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Sainsbury Wing contractors find 1990 letter from donor
- klik99 2y agoThis might be the most passive aggressive thing I have ever heard. England truly elevates passive aggression to art form EDIT: Someone downvoted me, so I should say I grew up in England until I was 14 so I'm allowed to say this! Downvoting itself is a form of passive aggression
- debo_ 2y agoA true pillar of passive-aggression /joke
- MrBuddyCasino 2y agoIn that case you might enjoy „DON’T MAKE FUN OF RENOWNED DAN BROWN“: https://onehundredpages.wordpress.com/2013/06/12/dont-make-fun-of-renowned-dan-brown/ https://onehundredpages.wordpress.com/2013/06/12/dont-make-f...
- mhandley 2y agoThanks for that - five minutes well spent!
- jprd 2y agoThis is classic, and just might be my favorite book review of all time.
- rkachowski 2y ago> They even say my books are packed with banal and superfluous description, thought the 5ft 9in man. I find myself regularly thinking about this sentence
- shepherdjerred 2y agoFor someone unfamiliar with Dan Brown, is there a reason for this? Is he high-strung/sensitive about his books/reviews?
- notwhereyouare 2y agoi think it's more that he fills his books with a ton of filler. could probably reduce the books by 1/3 and lose nothing of interest/value
- athom 2y agoHad a quick peek at the first couple of paragraphs, here. And now, I want to go back and reread some of that turgid text!
- mkl 2y agoBig discussion a year ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36818501 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36818501
- tomcam 2y ago“Spectacular,” morbidly obese retiree tomcam replied to the renowned Hacker News poster Mr Buddy Casino. “I nearly peed myself, it was so hilarious. Thanks a million!”
- tantalor 2y agoI BELIEVE THAT THE ABOVE FLAMEBAIT IS A MISTAKE OF THE AUTHOR AND THAT WE WOULD LIVE TO REGRET OUR ACCEPTING THIS COMMENT
- taylorius 2y agoI'm from the UK and I took it as a compliment.
- jaza 2y agoThey should amend Sainsbury's tombstone to say: "as passive-aggressive in death as he was in life".
- useless_foghorn 2y agoThe columns: https://atlive-wp.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/Screenshot-2022-08-11-at-10.18.16.png https://atlive-wp.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uplo...
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- fourteenfour 2y agoHa, was looking for this, just read 3 articles about these columns without a picture of the layout. Resorted to a video tour, are you sure it wasn't the larger ones here? https://imgbox.com/nh1Wx8JF https://imgbox.com/nh1Wx8JF
- useless_foghorn 2y agoThat would make more sense! I was misreading this article: https://architecturetoday.co.uk/learning-from-venturi-scott-brown-the-national-gallerys-sainsbury-wing/# https://architecturetoday.co.uk/learning-from-venturi-scott-... Thanks for the correction!
- Suppafly 2y agowhich of those are the 'two large columns in the foyer'?
- fourteenfour 2y agoI have no idea, there is a severe lack of graphic context in these articles about a specific architectural detail. In the original article it looks like people are standing by the column the letter was found in.
- Suppafly 2y agoYeah it's insane that they have an article about these columns and don't show which ones it is prior to showing the people next to the deconstructed one without any context of where they are located.
- nickdothutton 2y agoI think he was probably right, an adornment.
- axus 2y ago"Stone-columning" is the new "bikeshedding".
- lainga 2y ago// TODO: evil hack!! refactor this
- csours 2y ago// if you've found this comment oh god i'm so sorry
- DonHopkins 2y ago// TODO: Print this code out and burn it.
- rsynnott 2y agoSo, it seems like the architect died in 2018, and Sainsbury in 2022. This could all have been extremely awkward if they'd done the work a few years earlier...
- Retr0id 2y agoI'd like to think they'd have just had a laugh about it.
