Steamy Steampunk Buildings

[J. Wilhelm]

That is a very interesting film. I was surprised at the number of people on bicycles. Not something you tend to see in Hollywood movies. I wonder, was this more a French or Parisian thing or were bicycles quite popular on the streets of British/Italian/American cities as well?

I realise that a lot of work has been done on the film but I was also surprised at its resolution, frame rate and how stead the shots were.

Sorontar

Obviously it's been worked on, a lot. Unfortunately I don't have many details on the picture. All I know is that it was filmed for the Lumière Bros. Europe would have been more "advanced" than other parts of the world when it came to modern transportation around 1900. That would include alternative modes of transportation, I'm guessing as a fashionable activity.

In other news, I found this photo today

"Climbing on the trolley," Mexico City, 1906.

[E.J.MonCrieff]

It has been mentioned on this thread a couple of times, but can I put in a vote for the PAPPLEWICK PUMPING STATION?

Some fine Victorian architecture, working beam engines, stained glass in the windows... and they host Steampunk events.  (There's one on today!).  If you cannot make it, you can always visit their website

http://www.papplewickpumpingstation.org.uk/

[maduncle]

It has been mentioned on this thread a couple of times, but can I put in a vote for the PAPPLEWICK PUMPING STATION?

Some fine Victorian architecture, working beam engines, stained glass in the windows... and they host Steampunk events.  (There's one on today!).  If you cannot make it, you can always visit their website

http://www.papplewickpumpingstation.org.uk/

Oh my giddy aunt, both steampunk and classic motorcycle events held there?

I am moving in.

[J. Wilhelm]

It has been mentioned on this thread a couple of times, but can I put in a vote for the PAPPLEWICK PUMPING STATION?

Some fine Victorian architecture, working beam engines, stained glass in the windows... and they host Steampunk events.  (There's one on today!).  If you cannot make it, you can always visit their website

http://www.papplewickpumpingstation.org.uk/

Oh my giddy aunt, both steampunk and classic motorcycle events held there?

I am moving in.

Here's a video of Papplewick Pumping Station in 2013

The Papplewick Pumping Station May 2013


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

OK. I just found this video about the architecture during the "Porfiriato" period in Mexico, when President Porfirio Díaz was pushing very hard to europeanize the country and push the industrial revolution. Many of the architectural buildings you see I've shown before in this thread, but individually. This video is about buildings which were built around 1900 and designed by European (and Mexican) architects. This is a period of intense European migration into Mexico, which unfortunately also led to political instability.

Arquitectura del Porfiriato

Sadly the video is in Spanish, but suffice it to say that the narrators are taking about the Meiji-Era-like transformation of Mexico, and the contrast between the much favored European migrants and industrialists over the majority of the peasant citizenry, leading to the Civil War of 1910.

[yereverluvinunclebert]

I am still convinced that Britain is the most steamy place on earth.

This illustrates my point.



The Crown Inn Stockport surrounded by 11 million bricks in the shape of the Stockport viaduct.

[yereverluvinunclebert]

Just spent the day here:



Royal Tunbridge Wells



The Pantiles, Tunbridge

[von Corax]

I am still convinced that Britain is the most steamy place on earth.

No argument here.

[J. Wilhelm]

I am still convinced that Britain is the most steamy place on earth.

SNIP

How could it not be?

The Industrial Revolution began in Great Britain, and many of the technological innovations were of British origin.[3][4] By the mid-18th century Britain was the world's leading commercial nation

[Sorontar]

My question (to myself) is how many of those buildings are heritage protected?

Sorontar

[yereverluvinunclebert]

Many are protected. The Viaduct is heavily in use every day but many viaducts are grade II listed. The UK is very good at protecting buildings by listing them. It is however down to the owner to maintain them.

[E.J.MonCrieff]

Many are protected. The Viaduct is heavily in use every day but many viaducts are grade II listed. The UK is very good at protecting buildings by listing them. It is however down to the owner to maintain them.

