|
rocket_350 posted:The back two thirds of the James Street Baptist Church in Hamilton, Ontario has been demolished so that a gross condo tower can be grafted on to it. Wow, my day is ruined because I now know that this happened. I'm not even religious, but something in particular about desecrating beautiful old churches with terrible incongruous architecture fills me with rage. Knocking down neat old neighborhoods to build huge soulless monoliths and knocking down gorgeous historical buildings to replace them with some bland concrete piece of poo poo also pisses me off. Overall I'm constantly horrified and baffled by how so many architects (or commissioners of architects) seemingly have zero respect for the aesthetic and/or historical context of the environments in which they build and throw up any godawful thing they want. A lot of the time, it's not that building itself is wholly bad, it's that it looks hideous in context. It's like brutalism - it's awesome to look at and ponder in a vacuum, just from a sheer design standpoint in and of itself, but as soon as it stops being just blueprints, renderings, and scale models and actually gets built (probably on the forlorn site of a better, actually nice-looking building), it all breaks down. I really wish there was more emphasis on cohesion, context, and environment in architecture these days. Speaking of architectural context, here's a relatively recent architectural failure:  Thankfully it was never built. There's nothing glaringly offensive or terrible about the design of the house itself - it's just a typical piece of contemporary modernism. If you were to use nice materials and finishes, it could be a pretty sweet house. The problem? Would-be builder of above house, Google tech brat philistine Kevin Rose, intended to build it in the middle of a well-preserved historic neighborhood full of 100+ year old Victorians on the lot of the lot of a 122-year-old Victorian of local historical significance, one of the oldest in the area, he had bought, quietly removed from the historic building register, and was going to demolish. All because he wanted his modernist dream house, which he had named "Deku Tree Retreat" (another cringeworthy aspect of the overall failure), in that particular location. Here's the house he wanted to tear down and replace with the above design:  The neighbors and media raised a huge shitstorm and Kevin Rose was finally persuaded to back the gently caress off and sell back the house, but not before he had the house fenced off and demo crews standing by. I mean, no one would have given a poo poo if he'd bought an empty lot with nothing around it or was going to replace some lovely house with no significance in a not-historic/contemporary neighborhood, but nope, the best course of action was obviously to bulldoze a beloved historical house in pristine condition and replace it with a self-masturbatory sore thumb because gently caress you. I can't wait until the tech bubble pops because then tech assholes with no taste won't be able to afford to gently caress up nice neighborhoods with their dumb oversized dream houses anymore.
|
#
?
Feb 23, 2015 21:42
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 1, 2024 16:27 |
|
|
In Birmingham UK, there was a Victorian Library that looked like this:  So naturally that had to be replaced with this:  But that has to be replaced with yet another shopping mall so they put this up:  It was extremely expensive to build the new one and not long after opening the council crushed the opening hours and fired half the staff they employed to run it because they couldn't afford it.
|
|
#
?
Feb 23, 2015 21:46
|
|
|
shas posted:no idea if any others of this (my) uni got posted but there are other awful buildings I swear this looks almost exactly like a lovely cube building I sketched up for my first ever architectural design module, same stairs, long vertical windows, complete lack of inspiration. I got heavily and thoroughly "critiqued" for those dumb rear end stairs but mine had a cooler roof.
|
|
#
?
Feb 23, 2015 22:30
|
|
this is the school of arts i think
|
In Nîmes, you have La Maison Carrée which is one of the few roman temples that are still intact. Pretty cool huh?  But look what's close to it...  Look how they are a good match! 
|
|
#
?
Feb 23, 2015 22:51
|
|
|
This is kind of the opposite of architecture ("de-architecture?"), but what Minneapolis did was pretty horrendous. I'm not finding exactly the impressive photos I want to find, though I saw a great before/after exhibit in a museum there. In the mid-20th C. Minneapolis decided they wanted to do this massive urban renewal where they'd tear down block after block of boring old stuff and build a bunch of amazing new buildings. They had stunningly bad timing though, and a confluence of social and economic factors resulted in their leveling entire city blocks and then having nobody that wanted to build on them. Some of the immediate "after" photos literally look like a bomb went off or something, just cleared devastation for several blocks, then an ugly cement office building just plunked down. When I first visited MN in 2010 or so, before I knew the back-story, I though "gee this town has an assload of parking lots". Then I saw the museum exhibit and understood why. Apparently there's a extensive critique about how this hurts re-urbanization, crime, walkability, etc to have big concrete emptiness everywhere in the very heart of downtown:  A bit outdated, but there's an entire Tumblr dedicated to detailing Minneapolis' empty lots: http://emptylots.tumblr.com/
|
|
#
?
