Less than 100 - my favourite is the old George & Dragon (1920s), now the Art of Siam. M&S isn't too bad, but it replaced something far, far better. In general they did a lot better between the wars (anyone remember Timothy Whites?).
Post war - in town the best I can think of are in the Market Place, especially the old Mall entrance (now Pizza Express etc) which is a pretty good imitation of what it replaced while the Plaza replacement (Carter Jonas) fits in pretty well while still being clearly of its time.
Whilst built after the war they are all a pastiche of older styles. Not exactly modern architecture.....
And how is that bad?
Modern architecture gave us the Pearl Assurance building (Iceland etc), the BT Tower, Mill Reef House, the Kennet Centre, Boots, the Vue Cinema and many more monstrosities.
Barclays' Bank was 'good' modern architecture, praised in its day. The best anyone has said about it so far on this thread is that it is not that bad and its roofline is not too high.
No you didn't, but your comment read (to me) as if you were criticising the buildings I mentioned and hence felt there was something bad about building in older styles/proportions.
Quoted from 78
There is very little modern 'Architecture'.
So what do you mean by modern Architecture? A place like Newbury is not going to get many Gherkins or Gugenheims and does get far too many low budget eyesores - but surely they are all architecture.
What are your favourites - town centre or anywhere local?
Architecture to me is the aesthetics of a building playing the most important part in the design of the building. Meaning that the look of the building dictates the way in which it is built & not the other way around. This is hugely expensive, so we end up with steel framed boxes hung with prefabricated panels.
The Barclays bank building is an interesting building. The way in which the windows crenelate in & out gives the building a look of strength - exactly what you want for a bank. Almost too much as without the Barclays logos etc it would make a good double for a CIA building. Someone thought about the use of the building & the Bank paid extra for those design elements to be in the final design. It needs a facelift though.
The 70s chalet style houses along the Cold Ash road opposite Down House are good. The Lamb is also nice.
Older proportions look good because of the golden ratio, not because they have mullioned windows.
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