- debo_ 2y agoPerhaps they'd use it as the foundation to support a new friendship with each other /weak architecture joke
- bee_rider 2y agoOr maybe it would turn out that the false columns were actually structurally significant to their friendship, which would subsequently fall apart.
- cmcaleer 2y agoYeah, I can't imagine an argument where this was the compromise was a particularly bitter one.
- shepherdjerred 2y agoI'm sure that the donor made his opinion known given that he went to the trouble of leaving a letter.
- brudgers 2y agoLearning from Las Vegas is Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown's seminal work and the ideas drove their work. In a nutshell, buildings are either ducks or decorated sheds. [0] Their clients hired them to design decorated sheds and that is why there were non-structural columns. That doesn't mean the columns did not have a purpose. Columns can create points that organize spatial experience. Columns are cultural iconography (e.g. the Parthenon vs Johnson Wax). There are certain ironies in the fine article: 1. The criticism of the non-structural columns for non-functionality in the context of an art museum. 2. If Venturi and Scott Brown had designed a duck (very common among museum commissions) removing the columns would have been difficult or impossible [1]. For context, Charles Windsor's architectural opinions are contrary not just to the ideas of Venturi and Scott Brown but to the aesthetics of the last 150 years. [0]: https://99percentinvisible.org/article/lessons-sin-city-architecture-ducks-versus-decorated-sheds/ https://99percentinvisible.org/article/lessons-sin-city-arch... [1]: Architects with functional dogma will incorporate structural columns into their designs to achieve iconography and spatial organization because structural use justifies their inclusion.
- yourstrulyechq 2y ago[flagged]
- AlwaysRock 2y agoSo funny. The perfect passive aggressive told you so ever.
- fuzzfactor 2y agoNotice the supermarket company still had a Telex number in 1990. Even though they had likely possessed a fax machine for quite some time already.
- qingcharles 2y agoTelex was still pretty big in the UK in 1990...
- dboreham 2y agoIf you have working telex, fax isn't an upgrade.
- justinlloyd 2y agoThe fact that telex was immensely faster, lower bandwidth, operated on terrible PSTN networks (not regular telephone networks) with absurdly low quality, could work internationally with no special hand-off equipment or special fax lines being required, and had multicast and store-and-forward built-in to the protocol and had an image printer protocol extension that was superior in quality to fax and again, required no special equipment for international transmission, could work even when the mains electricity was down (phones and telexes were on separate networks), teleprinters could be powered directly from the telex connection, could work over low bandwidth ham radio connections, and is still in use today in certain parts of the world where it is critical the information gets through, there's a reason that a lot of companies still used the telex well into the early part of the 21st century. Not meant as a explaining type of response, merely as a "this is an interesting piece of useless information."
- jandrewrogers 2y agoI worked at companies that had telex in the mid-to-late 1990s. They were the preferred method for some overseas communications.
- worstspotgain 2y agoThis is easily, without a doubt, the most British thing I've ever seen. Glorious.
- raldi 2y agoHow do I set up Git to thank future generations for removing code I regret checking in?
- throwup238 2y agoGit hooks? https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2/Customizing-Git-Git-Hooks https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2/Customizing-Git-Git-Hooks
- teqsun 2y agoAdd a server side hook listening for the change https://stackoverflow.com/questions/36327382/git-precommit-hook-check-whether-line-content-has-changed https://stackoverflow.com/questions/36327382/git-precommit-h...
- hinkley 2y agoIf I know I’m writing the code under protest or to deal with a bug in a library or elsewhere in the system, I put it in the commit message, and set up the commits so the worst change can be reverted by itself. Essentially here’s the reason we “had” to do this. Subtext: here is my blessing to revert this when it’s not necessary anymore. In a way it’s my Chekov’s Gun. Load the weapon, leave it lying around and wait for the third act.
- raldi 2y agoAh, the antidote to Chesterton's Fence.
- BurningFrog 2y agoI sometimes make a test that will go red with an "X has changed, now you must do Y" message.