Feb 23, 2015 23:03
|
|
|
rocket_350 posted:Fort York in Toronto is one of Canada's most important war of 1812 historic sites and has a large collection of buildings from that era still standing. So of course there is a dilapidated 1950s elevated expressway sitting ten feet away from it. I'm fairly certain 90% of Torontonians would happily approve plans to completely demolish the Fort and build another expressway right on top of the remains if it would shave 5 minutes off their commute.
|
|
#
?
Feb 23, 2015 23:09
|
|
|
Wowbagger2004 posted:
Goddamn, that's one ugly fucker.
|
|
#
?
Feb 23, 2015 23:15
|
|
|
Blistex posted:I always thought that businesses on the first floor of apartments was something that should have never gone out of style. You see this happening all the way up to the 60's/70's, then pretty much stopping. That's one thing I really miss about Korea and China (although they have stopped the practice as well), but it's nice to be able to go to the first floor to pick up some groceries, or have a bite to eat. Nothing (IMO) destroys an area faster than just erecting a pile of apartments for miles in every direction and saying "this is a vibrant neighborhood because there is a gas station, Starbucks, and a Walmart 2km away". Wait, are mixed-use buildings not a thing anymore? There seem to be a bunch in Charlotte and Raleigh.
|
|
#
?
Feb 23, 2015 23:16
|
|
|
BEHOLD:  That's the Ohio Historical Society, or whatever the heck they're calling it these days, in Columbus. Always thought that was a hilarious combo of name/building. Let's swing down the road a few miles where they tore down Union Station and most of the tracks themselves:  to build a convention center:   To be completely fair, I guess it does look like a train station or a bunch of tracks from above:  That bridge at bottom left of the last picture goes over a freeway that replaced some of the tracks  and looked like this for about 40 years: Now it looks like this. Isn't it funny how we've come full circle?  
|
|
#
?
Feb 23, 2015 23:22
|
|
|
every body does big jerk offs about brutalism this and that and it's good or it's bad the problem is they don't do any colors on the buildings. a lot of otherwise ugly or unattractive plain old concrete buildings look real nice with some colors
|
|
#
?
Feb 23, 2015 23:44
|
|
|
Numero6 posted:In Nîmes, you have La Maison Carrée which is one of the few roman temples that are still intact. There's nothing wrong with this. E: aside from the lack of a good landscape knitting the two together.
|
|
#
?
Feb 24, 2015 00:52
|
|
|
Living in bum-gently caress nowhere Iowa, I don't see much other than silos and farm houses, but there is this guy who decided to build his own mini-castle. And this paranoid eccentric farmer who built a weird "shrine" across the street from his house that looks like it's straight out of a horror movie.   If anybody's gone to ISU, they've probably heard about it.
|
|
#
?
Feb 24, 2015 01:16
|
|
|
That Byzantine revival Orthodox (I assume) church in the upper left corner is tight as hell, though.
|
|
#
?
Feb 24, 2015 01:23
|
|
|
TapTheForwardAssist posted:This is kind of the opposite of architecture ("de-architecture?"), but what Minneapolis did was pretty horrendous. I'm not finding exactly the impressive photos I want to find, though I saw a great before/after exhibit in a museum there. That reminds me of another Hamilton debacle. The local football field was the laughingstock of the league because it was tiny, dilapidated, and in the middle of a dense residential neighbourhood with no parking.  With the Pan-Am games are coming up, the city decided that this was a perfect opportunity to get a big new stadium in a better location. For those unfamiliar with Hamilton, it's basically North Pittsburg. Half the city used to be involved in the steel industry in one way or another, but it's dried up in recent years and now there's a big effort to clean up the harbour and revitalize the area, which has historically been low income because of all the factory pollution. The city bought and tore down a bunch of houses, enough for a big new field and plenty of parking.  Then this rear end in a top hat piped up. This is Bob Young, founder of Red Hat Linux and owner of the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, and he acts less like an open source activist and more like a whiny baby. He said the new stadium should be up on top of the hill where the big parkway and the wealthy households are, and threatened to move the team if the new stadium was built on the harbourfront. He pushed, the city pushed back. The team played an entire season on the local university's field. Nobody blinked, and the deadline was coming up. So they ended up building the new stadium right on top of the old one.  The harbourfront that was supposed to be revitalized is now a collection of empty lots full of rubble, the stadium has no highway access or parking, it's situated perpendicular to the old one so now half the stands are unbearable when the sun's out and it's still the smallest loving field in the CFL. flavor.flv fucked around with this message at 02:16 on Feb 24, 2015 |
|
#
?
