Comments on: On Photographing Facades

By: Jenny Lewis

Jenny Lewis — Fri, 11 Oct 2019 11:09:21 +0000

i saw the banksy boxed up and crated hanging from a crane from the back of the old Foundary i wobder if its heading to a gallery or to be stuck back on a new partment building or wework thats sure to be filling that space near old street soon.

By: Judith Haxton

Judith Haxton — Fri, 04 Oct 2019 23:46:55 +0000

This is happening in Montreal as well….sadly most people don’t care !!!
Judy

By: Sheila Crowson

Sheila Crowson — Fri, 04 Oct 2019 09:58:09 +0000

Not just London. Plans to leave just the frontage of Reading Gaol built in 1844 , famous for the incarceration of Oscar Wilde are afoot; it was a immortalised by Wilde’s poem The Ballad of Reading Gaol, which was written following his release from the prison in 1897 after he had served a two-year sentence for gross indecency. There must be alternative choices to keep it, rather than pulling it down to leave only the facade. Reading does not have much of its architectural history left. The jail will probably be pulled down for more flats and business premises, of which Reading already has a surfeit.

By: Jim McDermott

Jim McDermott — Fri, 04 Oct 2019 08:33:19 +0000

I agree with 99.8% of what you say, GA. But the only thing wrong with what they’re doing in Grosvenor Square is keeping the facade. Listed or not, that particular building has far too many Vietnam War-era associations. The site should be levelled and landscaped.

I hadn’t suspected the Duke of Westminster of having a sense of humour, by the way.

By: Bailey Jones

Bailey Jones — Fri, 04 Oct 2019 08:16:00 +0000

It looks really odd when the new building sticks out above the original front of the old building. Like it’s been stuck on by a child creating a townscape out of cut outs for a scrapbook collage

By: Richard

Richard — Fri, 04 Oct 2019 07:31:44 +0000

Hi GA

The creep is spreading to Zone 4 Suburbia: The Chestnuts Nursing Home in Wanstead was knocked down over a year ago and has had its Victorian facade kept in vertical limbo for most of year, delay unknown. Cranes now on site: 63, E11 2PR
The new build will dominate the old!!! I guess it was kept to match the next door nursing home!
Keep well!

By: Jill Wilson

Jill Wilson — Fri, 04 Oct 2019 06:15:28 +0000

How true! Your comment about how façadism reflects the dishonesty of our times is bang on, and the metaphor could also be extended to include the current craze for dishonest plastic surgery: an artificially ‘young’ face on a old body looks just as ridiculous as an old facade on a new building…