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The Erotic Gherkin - Classic or Dud?

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For non-Londoners, its a new skyscraper just completed in the City of London, thus ensuring that the London skyline will forevermore be dominated by a building that looks like a gigantic dildo.

But it doesn't half look purty lit up in blue and green like that.

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Thursday, 5 December 2002 12:13 (twenty-two years ago)

It's a long way from complete though isn't it? I remember how the new London Assembly buildings were supposed to be all glassy and silvery and glinting in the sunlight: in reality the place looks grey and a bit mucky. I think the gherkin's a grebt shape but worry that the London air / weather may result in similar grey unpleasantness.

If you're going to build a mucky grey building, make it out of concrete as the Good Lord intended.

― Tim (Tim), Thursday, 5 December 2002 12:20 (twenty-two years ago)

so is this thing taller than Canary Wharf then? If so, by how much? Help me out here - I really don't want to think about what I'd get if I googled "erotic gherkin"!

― MarkH (MarkH), Thursday, 5 December 2002 12:22 (twenty-two years ago)

is this canary wharf? is it complete yet? I'm confused.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/1865000/images/_1868426_artistlondonbridgetower300.jpg

the press release it will have public pizza places on the top levels :/

― dakatin, Thursday, 5 December 2002 12:24 (twenty-two years ago)

is this canary wharf? is it complete yet? I'm confused.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/1865000/images/_1868426_artistlondonbridgetower300.jpg

the press release says it will have public pizza places on the top levels :/

― dakatin, Thursday, 5 December 2002 12:28 (twenty-two years ago)

I think that's the proposed development at London Bridge, dakatin.

I was surprised by seeing the Gherkin glinting in the morning sunlight as my train pulled into Waterloo this morning. It's very striking and I'm usually in favour of mad architectural follies, but I wonder if it isn't ostentatiously out of place on the London skyline.

― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Thursday, 5 December 2002 12:40 (twenty-two years ago)


ahhhhh! there you are, you gherkin, hiding behing the straight guys eh? now come on, show us ye lights, ducky!

http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2000/08/23/0823london.jpg

― dakatin, Thursday, 5 December 2002 12:51 (twenty-two years ago)

i like the gherkin. i like how you can see it from the end of my road, i shall take a photograph of it leering down southgate road

― gareth (gareth), Thursday, 5 December 2002 12:59 (twenty-two years ago)

it's weird how i have travelled right past its foot a dozen times w/o noticing it and suddenly saw it three days ago from dalston and thought "whathelldat?"

weird in the sense of typically inobservant obv

― mark s (mark s), Thursday, 5 December 2002 13:04 (twenty-two years ago)

Is that REALLY it? That's the silliest looking building I've ever seen!

― Andrew Thames (Andrew Thames), Thursday, 5 December 2002 13:23 (twenty-two years ago)

That is indeed it. It's on the front page of the Independent all lit up in different colours, although there isn't a pic online.

The London Bridge Tower will look lovely if they ever build it.

http://www.londonbridgetower.com/images/building/view_from_thames.jpg

This is the thread where we all post pictures of buildings that we like.

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Thursday, 5 December 2002 14:02 (twenty-two years ago)

MarkH, try googling 30 St Mary Axe, the gherkin's proper name, or check the facts & figures at http://www.skyscrapers.com/english/worldmap/building/0.9/100089/

It will have the tallest restaurant in London (unless they re-open the one in the Post Office Tower or whatever its called these days.)

― Mooro (Mooro), Thursday, 5 December 2002 16:17 (twenty-two years ago)

It casts its shadow along the whitechapel rd something rotten. I don't like it. It's a rip off in glass of a gaudi design for a new york hotel. There's something not quite right about it. It looms rather than soars and it looks very incongruous. I'm sure I'll get used to it but it even look as good as tower 42, (left hand side of dakatin's second picture)

― Ed (dali), Thursday, 5 December 2002 16:36 (twenty-two years ago)

Looming is never good.

― alix (alix), Thursday, 5 December 2002 16:44 (twenty-two years ago)

You can see it from our road too Gareth! It unites London ILXers.

I think it looks silly by day and rather wonderful by night. Isabel and I went to see a friend in Dalston and kept circling the gherkin on the way back.

― Tom (Groke), Thursday, 5 December 2002 16:53 (twenty-two years ago)

Next week I am going to go and look one night after work. It did indeed look rather wonderful on the front of the paper today. I haven't seen the GLA Building properly by night either.