Feb 24, 2015 01:26
|
|
|
TwoStepBoog posted:Living in bum-gently caress nowhere Iowa, I don't see much other than silos and farm houses, but there is this guy who decided to build his own mini-castle. This is cool as gently caress.
|
|
#
?
Feb 24, 2015 01:30
|
|
|
Grope-A-Matic posted:Wait, are mixed-use buildings not a thing anymore? There seem to be a bunch in Charlotte and Raleigh. they tend to not be built as new development nowadays but if a developer is trying to build mixed use that is good and cool as long as they'r enot tearing down something gooder or cooler everyone knows mixed use is the way to go in urban development but unless the local government is taking a strong stance on regulating them into existence they tend to be more hassle than they're worth from a land development standpoint
|
|
#
?
Feb 24, 2015 01:41
|
|
|
Decrepus posted:This is cool as gently caress.
|
|
#
?
Feb 24, 2015 01:46
|
|
|
I'm really disappointed by how well represented Canada has been so far. Towns in Ontario used to have very nice mixed use spaces downtown. Nearly all of these towns were built between 1890 and 1930 so there's a nicely consistent look to them too.      Then all the retail moved out to giant, ugly unwalkable sprawl (i.e Vaugn) and killed a lot of those downtowns for years. Now some of those downtowns in the larger towns are getting turned into, you guessed it - Condos.  
|
|
#
?
Feb 24, 2015 01:56
|
|
|
im gay and really like the look of condos and high rises in general
|
|
#
?
Feb 24, 2015 02:03
|
|
|
YoungSexualNorton posted:the problem is they don't do any colors on the buildings. Maybe old Greek/Roman buildings were originally painted, but their colors faded over the years. Like how they used to paint their statues.  Actually, that could be a cool idea for a photoshop thread. "Paint the brutalist building". 0haiThere fucked around with this message at 03:28 on Feb 24, 2015 |
|
#
?
Feb 24, 2015 03:07
|
|
|
Numero6 posted:In Nîmes, you have La Maison Carrée which is one of the few roman temples that are still intact. Oh! I've actually been there! And they do match. The modern one is built in the style of the temple, just with modern materials. It's clever, and I dig it. It pays homage.
|
|
#
?
Feb 24, 2015 03:21
|
|
|
We have this in cleveland. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ameritrust_Tower  e: hahah I didn't realize this sad fact wikipedia posted:the tower has been vacant since 1996 I like brutilist stuff but this is just some low end poor poo poo. I hated the exterior, now I just ignore it. There was a thing across the street from it where there was an elevated enclosed sky walkway to a parking deck I think but it got torn down.  That domed building is being turned into a grocery store after being uninhabited for years. They're going to keep the exterior. So, that's kinda cool. Now it's got luxary apts/condos and a swanky (for cleveland) club inside and a VIP room with the vault still intact. Here's a dude installing it or something.  They're building a Hilton downtown (not far from the Ameritrust building). Hopefully in time for the 2016 RNC I guess  See that building on the right? It's the Cuyuhago Justice Center (the jail/court/admin center for the county)  Here's another angle (all these angles are looking south [your back is facing north towards browns stadium and Lake Erie])  A couple things that may run through your head: they're building the hilton right next to the prison? The one that is going to be the most expensive hotel in the city? Jesus, the dichotomy of the social statuses of the people. People in the hilton looking on the county/city jail. The jailed looking on the rich. Then.... then it starts to make sense.  yea... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZzgAjjuqZM KoRMaK fucked around with this message at 03:49 on Feb 24, 2015 |
|
#
?