Unfortunately the Authorities are now planning to fill in a number of bridges over closed railway lines in Britain for "safety reasons".  This prevents the line being re-opened, or the trackbed being re-purposed as a footpath or cycle track.

Such is "progress".

On a lighter note, there's a photograph in today's "Guardian" illustrating an article about Canfranc station just insid Spain.  Not strictly a Steamy Steampunk Building as it wasn't completed till 1928, but its style certainly qualifies it as an Honorary Steampunk Building.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canfranc_International_railway_station

[yereverluvinunclebert]

Spent the day here today!



A bit pre-steam but mechanical enough I think due to some nearby cast iron or steel embellishments, ie. this gate:



and this pillbox to defend against the Boche or the Hun.



and from a different angle...



Made of 14mm approx welded steel, capable of withstanding rifle and machine gun fire, just. Containing a mounting for a Vickers .303" or a Boys anti-tank rifle. Its position commands one of the few paths through the salt marshes next to Cley upon Sea.

[J. Wilhelm]

Spent the day here today!



A bit pre-steam but mechanical enough I think due to some nearby cast iron or steel embellishments, ie. this gate:



and this pillbox to defend against the Boche or the Hun.



and from a different angle...



Made of 14mm approx welded steel, capable of withstanding rifle and machine gun fire, just. Containing a mounting for a Vickers .303" or a Boys anti-tank rifle. Its position commands one of the few paths through the salt marshes next to Cley upon Sea.

A Steampunk would look at the last two pictures and see the remnants of a Martian fighter pod.

[maduncle]

Spent the day here today!



A bit pre-steam but mechanical enough I think due to some nearby cast iron or steel embellishments, ie. this gate:



and this pillbox to defend against the Boche or the Hun.



and from a different angle...



Made of 14mm approx welded steel, capable of withstanding rifle and machine gun fire, just. Containing a mounting for a Vickers .303" or a Boys anti-tank rifle. Its position commands one of the few paths through the salt marshes next to Cley upon Sea.

A Steampunk would look at the last two pictures and see the remnants of a Martian fighter pod.

... or the base for a British expeditionary landing module.

[E.J.MonCrieff]

What is it, though, that makes a building specifically 'steampunk' and not just Victorian or Edwardian?  I can think of several buildings off the top of my head that to me just scream 'steampunk' but that would leave others thinking 'well it just has fancy ironwork'...

You may want to research the work of Viollet-le-Duc and look at the Oxford University Museum. 

A suitably steamy building in Oxford is the Pitt Rivers Museum (https://www.prm.ox.ac.uk/).  Another is Keble College (https://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/01/6d/25/7a/keble-college.jpg), sometimes referred to as 'Oxfords's only knitted college', and of which it was (apocryphally) said "C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la gare".....

[yereverluvinunclebert]

"C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la gare"  

One of my favourite places on earth. We had a picture or two of it earlier.

[J. Wilhelm]

Old house near 5th 7th Street, corner with Guadalupe St. in Downtown Austin, Texas.
Sorry for the blurry photo. Hard to keep the phone steady on the bus.

[J. Wilhelm]

Near 6th Street, you have the Warehouse District, so called because of the turn of the century commercial buildings that remain

The Clay Pit Indian Restaurant settled for an old stone building on Guadalupe St. corner with 16th Street.

Businesses situated in old warehouses on the block of 16th.St. and Lavaca St.

It's difficult to tell the age of these houses next to river. They've been renovated many times.
The giveaway is the limestone foundations with basement.

Top is likely Edwardian/Arts and Crafts/FL Wright's Prarie School.



The other could be as late as 1940s.

[E.J.MonCrieff]

Old house near 5th Street, corner with Guadalupe St. in Downtown Austin, Texas.
Sorry for the blurry photo. Hard to keep the phone steady on the bus.

A decidedly steamy building.  I don't think there's anything quite like this in the British Isles.

