Bethnal Green Road. Avant-Garde Tower # 2
Image by Alan Stanton
I looked-up the Avant-Garde website on 6 November 2015. [Original links no longer work.]
The website then stated that Avant-Garde tower was originally a development by Genesis, a London-based social housing group. But that in November 2015 was:
"… a striking state-of-the-art-25-storey glass tower [which] will dominate the skyline at Avant-Garde."
"When it comes to accessing central London, Avant-garde is perfectly placed for a walk to work in The City, Bishopsgate, Aldgate, Finsbury Circus and Moorgate in the City of London. The famous Square Mile, a global financial powerhouse."
Blue Hour CGI
The Avant-garde website included a CGI (computer generated image) of an imagined view from Sclater Street on the south side of the Avant-Garde tower. View location with Google Maps
In the online CGI illustrations I found the colouring interesting. It appeared to show early evening, at a time photographers call the "blue hour" when cityscapes are often at their most beautiful. Sky colours are a gradient with deeper blues higher up. And overall, appear more saturated than in bright daylight. Both these features appear In the CGI image of the Avant-garde tower.
It has another feature, which can lend glamour to a photo. Many of the lights in the building are on; and figures of people are silhouetted in the windows of flats. At street level, store windows and the entrance hall cast pools of light on the pavement.
Also at street level, the CGI artist has generated bands of gold and red. As if from headlights and rear lights of unseen speeding vehicles.
There was another "blue hour" image on the Avant-Garde website. A window view from inside the Penthouse.
What’s missing in the CGI they’re programming
The sales material I’ve mentioned on this and other pages about Avant-garde Tower show the picture marketed to potential buyers and residents.
But equally interesting was a CGI animation loop showing a view of the tower panned vertically from top to street level. In this publicity material some things seemed to be missing. Everything was pristine clean. Even in the public street there was no litter, no rubbish, no graffiti. The figures walking into or in front of Avant-Garde building appeared be trim and well dressed. There was nobody obviously elderly. And no kids: on foot, or carried, or pushed in buggies.
Looking at the sales material of the interiors these flats I got an impression of living spaces – not homes. And spaces where the architects and designers expect clients who want a homestyle chosen for them and as ready-to-wear as their designer clothes. Will messy muddly families live there with dishes in the sink or a child’s book or toy left on a chair?
In the sales pitch about "boutiques", "fashion houses", "designer names" and the "world famous cityscape", I didn’t come across mention of schools, the local community, and even the amazing human history of the area nearby.
I wondered if the potential buyers of these flats would visit and compare the imaginary people in the sales publicity with a random selection of passers-by in the photo above – a few minutes away on Bethnal Green Road
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§ ‘The more deprived and edgy, the better’: the two sides of London’s property boom. Article by Zed Nelson in the Guardian, 30 May 2015.
"The estate is valuable because we are just two or three minutes from the City of London. They can generate a lot of income from building private homes with social housing on the side.
EastendHomes argue that the buildings here are structurally unsound and uneconomical to refurbish, which we totally disagree with. It’s very frustrating. You hear the phrase “social cleansing” being used – and that’s exactly what this is." -Interview with a Tower Hamlets Council leaseholder included in the article.
§ The Danish architect and urbanist Jan Gehl has commented on the CGI images used to sell an architect’s or developer’s vision.
“But these guys – all these people in the planning, architect and landscape, whatever, profession – they are very very interested in people. And you can see that whenever they make any project whatsoever. It is crawling with happy people who are walking in all directions, seemingly aimlessly. We call it ‘unspecified public life’. And it doesn’t depend on if it’s on the north side or the south side; or is on Greenland, or it’s in Arabic countries. It’s the same story all over. That all the projects are full of happy people. Showing that the purpose of doing all this is to make people happy at ground level.”
— Source: Jan Gehl in a talk on "Cities for People". Video by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
§ "Architects pretend a lot. . . . The sun is always shining on the pinmen and women in our drawings and models". — Irena Bauman quoted by Martin Wainwright in "The Happy Architect"
§ "All air will be their air.
"The city that privatised itself to death". Article by Ian Martin in The Guardian 24 February 2015 with a bitter/funny over-the-top critique of development in London. Here’s a sample.
"Oh, man, and just look at London’s privatised skyline.
It would be hilarious if it wasn’t so cartoonishly tragic.
This one looks like a Nespresso machine. And that one,
a cigar, is it? Potato? Full nappy? The utter capitulation
of London’s planning system in the face of serious
money is detectable right there in that infantile, random
collection of improbable sex toys poking gormlessly into
the privatised air. Public access? Yeah, we’ll definitely
put a public park at the top (by appointment only). Oh,
absolutely, we are ALL about community engagement:
members of the public are welcome to visit our viewing
gallery in the sky, that’ll be 30 quid, madam."
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IMPORTANT
Brief quotations above are for illustration & review.
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