Feb 24, 2015 03:30
|
|
|
That Carré d'Art is a great building. Very sympathetic to the temple. Le Corbusier, the OG brutalist, used to paint all of his buildings and its a shame his imitators didn't do the same.  
|
|
#
?
Feb 24, 2015 03:33
|
|
|
Popular Thug Drink posted:they tend to not be built as new development nowadays This isn't really true. At all. I mean, maybe not in bumfuck nowhere but mixed use has been in full swing for at least a decade and is pretty much de rigueur in most midsize metropolitan areas.
|
|
#
?
Feb 24, 2015 03:35
|
|
|
I'm now reading the wiki page for the ameritrust building. It's got an interesting story. re: "nah, it'll hold" in a government institution sensewikipedia posted:In 2005, Cuyahoga County purchased the tower, the historic Cleveland Trust Company rotunda, and several other surrounding structures from the Jacobs Group for use as the site for new a county headquarters. On March 29, 2007, the Cuyahoga County Commissioners voted to demolish the tower and to replace it with a new building to be designed by Kohn Pedersen Fox.[3] Two commissioners, James "Jimmy" Dimora and Timothy Hagan, wanted to demolish the tower, while commissioner Peter Lawson-Jones supported renovation. The Cleveland Planning Commission approved demolition of the landmark Ameritrust Tower, to the chagrin of preservationists, who argued that the county would destroy a valued piece of architecture. A June 2008 Cleveland Magazine article said[4] that the county's own consultants told commissioners that it would be cheaper and more prudent to renovate the tower for its own use. So it was bought by the county, marked to be destroyed and asbestos removed. Then, we built the convention center, which is actually kind of neat. The convention center is ALL underground. And the top of it is now a grassy area with a rise as you approach the north and so it overlooks browns stadium and the lake. It's actually a nice place. I bike there during the summer and it's one of my chill out points. Anyway, so they divert funds to the medical mart (aka convention center). Hospitals are big here in cleveland. Cancer seems to be our biggest money maker, or the treating of it. So the medical center/convention center was a slam dunk in a way. An actual good decision by those in charge to capitalize and grow and already growing industry. So the county people ditch the ameritrust building because they want to focus on the medi-mart, and try to sell it off for what they paid plus asbestos removal. Someone (the only bidders) bids $35mil + 5000 just to be nice (the county said their lowest accepted would be $35 mil). County rejects it. That takes us to like 2005-7. The same era we were under federal investigation for corruption and the DOJ loving our poo poo up over police brutality. http://www.cleveland.com/court-justice/index.ssf/2014/12/justice_department_recommends.html Huh, its neat piecing these things together. The other funny this is that the FBI center is like right down the road.
|
|
#
?
Feb 24, 2015 04:04
|
|
|
The desecrated church in Ontario and the museum with the crystal growth smashed into it are superb examples of what is known as 'unsympathetic architecture'. Some people simply should not be put in charge of designing a building.
|
|
#
?
Feb 24, 2015 04:09
|
|
|
Frosted Flake posted:I'm really disappointed by how well represented Canada has been so far. Can't loving wait for the condo market to crash
|
|
#
?
Feb 24, 2015 04:32
|
|
|
Pay 100 a week for someone to cut some grass.
|
|
#
?
Feb 24, 2015 04:40
|
|
|
$100 a week? Maybe if you hire Americans like some sort of chump
|
|
#
?
Feb 24, 2015 04:52
|
|
|
rocket_350 posted:The back two thirds of the James Street Baptist Church in Hamilton, Ontario has been demolished so that a gross condo tower can be grafted on to it. When the James Street Baptist Church woke up one morning from unsettling dreams, it found itself changed in its lot into a monstrous vermin.
|
|
#
?
Feb 24, 2015 05:44
|
|
|
Fojar38 posted:im gay and really like the look of condos and high rises in general Get out of here, Three Olives.
|
|
#
?
Feb 24, 2015 05:47
|
|
|
My favorites are the places in the Midwest or similar rural/suburbia in the world that just have some freak building there because someone just wanted something different. Back in 1967, in the middle of nowhere in Wisconsin, a local turkey producer decided to open a hotel and restaurant (two different but nearly identical buildings) celebrating turkey: The Gobbler. Now, you couldn't just open up some plain old buildings to celebrate turkey, no, you had to go full Googie:  The exterior is awkward enough, like Frank Lloyd Wright done hosed a UFO. But it's the interior where things got weird. Unfortunately, things went into decline in the 90's (the hotel was demolished, the restaurant remains), but follow this link to take a trip back to a much more shagadelic time... with purple turkey-print carpets... http://www.lileks.com/institute/motel/index.html and a description of the rooms from back in the day: http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=snlQAAAAIBAJ&sjid=8hEEAAAAIBAJ&dq=gobbler%20motel&pg=6798%2C3528294
|
|
#
?