Am I correct in assuming this is just a Christmas thing?

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Thursday, 5 December 2002 17:13 (twenty-two years ago)

Where can you see it from our road?! Are you meaning looking north up the Clapham Road? Eh?

― alix (alix), Thursday, 5 December 2002 17:15 (twenty-two years ago)

Yeah walking up towards Oval, you can see it really clearly, unless you're some kind of blind person.

― Tom (Groke), Thursday, 5 December 2002 17:18 (twenty-two years ago)

Disappointingly, googling "erotic gherkin" only gets the pic that dakatin used.
It does look great at night, I saw it from Gipsy Hill the other night. It was surprising how surprising it was to see something 'new' on the skyline.

― Simeon (Simeon), Thursday, 5 December 2002 17:36 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm not blind, just stupid.

― alix (alix), Thursday, 5 December 2002 17:36 (twenty-two years ago)

Isabel and I went to see a friend in Dalston and kept circling the gherkin on the way back.

I hope you weren't on the bus!

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Thursday, 5 December 2002 17:48 (twenty-two years ago)

Thankyou Tracer Perry.

― Tom (Groke), Thursday, 5 December 2002 17:57 (twenty-two years ago)

Blimey I hadn't seen it from our road either, perhaps our eyes have been addled by too much er... er.. er...

― Sarah (starry), Thursday, 5 December 2002 18:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Gherkin circlin'?

― Colin Meeder (Mert), Thursday, 5 December 2002 18:14 (twenty-two years ago)

er...what does gherkin mean?

here in rotterdam they built this...

http://www.sportcafe.nl/images/foto/rotterdam.jpg

― dakatin, Thursday, 5 December 2002 18:27 (twenty-two years ago)

A picture?
http://www.skyscrapers.com/files/transfer/6/2002/04/147475.jpg


Gherkins are small pickled cucumbers.

― Mooro (Mooro), Thursday, 5 December 2002 18:28 (twenty-two years ago)

Tracer and Colin have just made me inhale water. NOT NICE (but funny!).

Having seen that new picture, THAT BUILDING IS GORGEOUS.

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Thursday, 5 December 2002 18:31 (twenty-two years ago)

HA HA you actually see ppl running away in that picture!

― dakatin, Thursday, 5 December 2002 18:48 (twenty-two years ago)

I love it! We need more ludicrous buildings in London. The only building here that I like better is Richard Rogers's Lloyds building, I think.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Thursday, 5 December 2002 19:30 (twenty-two years ago)

I don't think its ludicrous at all its just an new shape to hang glass off. The Lloyds building now that is a truly fantastic building.

― Ed (dali), Thursday, 5 December 2002 19:35 (twenty-two years ago)

http://www.richardrogers.co.uk/html/projects/img/lloyds.jpg

― dakatin, Friday, 6 December 2002 10:37 (twenty-two years ago)

Why are so many great new public/corporate structures being built but new housing is dull as ditchwater?

― Madchen (Madchen), Friday, 6 December 2002 14:38 (twenty-two years ago)

I think that may be cost-related, Madchen.

― Tim (Tim), Friday, 6 December 2002 14:44 (twenty-two years ago)

I think I've seen it from our house now - I had previously just assumed it was just a load of guady christmas decorations at Elephant & Castle...

― Sarah (starry), Friday, 6 December 2002 14:50 (twenty-two years ago)

i like the gherkin, but look, if giant badly drawn cats attacked, it would be doomed:

http://www.kittenrecords.co.uk/gherkin.jpg

― g-kit (g-kit), Friday, 6 December 2002 15:45 (twenty-two years ago)

aw, that took me ages :/

― g-kit (g-kit), Monday, 9 December 2002 14:37 (twenty-two years ago)

Greg, that picture rendered me speechless.

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Monday, 9 December 2002 14:40 (twenty-two years ago)

it says "rowr" = that is not an "attack"

― mark s (mark s), Monday, 9 December 2002 14:43 (twenty-two years ago)

unwanted sexual predatoryness can certainly be an attack mark, gherkin or no gherkin,

― gareth (gareth), Monday, 9 December 2002 14:46 (twenty-two years ago)

:(

u r korrekt gareth

― mark s (mark s), Monday, 9 December 2002 14:52 (twenty-two years ago)

"Is it still an attack if a gherkin was involved?" is quite possibly the funniest sentence no one has ever said.