[J. Wilhelm]

Old house near 5th Street, corner with Guadalupe St. in Downtown Austin, Texas.
Sorry for the blurry photo. Hard to keep the phone steady on the bus.

A decidedly steamy building.  I don't think there's anything quite like this in the British Isles.

We have quite a few left in Downtown Austin, but more in the satellite city of Georgetown, and many times more as you approach the French part of the country. Note that the French style in wrought iron percolates in the design elements of the house. I Have posted the Littlefield House at the University of Texas at Austin, on this forum many times, so if you haven't seen it, just Google it on this thread or online. The thing about Texas Victorian homes is that they are related to the American Southern plantation homes (this house shown on Guadalupe is rather big), and the materials used include a liberal amount of limestone, and if not for a more quaint house, then aat least for the foundations.

Texas sits on a limestone basin which comprises the entirety of the Gulf of Mexico, as the Gulf was much larger millions of years ago, so the whole ground is made up of limestone (which is another name for crustacean shell deposits accumulated over eons). The cities of San Antonio, Austin and Waco lie on an arcing geologic fault parallel to the coast known as the Balcones Escarpment, which divides the dry flat part of Texas and the rolling hill wet parts of Texas as you close in on the Gulf.

So wealthy Texans could afford to build large Victorian homes and buildings using stone, whereas the materials change as you go into other areas of the country.

[yereverluvinunclebert]

A decidedly steamy building.  I don't think there's anything quite like this in the British Isles.

Yes, we've had this discussion before (always good to revisit) and the style of cast iron verandahs on the outside of buildings tends to be a colonial style, cast iron being cheap to export from the foundries in the UK, a thoroughly modern and advanced material and most importantly, it withstands the weather types typically found in the colonies, warmer and dryer than at home. In the UK it is more typically used in a robust fashion in commercial premises, railway stations and arcades.

The following images are examples that I think I have not posted before.

Southport Arcade - I've not been here for a while so these are just stock photos









When there are verandahs on houses they tend to be a little more discrete and understated.

[J. Wilhelm]

There are more homes I can photograph down here between 5th and 7th streets on the west side near the river, but usually I'm so tired I don't have the energy to walk the 10 blocks or so away from the bus route. I'll see if I can mount an expedition. The downtown area has changed a lot in the last 10 years, and the skyline is saturates with very tall modern buildings, so you have to research ahead of time which Victorian homes you want to see.

The vast majority of Victorian homes have been converted to office space. Lawyers, architectural companies, studios, and doctor offices. That's really all that is protecting the old buildings from demolition. Someone needs to invest the money in renovation and upkeep, and so the Victorian homes are now a bit of a status symbol.

[yereverluvinunclebert]

Another lovely Victorian building in SouthPort, complete with a railway line. The old StationMaster or signalman's house.

[yereverluvinunclebert]

Miniature prisons - Wheatley Lock up

[J. Wilhelm]

I found the house on Wikipedia. It's the Bremond House, built in 1870, by Eugene Bremond and George Feigel. It's part of the Bremond Historic Block in Austin. Which means there's more to see in that block!

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bremond_Block_Historic_District

John Bremond House. Image Creative Commons License CC BY - SA by LoneStarMike

There's even a self guided tour of the area online:

https://www.gpsmycity.com/tours/downtown-historical-houses-walking-tour-3349.html

I think I have my first expedition mapped out for me! Right next, two blocks north and one block east (these are tiny blocks), from the Bremond House is the Hirschfield House and Cottage, built in 1873

And three blocks due West, you have the Robinson Macken House, built in 1876

Robinson Macken House. Image by Larry D Moore, CC by SA 3.0

Outside of the Governor's Mansion, the other houses may not look so interesting, but nonetheless are equally historical, and noting that not everyone was a wealthy land owner or business baron at the time. There are many more houses not listed on this tour guide, which may or may not have been registered as historical landmarks, but that's what interesting about this place. I'll keep looking for Victorian homes now that my path crosses the area.