Feb 24, 2015 05:55
|
|
|
I like and will defend googie.
|
|
#
?
Feb 24, 2015 06:41
|
|
|
rocket_350 posted:The back two thirds of the James Street Baptist Church in Hamilton, Ontario has been demolished so that a gross condo tower can be grafted on to it. This raises an interesting question: assuming the church was void of a congregation and not being used, and the land was going to be sold and used for condo's anyway, is it better that the church is completely demolished to make way for the new building, or for them to incorporate at least a part of the church into the new building, as they're attempting here? For the record, I actually kind of like what they're at least attempting to do here, mixing the old with the new. If they're able to pull it off without screwing it up is a different question. As well, it's Hamilton, so you might as well experiment there because you can't really make the city look worse than it used to in the steel-town days.
|
|
#
?
Feb 24, 2015 10:05
|
|
|
Ankara Courthouse:  I loving hate this building and everyone in it. Can't find an inside photo but it's the most soul crushing, oppressive thing ever. As an apetitizer, here have this:  No one understands this building, it's just... there. Istanbul doesn't fare better when it comes to courthouses tho. But hey, it's at least not a loving brick.  and here have a weird skyscraper because that's the in thing nowadays 
|
|
#
?
Feb 24, 2015 10:43
|
|
|
Musluk posted:As an apetitizer, here have this: I definitely agree about the courthouses and the people inside (cops) being horrible trash that should be detonated, but this building owns.
|
|
#
?
Feb 24, 2015 13:44
|
|
|
The University of Kent has been getting its share of abuse, but I went to the University of York. Its name is Central Hall but we called it 'the concrete spaceship'. I wouldn't mind it so much without the giant steel frame on the top but apparently that's structurally necessary. The university is built on a swamp so hopefully one day it'll sink. Just to rub salt further into the wound of having to look at the drat thing all day, the other university in town (St John's) got to graduate at York Minster - this amazing gothic cathedral - and we got that. 
|
|
#
?
Feb 24, 2015 13:54
|
|
|
Another Manchester post because I realised I hadn't posted the Piccadilly Plaza which is the building overlooking Piccadilly Gardens, the place you will almost certainly end up at when you first arrive in manchester:  I do actually kind of like it but like all bare concrete structures it's sort of run down and gross looking. Fun fact: the street level entrance is really small easy to miss because when it was built the architect assumed that everyone would enter via the car park. Piccadily Gardens which that building overlooks is supposed to be the main square in the city and it's most prominent feature is this:  A giant concrete wall. The wall was put there as part of a redesign about 10 years ago, supposedly to block the noise from the piccadily gardens bus terminal and tram station. The actually effect of course is to make the gardens horrible as gently caress and means that no one goes there apart from drug dealers who can hide from police behind the massive wall. e: view of the gardens from the plaza building: 
|
|
#
?
Feb 24, 2015 14:02
|
|
|
Grope-A-Matic posted:Wait, are mixed-use buildings not a thing anymore? There seem to be a bunch in Charlotte and Raleigh. There are naturally exceptions (if we're talking about new architecture), but I'm talking about the general trend in North America to segregate commercial and residential and have a nice 5km drive on a 4 lane highway between them. So basically you have apartment blocks/condos/suburbs with absolutely nothing around them, and retail villages with the same. So for some people, there is literally no reason for you to be outside of your apartment unless your in your car driving somewhere. On the other hand, areas like what Frosted Flak posted encourage people to walk, shop, browse and to beautify the area so that it becomes a more inviting and interesting place.
|
|
#
?
Feb 24, 2015 15:28
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 1, 2024 16:27 |
|
|
Musluk posted:Ankara Courthouse: Sorry this building is probably one of the best buildings I've ever seen. The only thing that would make it better is if it were monolithically tall.
|
|
#
?
Feb 24, 2015 15:58
|
|