful sculpture admired by students of statics everywhere:)
http://www.whereyesterdayslive.com/images/Image3.jpg

I suspect in years to come, we'll be quite fond of this structure.http://images.ibsrv.net/ibsrv/res/src:www.pprune.org/get/images/smilies/worry.gif


Well I already am, although I admit I appear to be in a minority here. I like the Shard and the Gherkin too, but I'm also pretty fond of the Royal Crescent, Bath. It's possible to like Coke and Chateauneuf du Pape (but preferably not mixed!)

The friend with me mistook a fire extinguisher as a Josef Beuys piece of art.

A Putzfrau working in the Damstädter Landesmuseum mistook a heap of rancid fat for some unwanted debris and cleaned it away and polished the floor where it had been. It was (past tense) a "sculpture" by Josef Beuys.

Where are you now that we need you ?

If they granted engineering degrees with the same ease that they grant architect degrees the planet would collapse...


Oooh, that's a bit contentious, mini ... :ooh: I quite like architects who aren't too up themselves, and don't consider their training lacks rigour.

As an engineer who had quite a lot to do with a certain prominent and controversial public building in London, I was required to deliver a lecture on its construction to undergrad architects at the Bartlett school. I spent a fair amount of time in preparing for this, and tried to present it in a manner I hoped would be interesting to them. I failed dismally in this aim, they listened politely enough, but there were no questions forthcoming at the end, and as it was approaching lunchtime they noisily decamped en masse to the refectory.

At the time, I was less than chuffed, but on reflection I felt that maybe they were not impressed by the very mixed public reactions to that building, and perhaps would not deliberately court controversy with their own future designs. Or it could be that I'm a lousy lecturer! ;)

As a visitor to a great number of Universities you can always tell when they let the architure department loose. The signs are bloody hopeless and the reception for the building is at the back of the the second floor, usually with some sort of pass card required to get in. :ugh::ugh:

Back in 1986, Building the New Factory for Morgan Marine in Llandybie holds some rather fraught memories for me mostly as the building was 31 foot tall and we only had a 30 foot ladder. :ooh:

Hasn't this been done before? The Tatlin Tower.

http://i1100.photobucket.com/albums/g412/RobJHP/df1f65dad1eafda53a343eec229cdfd9-or.jpg

Gaudi leaves me speechless. He is one of the few that can't be copied, no matter what version of AutoCad one is endowed with.

Signage? Don't start me on that one. Windy, you mentioned Morgan again. Is he still on the dark side?

The signs are bloody hopeless

Reminded of a sign near the Engineering Group at the office.

http://i294.photobucket.com/albums/mm107/APC11Fan/Planning.png

To design anything pleasing is anathema to today's architects. Unless their work is deemed controversial, they feel they are failures.
Believe it or not, the ArcelorMittal Orbit was designed by two guys, neither of whom studied Architecture. Anish Kapoor is an artist and sculptor, and Cecil Balmond is primarily a structural engineer and designer, though he started his own practice in 2010. He worked for Arup for many years, doing the structural engineering design for other architects such as Rem Koolhaas. Quote: "structure as conceptual rigour is architecture". You can't blame this one on RIBA (http://www.architecture.com/) ... :8

It is a common misconception that architects want to design buildings. Every furniture maker knows that an architect's sole aim in life is to design a chair that becomes known by his name. Gaudi (http://www.casabatllo.es/en/visit-us/information/gaudi-chairs-exhibition/) was no exception.:cool:

As a visitor to a great number of Universities you can always tell when they let the architure department loose. The signs are bloody hopeless and the reception for the building is at the back of the the second floor, usually with some sort of pass card required to get in.

I spent several years as a lecturer in an institution that inhabited Edwardian buildings. One wing was redeveloped, the design being done in house by the Architect Dept.

All but bloody impossible to find a room, what with atriums, meeting spaces, half floor levels... don't get me started....

Had one involved in my house build... he basically tried to delegate all resposibility to the builder while the build was ongoing.

Soon sorted that one out... nasty letter resulted in him earning his fees by being on site for all his tricky stuff... shadowed by my engineer...

