Car Park Contrasts Northampton

The last visit I made here was on a dull day and I was using infrared to capture this impressive concrete car park in Northampton https://pin-sharp.blogspot.com/2017/10/for-members-of-concrete-appreciation.html. Thursday was a very hot and contrasty day so very different images!

Open skies at RAF Upper Heyford

A group of friends visited RAF Upper Heyford today and had a tour of the various historic buildings, many of which are now listed though in very bad condition.  Upper Heyford was a military airfield used in both World Wars and Post-War. During World War Two, the airfield had three concrete runways and six aircraft hangars (Type A). 

In 1950, the United States Air Force moved into the airfield as part of the NATO defences against the Cold War. The Americans lengthened the airfield’s main runway and built new facilities including bomb store structures with an “igloo”-like appearance in a fenced compound, protected by guard towers. In the 1970s and 1980s the role changed to a fighter base and further modifications were made, making it the largest base of its kind in Europe at that time, Some of these additions included the avionics maintenance building (a semi sunken bunker designed to survive nuclear attack).

In 1980, 56 Quick Reaction Alert hardened aircraft shelters were added. There was also a battle command centre and hardened telephone exchange. In 1993 the USA left and the airfield returned to the Royal Air Force control, closing in 1994.

First some infrared images of the buildings and summer sky.

 

Great Yarmouth Concrete

As usual, I was attracted but the various concrete structures during our recent trip to Gt Yarmouth. The  700ft Wellington Pier was originally built in 1835, the seventh pier to be built in Gt Britain. The council bought the pier in 1900 and the original wooden pier was reconstructed, and a pavilion built Over the year's successive owners were unable to halt the pier’s deterioration until it was eventually taken over by the present owners, Family Amusements Ltd. The pier was closed in 2004 for improvement and extensive restoration works. This included the removal of asbestos cladding and then the refurbishment of the steel and timber substructure and decking, with much of the structure now encased in concrete.

 

London 4. Tate Modern Turbine Hall and Boilerhouse - Contrasts

We spent a considerable time photographing in the Tate both for the architecture and the displays. The colours of the Turbine House, especially with the striped carpet reflected in a large swinging metal ball and orange metal pipes supporting a series of swings, contrasted well with the concrete walls and staircase in the Boilerhouse

 

Tallinn 12. Maarjamäe Memorial and Pirita Front

On Friday, after Kadriorg Park, I headed for Pirita where there are a number of  'attractions' from the Soviet era including two that will have to await another visit - The TV Tower and the Olympic Yacht Centre.
I did visit the Estonian History Museum as I had heard about the old Soviet statues left to rot in the garden. However, the Museum was closed for rennovation and the back cordoned off though I could see that the statues have been tidied up and put on plinths. 

Image from Wikipaedia

 

Nearby is the Maarjamäe Memorial, a large Soviet-era monument consists of an elegant bowed obelisk set amid a large crumbling concrete plaza. The obelisk was erected in 1960 to commemorate the Soviet troops killed in 1918. The remainder of the complex was built in 1975 as a memorial to Red Army soldiers killed fighting the Nazis. It was built partly over a war cemetery housing 2300 German dead, dating from 1941. The cemetery was rededicated in 1998 and is now delineated by sets of triple granite crosses in the style common to German WWII military cemeteries throughout Europe. A grey day to visit this Memorial and the adjacent Pirita Promenade but, just as the light began to fail, the sky cleared to a beautiful sunset over Tallin city(next post).