Old Merging with New

This beautiful old building in Oxford Street London houses McDonalds. While I am no great fan of this food chain I am happy to see it installed in a beautiful old building and merging with the street cape. It is so much better to see the building in use and not torn down and replaced with a contemporary monstrosity with massive golden arches hovering overhead. Similarly the very old Pantechnicon with its Greek columns in Belgravia,  built in the 1830s,  now is home to a very big Starbucks and it all looks quite stylish and not out of place. Originally this was a big furniture moving business and storage warehouse but was gutted inside by a massive fire in 1874. No one back then would have ever imagined that a decaf soy latte would play such an important role in this buildings' future.

Comments

[Kelly James]

So much better to keep the old buildings than to build new, even if it's to house a McDonalds or Starbucks. Do you remember seeing the McDonalds near the train station in Budapest?

http://jaxdoesdesign.blogspot.ca/2010/12/budapest-day-2.html