New Buildings at King's Cambridge.
  • SalieriSalieri
    Posts: 3,177
    http://www.kings.cam.ac.uk/news/2015/anniversary-project.html
  • David Sullivan
    Posts: 355
    Prince Charles said it best: 'What is proposed is like a monstrous carbuncle on the face of a much loved and elegant friend."

    Or as the video says: It is an honour to make this announcement on this special day. This special day.....hmmm.......
    Thanked by 2Salieri M. Jackson Osborn
  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,414
    His Royal Highness is spot on!
  • CHGiffenCHGiffen
    Posts: 5,193
    The total cost of the quincentennial redevelopment is expected to be £180m. This will be met entirely though the sale of the old Chapel structure to an American university. The university is expected to refit the building as an extension to its sports centre, and use it as a practice field for its Ultimate Frisbee team.

    This article was posted today, on April 1st, "on this special day" ... which makes one wonder ...
    Thanked by 1Salieri
  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,414
    .
  • JulieCollJulieColl
    Posts: 2,465
    Holy cow, Chuck, I think you're right!

    Remember last year's April Fool's fun?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukDAfF0-8q8
    Thanked by 2Salieri StephenMatthew
  • SalieriSalieri
    Posts: 3,177
    This was in my e-mail in-box this morning: the best thing is that it was at then end of a long email with pictures and reviews of the Choir's tour in the USA, a link to a recording of a recital by one of the Organ Scholars, etc., the usual, basically. Then this gem at the end.

    Ironically, I couldn't imagine Cambridge or Oxford, or even the L.S.E., for that matter, actually doing this, and yet I think it is completely within the realm of the believable as far as, say, B.C., Harvard, Yale, Mount Holyoke, Notre Dame, or any other US college is concerned.
  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,414
    I was taken in initially. Then Chuck deflected me from a tirade. The alarming thing about things like this is that they are, sadly, so very believable. And, when it comes to being 'modern', the English can be amongst the most tasteless. We do live in a world in which there are lots of people who would and do do things like this.
  • David Sullivan
    Posts: 355
    I too was taken in momentarily. I searched for the Prince Charles quote from 1984 in high dudgeon.

    While I could see such a proposal being made, and actually carried out, in some places, the cows grazing on the cantilevered, brutalist pasture were a bit suspicious. So I looked at the video. The cleric therein had a little, odd smile throughout, and when he said "this special day," it clicked. April Fool!

    I had totally forgotten about last year's installment with helium, thanks for the reminder, JulieColl.
  • SalieriSalieri
    Posts: 3,177
    Actually, the cows are authentic: that's how they traditionally mowed the lawn at Kings!
    image
    Thanked by 1StephenMatthew
  • mahrt
    Posts: 517
    The would have kept you from walking on the gras.
  • JulieCollJulieColl
    Posts: 2,465
    When cows attack . . .
  • ViolaViola
    Posts: 411
    The cows are kept across the river, which you can just about make out on the picture, so they don't affect the grass in the main part of the college. Traditionally scholars of the college were allowed to keep their own cows, I believe. When my husband (a Kingsman) finished his finals, he and I climbed up on the roof of the college library looking at the chapel bathed in moonlight, while listening to the Tallis 40 part motet. When I look at the roof by daylight I get vertigo, but it was a wonderful experience at the time.
    BTW, the original inhabitants of the area of Cambridge which was flattened to make way for the chapel, must have had ambivalent feelings towards the building.
    Thanked by 1M. Jackson Osborn
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