Monday, November 14, 2011

Helping Architects

Here's a job for youse. How hard can it be? Riddled will, of course be in charge of financial matters under the name "Bona Buildings"

18 comments:

wiley said...

How cool does it get? I considered studying art history with a concentration in restoration, then switched to studio art after having a dream featuring work that was mine that I hadn't done yet and one of my art history professors "explaining" the work all wrong while getting in my face, pushing me backward, and talking like 19th century German art theory through a tin horn until "my back was against the wall." When I hit the wall, it dissolved and I fell off a cliff, woke up, and decided to change my major that day---it's not like I was a Deb with a daddy who would buy me an art gallery; and if my experience was any indication, art historians despise painters, love sculptors, and believe that Michelangelo spent all his spare time in a bathhouse with nubile teenaged men. Personally, I don't think Michelangelo had spare time, and doing the work he did was better than sex, anyway.

wiley said...

Oh yeah---every time I started to object to what he was saying he raised his hand as if to bitch-slap me, so I took a step backward, then he started in with the cacophony again. Weird dream, but telling.

I wonder what it's like working with an art historian on a project like this. They can be fascinating to listen to, just don't show up smelling of toluene and oil.

The word is "medic", btw.

ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®© said...

ompleted in 1910, the station was handed to Connex in 1999 as part of the privatisation process.
Connex pledged to transform Flinders Street but later went cold on the idea.


Obviously the station wasn't privatized enough.
~

zombie rotten mcdonald said...

That station is obviously Too Big To Fail, and needs another bailout, after more privatization, as thudner points out.

And tax breaks, I am certain.

"Design competition" = "As much free work as we can squeeze out of desperate professionals before we have to start paying one; inevitably we will fire several before finding one willing to work at the miniscule rate we intend to pay while paying ourselves great gobs of 'consultant' fees."

Dragon-King Wangchuck said...

Gut teh building, leaving only teh facade. Erect a forty-seven floor condo tower of steel and glass.

Due to noise constraints from teh mass of residential suddenly located there, restrict rail traffic to between the hours of 10 AM and 3 PM.

Smut Clyde said...

Gut teh building, leaving only teh facade. Erect a forty-seven floor condo tower of steel and glass.

Like this, D-KW?
'It was the first example of facadism in Christchurch. Local artist Bill Sutton described the new creation as "a boy with his trousers around his ankles".'

Due to shoddy design & construction the 1987 high-rise was damaged in the earthquake and is booked for demolition... a quandary for the engineers since the facade surviving from the 1903 building is fine.

I propose that AK and I should head to Chloe's Bar at Young & Jackson's, where we can examine the Flinders St. Station just across the road and prepare our restoration plan in an ambience of micro-brew beer and nudie paintings.

zombie rotten mcdonald said...

I propose that AK and I should head to Chloe's Bar at Young & Jackson's, where we can examine the Flinders St. Station just across the road and prepare our restoration plan in an ambience of micro-brew beer and nudie paintings.

You do that without an architect, and you leave yourself liable to legal action.

zombie rotten mcdonald said...

Due to shoddy design & construction the 1987 high-rise was damaged in the earthquake and is booked for demolition... a quandary for the engineers since the facade surviving from the 1903 building is fine.

Now THAT'S funny.

Although I can imagine situations where a facade retention project is appropriate or a last chance option, that one is/was amazingly ugly.

zombie rotten mcdonald said...

How hard can it be?

Turn it into a mall.

Hamish Mack said...

I propose that AK and I should head to Chloe's Bar at Young & Jackson's, where we can examine the Flinders St. Station just across the road and prepare our restoration plan in an ambience of micro-brew beer and nudie paintings.
See people! The rigourous scholarship that we are willing to do for you.
Mr Zombie would be welcome to buy us refreshments and write down what we say or to leave a recording device in a teapot on the table when we are having a private conversation.

zombie rotten mcdonald said...

Oh no, Sir, as the Financial Professionals, you will be buying.

Dragon-King Wangchuck said...

Like this, D-KW?

Almost - but that shoddily designed high rise bit has too much character. Also, still trying to figure out where to put in all the additional parking.

Big Bad Bald Bastard said...

Gut teh building, leaving only teh facade. Erect a forty-seven floor condo tower of steel and glass.

The solution is obvious... smash the building to flinders.

Anonymous said...

Wiley, you survived arts education, bravo! You take beautiful photos too.

Anonymous said...

Very informative, ZRM, as to the ploy of making the reno a competition. I think they need some very practical engineering firm, with minimal "artistic" input, to do the job. Then maybe get some proposals from set designers re: lighting and murals... think of the possibilities with subtle floodlights inside and out, with the occasional Tiepolo ceiling. Smut could consult on the content of the murals. That's what I'd do!

zombie rotten mcdonald said...

I find it kind of wryly amusing that my house is of similar vintage, about a half-dozen years older, than this structure.

Based on the condition of my decrepit fucking barn, my recommendation is to push it over.

You're welcome. The invoice is in the mail. I take Paypal.

ckc (not kc) said...

"facadism"

(Godadwining the thread)

Hamish Mack said...

Well played ckc(not kc)