Plant v brutalist architecture: Fight!

[nanila]

This section of crumbling wall is in the middle of Imperial College London's South Kensington campus. The ivy Virginia Creeper (h/t to perennialanna for the botanical correction) that masks it is presently changing from red to green, drawing attention to the contrast between it and the functional brutalist buildings surrounding it.

Comments

[perennialanna]

Is it Virginia Creeper? Ivy is an evergreen (and in flower right now).

[nanila]

It is Virginia Creeper! I brain-farted in my haste to post. Thanks.

[perennialanna]

We pass walls covered with both on our way to the supermarket. N, who is 4 now and thus knows everything, will not be persuaded that they are not Green Ivy and Red Ivy.

[siliconshaman]

Sucker bet. Nature always wins. Although Entropy always wins in the long run.

[nanila]

Heh. The wall itself is intriguing because it's clearly much older than (most of) the rest of campus. It's got Victorian arched windows. I guess it must have been a listed façade, but the architects who had to design the big blocks to house experimental physics & maths couldn't work out how to integrate it into them, so it just sits there, slowly falling apart.

[cmcmck]

Real brutalism in London is to be found at the London Institute for Historical Research (aka the Senate House) which featured in the original filming of Orwell's 'Nineteen Eight four' as the Ministry of Love.

[nanila]

That is such a distinctive building. It's also distinctly more attractive than a Imperial's big concrete blocks!

[omnipotent]

If you look closely at the edge closest to the camera, some of the red that's on the border of the green appears to be not as intense so it almost has a gradient effect.

[nanila]

Yes! As of last Friday, it had all gone completely red. I suspect it'll soon be a nekkid wall.

[lenores_raven]

This is just oh so very beautiful. ^_^

[nanila]

I love it. It's one of my favourite things on campus.

[azurelunatic]

I have such a soft spot for Brutalist architecture.

[nanila]

You'd like this campus, then. There's quite a bit of it!