National Film Theatre, London

Some Brutalist architecture here, courtesy of the National Film Theatre and me...

Paul Abbott said:

Some Brutalist architecture here, courtesy of the National Film Theatre and me...

National Film Theatre - South Bank, London - Paul Abbott​

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Paul,

Your picture, using the railing to center the architecture is an impactful composition, but I wonder why you didn't choose a harsh angle to force the forms on the top to arrange dramatically? That's what I'd have expected from your previous work. Maybe you wanted to evoke something like the shapes of the Inca pyramids by adding the steps themselves to the form of the architecture and increase the sense of there being a greater level of significance.

Is this Brutalism or new Brutalism in style? I don't know enough to discern which is which. Could the round poured concrete structures of nuclear power stations, like 3 Mile Island, be called Brutalist?

Asher

Paul, a stiking composition.

More so because I know it so vividly. I want to visit London. It has been some time.

Lovely indeed.

Asher, I couldn't help myself, what with all those lines in the frame an' all. It's a rare thing to find symmetry like this in the city, and I guess it does appear like some weird ziggurat...

I'm not sure about smokestacks and such. It seems to me that 3 Mile Islands' smokestacks are a result of what was necessary in regard to materials used, in building them for they're 'pure' function.
Brutalism got a bad name for itself here in the UK, because it was used much of the time to build social housing, like with the Trellick Tower and the Barbican.
In other parts of the world it was used to much better effect and maybe still is, i'm not sure...

Thanks, Fahim. If you visit and are interested in photographing buildings then London has a lot of new additions with more being built as we speak. I'd give it another year or two, then The Shard will have been completed. It'll be the tallest building in the european union...

Hi Paul,

I like the concept of playing with the geometry of structures and using it like Lego pieces to build your own creation. I think that for this particular composition, it would be ideal to have the sun aligned at the center too, perhaps there is another time of the day/year or angle that allows this, the symmetry would be more decisive, more compelling.

Regards,

Ruben

Thanks for that, Ruben. It's gonna' have to be a stakeout, but then ain't it always...

Paul,

As time goes on, the resemblance to a Mayan temple is increasing. Imagine the football games below with the heads of the enemies and above the princess about to be sacrificed!

Asher

Wonderful Paul, I like it!. Coincidentally, I also live in London and took an almost identical shot of this very building some 4 years ago when it relaunched as the BIF Southbank (British Film Institute).