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Monday, 9 December 2002 14:56 (twenty-two years ago)

http://www.certifier.co.nz/graphics/certlogo.gif

― Tim (Tim), Monday, 9 December 2002 14:58 (twenty-two years ago)

Housing is as dull as ditchwater because it has to satisfy the lowest common denominator unless it is an individual commission. Plus there is such a great demand for housing in this country that people will buy any old rubbish (seee people who buy barrat home off plan to find that they can't open car doors in garages or get beds sofas etc,. though doors or down corridors, accept 'double' bed rooms that could never fit a double bed in,aceept shoddy workmanship....)

Versus corporate architecture which is generally built to satisfy the ego of one developer/MD/CEO/board so can be much more striking. Same goes for government architecture, civic egos, and one upmanship.

― Ed (dali), Monday, 9 December 2002 16:05 (twenty-two years ago)

maybe i played too much 'Rampage' as a kid.

and 'rowr' is an attacking cat sound as well as a non-feline sexual predator sound. or so i have been led to believe. am i wrong?

― g-kit (g-kit), Monday, 9 December 2002 16:18 (twenty-two years ago)

Tony Benn is leading the campaign to re-open the Post Office Tower (inc. presumably the restaurant, if it's still there) to the gen pub.

― Andrew L (Andrew L), Monday, 9 December 2002 16:22 (twenty-two years ago)

this would be a wonderful thing

― gareth (gareth), Monday, 9 December 2002 16:27 (twenty-two years ago)

It's called the Beattie Tower now, after Trevor Beattie.

― Tim (Tim), Monday, 9 December 2002 16:31 (twenty-two years ago)

http://home-2.12move.nl/~sh829487/London/postofft.jpg ha
ha
ha
ha
!!


― erik, Monday, 9 December 2002 16:35 (twenty-two years ago)

My auntie took me for lunch in that restaurant once, in my teens. It revolves, presenting diners with an ever changing vista over London.

The guy in a white jacket hanging round in the bogs freaked me out, especially when he tried to give me smelly stuff, hand me towels, etc.

― Mooro (Mooro), Monday, 9 December 2002 17:47 (twenty-two years ago)

I'd never heard of it til this thread.

― jel -- (jel), Monday, 9 December 2002 18:59 (twenty-two years ago)

The Gherkin is a lovely addition to the view from Crystal Palace; I looked north through the passage* between Iceland and Upper Norwood library one evening recently and was stunned to see what is, from this distance and with that illumination, the World's Biggest Xmas Tree.

(* - a passage it took marine navigators decades to find, obv. Pam still doesn't believe it's there).

― Michael Jones (MichaelJ), Monday, 9 December 2002 19:09 (twenty-two years ago)

two months pass...
jel (or anyone) i dont suppose you know the name of the tall eyesore of flats near Paddington that you can see from many vantage points in West London including Stamford Brook, Horsenden Hill, Willesden Junction etc. - i cant find a picture of it online and cant work out its direct location but you pass right by it on the Paddington main line

― stevem (blueski), Tuesday, 18 February 2003 14:37 (twenty-two years ago)

I do hope you don't mean the Trellick Tower Steve which is k.lubberly.

― Pete (Pete), Tuesday, 18 February 2003 14:42 (twenty-two years ago)

http://www.open2.net/modernity/jpgs/story5.jpg

― mark s (mark s), Tuesday, 18 February 2003 14:44 (twenty-two years ago)

Is it part of the Paddington Basin development, which I worked on for a couple weeks about 18 months ago (the same week I discovered ILM and ILE, funnily enough). My job was to approve or reject all these technical drawings, but as I was just out of university I didn't have the sligtest clue what I was doing, nor any interest in doing it, and I'm sure I ended up approving things I shouldn't have. Erm, so if the whole thing ends up falling down in a few years it might be my fault.

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Tuesday, 18 February 2003 14:45 (twenty-two years ago)

Matt you jammy dodger!

thanks for the info guys - i think its very ugly but i also have some perverse affection for it as its one of the very few West London landmarks - there's a pretty little chapel near to it as well

― stevem (blueski), Tuesday, 18 February 2003 14:47 (twenty-two years ago)

The Trellick Tower is one of the most beautiful things in the city!

― Tom (Groke), Tuesday, 18 February 2003 14:50 (twenty-two years ago)

i hate it, i think the Barbican is better (!)

― stevem (blueski), Tuesday, 18 February 2003 14:55 (twenty-two years ago)

b-but clive james lives there!!

