2011

SU6452 : Fanum House, Basingstoke

taken 13 years ago, near to Chineham, Hampshire, England

Fanum House, Basingstoke
Fanum House, Basingstoke
Built 1970-73 by Farmer & Dark. The AA has been its sole occupant. The offices are sheathed in slender, close-set aluminium fins. I find the effect somewhat disturbing, as if it is some sort of optical illusion designed to disorientate. What must it be like for those inside looking out - a prison?
It stands in Basing View Business Park, which sprang up largely in the 1970s as organisations were encouraged to relocate from London. According to the website, it was “dubbed the “Dallas of Hampshire” in the late 1970s, because of the striking concentration of high rise buildings”, which suggests to me a striking degree of chutzpah and/or self-delusion. In fact, I find it hard to believe that the concept existed outside the fevered imagination of one or two planners. The estate comprises one road in an elongated loop (Fanum stands at the end like the dot in a exclamation mark) along which are strung out some twenty or so office blocks of variable quality, only one of which (Fanum) could reasonably claim to be high-rise.

Creative Commons Licence [Some Rights Reserved]   © Copyright Stephen Richards and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.
Geographical Context: Business, Retail, Services other tags: 1950s-1970s Architecture Click a tag, to view other nearby images.
This photo is linked from: Automatic Clusters: · Park [271] · House [249] · Basing View [235] · Road [219] · Basingstoke [211] · Office [156] · Office Block [82] · Believe [37] ·
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SU6452, 1421 images   (more nearby 🔍)
Photographer
Stephen Richards   (more nearby)
Date Taken
Sunday, 26 June, 2011   (more nearby)
Submitted
Friday, 20 January, 2012
Subject Location
OSGB36: geotagged! SU 6491 5263 [10m precision]
WGS84: 51:16.1481N 1:4.2579W
Camera Location
OSGB36: geotagged! SU 6468 5268
View Direction
East-southeast (about 112 degrees)
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Image classification(about): Geograph
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