Neutrino posted:

Many mid sized cities have good historic warehouse districts adjacent to downtown like St. Louis and also Milwaukee. There are others but I am not familiar with them. The National Trust for Historic Preservation is probably the best source for information. Some of their staff are on an advocacy tour giving lectures about preservation issues and to educate people about saving the Historic Tax Credit. I went to see Stephanie Meeks speak last month and the information she presented about the economic value of preservation is amazing. Go and see her if you can.

I did a recent lecture on the history of Milwaukee's downtown development and losses of historic buildings. Milwaukee still has a pretty good stock of historic buildings that were not torn down. Through newspaper articles and 1950's-1960's consultant reports on urban renewal I found several issues which affected many cities throughout the US. Downtown districts suffered three development roadblocks which caused many problems in the 1950s. Prohibition had an effect on many cities that depended on the brewing industry, the Great Depression stopped development in the late 1920's thru the mid 1930's, and World War II had government restrictions on new construction for the duration of the conflict. Post war development moved away from city centers to outlying areas and developed in response to greater reliance on cars. CBD areas suffered as a result of all these issues and by 1954, Congress enacted the Housing Act to fund clearance of blighted areas and spur housing development. Cities used these funds to clear large areas of "BLIGHT". Then interstate highway development came along and cities planned for downtown highway loops which also had a hand in clearing out more "blighted" areas.

In Milwaukee, tax loopholes were used by property owners to clear old, poorly kept downtown buildings instead of investing money in their repairs and built surface parking lots which were cheap cash cows. There really has to be local codes and tax benefits to preserve not only older buildings but also the urban fabric of neighborhoods where these buildings exist. If you clear them all for parking lots, you not only lose valuable tax base but you lose a vitality which otherwise would draw people to an area. The result is a deserted area which developers don't want to touch because it is deserted. It is a Catch-22.

Flagrant Abuse posted:

The other two sides are just giant windowless (aside from at the seam) concrete slabs that even the most die-hard brutalism fan (hi, that's me) would be hard-pressed to justify.

AwwJeah posted:

Kunsthaus, Graz, Austria





actually rad as gently caress

Mr. Sharps posted:

all you fans of brutalism mingled with greenery should visit seattle's freeway park







used to be a great place to score smack but i hear it's been cleaned up quite a bit now

Munin posted:

Random aside, it is a "palate cleanser" not a palette one. It refers to a drink or little bit of food served between courses clear the taste of the last course before starting the next one, hence cleansing the palate.

Platystemon posted:

ChlorophileAddict posted:

and speaking of awful...

MikeJF posted:

How do you figure? Admittedly using Wiki as a source, but it's not top ten by volume, footprint or floor area. (It's 330,000 m² floor, 2.55 million m³ volume)

Frostwerks posted:

is that grass or water in the first picture. either way, yeah i love this building and have for a while and do you know if any more similar exist

quote:

Already infamous for its curved facade that ignited fires in adjacent buildings and melted nearby cars basking in its reflected sunlight, the Walkie Talkie skyscraper in London is now being blamed for toppling signs, overturning food carts and even knocking passers-by off their feet. Dubbed ‘Walkie Scorchie’ as well as the ‘Death Ray’ during its last public debacle, critics may need a new name for this building more suited to its fresh source of infamy.

...

A worker at a local retail outlet told The Times: “It has only really been windy since the Walkie Talkie has been here. When they were building it and there were the building works going on, it was fine. But ever since they’ve completed it, the wind really picked up.”

...

ANAmal.net posted:

That building owns and I love the fact that it's rebelling against its creators by knocking them over and setting their things on fire.

MikeJF posted:

I mean, our cities are basically in a perpetual parking crisis. They did deal with it...

Yaos posted:

What are they going to do when there are only self driving cars and no need for parking spots?

Dick Trauma posted:

While I was looking for something appropriate I found this non-architectural image that captures 1978 pretty well.

quote:

gently caress ART; THIS IS ARCHITECTURE

Paddyb posted:

New thread title plz

Paddyb posted:

I'm literally shaking right now.

Gorilla Salad posted:

The house with no railings where guests falls to their deaths is also known as the S-House* is in Chennai, India.

You can visit the website about the house here - and unlike visiting the house itself will be in no danger of falling to your death

Everyone should visit that link and see the house where you fall to your death in its natural habitat - wedged between lovely old Indian buildings, and adjacent to an unpaved dirt road.

This is what it looks like on the outside, because of course it does:




* Not actually short for "shithouse" surprisingly.

Jaramin posted:

I find the idea of a house so blatantly unlivablr you're not supposed to put anyone in just plain ridiculous. It's like art no one is supposed to look at...which I'm sure exists.

red19fire posted:

Cantilever stairs are cool as gently caress, but I wonder if they wear out over time and start to tilt.