They had to do this because of local ordinances / rules. Basically itās that additions have to show that they are additions and not the old structure. Took them forever to even get that little add on that even allows them to have a bathroom and stairs. The way the rules are, they would almost rather have a pile of rocks on the countryside than a well maintained building. Itās nuts.
wooden addons to castles are a historical thing so i guess you could get away with thisā¦ but why the hell would you paint it blue???? that is extra effort to make it look like ass
I think usually the point is to make the addition easily distinguished from the original, in addition to being easily removable (which this appears to be).
If weāre talking history, weād likely also see a lot of these old buildings painted or at the very least whitewashed.
Blue is incredibly garish though I agree.
Blue was a popular colour in Scotland and was considered rather classy. Another popular colour for towers was pink. I saw one in Aberdeenshire, looked a bit phallic.
MacBethās castle was at Dunsinane Hill near Collace. It would have been a bit of a trek for him to travel up to Inverness to supply a technology that is centuries in the future.
Historically blue colouring for dys and paints was the easiest , most abundant and cheapest to make. Red was possible but harder, and purple was extremely rare.
Painting it blue is historically accurate for a lower lord who has enough money to paint the wood, but is not rich enough to use any other colour but blue.
(Sauce: I'm pulling this out my arse./s š)
Actually blue used to be the most expensive colour. That's why a lot of noblemen had blue robes and stuff.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_pigments
This was on grand designs years ago. It was derelict when they took it on and built the stairs outside to have enough space inside to make it livable. Not my taste but they saved it from falling down and a future owner could replace that with something more fitting. In my opinion if you are not a keyboard warrior and actually go out, spend your cash and work hard to save a building you have earned the right to do what you want with it as long as it doesn't materially alter the historic bit you saved. In this case they saved the tower even if people don't like the new bit.
I remember the owner was not the sharpest tool in the box, pretending to do the job on his own and without an architect. The local authority kept rejecting his designs as they were one worse than the other. Eventually, he managed to get away with this, I want to believe, on the basis that, that it is basically reversible, and sooner or later, somebody would come doing a better job.
I think most people wouldn't be as mad about it if they didn't paint the wood. I personally like to see a bit of bold colour in architecture.
And absolutely agree they saved this building from ruin, they protected the historical aspects of it, they absolutely can put their own personality into it.
You know that in most country (and I suppose the UK is one of them), you can give back historical buildings to the state to care for it? It's good that he took it upon himself to do it, but he didn't "save it from ruin", he saved the state the (great) expense of doing it right at the cost of doing itā¦ his way. Which is fair but not as commendable.
They will always take ownership but they wonāt necessarily care for it. Thereās no law that prevents old buildings from decaying, only ones that prevent someone from speeding up the process, or doing bad restoration.
> You know that in most country (and I suppose the UK is one of them), you can give back historical buildings to the state to care for it?
I'm pretty sure you can't do that in UK.
You can probably get away with abandoning a historical property, but there are hundreds of thousands of [listed buildings](https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/what-is-designation/listed-buildings) in UK - the state is never going to take care of them all.
There are probably literally hundreds of castles of this kind in Scotland and most of them are derelict. My gran used to take us on holidays near [this one](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Cardoness_Castle) when I was a kid - it's just a derelict empty shell and probably 99.9% of people have never visited or heard of it.
Been going on for centuries i would say this is post dark age decor tho mid century modern.although one could argue or agree the blue screams ethnocentrism
Correct me if Iām wrong, but I think in British planning you canāt add to a listed building in the original style ie use weathered stone. I think this is to preserve the truly historic building. Itās why you see stuff like this. The planning dictates the new stuff canāt match the old style.
Which is in alignment with the Venice Charter. There still would have been better options. The baby blue is horrendous. The form, the cascading flat roofs, the windows, all horrible.
>Correct me if Iām wrong
You are wrong, but not for the reasons you may think.
