I've recently started volunteering with this group in S London. It's a welcome antidote for anyone despairing at the state of the world. It's a small gesture but if it means one more dragonfly cruising though Catford next summer I think that's a worthwhile outcome!
www.instagram.com/p/DQpZAtBjTx...
#Chester cont... there are also upper level arcades with shops on the principal streets, which follow the lines of the crossroads of the Roman castrum or fort. The centre has a strongly medieval character although many of the structures are 19C Victorian
#Chester Beautiful promenades on the city walls & beside the River Dee. As a Londoner, used to a sprawling urban landscape, I appreciate a place with a clear definition between town & country.
Unfortunately Chester's post-war road 'improvements' & unpleasant pedestrian underpasses create barriers
I'm sceptical!
I've just volunteered to help with maintenance and the promotion of biodiversity in small local rivers in the London Borough of Lewisham where I live. I'm looking forward to doing something concrete about the problem. Unfortunately they're too shallow to swim in, for people at least!
Recently I visited Henley on Thames where I swam as a youngster - it's no longer considered safe due to sewage discharge. I think that there is widespread anger at the state of UK waters and profiteering by water companies. I hope that politicians are now sufficiently aware of this to take action.
Thanks Simon. I now tend to tell a story (or, in this case, a city) just through details. I really enjoy this approach to photography.
I'm finding it difficult to articulate my reservations about Scarpa's work: being outside the realms of general practice is an observation, not necessarily a criticism. I have admiration for the rich materiality of his details but can the sublime be better achieved with less?
Scarpa is exceptional!
By overwrought I mean that in his attention to individual detail Scarpa stands outside the general approach to architecture of, say, the last 100yrs. His approach to practice is dependent on skilled craftspeople, relaxed clients, historic building authorities & contractual arrangements...
Your photos of Verona are terrific Bruno. The light at this time of year can be incredible (at least when it's not raining!).
What's your assessment of Scarpa's work? I imagine that you've visited on a few occasions? I'm still an admirer: great invention and beauty but also an overwrought quality
Early morning. A small group of bathers standing in a calm sea next to a pebble beach
This small group of early-morning bathers congregated on the beach at Deal in Kent but instead of swimming they just stood in the water. I later realised that this was because the water quality is so poor, due to sewage discharge, that swimming could make them unwell.
What a shameful situation
Beautiful job!
Are there any horses or cattle around to enjoy that lovely looking water in the trough?!
The central, false, street. Scene of Teatro Olimpico, Vicenza. Andrea Palladio, Vincenzo Scamozzi
Vicenza I 2024
Ode to the Grid.
An office building as a glulam-frame addition to the existing fabric of a manufacturing site.
Some others from the past
(Forest Hill urban renewal, as Discourse Architecture)
Helpful!
I came across these splendid sphinxes in an unfamiliar corner of a local park. They're a remnant of the Crystal Palace, which burned down in 1936, having been moved there from Hyde Park, the site of the Great Exhibition in 1851 #crystalpalace #london #history #parks #egypt #sculpture.
Photo of Crystal Palace Park with two red-painted concrete(?) sphinxes flanking a wide flight of stone steps. The plinth is overgrown with ivy. In the background is a tall communications mast, tapering, with a gently curved profile to the apex
The current state of UK housing supply is clear in this image. Because house builders develop one field at a time and because no one is actually planning where and how housing happens, it ends up like this, fenced off, oblivious to its surroundings and without any sense of what comes next.
Is there still a place for dreams in the world of Trump, Musk, Farage, Bezos, Orban, Le Pen, Putin, Meloni?
We still dream of social housing as a possible reality, even here in Italy.
@municipaldreams.bsky.social
If you visit try to take a look at the incredible Victorian subway for first class rail passengers visiting the Crystal Palace. Unfortunately not always open to the public www.crystalpalaceparktrust.org/pages/how-to...
Autumn scene with figure of concrete dinosaur
Autumn scene with water channel and concrete dinosaurs
Cement dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures at Crystal Palace Park, London completed in 1854 to complement the relocated Great Exhibition of 1851. London has been dank and misty over Christmas - weather which shows them to advantage! The models are inaccurate but represent 19C understanding
In the US and the UK, two of the countries with the highest levels of income inequality (www.nature.com/articles/d41...), homelessness has grown last year by over 18% and
and 14% respectively. Shocking figures!
www.yahoo.com/news/u-saw-1... and www.theguardian.com/society/2024...
What a beautiful place. The palette of stone colours revealed by the rain is gorgeous
Today Guardian and Observer journalists are on strike over plans to sell the Observer to a loss-making digital start up and put its journalism behind a paywall. 🧵
How can you support us?
SHARE our posts
WRITE to guardian.readers@theguardian.com
JOIN US - there's cake!
Eduardo Paolozzi's enigmatically titled 'A maximis ad minima' (from the greatest to the least), 1998, looking good in Kew Gardens despite the cold & wet. I like his characteristic aggregation of figurative and abstract elements. He credits his assistants and students at the RCA who cast the bronze
This is the way. Curbless equals accessible.
'Frank Auerbach: Portraits of London' at Offer Waterman Gallery.
This show was a revelation - these paintings are the best thing that I've seen for a long time. In fact since I saw the exhibition of his portraits at the Cortauld!
Each painting has a very different character and colour palette
Thanks - do you point it?
In Granada I saw black and white river pebbles, apparently each colour came from a different local river.
I love this paving - such a rich material effect, simple and sustainable too! I assume that this is a local traditional paving system?
