Sunday 1 September 2013

St Paul's Tower, Arundel Gate.

St Pauls Tower, Sheffield, tallest building
 Photo  © Copyright Neil Theasby
and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.
At last! Because you the reader demanded it! It's that building!

It started out as the Conran Tower. Then it was, "City Lofts." Then it was St Paul's Tower. But, whatever you call it, you can't ignore it. At thirty two storeys, stuck atop a hill overlooking the railway station, it's Sheffield's tallest and most visible building.

And what an odd structure it is. When the sun hits it at the right angle - usually early in the morning - it can look golden, gleaming, optimistic and sparkling.

When the sun doesn't hit it from the right angle - or doesn't hit it at all - it can look suspiciously like a dull, brown utilitarian 1960s block of council flats.

I do love the way it totally dwarfs the mock Tudorness of the Howard in this shot. I can't help feeling they should add a thirty storey vertical extension to the Howard to bring it up to the same height and turn it into Sheffield's first mock Tudor skyscraper.

A quick Google for images of mock Tudor skyscrapers suggests to me that there're no mock Tudor skyscrapers anywhere on Earth. Given that there are mock Gothic and mock Classical skyscrapers, the lack of mock Tudors seems an egregious omission that we can only hope someone will one day put right.

1 comment:

Tam said...

I googled mock Tudor skyscrapers and this is what I got! I was wanting a picture of one, to illustrate my blog on that subject... Let me know if you ever come across one.

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