General Chat

you reside in? For me the City Hall in Southampton with its 'clock tower'. The first time I ever saw it many moons ago, I pictured a watch tower with armed guards at the top looking out. That image has never left me.

I have never seen that clock tower as ugly but will have to look again.

It has quite sentimental memories for me.

Dad used to take corn down to the mill at Southampton and,sometimes,if I was lucky,I could go with him. It meant getting up at some ungodly hour.

He told me, and may well have been lying,that the clock played hymns.

Those three cranes down by the water always remind me of prehistoric animal drinking.

I can see that clock tower from my bedroom window, and also hear the clock sometimes. I actually quite like looking at it, a bit like Sharron and her group of trees!!!!

Worse, in my opinion are all the glass monstrosities that keep appearing.!!

Sue

Does it play hymns?

At christmas, yes at one time it did chime to carols, so Sharron your Dad was not lying .!!! Not sure if it still does, but red green lights are put in the 'holes'.

Worse still is the new titanic museum, now that is really ugly, just plonked onto the end of the civic building. True the idea of looking like a ship is an innovative idea, but they way it has been done. Yuk.

:-D Sue :-D

Travelling west, I thought we were approaching a new supermarket and didn't think it looked any too appealing,especially where it was.

It was Poundbury.

The 3 year old, £345 million hospital that I have the misfortune to be a patient in, on a regular basis, just outside Derby.
The front facade is very nice. But get to the wards and it is atrocious. Look out of your ward window, and you see another three concrete walls, with the same outlook. And that is right up five floors.
There is not an aspect to look at anywhere, just concrete walls. Not even a blade of grass.
I was told, and I can quiter believe it, that the designer usually designs prisons.

No wonder I call it Cell Block H.

JUlia in Derbyshire

Julia,
:-D
Maybe they dont want the patients getting out of bed.!!

Sue.

Sue, perhaps that is why the windows don't open, either. LOLOL

JUlia in Derbyshire

Ugliest and most inappropriate building I have ever seen is the Train Station in Gijon, Northern Spain. Poured concrete. Hitlers bunker would have been prettier and all this in a square full of classic Art Deco buildings.

Some architects should just be put on camera to explain the "merits" of the trash that they create.

Lucky to have a window to look out of.When my dad was in the new St Richard's at Chichester I did not visit him as often as I could because I am claustrophobic.

One little window at the end of his ward on a side wall

I am actually frightened of having to be apatient there.

Cairo has the pyramids, sphinx, mosques and many wonderful historic monuments and buildings.......and, sadly, an unholy number of the ugliest buildings you ever did see in your whole life!
I cannot name THE ugliest, there are too many of them found lodged in between beautiful architectural works. They are built of poured concrete and remain that drab grey concrete colour as they never get painted...the pollution doesn't do them any favours either. :-)
Karen

Sharron, not all the rooms/wards have windows. And, there is only one toilet in
A & E for patients and prisoners alike.
In the main reception, the Ladies has only three cubicles, and the OH tells me the Gents is no better.

Julia in Derbyshire

The guildhall in Southampton looked nicer with the rose garden - that used to be where the car park is now,.
The whole 'set up' was award winning in it's time.

The new museum is just a monstrosity - whoever heard of a maritime museum in the middle of a city - especially a city with unused areas of old, historic dockland!!

Highgove House near Tetbury

Highgrove House was designed by architect Anthony Kack in 1796. A most distasteful building architecturally, it has been lived in by two gentlemen of no taste whatsoever in recent years - Maurice MacMilllan (son of SuperMac) and Charles Windsor, Esquire :-P

Ok :-D

Was having a dig at architectural pretensions of a posh boy.

A building that always makes me shudder is Maesteg Comprehensive School (Bridgend County). Looks like a prison high above town.

Locals tell me it is an excellent school ;-)

John, I find your last two posts particularly offensive. This thread is about buildings, not the people who live in them.
However, I will not give you the pleasure of being RR'd by me.

Julia in Derbyshire

A new Tesco has opened near me and it has to be the ugliest building in christendom. Its only saving grace is the fact that an artist has created some wonderful work to surround it but the building itself looks like something that has been dragged out of the seventies. That must be where some of the staff get their customer service skills from.

The ugliest buildings in London England.
Personal view,

1. Besier Appartments in Old Street London. Described as " gigantic pair of Buttucks"
2. Blue fin Building on Bankside. Described as " no architectural qualities what so ever. staggeringly bad'

I will try to add others in different places.

Does anybody remember Finefare? The local one was known as the Rubiks cube and reputedly was used by helicopter pilots for navigation because it was so garish. It is now a car park