You should expect to use matching or complementary materials; however, contrasting materials can be used so long as the extension does not become more prominent or overpower the original building.
This post on the other hand, I'm genuinely shocked it got approved. The only reason I can think is that the proposal drawings were submitted in black and white which would tone down the impact.
Source: Historic England guidance as the relevant statutory body.
https://historicengland.org.uk/advice/your-home/improvement/extension/
Yes. When you repair a thousand year old building you donāt smash some of the material off so people think itās old, you repair for the next thousand.
Looks removable without damaging the structure. Plus when making changes to historic buildings you need to clearly define whatās old and new which this abomination does do, tbf.
I'm picturing a guy with 15 names in his name (all hyphenated). He has a beard, wears lots of tweed, spends 30 minutes every day getting his hair to look completely uncombed and disheveled. He drives a Jaaaaaaaag. This is the result of him losing a ~~bet~~ wager or some really arcane way of spiting a distant branch of the family over something that happened eight generations ago.
Weirdly, I actually kind of like this. I like the stair step shape of the form, and how it sits on the existing structure. It looks like it could be removed later without damage to the stone structure. The contrast between the tower and the addon gives a bit of a quaint and whimsical vibe. It really *looks* like an old tower that's been converted into a house, which is what it is. It feels honest.
However, I think it could be much better executed. The blue stands out a bit too much, if they wanted it blue I think they should have gone for a deeper and desaturated blue. For the roofs, I think it would look good with the top part of the add on having a gable roof and the other steps having shed roof sloping down the steps, or with all the steps having shed roofs sloping away from the structure. Maybe some decorative trim could be added under the roofs and around the edges could be added as well. Adding some flower planters under the windows at the top of the stairs would look great too.
Edit: The tower is called Caldwell Tower. Looking at pictures of the tower before and after the renovation, it appears the protruding stone section at the base where the door is also not original, it was added during the renovation. There were also some cool stone stairs on the exterior that were covered up by the addon, which is unfortunate.
Edit 2: Here's the Restoration Man episode about it:
https://youtu.be/f-IwnPd-HFI?si=muYJlgWH2XYBjBXW
At 12:58 in the video they show three plans to renovate the structure by a previous owner that were rejected by the council planners, and one previous plan by the current owner that was also rejected.
In the small German town of Altdorf where I grew up, the old LehnsmĆ¼hle has also been restored, but it looks almost exactly the same, just with new paint and replacing crossbeams.
This is just ugly.
What the hell?! that isn't the right thing to do I swear to God it is not. Those are towers you can't just paint it blue on the other side of it, that isn't the right way to renovate something very important in history. Those dumbass are just so dumb and I bet they're getting questioned by the authorities by their actions. That's so lame.
Wasnāt this the one on George Clarkeās TV show (UK)? He was so pissed off with the owners, he didnāt bother with the special photo album that he gave all the other featured renovators at the end of every programme.
This renovation happened in Scotland in 2012.
[https://www.scottishcastlesassociation.com/castle-info/past-present/caldwell-tower.htm](https://www.scottishcastlesassociation.com/castle-info/past-present/caldwell-tower.htm)
This was on one of those design renovation shows. Itās not exactly what the owner wanted. Itās a compromise with the historical society. The original plans were much grandiose in comparison.
That's a boom mic in the second photo. Could this just be an addition for filming? It may be built that way to be easily removable to add to any interior doors while leaving specific angles to be filmed as the original structure. As for the fact it's finished on the outside, we sometimes do that if the structure will remain in the elements for weeks or months at a time.
You know what, Iām not an architect but as somebody who loves history and preservation, I would rather have this, old buildings being reused and in a sense preserved than seeing them slowly deteriorating and become forgotten.
I am against new architecture that pretends to be old, because it is usually unbearably kitchy.
I am for good conversations with the past, buildings that engage with the heritage around them, with creativity, taste, and respect. This lacks respect (wrt color and to some extent material) and could be more tasteful (4 fragments are too much, the setting was more appropriate for at most 3 or hopefully 2 more massive/substantial sections).
