John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY SIMON JENKINS IN THE GUARDIAN
"Skyscrapers wreck cities – yet still Britain builds them"
I cannot agree with that as general statement. There is great beauty in some skyscraper skylines. Readers should see some of the images collected here:
https://chuckmanchicagonostalgia.wordpress.com/
However, I do agree that London in particular has done a terrible job in building its new skyline, and I’m sure that would influence your view.
I wonder, is it old village-common attitudes - which I find very agreeable where they suit - that somehow contaminate the thinking and efforts of those involved in London's last twenty years or so of building? Kind of a, “Oh, well, who cares, it will be crap anyway” subtext?
London truly has put together a collection of new buildings that could be billed as a Madame Tussaud's Chamber of Horrors in Architecture.
Everything I can think of from the security services building on the Thames (American suburban sprawl shopping-center architecture plunked into a prime urban location) to Tony Blair’s hideous punctured balloon called Millennium Dome, from the Gherkin or Dildo (either suits) to the skewed tower that looks like something built for the Smurfs – just ghastly, all of it with no sense of coherence to boot.
Yes, that kind of thing does ruin a city.
