Quote:
Originally Posted by ShortNCuddlyAm
The decision to list it was silly, rather than the building - it may have been the first skyscraper in London, but it's an ugly monstrosity utterly out of keeping with it's environs.
Oh good grief. 
So are most people sticking to the topic just be perverse? 
I'm sure there are some art-type examples in the UK. Maybe not that silly, though...
OK, maybe not silly. Just downright stupid, ill thought-out and conceived by people who haven't a clue and too sodding arrogant to court the views of the people who will live in what they've designed. Not to mention poorly built and planned. Such as high rises intended for poorer families, built outside of the main city areas, with no local shops, and little to no public transport.
Um, how'd I get on this soap box?
Something like this, maybe: 
Actually, the English have a tradition of building silly buildings, if you count buildings whose main purpose is to be decorative and not much else as silly. Many country houses have a folly. And follies aren't even decorative, either... (sticking with my concrete theme, here) The Sway Concrete Tower, or Peterson's Folly (in Sway, Hampshire), built in the later 1800s:
Erm, I'll stop derailing the topic now  |
I was threatened with thread hijacking of my own experiment.
On topic - How about human silliness? In La Crosse we have a thirty foot statue of an Indian made by a white guy in the fifties because he just wanted to fart around with concrete molds. When it dried, he painted it in totally outrageous non-authentic colors and donated it to the city. (Silly Human Behavior #1) The city then put it up in the brand new Riverside Park that had just been made when a new levee was built for flood control. (SHB #2) Many years went by and the Indian started to fall apart. The son of the original maniac repaired it in the early eighties, repainting it in even more outrageously anachronistic colrs and the city let him put it back. (SHB # 3) The concrete did, in fact, do as concrete will and continued to deteriorate. Three years ago, the condition of the Indian had once again become a joke and the City Council was considering taking it down. The Ho Chunk Tribe (of one Hiawatha in earlier history) asked quite politely to have it removed, since it is, in fact, very insulting to them. Enter Grandson of Original Maniac. He got a petition drive going to save "Hiawatha" the concrete Indian, that had all of a sudden sprouted a name of "historical significance." (SHB #4) The council caved in when about thirty pot bellied and belligerent rednecks showed up at the meeting and loudly demanded that the "Historical Tribute to Hiawatha" be repaired and left int he park. (SHB #5 & #6). Grandson of Original Maniac then slaps some concrete on the Indian and repaints it. So, there it stands, one Butt Ugly Insult to Native Americans, now labelled as culturally significant by the City of La Crosse.