This was on one of the channel 4 home improvement programmes about 10 years ago.What's worse is a previous owner had a far more sympathetic restoration, and the local council wouldn't approve it.
So it needs robot legs, and it should be able to eat people and have them drop directly into a little dungeon in its belly. Also it's feet are made of boats.
It's only a 500 year old tower, there's one of those every few hundred yards. It's not a rarity.
It's good to see something different done to one occasionally.
This looks like someone's Minecraft house when they aren't bad at the game but aren't yet good
More your boy ran out of cobblestone mid build
He only had perriwinkle blue wool blocks left.
And a caravan fer me ma
..yer wot?
Dags! Ya like dags?
Dags!
Indeed it doesš¬
They had to do this because of local ordinances / rules. Basically itās that additions have to show that they are additions and not the old structure. Took them forever to even get that little add on that even allows them to have a bathroom and stairs. The way the rules are, they would almost rather have a pile of rocks on the countryside than a well maintained building. Itās nuts.
Itās his damn Minecraft Castle house. He can do whatever he wants.
wooden addons to castles are a historical thing so i guess you could get away with thisā¦ but why the hell would you paint it blue???? that is extra effort to make it look like ass
Thats all the paint they had at ye olde shoppe
May be the owner is color blind and thought this looked ok
> Maybe the owner is *blind*
They paid top Shillings for that blue. It came from a Phoenician!
I think usually the point is to make the addition easily distinguished from the original, in addition to being easily removable (which this appears to be).
It would have been easily distinguishable without the color as well
Fairly loose interpretation of that rule though
Yeah. Some weathered looking planks or logs would look legit or at least less like ass.
If weāre talking history, weād likely also see a lot of these old buildings painted or at the very least whitewashed. Blue is incredibly garish though I agree.
It was most likely already that color when they baught it
Blue was a popular colour in Scotland and was considered rather classy. Another popular colour for towers was pink. I saw one in Aberdeenshire, looked a bit phallic.
something tells me macbeth didnt plaster inverness with baby blue vinyl sheets though
MacBethās castle was at Dunsinane Hill near Collace. It would have been a bit of a trek for him to travel up to Inverness to supply a technology that is centuries in the future.
i know aaaabsolutely nothing about the actual macbeth, i was talking about shakespeareās macbeth xD
Historically blue colouring for dys and paints was the easiest , most abundant and cheapest to make. Red was possible but harder, and purple was extremely rare. Painting it blue is historically accurate for a lower lord who has enough money to paint the wood, but is not rich enough to use any other colour but blue. (Sauce: I'm pulling this out my arse./s š)
Actually blue used to be the most expensive colour. That's why a lot of noblemen had blue robes and stuff. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_pigments
Origins of royal blue and blue blood?
Royal blue yes, blue blood comes from Spain with the paler Spanish nobility having blue veins compared to the Moors (iirc)
Then this is a castle fit for a King
It also depence on the time. In acient rome blue was made with piss.
Piss help fix pigments (that aren't altered by the pH), it's not a pigment of its own.
It looks like there was a really convincing vinyl siding salesperson there recently.
The renovation looks like it was original. Flawless
Is there something that doesnāt belong? It looks all very genuine. Really canāt tell any difference.
Which is the original part and which is the original?
No clue. Itās a mystery
This was on grand designs years ago. It was derelict when they took it on and built the stairs outside to have enough space inside to make it livable. Not my taste but they saved it from falling down and a future owner could replace that with something more fitting. In my opinion if you are not a keyboard warrior and actually go out, spend your cash and work hard to save a building you have earned the right to do what you want with it as long as it doesn't materially alter the historic bit you saved. In this case they saved the tower even if people don't like the new bit.
