Big buildings are an essential part of city
life, but now the fashion is to make them as inconspicuous as po
ssible. Here
are a couple of examples from Sant Joan Despí, a suburb of Barcelona. (En inglés ‘suburb’ significa ‘afueras’, y no
tiene el sentido despectivo del ‘suburbio’ español.)
Los grandes edificios son un elemento imprescindible de la vida urbana, y la moda actual es de hacerlos lo menos conspicuos posible. Aquí un par de ejemplos de Sant Joan Despí, en las afueras de Barcelona.
On the other hand, architecture in Britain
has stagnated and the fear of the modern is very evident. My home town of
Crosby on Merseyside had a stately red-brick Edwardian pile called Alexandra
Hall, which was the Town Hall of Crosby UDC when it existed as a separate authority.
Later it was used as a functions hall until it was decided that the site could
be redeveloped as luxury flats, which is what has happened. But is this an opportunity
to provide the town with good modern architecture? Not on
your life! The basic
intention was to retain the imposing character of the original red-brick
structure by erecting a hideous, derivative monstrosity of the kind that can be
seen absolutely anywhere in England – new pretending to be old. Need I add that
Crosby has more than its fair share of Mock Tudor?
Por otra parte, en Inglaterra la arquitectura se ha estancado, y los edificios nuevos carecen de innovación arquitectónica. La modernidad es demasiado atrevida y arriesgada, y prefieren apostar por un continuismo con los estilos y materiales del pasado hecho según las normas actuales de construction. Este inmueble de viviendas conserva, hasta en las curvas de la parte alta de la fachada, la forma del antiguo ayuntamiento del pueblo que remplaza – pero no lo es, es una copia, y es un espanto del punto de vista estético.
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