More photos of historical interest now that their subject has been demolished
.
Such a reviled building in its time. Domineering, out of scale, dwarfs surrounding buildings. True, up to a point. In fact, because of surrounding narrow streets & angle of vision you could barely see it except from alongside. Certainly not from Millbank or Parliament.
.
I started to think much more kindly of it one day at the Oval Cricket Ground, from where you could see the 3 towers in the distance. The proportions were elegant, near perfect.
.
The towers were built during the 1960s, but construction was interrupted by a prolonged strike.
A friend of mine, who lived near by, swore she would never want to go to work there. She was nervous of being high up anyway, but was convinced that the steel frame had rusted so much while left exposed during the strike that the building must be unsafe.
.
She was right. By the mid-1980s the North Tower had cracks into which you could insert a hand. These pictures must have been taken about 10 years ago, when they had had to put up nets to catch the bits falling off!
.
It was the curtilage which really spoiled it. Why do pilotis always manage to be so windswept? And those ugly wartime concrete bunkers which, so rumour had it, they had tried & failed to demolish. Rather reassuring that, in its way. I wonder if they managed to demolish them before they built the new Home Office?