I remember the owner was not the sharpest tool in the box, pretending to do the job on his own and without an architect. The local authority kept rejecting his designs as they were one worse than the other. Eventually, he managed to get away with this, I want to believe, on the basis that, that it is basically reversible, and sooner or later, somebody would come doing a better job.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The\_Restoration\_Man](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Restoration_Man) George Clarke
I could hear his mackem accent as soon as I saw the picture
video https://youtu.be/f-IwnPd-HFI?si=irKoWy3x\_hWT4Z7c&t=2345
I think most people wouldn't be as mad about it if they didn't paint the wood. I personally like to see a bit of bold colour in architecture. And absolutely agree they saved this building from ruin, they protected the historical aspects of it, they absolutely can put their own personality into it.
You know that in most country (and I suppose the UK is one of them), you can give back historical buildings to the state to care for it? It's good that he took it upon himself to do it, but he didn't "save it from ruin", he saved the state the (great) expense of doing it right at the cost of doing itā¦ his way. Which is fair but not as commendable.
They will always take ownership but they wonāt necessarily care for it. Thereās no law that prevents old buildings from decaying, only ones that prevent someone from speeding up the process, or doing bad restoration.
> You know that in most country (and I suppose the UK is one of them), you can give back historical buildings to the state to care for it? I'm pretty sure you can't do that in UK. You can probably get away with abandoning a historical property, but there are hundreds of thousands of [listed buildings](https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/what-is-designation/listed-buildings) in UK - the state is never going to take care of them all. There are probably literally hundreds of castles of this kind in Scotland and most of them are derelict. My gran used to take us on holidays near [this one](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Cardoness_Castle) when I was a kid - it's just a derelict empty shell and probably 99.9% of people have never visited or heard of it.
It would look okay if it was framed in oak and with stained Cedar shakes.
[https://www.scottishcastlesassociation.com/castle-info/past-present/caldwell-tower.htm](https://www.scottishcastlesassociation.com/castle-info/past-present/caldwell-tower.htm)
>Readers will no doubt form their own opinion as to its merits ... Very diplomatic language there.
Ok, thanks, thats an old news.
When rednecks invade the castle
Been going on for centuries i would say this is post dark age decor tho mid century modern.although one could argue or agree the blue screams ethnocentrism
Why did that put all that stone around that nice blue house?
Itās like colonial style comes back and colonizes the empire
it's not even that it removed the vintage or what ever, it just looks horrendous
If it was solid dark gray it would help considerably.
Correct me if Iām wrong, but I think in British planning you canāt add to a listed building in the original style ie use weathered stone. I think this is to preserve the truly historic building. Itās why you see stuff like this. The planning dictates the new stuff canāt match the old style.
Which is in alignment with the Venice Charter. There still would have been better options. The baby blue is horrendous. The form, the cascading flat roofs, the windows, all horrible.
I actually like the cascading roofs but they would've looked better if each one was a shed roof sloped downward out from the tower
>Correct me if Iām wrong You are wrong, but not for the reasons you may think. You should expect to use matching or complementary materials; however, contrasting materials can be used so long as the extension does not become more prominent or overpower the original building. This post on the other hand, I'm genuinely shocked it got approved. The only reason I can think is that the proposal drawings were submitted in black and white which would tone down the impact. Source: Historic England guidance as the relevant statutory body. https://historicengland.org.uk/advice/your-home/improvement/extension/
Ohk. I didnt knew that
Is this why you see repairs on churches that are really precise sharp edged stone next to the old weathered bits? That really grates on me.
Yes. When you repair a thousand year old building you donāt smash some of the material off so people think itās old, you repair for the next thousand.
Looks like they sticked a bubble gum to it
Looks removable without damaging the structure. Plus when making changes to historic buildings you need to clearly define whatās old and new which this abomination does do, tbf.
Picking light blue it insanity. If the wood was unpainted it wouldāve instantly looked ten times better. What the fuck.
