pumpkinstrokemarrow

Now getting into Craig on Germany (see 12th June). Rather a different take to that in Steinberg, with the strangeness of Bismark much less visible. In which I have learned that Germans in 1870, having put up with many years of large French armies banging around southern Germany during the French aggression of the 18th century, thought that the time was right to try and create both a natural frontier and a defensive glacis in one stroke by grabbing Alsace & Lorraine. Much the same as the line that Stalin took after the second world war. Which doesn't make the grabbing any less of a mistake, but one can better understand why the mistake was made. Bit like boom and bust. It just keeps on going round and round.

Yesterday paid a visit to the new railway bridge over Borough High Street at London Bridge. A steel affair with very extravagant curved steel tubes decorating the southern face. Quite an achievement to make and install the things without shutting down the high street. But, to my eye, whoever designed the bridge broke the structure and function rule mentioned on May 26th. While the steel tubes might have something to do with holding the bridge up, they are essentially a large sculpture, a large sculpture which is far too large relative to the thing that it is supposed to be adorning. It is just pretending to be an integral part of the bridge. Overall effect rather unsatisfactory, although rather less so than that of the wobbling bridge between Tate Junk and St Paul's, which fails the same test.

The problem is not that buildings should not include fake structural elements. Fake structural elements can be used to create a sort of visual narrative and lots of buildings have them with success. Think of the fake beam ends running under the eaves of neo-classical buildings. Or the fan vaulting of King's College Chapel. But they should not dominate the narrative. And with this move into the land of bubbles and froth, I had better depart for my morning ablutions.