Chancer.

PS, I have utmost respect for Sir Norman Foster et al, its just the journeymen and their arrogance I cant hack.

It is a common misconception that architects want to design buildings. Every furniture maker knows that an architect's sole aim in life is to design a chair that becomes known by his name. Gaudi (http://www.casabatllo.es/en/visit-us/information/gaudi-chairs-exhibition/) was no exception.:cool:
Don't get me started ... Eames knew what he was doing all right, but here's Mies van der Rohe in a cantilever chair he designed:

http://www.dailyicon.net/magazine/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/armchair04dailyicon.jpg

That design is a classic example of "just because you can, it don't mean you should" in my opinion. Structurally inefficient and hardly confidence-inspiring to sit on. He did design better chairs, to be fair.

Don't trust these chairs!

Was at a job interview and realised I was spending a lot of time leaning on the table (comes across as combative/ hostile, apparently) so decided to lean back in my chair to appear more relaxed.

Still remember my gaze travelling up the wall and across the ceiling as the chair also relaxed and left me flat on my back.

Had one for my site office and did not sit on it until I had jammed 2 bits of wood in at the back to act as legs.

I've always liked the way the Eames' took new materials, and designed efficient, practical chairs that made the most of the properties of the materials, almost incidentally turning out furniture that looked good.

:) Everything depends, bnt - I spent weeks looking for a (as in any) cantilever chair - for my little space used as B&B (breakfast self-served, though). Light, easy to clean, no dust etc. Perfect, actually, though I got one with wooden frame (looks better in my mind).

http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQ9AWJ1f2o7l6-SN01PW_Y4j5gIOZKKmCEivCLC35iLo4OIDXJoXg

That's a nice chair Probes. Looks comfortable, aesthetically pleasing and can be made from small section timber that might otherwise be wasted. The laminated cantilever frame is strong, and flexible enough to allow movement that lets the occupant feel comfortable.

since some departemental budget cuts this is my office chair 100% recycled...:}:}:}
http://www.lib.unc.edu/mss/exhibits/penalty/images/electric_chair.jpg

Very practical. At least you are to stay put until the job is finished! :E

PA, that's shocking!

Hate to be nice about Ikea but their POANG chair is the most comfortable I've ever sat in.

Windy, you mentioned Morgan again. Is he still on the dark side?
Dunno this is what I was on About. They used to make Watch buildings for the German border and for Northern Ireland at the time Morgan Marine (http://www.morgan-marine.com/index.html) It was the highest building with the biggest span we'd made while I was working for the company ;)

Windy, just a reminder. Morgan the Moon is now approaching Mars, powererd by Green Cheese. Long live Gaudi, and all the Morgans. Hi-res pics may follow.

max boyce morgan the moon 0001 - YouTube

How is the knitting/lacemaking going? The Clangers were knitted, were they not?

MORGAN THE MARS . This could be fun.

'Vault' - aka 'the Yellow Peril'...;)

http://www.jamesnixon.com/page24/files/yellow-peril.jpg

The Olympic Torch, London 2012.

http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQs406_zYoMhvqP6cPFejSXN6DjFqxmMPUYnmoneoBaxJN3lIXU

absolutely great in my mind - both the idea and how it worked and looked.

The Yellow Peril - didn't that cause some controversy
as did quite a few other pieces of "architecture" in Melbourne.

What about Federation Square ? Your thoughts ?

As a sometime visitor, I like the appearance of the Fed Square buildings, but when you go upstairs in the Potter Centre it gives quite a different feeling from the exterior & atrium.
The outside area fronting Flinders St. struck me as being a bit open and windswept, but it seems to be well-used, so maybe it's just my first impression - can't say I've spent much time there.

Going back to the thread title: The Great Wall of China.

What is it actually? Looks cheerful enough for sure - but that's because of the colour mostly, I guess?

I won't type it out but let you read it in Wiki.

It's called the Vault but it's nickname is The Yellow Peril.

