I know it's an easy target, but, really - what were they thinking?
For those who criticise the role of architects in zoos - look and weep! This is just hideous. How much thought was put into its design? It looks like a health clinic built in the 1970s. In Crawley. For this to have been built to house gorillas, in a place to which people go to have their souls lifted, is simply beyond belief.
I know it's an easy target, but, really - what were they thinking?
For those who criticise the role of architects in zoos - look and weep! This is just hideous. How much thought was put into its design? It looks like a health clinic built in the 1970s. In Crawley. For this to have been built to house gorillas, in a place to which people go to have their souls lifted, is simply beyond belief.
Not to defend architects, who have wrought numerous atrocities in zoos around the world, but in this case I really have to question the zoo staff themselves. Is this what they asked to be built? Were they surprised by the result? In either event, they are fully culpable for this travesty.
Not to defend architects, who have wrought numerous atrocities in zoos around the world, but in this case I really have to question the zoo staff themselves. Is this what they asked to be built? Were they surprised by the result? In either event, they are fully culpable for this travesty.
It seems to me like this probably arose from a very simple misunderstanding at the local planning office where the plans for the local Department Of Motor Vehicles office (or whatever the British equivalent is) got mixed up with the gorilla exhibit plans.
Somewhere in the region near this zoo there are some very confused motorists sitting in a Congo rain forest setting waiting to get their driver's licenses.
Ozala (Mamfe x Biddy) is the mother of Okanda (Oumbi x Ozala) and this is her third baby. Asante(Mamfe x Eva) is the older half-sister of Ozala. She has never bred(she is a humanised/desocialised female) which is unfortunate as she is the only offspring of her mother Eva.
You are correct and that is precisely why no one ever has anything nice to say about the exhibits at Twycross, with the exception of perhaps the elephant and snow leopard enclosures.
Not to defend architects, who have wrought numerous atrocities in zoos around the world, but in this case I really have to question the zoo staff themselves. Is this what they asked to be built? Were they surprised by the result? In either event, they are fully culpable for this travesty.
Oh no - I absolutely agree with you! My point was that people are quick to blame architects for all the ills of zoo buildings, but when you see something as horrible as this, you surely have to appreciate that good, sensitive architects are crucial to a zoo.
That famous line from Gerald Durrell about the architect being the most dangerous animal in the zoo was, in my opinion, quite wrong; the most dangerous animal is the poorly-briefed architect who has been given no instruction to consider the aesthetic impact of a building.
Where you and I might differ, I suspect, is on what it is that makes good architecture. I think we'd both agree, though (as would anyone with eyes to see) that this most certainly is not good architecture.
