Mr. Bean has created a stir:
Rowan Atkinson has reportedly finally moved into his ‘space age petrol station’ mansion after a decade-long planning row with neighbours. The Blackadder star, 67, initially bought the 1930s quaint English home – known as Handsmooth House – and its 16 acres of land for £2.6million in 2006.
He shocked locals in the charming seventh century village of Ipsden in Oxfordshire when he knocked it down and installed a modern 8,000 sq. ft. glass and steel mansion designed by top U.S. architect Richard Meier in its place.
Oy. From this:
…to this:
Now I’ll grant you that House #1 needed a lot of restoration. And I’ll also grant you that House #2 is located where nobody can see it (at least from the road).
But seriously?
I note, by the way, that he has ample space to park his supercar collection:
Small wonder that it took him ten years to get permission to build this dropping of visual excrement. It should have taken longer.
Feelings are very mixed on this one…
1. He owns the land, he should be able to do as he pleases with it – hunt, shoot, build, farm…
2. Yuck.
What Drake said in point 1.
Me, I find the house ugly too, but I also think we need to wait a few hundred years to really decide.
But I am also positive, as a builder developer, that come the revolution, I shall be breaking down the doors of building design by-law enforcement people with a goodly supply of tar, feathers and rope.
I’m going fall in the “it’s his money” crowd and I say build what you like. I wouldn’t want to live in it, but it ain’t my money and I ain’t gotta look at it. I do like his supercar collection, and the fact that he actually drives them around rather than let them sit and collect dust.
I do have to look at it. I’m 6 miles away, the other side of the valley, and it does dominate. Verdant fields and woods, and then a big white scar of a house. It is his land however!
however, local rumour was he lost the house to his wife when they divorced, so I’m not entirely sure he’s just moved in. I’ll go for a walk and look (there’s a footpath literally 20 yards from his lounge window)
That whole “public footpath” thing bothers me a lot more than what he built (which looks like an interstate highway rest stop). I get that the Englanders like their walkabouts, but seriously, having all manner of folk wandering through your back garden at their will rubs against the John Dutton in me.
Maybe he can hire a bunch of train smash women to sunbathe naked near the path so the neighbors will petition the local council to move the footpath?
If that doesn’t happen quickly enough, maybe they can stand up whenever someone comes by on the path to sing “I love to go a wandering, Along the mountain track, And as I go, I love to sing, My knapsack on my back.”
I’m thinking of an effect like when the three witches (hags) in Polanski’s “Macbeth” sang “Happy Birthday” to Hugh Hefner, who was putting up a good chunk of the money for the film.
public footpath? yeah that’s gotta go.
It’s a hideous building that won’t last 100 years.
It’ll be impossible to keep warm in the winter, much like Frank Lloyd Wright’s houses were impossible to keep dry when it rained. And Atkinson’s Hall, More Glass than Wall doesn’t even have a famous architect to make putting up with living in a piece of sculpture worthwhile.
That is a real butt ugly, giant pimple, of a house, some mostly glass right angle houses look rather unlivable but nice, this one, not so much. Having said that since it is not visible from the road on land he owns, why not? Be one more super wealthy aging actor having fun with his millions, if this home were to have been built in an area with other older homes, visible from the road it would be an eyesore like the Aussie lady posted yesterday with multiple tattoos and a giant eagle on her belly coming out of her tunnel of love. Then it would and should have been an easy decision to turn him down and run him him off.
That is a real butt ugly giant pimple of a house, some mostly glass right angle houses look rather unlivable but nice, this one, not so much. Having said that since it is not visible from the road on land he owns, why not? Be one more super wealthy aging actor having fun with his millions, if this home were to have been built in an area with other older homes, visible from the road it would be an eyesore like the Aussie lady posted yesterday with multiple tattoos and a giant eagle on her belly coming out of her tunnel of love. Then it would and should have been an easy decision to turn him down and run him him off.
It’s a dwelling, not a .public building. All that matters is what it looks like from the inside. Just like people. Others are free to avert their gaze.
.
Looking at it from a comfort viewpoint one cannot fault him one bit.
These old mansions, while often visually beautiful, suffer from a severe lack of modern comforts, with tiny bathrooms and closets, wonky heating systems (don’t even dream about air conditioning) kitchens with none of the modern essentials, marginal electrical systems, etc…
When in their prime, how many staff were required to even keep the place running?
Architects are seemingly unaware that water pools on flat surfaces, such as roofs.
A professional architect would sculpt the upper surface of a “flat” roof to ensure proper runoff through the provided downspouts.
