Preston Bus Station... Is It Worth Keeping?

[SPECIAL LOCATION]

OK...

So sometimes you just need to remove your brain from electrical things...

and thoughts of work....

So I've been hearing on the News today that Preston Bus Station is now going to be listed...

MUST be important cuz it was on radio 4...

So is it worth keeping....

Any forumite actually been there who can offer first hand knowledge?????

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preston_bus_station

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lancashire-24202923

http://www.dezeen.com/2013/09/23/preston-bus-station-protected-from-demolition/

Gosh.......

is that so un-electrically related or what....

p.s. NOTE FOR DEKE & BRIAN...

If you want to know what a Bus Station is ..

think something like DIGBETH coach station

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birmingham_Coach_Station

 

[steptoe]

dunno, never been there, but I am pretty sure we have a forumite close by,

his corner shop is here  !!!!

 

[kerching]

It looks like a giant ash tray......drop it

( its not that far from CPC.....)

just saying

 

[Technician]

 I think it should be kept because this is where

Country & Western music started in Britain.

:innocent

 

[wozz]

Looks impressive. 

Can it be used for anything else? 

 

[Technician]

How about a toast rack, Wozz?

 

[wozz]

Well we have a cheese grater and walkie talkie in London. 

 

[kerching]

 I think it should be kept because this is where

Country & Western music started in Britain.

:innocent

Thats another reason for dropping it then!

just passing.......

 

[Manator]

The building is an eyesore, but for some reason some people think old is worth saving.

 

[kerching]

Perhaps they should turn it into another CPC ?

It would make the parking a fricking nightmare

The building is an eyesore, but for some reason some people think old is worth saving.

Bruce Forsyth

 

[Technician]

On a more serious note...One of the OP hyperlinks took me to

the "Brutalist Architecture" site.  Many thanks to SL.

Poured concrete (reinforced or no) is now recognised as one of

the worst materials for modern construction.  Difficult to recycle

and demolish.  A lot of buildings thrown up in the 60's and 70's

cannot be re-used for any other function, and the taller ones are

only there because they serve as mounts for expensive transmission

systems for mobile phones, telemetry and the like.

I wonder if, when the penny dropped about the costs of disposal, a

decision was collectively made to have it labelled as a "historic relic

of architectural significance."

I think pretty much the same thing happened to the Tricorn development

in Portsmouth.  I was living there and heard the rampaging arguments

about how ugly it was and what might replace it.  Demolition took nine

months.

 

[Evans Electric]

I wonder what they mean by  " Getting it up to modern standards"    Whats  wrong with it  I wonder ?

Politicians find all sorts of excuses to get rid of a listed building .   I'd done some work on Birmingham's General Hospital ,  Victorian brickwork , solid, walls up to 2 ft thick at the lower levels , had to get the Diamond Drilling Co. in to drill it for some 4 x 4 trunking .  

Then suddenly it didn't fit in with the City's plans and a spokesman announced that it was " falling down about our ears ...a crumbling ediface , not fit for purpose"  

This was said about 30 years ago..... The General Hosp. is now at the Queen Elizabeth site ...and the old General is now The Princess Diana Children's Hospital and amazingly, 30 yrs on,  is still standing .    

   I think he got mixed up with the  blocks of high rise flats built by the council in the 1960's   which were indeed  " Falling down about their ears... were crumbling edifaces...and definitely not fit for pupose"      and all but a very few have now been demolished .   

 

[Technician]

My reading of the "architecture" in this country is the tragedy of

a lot of people being told what was good for them by a bunch of

architects who were "inspired" by "greater minds.  Minds like

Le Corbusier  (who did not like children) and Frank Lloyd Wright

whose designs, while mostly American, should have been left in

the places where they had their first gestations.

The construction of the "tower blocks" of the 60's & 70's was done

on the cheap, on borrowed money and when the great social

experiment failed, they were demolished before they were paid for.

I have books that should be on EVERY town country planning library

that feature buildings we have lost because the individual councils

had NO, I repeat, NO vision.

We have the World Heritage Site of Saltaire.  Had Mr John Silver

not bought it, the council would have flattened the lot and then

thrown up.....Heaven knows what.  Probably a shopping mall with

match funding from a major supermarket chain with ONE agenda;

increase of market share.

As Evans has outlined, our lives are blighted by characterless,

visionless idiots claiming to be highly qualified in the art & science

of telling us how we should be living, instead of an integration of

our lives into what we grow with, work within, and then learn to

look upon with nostalgia.

 

[Evans Electric]

Councils !...............councils !.....don't talk to me about councils!!!!!    

You can see beautiful old buildings still in daily use in places like Lichfield, Shrewsbury, Chester etc  ..... There is ONE , yes ONE  13th century building left in Birmingham ,   The Old Crown in Digbeth.      Admittedly  there was extensive bombing during WW2 but the planners finished the job . 

I'll find a pic of a building which once stood near where we live , it was purchased by the city council and demolished .   Pic to follow ....  you can't believe such corporate vandalism .    Found the pic .

And once they've gone you can never replace them .     If the Pyramids had been in Birmingham they'd  have flattened them and built flats in their place.          Could 've been filming Downton Abbey there .

 

[Technician]

In the fashionable motorsport magazines of the 1960's when

the trendies were drooling over Jensens and Lagondas, one

of the things that was discussed in articles in learned and

diverse tones concerning engines was "squish". Que???

It was also mooted that Birmingham might be the location of

the next Grand Prix in Britain held regularly to celebrate the

victory of the motor car over the population who lived within

the city.

Quite a place Evans.....looks like an amalgamation of Dutch

styling with the Palladian style in Britain.  Would I be right?

And....taken with a pinhole camera, or a bellows type(?)

 

[Evans Electric]

Not an expert in architecture Tech  so can't answer that  .  As to the camera , I can only say that it wasn't on a mobile phone.

 

[SPECIAL LOCATION]

Dont be modest Deke...

thats a photo of your house....

with the Mk1 version of thunderbird4 just been loaded up to start wiring up one of the presses down at your printers you have been maintaining since the 1800's!!!

Of course this was when a one horse-power engine WAS one horse power!!

(did Step's know you used to borrow Hercules in his younger days?)

opcorn

 

[Technician]

The National Trust had been formed in 1895.  This sort of architectural

vandalism, as practised by Birmingham Council, would never be allowed

now.  But....sometimes I wonder.

 

[Technician]

Me? an expert in architecture?  Hardly.

But learning how to read a building is

a fascinating and ongoing study.

 

[Evans Electric]

According to the text on the pic of Perry Hall  it was a toss up between Aston Hall  & Perry Hall........this is Aston Hall and the candlelight tour in  winter is well worth a visit.

Dont be modest Deke...

thats a photo of your house....

with the Mk1 version of thunderbird4 just been loaded up to start wiring up one of the presses down at your printers you have been maintaining since the 1800's!!!

Of course this was when a one horse-power engine WAS one horse power!!

(did Step's know you used to borrow Hercules in his younger days?)

opcorn

You got me sussed Specs ... and   yes  that is Thunderbird 1 but not Hercules ...thats Trigger !!