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"New" Brunswick Centre

sheothebudworths said:
Oh My God!

I certainly remember a Catherine Tate look-a-likey now you mention it - but would never have put the two together!
Absolutely!

Did Catherine used to wear fabulous shoulder pads? :p


The wardens (Linda?) - and the caretakers - are all fab and have gone out of their way to help everyone in times of dire need (like when the electric went for one end of our entire block early one New Years Day for five days! ).
And sorry yes, almost all (if not all?) of the sheltered tenants are elderly.


(Is Linda Catherines mum? :eek: I don't think so cos I think CT lived in O'Donnel but both are flame haired lovelies either way! :cool: )
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:D No, Linda isn't Catherine's mum. Apparently she's not very nice (Catherine's mum, not Linda :) ). I've never seen CT but she did grow up there and does go and visit her mum. I have no idea if she wore shoulder pads but you'd think so wouldn't you?
 
scalyboy said:
Met a feller via work who said he had taken over the Skoob name and would be trading online-only; the last owner was finding it hard to compete with Amazon & ABEbooks, and the Brunswick renovations were the final straw...
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I would have thought that Skoobs moved to the Brunswick Centre knowing that it was to be only for a few years or whatrever until the renovations started and that they would be out. At least my optician has survived ( Drury Porter just by Boots). I would recommend using them as a small outfit rather than one of the chains.

BarryB
 
trashpony said:
No, Linda isn't Catherine's mum. Apparently she's not very nice (Catherine's mum, not Linda :) ). I've never seen CT but she did grow up there and does go and visit her mum. I have no idea if she wore shoulder pads but you'd think so wouldn't you?
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She did you know! :D


I totally remember her - just didn't connect it - she always looked a bit hard to me :o although I seem to remember her looking pretty 'normal teen' and then after a gap, quite glam all of a sudden (eta - this was years ago so I don't mean 'after she was famous' - I just remember not having seen her and then seeing her - and her obviously having moved out and coming back to visit and having really blossomed...and wearing huge fashionable shoulder pads too....and me still there, living with my mum......<violins>............<smashes violins>......heh heh....).

Linda was wonderful during that crisis btw.

I really can't explain how bad it was during the middle of winter, with the dark coming so early, to have no heat, light, hot water or anything to cook on and my son was very young too - but despite having a whole heap of the sheltered residents she had to look after (completely unscheduled - it was the holidays - and with minimal contact from the council who were obviously also all on holiday :eek: ) and really urgently locate heating and the like for (and alternative accomodation where she could), she still found time to knock to let us come and fill our thermos from the wardens flat for example (which was further down the block and unaffected).

She ran around frantically the whole time but with a complete air of cheeriness. A proper star. :cool:
 
sheothebudworths said:
(And let's not mention the fact that I thought she might be CT's mum :eek: - Jesus she's far too young ffs.... :D :o )
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Don't worry - I won't tell her :D Just the nice bits. Although perhaps I could blackmail you. Hmmm ..................

:p
 
The paint is a fucking disgrace if you ask me - it completely ruins the feel of the building, taking it from modernist concrete temple to bland shopping centre... The retail segment is little better, although to be fair that was also one of the areas badly in need of something new - not in terms of the shops based there, but in that it was starting to look dirty and dated. Camden council's buildings from that time never fail to shock me - I mean that councils were actually capable of building something effective?! :eek:

Probably my favourite Camden council buildings are the terraced blocks in Gospel oak - friend of mine lived there when i was a kid... Spacious, well lit, good outdoor spaces but with a fairly low-key street facade.
 
Cid said:
The paint is a fucking disgrace if you ask me - it completely ruins the feel of the building, taking it from modernist concrete temple to bland shopping centre...
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Concrete fetishist:rolleyes:

The slight problem with that view is that the original architect Patrick Hodgkinson always intended the rendering to be painted - much in the manner of Corbu's earlier works. Although in a strange nod to the past, he supposedly wanted it to be Regency Stucco in colour.

http://www.c20society.org.uk/docs/building/brunswick.html
 
Some architects, my dad included before he retired, were oblivious to how few people (apart from architects! :p ) thought 'dirty rainwashed concrete' was an attractive look ...
 
William of Walworth said:
Some architects, my dad included before he retired, were oblivious to how few people (apart from architects! :p ) thought 'dirty rainwashed concrete' was an attractive look ...
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There is a good case for putting people who were architects in the 60´s and 70´s on trial for crimes against humanity.
 
William of Walworth said:
Some architects, my dad included before he retired, were oblivious to how few people (apart from architects! :p ) thought 'dirty rainwashed concrete' was an attractive look ...
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Oh it needed cleaning, I'll grant you that but the paint just looks... wrong. And it'll get far nastier than that concrete ever did - white paint in London can be a very bad idea (it can work too mind you, but you need to have it maintained pretty regularly, which - on a building like the Brunswick - is going to be expensive and labour intensive).
 
phildwyer said:
There is a good case for putting people who were architects in the 60´s and 70´s on trial for crimes against humanity.
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This is a pretty unfair view... When many of the 60s/70s buildings were first constructed they were revolutionary, well liked by their occupants and pretty effective. Of course there were many that had bad architects/beaurocracy/costing as well and these caused some disastorous failures, but in quite a few cases modernism worked. The better designed stuff had large courtyards, intimate passageways to facilitate neighbourlyness, facilities for kids, shopping etc. And it worked for a time, but none of these buildings were designed to llast forever. no building is - most have a lifespan of 30-40 years factored in, beyond that it's hard (or - to be more precise - it was hard) to know what will happen - whether there will be climate factors, social changes etc etc.

Flats also cost a lot to maintain, and respective governments completely failed to work this in... Poverty and anti-social behaviour kicked in as well, lack of security (too expensive) turned spaces designed to be intimate into places that were dangerous. Not, of course, helped by the whole sink estate idea. Lack of funding caused delapidation and decay. Many of the flats should have been completely refurbished or demolished in the 80s, but obviously the Thatcher regime weren't exactly the kind of people who gave a flying fuck.
 
It doesn't cost a fortune to shop in Waitrose, certainly no more expensive than the old rip-off Safeway that used to be there. They do a range of stuff from brands you've never heard of at Tesco Value-ish prices too.
 
Zappomatic said:
It doesn't cost a fortune to shop in Waitrose, certainly no more expensive than the old rip-off Safeway that used to be there. They do a range of stuff from brands you've never heard of at Tesco Value-ish prices too.
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Yeah the Safeway was one of the shitter elements and is no loss, but there was a really nice cafe and, of course, Skoob Books.
 
The original architects' model of the centre will be in the Renoir's foyer on Friday as part of the Bloomsbury Festival .
 
Oh that was really interesting marty....answers a lot of questions about the whole designer/developer/council stuff (and who was responsible for what).

My mum didn't have much to add - she was hazy about the same stuff I was, so that'll be interesting to her too. :cool:



Blimey the writer of that article wasn't too impressed with the old version were they? :eek: :( :D
 
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