- PhilRodgers 2y agoThis reminds me of the letter in the pond https://thatcanadiangirl.co.uk/2008/05/30/the-letter-in-the-pond/ https://thatcanadiangirl.co.uk/2008/05/30/the-letter-in-the-...
- moomin 2y agoI note that if future generations had decided the columns were great and should stay the letter would never have been found.
- tomcam 2y agoif they’re smart they’ll keep the letter in the inevitable case architectural fashion reverses itself 40 years from now.
- JCM9 2y agoThis sort of thing is brilliant. Folks put things inside walls a lot. When doing a bathroom repair I needed a few additional tiles that would be impossible to find (was an old house). Guess what I found when we busted open the wall… the leftover tiles from when the house was built like 70 years prior! I could almost feel some tile layer from generations prior giving me a little smile and pat on the back.
- ghostly_s 2y agoThe customary place to put those is in the attic, where they can be easily found. https://alsyedconstruction.com/what-is-attic-stock-in-construction/ https://alsyedconstruction.com/what-is-attic-stock-in-constr...
- totoglazer 2y agoA) very cool to learn about that term. B) that page must be ChatGPT authored, right?
- Cthulhu_ 2y agoPossibly, that page has only been around since March according to the internet archive. The domain has been around since 2020 though, predating chatgpt. That said, it's a generic company website, the owners and their website building company will put a lot of general information and padded fluff on sites like this to try and increase SEO.
- Cthulhu_ 2y agoWe don't have an attic, but there was some leftover floor laminate (which we used to fix bent planks due to dog accidents) and shower tiles in there. Always good to buy a bit extra for breakage and repairs.
- tzs 2y agoWhat kind of dog accidents bend planks?
- ggm 2y agoIn case people miss the back story, this is "the carbuncle" which prince (now king) charles disliked immensely. here's a recent story about the work to add this entry https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2022/nov/06/national-gallery-entrance-revamp-row-recalls-king-charles-carbuncle https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2022/nov/06/nationa...
- 0xbadcafebee 2y agoThis might be the most British thing I've ever heard of
- dayjah 2y agoReminds me of Filippo Brunelleschi; in the 1400s he grokked structural mechanics far better than anyone else and protested supporting the domed ceiling of the Pazzi chapel with columns. All the engineers of the time made the case he was wrong, and such a large dome needed support — he built the columns and had them finish a few inches short of the ceiling. This was discovered many years later and has become part of architecture lore.
- kitd 2y agoThere's a similar story about Brunel building Maidenhead Railway Bridge, which 160 years later still has the widest, flattest brick arches in the world (if that makes sense). The authorities absolutely required him to support the arches while the rest of the bridge was built, but he refused, knowing it was safe. He eventually relented but built the supporting structure a (visible) foot too short, just to prove his point.
- DaiPlusPlus 2y ago> Maidenhead Railway Bridge Excuse my ignorance, but, uh… what stops the bricks from just falling down (onto peoples’ heads) when their surrounding mortar/cement fails?
- cortesoft 2y agoA proper arch shape supports its own weight and the load above it because of its shape, without needing any mortar or cement. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arch
- thomasfl 2y agoThe whole Architectural Uprising movement sort of started in 1984 when the young Prince Charles gave a speech at the Royal Institute of British Architects 150th anniversary gala evening. During his speech, the prince said that a proposed new modernist extension to the National Gallery was ugly. Or to be more precise, he called it a carbuncle in the face of a dear old friend. The Venturi columns seems to lack entasis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entasis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entasis
- berniedurfee 2y agoThis is brilliant! I always leave stuff for future remodelers or archeologists when I do remodeling or building. Mostly coins, I throw a few in the concrete mix or inside walls for future generations to discover. It’s always a treat to find long forgotten artifacts when remodeling old houses. A little treat for people working on something I built 40 or 400 years in the future.