Another week, another week of chronic stupidity from the Council. It seems hard to fathom, given the amount of flack that Tory has weathered over the last couple of years, but they seem hell-bound on doing stupid things yet again, and spending money that they do not have, on things that are not necessary. Sigh….. This time the fresh stupidity is the response to the call…
I couldn’t decide what to call the post today, as events seem to cover all the options available to us. Things in the city seem to be playing out as a farce every day, so much so that it becomes a soap opera, or a sit-com like Brooklyn Nine Nine, only with more comedy and less pulling of guns. Situations that are merely farcical in Nine…
There is a movement that is growing rapidly, for reasons unknown, that is slowly colouring our urban outlook. It reminds me of the old adage that goes: “A doctor can bury their mistakes, but an architect can only grow ivy.” And when your building is 10 or 12 stories high, then the form of ivy that grows that high, is randomly-distributed, assorted colours of cladding. It…
I must confess that yesterday I laughed considerably and quite loudly, at the report that Simpleton Brown received, informing him that spending a billion or two drilling two new tunnels under / through Wellington was actually going to make the traffic slower, not faster. Well, duh! I’ve been saying for quite some time that putting in a new Terrace Tunnel in, to speed up the amount…
The world is a silly place at the moment, with an over-inflated orange sock puppet stealing the airwaves far too much at present, so I thought I would have a post about something else – like a musical interlude. What could go wrong if we have a brief look at the Emmys? Grammys? Oscars? Silver Scrolls? After all, one of the songs was called “The Architect”,…
Like the rest of the Wellington Architectural Cognoscenti, I went to a special Architectural Centre showing of The Brutalist in the weekend, because I do love me some nice hard concrete edges. Harder than 60mPa, if you know what I mean. It is a film that has got Hollywood talking, having been nominated for many Academy Awards, if that’s the sort of thing that blows your…
Carnage. American Carnage, to be specific. That’s what DJ Rump announced eight years ago to the day, and what he will deliver in buckets over the next four years. It’s deja vu all over again. I know, I know, this blog is meant to be about Wellington and Urban Design and Architecture, and yet here I am talking about the orange Rumplestiltskin and his infantile, egotistical,…
What a great way to start off 2025, with the sale of Reading cinema to Prime Property. That’s the best news Wellington could have, outside of Wellington Water saying “We’ve fixed all the pipes”, or WCC saying “Rates bill going down 50% this year”. Prime Property has just secured itself the bargain of the decade, no matter the cost, as the land parcels make up a…
So, this is the way we are going to end the year then, is it? Not talking about Jesus or Santa, but talking about whether Councils should just concentrate on Roads or Water or Fixing the Pipes or a Nice big convention centre down the road? I had the misfortune of listening to the dullard duo of Luxoff and Simian Brown natter on at the last…
Today, the Eye of the Fish goes West, to the deepest darkest reaches of known civilisation within the burgh of Welly, to visit the Kapital village of Karori. I’m not used to Karori – or many of the suburbs konfusingly starting with a Kapital K, but Karori once held the title of Wellington’s most populous suburb. Recently it has hit the headlines as a site that…