please empty your brain below

four acres long
sorry, does not compute
I always thought Rowley Way looked dystopian and forbidding - and yes, from the railway side, it still does. Thank you DG for shining a light on its sunnier aspect. I'm glad to see it's thriving.
Denis Lasdun, Sir Basil Spence and Erno Goldfinger - sounds like Prince Charles's hate list of architects. However DG has once again shown how we can look at them differently and a lot of them are much loved by people who work in and live in them. I remember studying for my exams at Swiss Cottage Library. It used to go together well with the swimming pool but that has now gone.
Alexandra Road: nice one, DG. I went there years ago with a fellow architect and we had a beer can thrown at us by a drunk Irish woman just our of Holloway. But that dd not detract from the marvellousness of it; it's always been one of my favourite London developments. There was a small but interesting exhibition of original drawings at Holborn Library last year.
when I saw the first photo I thought it was the Brunswick Centre, two rows of very similar flats but with a 70s shopping centre between them. it's just east of Russell Square. became very run down but was revitalised a few years ago.
I thought I'd give a little report on some of what I did for Open House in case anybody is interested:

Lloyd's (formerly "of London", now just "Lloyd's") have a rather wonderful building to explore, notable both for its striking architecture and wealth of history. The queue was enormous, but moved very quickly indeed. I'd estimate I was in a queue 100m long but it took only half an hour to reach the front, as they let people in pretty much as fast as they can search bags. Once in, you are free to wander select parts of the building at your leisure, including riding the glass lifts up to the top for some fantastic views.

Lloyd's top tip: don't be put off by the size of the queue!

I also went up the Distillery Tower, which is right next to Deptford Bridge DLR and is the 4th tallest building in South London (after the Shard, St George Wharf Tower and Strata Tower). From the resident's observation level at the top, you have stunning views of Greenwich and the Isle of Dogs, and you would have stunning views of the central London skyline if the windows in the observation level faced that way (you can just about see the London Eye if you lean right up against one of the windows). The Open House brochure said tours on the hour, 20 people at a time, so I was expecting a long wait. What they actually did was limit it to 20 people at the top, but as soon as anybody left, they'd let more people up, and most people only stayed up at the top for 5 or 10 minutes.
Being a semi-regular ceilidh attendee, Cecil Sharp House is a fantastic venue, although it does get a trifle hot when the ceilidh is in full swing (as it should - what with that many folk dancing so much).

For those who haven't been inside, the mural that DG speaks of is something to wonder at, and definitely a bonus to a good dance.

My stepdad before he met my mother had a flat on the Rowley Way estate, I only went there once and that was enough for me
Make sure you follow the link and watch the Rowley Way documentary: it's fascinating.
You do like Brutalism, don't you?

Personally I think it serves chiefly as a dire warning to architects of today: when designing a building, always put near the front of your list of concerns what the building is likely to look like in fifty years' time.
I think the tempered Brutalist of the Physicians building is very pleasing.
Rowley Way - Definitely looks better from the front than from a train!










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