Architecture – Page 50 – Brian Micklethwait's New Blog

Battersea Power Station plus train window reflections

More and more, I have come to think of the reflections to be seen in windows as interesting things to photo, alongside the things you see through the windows.

Thus:

That’s Battersea Power Station and its crane cluster, photoed from a train, about to cross the river into Victoria, earlier in the month.

I know, it has the lights inside the train reflected in the window, and that is considered bad. But why is this a problem? I think it makes a rather interesting combination of sights.

I also like very much how the above photo also includes a small mention of the Shard, towards the bottom on the right:

My camera sees more than I do.

What the above sentence really means is that when I looked at the actual scene, when photoing it, I saw one thing, but when I look at the photo that I took, I see different things.

I now get to see more of that one scene. At the time I saw the scene, complete with its reflected lights, but then the train carried on moving and immediately showed me another scene, and another, and … . No wonder I didn’t see as much of the original scene.

Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog

Quota sunset

Reflected in a boring building. With cars next to it.

Well I like it:

Busy day.

I took it in the vicinity of the Walthamstow “wetlands” (i.e. reservoirs), last November.

Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog

Royal Albert and his Hall

Yes, here is the Royal Albert Hall, photoed by me this afternoon:

That photo was taken early this afternoon. I was there to hear GodDaughter2’s graduation recital in the Royal College of Music, which is just down the steps and across Prince Consort Road, south of the Albert Hall. After I had heard GD2 do her singing, superbly, and after I and all her many other friends and family present had celebrated afterwards with her, I started to make my way home.

Before leaving the vicinity of the College and the Albert Hall, I took more photos of the statue of Prince Albert that stands at the top of the steps, the other side of the Hall from the Albert Memorial. In the photo above, you can hardly see the Prince Albert statue. But later in the afternoon, the direction of the sunlight having altered, Albert was looking a lot better:

The Royal Albert Hall is looking particular fine just now, because scaffolding.

Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog

Covered scaffolding in sunshine

I love to photo the huge white, often plasticky, sheeting that they now seem always to cover scaffolding with. You get delightful shapes and patterns, due to the way that this covering sort of shrink wraps itself around the scaffolding, either because it does actually shrink, or because it is stretched when attached, or because of the wind blowing it around, in or out.

Thus:

When the sun shines through behind, you also get scaffolding shadows.

Thus:

I make a point of photoing scaffolding and its covering whenever the sun is being directly reflected of it towards me, very brightly, as is happening in the above photo top right. So I zoom in on such a spot. When I do that, the automatic light reaction of my camera darkens everything, including even the sky, overdoing things absurdly, and creates a whole different effect, nothing like what I am seeing. (Photography is light.)

Thus:

Plus, there is the added bonus that soon, all this will be gone, and instead there will be a building. This building will almost certainly be far duller than it looked while it was being constructed.

This particular building is just outside the 2 Chairmen pub, where I did my talk last night, and before which I took these photos,all within a few seconds of each other.

A BIT LATER: I just posted the above. Until I did, I was worried that these are stupid photos, not worth anyone else’s attention. But as soon as I stuck them up, and looked at them, in their blogged setting, so to speak, they looked to me very good.

Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog

Trust them – they’re architects

I did a Samizdata posting today about the architect Patrik Schumacher, and his opinion that cities ought to be more created by market choices, and less by planning, than is customary today.

So, London. Is it planned, or did it just happen?:

That looks like a fairly happening sort of place, to my eye.

I love those little splashes of colour, in the middle. Thank you Renzo Piano. Here’s a photo, of (someone else’s photo of) Renzo Piano, which I took way back in 2007:

I wouldn’t trust just any architect, merely because any architect is an architect. But I would trust Renzo Piano. The above colourful offices. The Shard.

Shame they didn’t allow this. A case of planning meaning preventing. Which is mostly what it does mean, I suspect.

Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog

The new Spurs stadium is nearly ready (and the views will be great)

Indeed:

I found that at the Spurs website. That’s how things are looking now, or at any rate pretty recently. From the sky.

Of greater interest to me is this:

Which I found here.

The black bit is a staircase, and a viewing platform:

… the views from the Tottenham Skywalk will be spectacular. The trek has five core stages which offer different vantage points and experiences for its visitors. The walk starts on the southern end of the western side of the stadium where the Skywalk ascent begins. Traveling up to Level 5, one continues on the external open walkway up towards the roof. This is a pretty wild concept. Supporters and visitors alike will be trudging up the outer facade, carabiners and all, where they will catch glimpses of the frenetic indoor pace of the stadium, while also viewing the vastness of greater London.

Carabiners? That means everyone roped together like mountain climbers. So, not just strolling up there, then. Even so, I just might give that a go. And I’ll be doing a lot more than “catch glimpses”, I can tell you. Here’s hoping cameras are allowed.

Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog

The new Tottenham Court Road tube exit – with cranes

The photos here were taken in nicer weather, by a much better photoer than me.

But my photo is better, because my photo has … cranes:

I have visited this place several times in the last few days, each time in the evening, each time attempting to buy a certain CD at nearby Foyles. Twice I was frustrated. First, because I misidentified the closing time of Foyles, on some obsolete website I think it must have been. Then, I forgot that yesterday was a bank holiday. Finally, today, I got my CD, and several other cheaper ones from their second-hand collection.

And, this evening, I finally got the photo I wanted of this tube exit, and its cranes. The key to it was: I had my camera ready to go when I stepped onto the escalator. And then when I wasn’t sure I had what I wanted, I went back down again, and up again. The trick was, taking the photo from near the bottom of the escalator, so that both cranes were included.

In addition to being willing sometimes to look like a perve, a photoer must also be willing sometimes to look like a prat.

Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog

Light on dark

A few hours ago, the Waterloo crane cluster was lit up by the evening sun, in front of dark clouds, an effect I love:

That was taken from the downstream Hungerford footbridge, just outside Embankment tube. Minutes after that it was chucking it down. And there was more thunder.

A fine night for the BBC to be showing King Lear.

I had already set the TV recorder.

Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog

So …

So I went to Foyle’s this evening, to buy this but got there too late, and then went food shopping in order to confer meaningfulness on an otherwise meaningless expedition. So then I was tired, but managed to write a posting for here, but then it turned into a Samizdata posting, which I will post tomorrow, or maybe not, because I always sleep on Samizdata postings nowadays, because that always makes them better, or not. So now it’s tomorrow morning and I have nothing for here, so here is a photo I took through the new entrance to Tottenham Court Road tube station:

I like that time of the evening, or the early morning come to that, when natural light and artificial light are in some balance.

Centre Point has had a total makeover and been turned into posh flats. But, it looks exactly as it always did.

Originally posted at Brian Micklethwait’s Old Blog

River walk

The plan was simple. Get out into the sunshine. Cross Vauxhall Bridge. Turn right and proceed along the south bank of the river, upstream. Check out what is happening on that side of the river, up to an including at Battersea Power Station. Then turn left, and proceed to Battersea Park Station. Take the train to Victoria. Do some shopping. Get home, knackered, and post one photo. Just one.

All of the above happened, and here is that one photo:

That’s Riverwalk, although why it’s called that, I do not know. Seems rather misleading. A building is not a walk. A walk is what I was doing.

It was the kind of weather where almost anything looks good in a photo. I was going to say: even Riverwalk. But as with every obtrusively new building in London that I start off not liking, I am getting used to this one, and may eventually even start liking it. I may even start liking its colour, if colour is the right word.

I had no great hopes for this walk, and that was one of the first photos I took, what with Riverwalk being on this side of the river. But the expedition turned out to be a lot more interesting than I expected. More to follow, maybe, I promise nothing.

Good night. Sleep well, I believe I will.