Tuesday, July 01, 2008

What Manner of Bollockery is This...?

xxxxxhosp
The grand front entrance of the Middlesex Hospital, sadly boarded up a year ago (picture from DerelictLondon).

Today happens to be the 31st anniversary of the start of my career as a professional scientist when I nervously began as a very wet-behind-the-ears postdoc at the Middlesex Hospital Medical School in London. It's really hard to believe I'm that old. But complaining about my decrepitude is not the purpose of this post. What is more shocking is the fate of the hospital itself. The Middlesex merged with the mighty UCL in the 1980s and despite some rationalization of services, the new entity continued to operate on both sites until relatively recently. However following the opening of the new UCL hospital on Euston Road a couple of years ago, the old Middlesex building was closed and put up for sale. Yesterday I was shocked to receive from reader Gilly (a friend and fellow inmate at the medical school all those years ago) these photographs:

SP_A0094
The Woolavington Wing has gone as well as the little bridge to the Courtauld Institute in Riding House Street.

SP_A0095
Apparently only the chapel from the hospital remains.

SP_A0093
What marketing genius thought up this rubbish name?

At first I couldn't work out what was happening and then I realised that the old hospital has been demolished. What a shock; I thought it was a listed building. Even more shocking was image found at the nohosquare.com URL emblazoned on the fencing. Heaven help us -how could this lovely old building be razed and replaced by such an abomination?

egg carton
The new development: is that a golf course on top?

Generally I like modern architecture but this thing looks like an egg carton on steroids. And what's that horrid green Astroturf toupée on the roof? I suppose I shouldn't expect too much from developers who describe this monstrosity as "a new way of living and working in central London" (what could that be I wonder -sleeping vertically in a closet, perhaps?) and that the new complex contains a "destination restaurant". Any firm that resorts to such stupid, hackneyed, marketeer cliches shouldn't be allowed control of a bricklaying trowel let alone a bulldozer...(2000 word diatribe deleted). Must go now, it's time for my medication!

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