Back to the movies again!

Coming out of lockdown again, and getting back to the movies again, no danger of dangerous overcrowding in this cinema.

I was at Roseville, watching 'Eiffel'. It's a very watchable film. It's about Gustave Eiffel, his amazing tower, and his somewhat sad and sorry relationship with the love of his life (a woman, not a tower). That part might be all fiction. Not sure.

Re the tower, it was built for the 1889 Paris World's Fair, and a proposal had been submitted for a 200m tower, so as to beat the 169m Washington Monument. Eiffel decided to go for 300m instead, which is still a very respectable tower height to this day.

Barangaroo update

 

You can walk around the front of the nearly completed big pointy casino thing at Barangaroo now. Before too long it will be possible to get through to the headland park to the north too, and that will open up a superb waterfront walk - a full traverse of Sydney city without having to go through Sydney city.

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's quite a building, one has to admit. Such a pity it's supposed to become a casino. There must be a better function we can find for it.

 

 

Parramatta's City Square

City Square seems to be taking shape, and it's got a certain drama to it. Must say, I was a bit taken in by the name, and expected a big, grand, open civic square out of it. It's more of another corridor pedestrian mall, and an excuse for more tall buildings.

Brisvegas

Green Square 2017

Green Square was just a station on the Airport Line for quite a while. But there was a plan for a magnificent new suburb with 40,000 people.

I heard that things were happening there now, so did a quick tour of inspection. There's lots more to come, but some interesting things have appeared, and a town centre is indeed taking shape, right alongside that railway station.

One's the Infinity building, said to be described by some as a doughnut, a rollercoaster, or an armchair.


And there's the public library, mostly underground, and very avant garde. I spent a while searching for the free magazines to read, before finding them upstairs, in the cafe. Which is quite logical really.


I'll head back in a year or so for another progress report.

Everything old is new again (even Birmingham)

Growing up in Birmingham in the 1960s we were all very proud of the modern makeover the city got back then. Especially that funny little round Rotunda building. Then over the following decades it all got a bit ragged and old and decrepit.








Well they're well into the next makeover now, and much of the city centre looks like it actually does belong to the 21st century. Lots of bright and airy shopping centres, a pink tram, and a strangely shiny new New Street Station.












Another somewhat strange apparition is the Selfridges store, which has actually been there since 2003. It's got lots of architectural awards, but I think it's just odd. Celebrated local newspaper cartoonist, Bert Hackett, seems to have thought so too.