The lights of Zurich

Oh my!  What a disastrous choice Zurich made by getting rid of the old lights in exchange for the new ones that run along Bahnhofstrasse during the Christmas holidays.  You can see them in the photo here, or at WiFi-Art.com, where there's a great shot of them in the dead of night.  They are the white toothpick looking things lining the center of the street.  Apparently the old lights were too old and too expensive to maintain, so they gathered all the smart minds of the city to devise a fancy, new decoration for Zurich's main shopping district.  In a nod toward Swiss clocks, its supposed to be "The World's Largest Timepiece" - designed Fabio Gramazio and Matthias Kohler.  Well the people of the city hate it; and I can see why.  Its just plain ugly.  And the lights are too white.  It looks industrial, not festive.

There is still a section of Zurich where you can see the old-style lights - on Rennweg.  They look warm and inviting, so I understand why the new lights are the talk of the town.  Zurich is old, small and charming; and Bahnhofstrasse is like New York's Broadway.  But they ruined it with white test tubes.  However, from what I here, the talk is that the smart minds are being asked to reconvene early next year to "fix" the situation.  What I'd like to know is, "Was making a poor choice cheaper than keeping the old ones?"

Click on either of the two photos and tell me what you think.

While considering this, I played: City of Blinding Lights from the album "The Complete U2 - How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb" by U2.