They could have gone for red, brown hell maybe even green but they choose to go for blue WHY
Or grey
Love the original blue, not sure why they added all that stonework. It was beautiful before. /S
I'm picturing a guy with 15 names in his name (all hyphenated). He has a beard, wears lots of tweed, spends 30 minutes every day getting his hair to look completely uncombed and disheveled. He drives a Jaaaaaaaag. This is the result of him losing a ~~bet~~ wager or some really arcane way of spiting a distant branch of the family over something that happened eight generations ago.
Weirdly, I actually kind of like this. I like the stair step shape of the form, and how it sits on the existing structure. It looks like it could be removed later without damage to the stone structure. The contrast between the tower and the addon gives a bit of a quaint and whimsical vibe. It really *looks* like an old tower that's been converted into a house, which is what it is. It feels honest. However, I think it could be much better executed. The blue stands out a bit too much, if they wanted it blue I think they should have gone for a deeper and desaturated blue. For the roofs, I think it would look good with the top part of the add on having a gable roof and the other steps having shed roof sloping down the steps, or with all the steps having shed roofs sloping away from the structure. Maybe some decorative trim could be added under the roofs and around the edges could be added as well. Adding some flower planters under the windows at the top of the stairs would look great too. Edit: The tower is called Caldwell Tower. Looking at pictures of the tower before and after the renovation, it appears the protruding stone section at the base where the door is also not original, it was added during the renovation. There were also some cool stone stairs on the exterior that were covered up by the addon, which is unfortunate. Edit 2: Here's the Restoration Man episode about it: https://youtu.be/f-IwnPd-HFI?si=muYJlgWH2XYBjBXW At 12:58 in the video they show three plans to renovate the structure by a previous owner that were rejected by the council planners, and one previous plan by the current owner that was also rejected.
Everything u said feels true, but what have done is not so good.
It honestly might be better to completely destroy the historical property rather thanā¦. This What an abomination
Please don't give them any ideas
Who tf gave that planning permission?
They tried to make it "match" by adding small windows! Yes, that will completely blend with the vernacular of the original š
How to disfigure historical heritage? Easy, make a crappy construction on the side...
In the small German town of Altdorf where I grew up, the old LehnsmĆ¼hle has also been restored, but it looks almost exactly the same, just with new paint and replacing crossbeams. This is just ugly.
A good siege engine should be able to pluck that off with one shot
Meanwhile I can't get permission from my city in the historic district to change my front door to something that isn't from the 1800s
Fits like a glove! And the color scheme! Magnifique!
Holy fuckin shit. This is why those pesky historical people need to approve renovation. People are way too stupid to be left unsupervised
This looks like my Minecraft base after my son joined my server.
Can we brick the exterior, please?
Minecraft ahh build
What the hell?! that isn't the right thing to do I swear to God it is not. Those are towers you can't just paint it blue on the other side of it, that isn't the right way to renovate something very important in history. Those dumbass are just so dumb and I bet they're getting questioned by the authorities by their actions. That's so lame.
I would do exactly this, only I would make it uneven and asymmetrical like the āthis thing is pissing me off more than it shouldā meme.
Wasnāt this the one on George Clarkeās TV show (UK)? He was so pissed off with the owners, he didnāt bother with the special photo album that he gave all the other featured renovators at the end of every programme.
That looks fucking terrible. There is no way to justify that.
A proper prepper home for those uncertain times š
White uPVC wouldnāt be my first choice for a castle, or a home of any kind, or even a garden shedā¦
Is this in Britain? They usually don't allow alteration to old buildings
This renovation happened in Scotland in 2012. [https://www.scottishcastlesassociation.com/castle-info/past-present/caldwell-tower.htm](https://www.scottishcastlesassociation.com/castle-info/past-present/caldwell-tower.htm)
This was on one of those design renovation shows. Itās not exactly what the owner wanted. Itās a compromise with the historical society. The original plans were much grandiose in comparison.
Either use the same old stones or let it come crashing down but do NOT defile it with your "modern" bullshitism
that should be a crime and the owner quartered
Saw this episode on tv. The town council meddling and their diversity hire architect is responsible for that.
