Manchester - Carbuncle City !
A
few years ago the Prince of Wales coined
the phrase "a carbuncle" to describe one example of horrendous
modern architecture tacked onto a classically old and attractive building,
like a monstrous disease. Despite the Prince's warnings and appeals for
sense the "carbuncle" disease is spreading far and wide - now
it's infecting whole cities.
I welcome you to Manchester - Carbuncle City!
For the last decade, at least since the IRA bombing of the city in 1996, although you could say longer bearing in mind the much older and impressively ugly Arndale Shopping Centre (Europe's Largest Toilet Wall), which the IRA blew up, Manchester has been rebuilt in the "Carbuncle Style". Modernist, "post-industrial" architects and planners have outbid each other in their attempts to create even more wildly, impressively nasty places to visit, shop in, live or work in.
This is not just a private plan by huge corporate concerns to throw up more and more bland ugly, boxes, the public sector has thrown its own huge budgets into the city with gay enthusiasm.
Like the planners of the post-World War Two era, gouging out centuries of accumulated architecture and history, modern design fashion is rewriting the hearts and souls of our urban communities, and Manchester is being killed by the chill new style of design.
Key words: Manchester, Urban Architecture, Carbuncle City, post-industrial, World Trade Centre disaster, 9/11, Affordable Housing, Hurricane Katrina / New Orleans, traffic congestion, greenhouse effect, atmospheric warming, mini-ice age, home flooding
B
of the Bang
You want 180 foot of steel pipes? Only £1,420,000? Easy!
Welcome to "B of the Bang"!
Let's get something straight from the start. If it was your choice
to invest over a million pounds in local business, industry, income,
prosperity and long term employment for the city community, OR a huge
pile of steel pipes that will sit there for a few decades (before they
rust, there's a "national outcry" and they decide to tear it
down), which would you choose?
Now, guess what "THEY" chose. [NEWS
Link]
Up-date - Summer 2005: It's only been up a year and bits are already falling off it. [NEWS Link]
Even More Up-date - Winter 2008: Finally some sense prevails and it's been decided by the "powers-that-be" to remove this spikey carbuncle from dropping on any innocent by-standers. [News Link]
So that's another few tens of thousands to remove it safely. Now imagine if all the money had gone into nurturing new business, new community activities, into new enterprise for a healthier economy...