― mark s (mark s), Tuesday, 18 February 2003 14:57 (twenty-two years ago)

thats the first i have ever heard of the trellick tower. whats the fuss about it? theres loads of those round blackwall

― gareth (gareth), Tuesday, 18 February 2003 14:57 (twenty-two years ago)

first time i've HEARD of Trellick Tower too - and thats after years and years of being able to see it and wondering where it actually was and what it was called!

best use i saw of it was on a flyer for a night at Subterania in which it had been Photoshopped onto the surface of the moon - very apt indeed

― stevem (blueski), Tuesday, 18 February 2003 15:02 (twenty-two years ago)

I fell in love with it on repeated journies back from Oxford - it looks fantastic from that angle (coming in on the Westway) precisely because there aren't "loads of it" in that area - it looks so grand and lonely and you can really feel the height of it.

― Tom (Groke), Tuesday, 18 February 2003 15:04 (twenty-two years ago)

No-one knows who Trellick was though (this is a typical ILE goading others into info gathering).

The ones round Blackwall way aren't as tall I think, and in clumps they lose a bit of their grace.

― Pete (Pete), Tuesday, 18 February 2003 15:05 (twenty-two years ago)

According to this, the Trellick Tower was designed by someone called Emo Goldfinger. Emo Goldfinger!

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Tuesday, 18 February 2003 15:07 (twenty-two years ago)

You want to see a picture of him. He should have sued Ian Fleming.

― Pete (Pete), Tuesday, 18 February 2003 15:09 (twenty-two years ago)

emo goldfinger = inspiration for adam evil

― mark s (mark s), Tuesday, 18 February 2003 15:14 (twenty-two years ago)

your fonts are fooling you, Matt, it's "E r n o" Goldfinger. a quick search reveals that in the only pic of him, his face is hidden behind a lamp!

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Tuesday, 18 February 2003 15:15 (twenty-two years ago)

Myron Goldfinger (his also architect son) = Scott Evil. His spat with Ian Fleming was regarding his Goldfinger's own house which he built in Hampstead:

"Some existing cottages had to be demolished so that Goldfinger could accomplish his vision and there was much opposition to this at the time from conservative Hampstead residents.

One of the leading voices raised against Goldfinger was that of Ian Fleming, the author of the James Bond books. Goldfinger eventually got his way, but Fleming was so embittered by the building of the modernist homes that he took the architect's name for the principal villain in his book 'Goldfinger'. Though at least he changed his first name to Auric.

― Pete (Pete), Tuesday, 18 February 2003 15:16 (twenty-two years ago)

The Trellic has a sister tower in Bow, which is called (I think) the Balfron Tower. It's just as good as the Trellick but strangely nowhere near as celebrated.

To say there are 'loads' of high rise buildings of this quality is to miss the quality of Goldfinger's work, IMO.

Proles for Modernism seem to have gone quiet, and their web site seems to have disappeared. Does anyone know what became of them?

― Tim (Tim), Tuesday, 18 February 2003 15:25 (twenty-two years ago)

adam = scott obv

my lovely joke ruined!!

is "seth" short for something?

― mark s (mark s), Tuesday, 18 February 2003 15:46 (twenty-two years ago)

Joseph!!!!

― Pete (Pete), Tuesday, 18 February 2003 15:53 (twenty-two years ago)

Actually further investigation comes up with the lesser known fact that Seth was the third son of Adam and Eve - so you were only one generation out Mark!

― Pete (Pete), Tuesday, 18 February 2003 15:57 (twenty-two years ago)

he's not short for a movie star

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Tuesday, 18 February 2003 15:58 (twenty-two years ago)

uz to thread!!

― mark s (mark s), Tuesday, 18 February 2003 16:00 (twenty-two years ago)

one year passes...
Emo Goldfinger!

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Friday, 16 April 2004 12:10 (twenty-one years ago)

badly drawn cat attack!
posting that picture was the greatest moment of my life, yo.

ROWR!

― g-kit (g-kit), Friday, 16 April 2004 12:13 (twenty-one years ago)

What's the most phallic building ever?

― Nellie (nellskies), Friday, 16 April 2004 13:36 (twenty-one years ago)

the tower of Babel

― stevem (blueski), Friday, 16 April 2004 13:40 (twenty-one years ago)

My mate saw it and called it the Dildome. Fitting.

― Catty (Catty), Friday, 16 April 2004 14:23 (twenty-one years ago)


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