Harald posted:

what's the story?...never seen these.

Harald posted:

what's the story?...never seen these.

down n out posted:

Kowloon City was definitely an impressive failure though. Nothing like living in an ultra dense mega-slum.

Harald posted:

what's the story?...never seen these.

Three Olives posted:

It was originally supposed to be half as tall but the developer couldn't sell any units so naturally the police and fire pension fund was like "Rich people will love this, build it twice as tall!" They named it Museum Tower.

The design of the tower focused light on a museum next door that has a glass roof founded by one of the most powerful and wealthiest families in the city and made it where they had to put a lot of their art in storage, destroyed another piece of art and killed a few trees so no rich people wanted to buy units in a building that ruined a museum and seriously loving pissed off one of the most influential families in the city.

It's been open like 2 years and I think they have sold like 30 of over 100 units.

Deathreaper posted:

I think Ottawa could fill up this entire thread. Most tourist locations in the city such as the Parliament hill, the ByWard market and the large number of museums scattered throughout the city don’t accurately convey the bland soviet era brutalist architecture which makes up a very large part of the city. A quote which sums up the city quite well: Ottawa Citizen architecture critic Rhys Phillips has echoed these concerns, saying that Ottawa "looks like some tired little Prairie town on its last legs.”. Let’s get started with some of my favourite architectural monstrosities (AKA half the city once you go south of Wellington Street past the parliament buildings).
University of Ottawa and surrounding areas

The University of Ottawa flak tower also serves as a library from time to time.

Giant complex of bland apartments south of campus. Lots of students rent apartments in these buildings.

Downtown Core

Lovely 8 or 9 story windowless block of concrete sitting right in the middle of down town Ottawa. Building takes up about half a block and casts shade all around it. I think it serves as a large mechanical building for a telecom in the region.


Your average Government of Canada monstrosity built in the 1970’s. Usually packed with asbestos and featuring poor ventilation – as you can imagine employees are sick half the time. Unfortunately the Government of Canada owns a lot of these awful properties throughout the city which really the area a bad look. “In an era of political discontent over high taxes it was even a priority that the buildings not be cheap, but also look cheap so that visitors from the regions wouldn't feel that the federal government was wasting their money in Ottawa.”

Here are some of the awful condos in the downtown core. No this is not the Soviet Union and more shocking is that people actually buy these with their money… Condo fees are insanely high for these types of building which probably reflects upkeep cost due to the age and cheapness of the building

Another apartment

The police station

The library

The National Arts Center, another giant slab of concrete

View from the Parliament (lol we ran out of money for windows OR planning was so bad the building supposed to be behind was never built)

Note that this doesn't even cover a tenth of the terrible crap in Ottawa. Multiply the asbestos filled bland government buildings and Soviet style condo / apartment towers scattered throughout the area and that should give you a pretty good feel for the city. Ottawa is a city where architecture goes to die.

CoffeeBooze posted:

That would be the city hall of Dallas, TX. Which probably also warrants a post in this thread.

BigBoss posted:

Toronto isn't some summer vacation hotspot people visit for a few weeks.

Deathreaper posted:

quote:

quote:

Arian_Samurai posted:

Reminds me of the humanities building at UW Madison



Personally I like the style

Volcott posted:

I dunno, I kind of like the design.

IzzyFnStradlin posted:

i don't know why architects ever thought it would be a good idea to build largely windowless buildings. like, what's the thought process there? how did that even become a popular school of design?

Apollodorus posted:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beauvais_Cathedral

Volcott posted:

Wikiped says: "brutalism became favored for many government projects, high-rise housing, and shopping centers to create an architectural image that communicated strength, functionality, and frank expression of materiality."

Strudel Man posted:

It's good stuff. No bullshit.

Popular Thug Drink posted:

i'd love to live in a plate glass house with no curtains up on a great big hill where everyone can see it in a town with the most intrusive photographers per capita in the world

Ivor Biggun posted:

Goons would design for maximum efficiency

Say Nothing posted:

"Nah, it'll hold"

Volcott posted:

I dunno, I kind of like the design.

Three Olives posted:

The real problem with Dallas City hall is it was specifically designed to be really unfriendly. I mean not in the brutalist "It is what it is" statement, it was an implicate "If we make it looks really imposing and unfriendly people won't want to protest here" . Designing a city hall to be intentionally vaguely threatening and unpleasant to it's citizens is problematic.

Volcott posted:

Honestly, tumblr has ruined the word problematic for me.

Deathreaper posted:

I think Ottawa could fill up this entire thread. Most tourist locations in the city such as the Parliament hill, the ByWard market and the large number of museums scattered throughout the city don’t accurately convey the bland soviet era brutalist architecture which makes up a very large part of the city. A quote which sums up the city quite well: Ottawa Citizen architecture critic Rhys Phillips has echoed these concerns, saying that Ottawa "looks like some tired little Prairie town on its last legs.”. Let’s get started with some of my favourite architectural monstrosities (AKA half the city once you go south of Wellington Street past the parliament buildings).
University of Ottawa and surrounding areas

The University of Ottawa flak tower also serves as a library from time to time.

Giant complex of bland apartments south of campus. Lots of students rent apartments in these buildings.

Downtown Core

Lovely 8 or 9 story windowless block of concrete sitting right in the middle of down town Ottawa. Building takes up about half a block and casts shade all around it. I think it serves as a large mechanical building for a telecom in the region.


Your average Government of Canada monstrosity built in the 1970’s. Usually packed with asbestos and featuring poor ventilation – as you can imagine employees are sick half the time. Unfortunately the Government of Canada owns a lot of these awful properties throughout the city which really the area a bad look. “In an era of political discontent over high taxes it was even a priority that the buildings not be cheap, but also look cheap so that visitors from the regions wouldn't feel that the federal government was wasting their money in Ottawa.”

Here are some of the awful condos in the downtown core. No this is not the Soviet Union and more shocking is that people actually buy these with their money… Condo fees are insanely high for these types of building which probably reflects upkeep cost due to the age and cheapness of the building

Another apartment

The police station

The library

The National Arts Center, another giant slab of concrete

View from the Parliament (lol we ran out of money for windows OR planning was so bad the building supposed to be behind was never built)

Note that this doesn't even cover a tenth of the terrible crap in Ottawa. Multiply the asbestos filled bland government buildings and Soviet style condo / apartment towers scattered throughout the area and that should give you a pretty good feel for the city. Ottawa is a city where architecture goes to die.

Nefarious posted:

lol at people getting mad over the frank lloyd wright house. if goons designed houses they'd be windowless pyramids. can't get any more efficient than that

down n out posted:

Kowloon City was definitely an impressive failure though. Nothing like living in an ultra dense mega-slum.

Sestze posted:

Brutalism is the ideal video game architecture style, as it provides the correct ambiance of oppression and totalitarianism while being constructed out of mostly primitive shapes.

Also god bless you for never changing your custom title.