The Off Topic Topic

[Tamas]

I had no idea why the pic would be interesting until I read the quote, so perhaps people who immediately saw a penis should take up the issue with themselves.

[Syt]

One of my favourite genres of story:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8965461/Mayor-apologises-Belgian-towns-phallic-Christmas-decorations.html

'It was not our intention to install Christmas lights that remind people of a penis': Mayor apologises for Belgian town's phallic Christmas decorations

    Officials were originally thinking of making candles but decided it was a cliché
    They instead decided to place a blue ball on top of the column in Oudenburg
    Residents quickly realised the festive decor looked more like male genitalia

Pff, until recently one of the main streets in my district celebrated Christmas with BLUE BALLS:



They sold the implements last year, because people didn't like it anymore.

[Tamas]

Allegedly, plain clothed police officers joined in to the beat-up of protesters in Warsaw by their riot police colleagues, some of the protesters thought it was another case of far-right counterprotesters attacking them, so they resisted and now face charges of assaulting a police officer.

https://notesfrompoland.com/2020/11/19/clashes-at-abortion-protest-in-warsaw-as-police-use-tear-gas-and-force-against-demonstrators/

[Sheilbh]

The worst of inadvertantly rude decorations was the Christmas lit palm trees

[DGuller]

I had no idea why the pic would be interesting until I read the quote, so perhaps people who immediately saw a penis should take up the issue with themselves.

Or maybe their urologist.  You glans shouldn't be this shade of blue.

[Syt]

[Sheilbh]

So this is striking and interesting:


Germany, especially is a surprise, is the social mobility issue just a legacy of integration or something else?

[Valmy]

Look at those Brits with their oppressive class system keeping the ordinary people down...oh wait Fuck.

How can we be doing worse than the country with a hereditary aristocracy?

[Sheilbh]

I've really enjoyed this (still growing) Twitter thread by a post-modern architect on the proposed projects not built in London. Some are famous like the massive pyramid sepulchre or the Imperial Halls and Tower. But some are new to me and kind of crazy.

I kind of love this outrageous skyscraper proposed for Battersea in 1998 - and it is so late 90s I love it:


Or the Crystal proposed in 1961 - five stacked conference halls enclosed in plate glass by King's Cross:


Or this absolutely insane megastructure, inspired by the Berlin Wall:


Although my major regret is that the guys who proposed that Battersea skyscraper also proposed a design for the new Routemaster bus and this definitely should have won instead of Thomas Heatherwick's retro, windowless saunas:

[The Brain]

Very tasteful to be inspired by the Berlin wall. Would it symbolize the divide between the architext and reality?

[Sheilbh]

Very tasteful to be inspired by the Berlin wall. Would it symbolize the divide between the architext and reality?

Architect is my dream job - I just have none of the skills, abilities, aptitude or knowledge - but they are all psychopaths

It was apparently for Rem Koolhass's (who, according to Wikipedia is now a successful architect and theorist - but in the 60s wrote an unproduced script for Russ Meyer) thesis: "Exodus, or the Voluntary Prisoners of Architecture".

[HVC]

Sheilbh, I love you, but you have the worst taste in architecture

[DGuller]

You don't have to love Sheilbh to think he has the worst taste in architecture.  You just need to have eyesight.

[Tamas]

Architect is my dream job

[Sheilbh]

Sorry, I forgot the link:
https://twitter.com/Furmadamadam/status/1329496617087610881

I really love this unbuilt early sixties plan for an international press centre