In my short roofing career earning college $, I had the opportunity(?) to be on some flat roofs. Flat roof decks don’t remain flat and unless the architect can predict ahead of time where the sag and settlement will occur, water will pool and eventually have its way.
I much later met a contractor who put up small/medium warehouses. He would put the central roof beam a couple inches higher to encourage drainage. Still looked like a flat roof, but it doesn’t take much to get water to flow.
My parents’ house when I was a kid had a flat roof that was finished with tar and gravel. Maybe every 5 or 6 years we’d have to have a crew come out and re-apply tar (the gravel stayed the same) to prevent leaks. I can still remember the smell of the kettle of bubbling tar in the street as the wetbacks carried buckets up the ladder. Memories of my childhood in a neighborhood built around the time of the Korean war.
Far too many of the architects I met during my construction management career have been nothing more than artists who think they know math.
And the ones that know they don’t will tell you it’s the job of the Structural Engineer to keep the building standing in all important respects.
Can’t say it’s much worse than the old bit of industrial eye sore.
Especially as it looks like it’d originally been “modernised” in the 1970s with new window frames, additions, and chimneys (going from the styling of those).
Good riddance on the old, though the new isn’t too my liking either (then again, what is…).
At least it’s not some “neo-classical” or “neo-gothical” monstrosity built out of steel, glass, and concrete instead of granite and marble.
In my little libertarian brain I say leave the man alone to do with his property what he wants. He’s not polluting the commons where the rest of us might be offended. This is, of course, how rich people gave us great architecture that we now appreciate even though, at the time, it was considered horrible. No, I don’t me the modern brutalist or fantasy shit. I mean things like Versailles. Well, that may be a bad example, but you see where I’m going with the idea.
Also, flat roofs do leak sooner rather than later. Architect showpieces are often shoddily built and don’t last … see any Frank Lloyd Wright house. But again, that is Mr. Bean’s problem and Mr. Bean’s money. I might care more if I found Mr. Bean the least bit funny, but I don’t.
So what kind of pharmaceuticals do they make in that factory?
And does it have a flogging post for the so-called architect?
I have to come down strongly on the side of Mr Bean. It is his land, his money and in terms of private ownership, he should be able to do as he pleases. The preservationists conveniently ignore functional obsolescence of old buildings, and want to impose their views on what is “appropriate”, “quaint” and “desirable”, and don’t want their sensibilities of what the above entails offended. I echo the comments of Motoguzzi223, above. And further, honestly, this is not something I would ever want to build or live in, that is entirely Mr Bean’s choice.
I’ll add my $.02 with my usual. There are always people who want to supervise other people’s preferences. Eff them. It’s HIS money and HIS property to do with as HE pleases. If the neighbors don’t like his preference in architecture, their simple solution would have been for them to buy the place themselves and then they could have left the old shack there until it fell down. But nope. None of these busybodies wants to spend THEIR money.
Personally, I like #2 better than #1. But really, I don’t care that much for either. Then again, see above.
OK, Kim. Now reread the post you wrote after this one.
As a property owner, dealing with continuous maintenance on a “stick built” home, wooden studs, mdf or plywood walls, covered in vinyl…. his home looks like a lot less maintenance than mine.
Modern architecture reduces maintenance costs when you can afford that expensive square stuff like that home. My goal is to own a home like that one day, and not have to work on it much thereafter!
That flat roof in Oxford’s somewhat wet climate will cancel out the maintenance savings on the rest of the house – if there are any. Aside from the relatively short lifetime of reinforced concrete cited by Quentin below, this looks like it was designed by an architect who thinks he’s a modern artist – so it’s not only in bad taste, but it’s likely to be a maintenance nightmare throughout due to the artist neglecting practical matters.
The new house looks vaguely Art Deco. Not my cup of tea but it’s his money.
The interesting thing is that these new style houses do not last. They’re made of concrete that’s been reinforced with iron and water seeps in and rusts the iron, causing it to expand and fracture the concrete. So it’ll be gone in 100 years or so.
Interesting. As someone who has lived in century-old stick-built houses and tried to bring the wiring, plumbing, central heating, and insulation up to date, it occurs to me that a hundred year structural lifespan that not even the most fanatical historical preservationist can get past might be a blessing. By the time it needs to be completely gutted to build-in 22nd century utilities and conveniences we cannot even imagine, rusted re-bar and fractured concrete will _require_ the easier and cheaper course of tearing it down and building new.
Love the new place.
Shove the old place.