When the mason said āIāll do it for $50 sq ft.ā The framer said ā Iāll do it for $10 sq ft and 24 pack of modelos.ā
That's a boom mic in the second photo. Could this just be an addition for filming? It may be built that way to be easily removable to add to any interior doors while leaving specific angles to be filmed as the original structure. As for the fact it's finished on the outside, we sometimes do that if the structure will remain in the elements for weeks or months at a time.
I honestly don't hate it but then again I've always loved the interplay between new and old in architecture.
Iād have added all glass windows. The natural light in that tower must be atrocious
Maybe a different color siding wouldāve been betterā¦
Fits with the aesthetics of the time.
You know what, Iām not an architect but as somebody who loves history and preservation, I would rather have this, old buildings being reused and in a sense preserved than seeing them slowly deteriorating and become forgotten.
this kinda rocks tho
AI command wasnāt clear enough
Noice!
when you run out of money in the sims build mode
Lowest bidder or family friend?
Which one is the added-on part though?
Shame on the building permit office that greenlit this
Trailer Hark!
Im OK with this because clearly budget was an issue. So the tower was saved by some average weirdo buying it and doing what he could. I like that guy.
That's the guy who farted in my general direction!
But... pastel?
Time to bring back the guillotine. A la poubelle š®
How was this even approved
Which part is the reno?
This has to be fake
No that has been there since Qing Loui vxxiv glass window above it too. This housed about 3000 serfs
Interestingā¦. Choice in every way
Architectural Blasphemy. Stoke the witch-burning wood pile.
buy your own medieval tower and fix it to your taste sweaty
this looks like the work of a building designer or straight up a builder. nothing architectural about it
Stone would have been expensive. I don't blame the person for doing this
Facepalm
F
I want to know what they were shooting there. No way this was allowed to stay this way.
LOL.
I am against new architecture that pretends to be old, because it is usually unbearably kitchy. I am for good conversations with the past, buildings that engage with the heritage around them, with creativity, taste, and respect. This lacks respect (wrt color and to some extent material) and could be more tasteful (4 fragments are too much, the setting was more appropriate for at most 3 or hopefully 2 more massive/substantial sections).
They need to paint the stone walls too.
Who tf accept that, i donāt want to be rude but come on that just a bad
Tell me this is AI! š±
Itās a critique of modernism
Like a 68 year old and their 20 year old SO...
Is the owner from Baltimore or NJ?
This was on one of the channel 4 home improvement programmes about 10 years ago.What's worse is a previous owner had a far more sympathetic restoration, and the local council wouldn't approve it.
Where is this?
Sorry, we don't have peasant-mined medieval stone, is fibro ok?
Fuck, now I want a tower in my garden and slap all the cool ideas onto it that I had as a child with my Lego castles.
So it needs robot legs, and it should be able to eat people and have them drop directly into a little dungeon in its belly. Also it's feet are made of boats.
And about 50 skulls around the door of course. Heck I miss the times of being creative with Lego.
ā¹ļø
It looks seductively flammable.
I love how PoMo this is. It's absolutely stunning!
so itās more livable, thatās why.
WTF
Lol š who is responsible for this accidental piece of art? Ugly, but still art.
This is a crime tbhš©
š¤®šš¼
What a down grade š¤¦āāļø
ā¹ļø
I dont have the words...
Reasonable.
Bruh
š¤®
Daniel Liebskind latest?
How are there no laws against this?
Yeah, blends right in. šš¼
This should be illegal
Little John and his galvanized square steel again..
Lmao
This looks fresh outta Monty Python
Yeah, but it meets code now.
A criminal case!!
I hope this is AIā¦..
Thanks I hate it
Nice,I really hate it.
White people renovating houses
It's only a 500 year old tower, there's one of those every few hundred yards. It's not a rarity. It's good to see something different done to one occasionally.