[7952]

I think we go too far in terms of romantising these kind of structures. It is impressive and valuable as a functional object not a thing of beauty or ugliness.

The more we fetishise heritage the less acceptable new structures and designs becomes that are "out of context". For example, a wind turbine should only need to generate power efficiently. It should not need to look good.

[Retric]

While I generally agree with you, the UK does make a fair amount of revenue from tourism (~9% GDP) so keeping a few iconic examples around might be a good idea. For much the same reason that castle's are interesting if largely useless structures.

[jarek]

Approximately no one comes to the UK to look at gas holders. It's not like number of infrastructure nerds coming to look at King's Cross and St Pancras would drop if we were to remove the gas holders nearby. But yeah, convert them into park-like areas if the community wants (as they're doing at King's Cross)

[Retric]

People go to Paris to see a radio tower that's rather short by modern standards. Hint: Tower.

I don't think there are any gas holders that are going to become that iconic but a lot of tourism focuses on interesting infrastructure like dam's, buildings, towers, walls, bridges, etc.

[pixl97]

Utility is having something work efficiently and effectively.

Beauty is the art of making something pleasing and desirable to humanity.

Engineering and architecture should aim to do both. When utilities are ugly they can depress the price of properties around them, making people less willing enable future needed projects. I mean, is your home a (subjectively) ugly gray box with no decoration. I mean the purpose of a house is to shelter you from the elements.

[7952]

I don't think we should abandon aesthetics, just that protectionism is a bad way of going about it.

For the most part homes in the UK are designed to fit in with their surroundings not be beautiful. I don't find hundreds of identical red brick buildings particularly asthetically inspiring and decoration is usually kept to an absolute minimum by developers. What we end up with is endless estates that all look exactly the same in order to protect sensibilities. We need to accept some creativity and change.

[fnordfnordfnord]

>We need to accept some creativity and change.

Yeah, like this. http://www.choishine.com/port_projects/landsnet/landsnet.htm...

[nmeofthestate]

For example, a wind turbine should only need to generate power efficiently. It should not need to look good.

That's obviously bollocks - human beings aren't machines - they enjoy existing in an environment that they find beautiful. So, we should consider aesthetics when designing technology that is visible.