The controversy was because it was a giant lump of yellow metal
put in our city square which is dull gray and no one liked it.
http://www.thecollectormm.com.au/private/CitySquare4.jpg


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vault_(sculpture)


As has been said above, kids used it for bike riding, skate boarding
and writing Graffiti all over it !

Aa. It's a sculpture! :\ Shame on me. I did think about the orange-peel inspired Opera House (allegedly) actually - and I seriously did -, but I thought it's a bus stop or something.

probes

"but I thought it's a bus stop or something. "

Gold, absolutely gold:O:ok:

Your response summed up exactly why people didn't like it.

It was too "abstract" for Melbourne even though we supposedly have
culture and are "arty farty", no one knew what it was.


Bus stop !:D

:O - well...

speaking of sculptures, a place I absolutely loved (and I swear the Danish hosts started darting sideways-looks at me when I told I'd like to go back and see them again)

http://www.visitvejle.com/nr/rdonlyres/7afa9204-dccc-4818-9846-aa6b2d79b398/0/toerskindgrusgravfolder2011gb.pdf

robust, concrete and steel, abstract, still somehow balanced and light. Makes you feel weird - you're looking at a huge composition which can't possibly float or swing... still it feels as if it could.

Very interesting. We have similar one's here but bigger
and of course multi coloured.

Will try to find a link but that will take a day so check back.

ok, but then the link and an explanation to the 'of course multi coloured', would you please! :)

You'll have to click on each or hold your mouse over the pictures
to see them better.

SCULPTURES TULLAMARINE FREEWAY - Google Search (http://www.google.com.au/search?q=SCULPTURES+TULLAMARINE+FREEWAY&hl=en&newwindow=1&safe=off&prmd=imvns&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=3OwpULjnNLGkiAeLpIGoCw&sqi=2&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAQ&biw=1319&bih=682)


SCULPTURES TULLAMARINE FREEWAY - Google Search (http://www.google.com.au/search?q=SCULPTURES+TULLAMARINE+FREEWAY&hl=en&newwindow=1&safe=off&prmd=imvns&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=3OwpULjnNLGkiAeLpIGoCw&sqi=2&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAQ&biw=1319&bih=682#hl=en&newwindow=1&safe=off&tbm=isch&sa=1&q=SCULPTURES+eastlink&oq=SCULPTURES+eastlink&gs_l=img.3...113439.114693.0.115371.8.8.0.0.0.0.302.2119.2-7j1.8.0...0.0...1c.OyurPYnW_iY&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.&fp=15da5c9faa900d9&biw=1319&bih=682)

The New Slough Bus Station

Gives added impetus to the old idea - "Come welcome bombs and fall on Slough"

Pic mandatory! The New Slough Bus Station


http://www.inbuilding.org/cfs-file.ashx/__key/communityserver-blogs-components-weblogfiles/00-00-00-00-43-2011-Nov/0763.Slough_2D00_Bus_2D00_Station_2D002D002D00_low_2D00_re.jpg

The Tullamarine-thingy looks quite impressive, btw?

Re Tullamarine, thanks, it beats driving down a boring concrete highway, that's for sure.


Your Slough bus station reminded me of a new roof they put on
a very old railway station in Melbourne

Can't seem to post pics so here are some links to a rage
of photos of the Wave Roof. It is actually quite good.


SPENCER STREET STATION ROOF - Google Search (http://www.google.com.au/search?q=SPENCER+STREET+STATION+ROOF&hl=en&newwindow=1&safe=off&prmd=imvns&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=BToqUMeROMTrmAWXsYHQCg&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAQ&biw=1385&bih=639#hl=en&newwindow=1&safe=off&tbm=isch&sa=1&q=SOUTHERN+CROSS+STATION+ROOF&oq=SOUTHERN+CROSS+STATION+ROOF&gs_l=img.3..0i24l2.148556.151249.0.151576.15.15.0.0.0.12.309.3573.2-14j1.15.0.eqrwrth..0.0...1.PkY7w3rR3q4&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.&fp=967170d0278e8823&biw=1385&bih=639)

I saw Slough bus station from the train about a month ago, and I like it quite a lot, it has a '60 feeling and is quite well balanced.