Architectural failures - "nah, it'll hold." - The Something Awful Forums

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Anza Borrego: Feb 11, 2005; Ovis canadensis nelsoni

I work in the industry and this thread is very much my poo poo.

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.

TBF it's a pretty sexy building. They're also supposed to be renovating the facade soon to help deal with the reflectivity issue, after several years of throwing tantrums at the Nasher. They still continue to sell units, albeit at a very slow pace.

CoffeeBooze posted:

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

This building is such a poo poo show, but the "civic plaza" out front really takes the cake. It's one of the most brutally oppressive public open spaces in Dallas.

Rick Rickshaw posted:

Meet The Harmon. I ate breakfast in the shadow of this building back in 2011 and thought it looked pretty cool, so I researched it after my trip to the sin city.

This is when I learned of the horror.

Hard to believe a building so new and so large was planned for dismantling.

It wasn't planned for dismantling, the general contractor used the wrong reinforcing in the columns and the building could only be half as tall as it was supposed to be. Foster took his name off the building, MGM sued the GC and they tore it down.

e: It was a real shame too, it would have been a very elegant addition to the architectural freakshow that is CityCenter.

Anza Borrego fucked around with this message at 06:58 on Feb 20, 2015

# ¿ Feb 20, 2015 06:11

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# ¿ May 21, 2024 05:44

Anza Borrego: Feb 11, 2005; Ovis canadensis nelsoni

Some bad opinions on architecture ITT. Some of this is right on but a lot of these buildings are totally unremarkable.

Applewhite posted:

The Tang makes Brutalism look like Art Deco.

E: check out the inside

It's basically hatred expressed in the form of a building.

That looks like a completely normal contemporary museum space. I don't think you really get architecture.
Boston City Hall has a terrible interior with few windows in the interior space, lots of concrete and hardly any natural light. This is a bad interior.

cubicle gangster posted:

zaha hadid is a pretty household name. she recently got really bad though and her new buildings are either poo poo or look like bad copies of stuff u.n. studio did 10 years ago.

Herzog & de meuron, marcio kogan, chad oppenheim, bjarke ingels, richard meier, rem koolhaas, renzo piano (debatable)

depends what you mean by visionary. these guys are pretty famous, well respected and all have a very distinct style that is their own. richard meier is probably the one with the most distinctive voice.

Most of those guys are well past midcareer, with the exception of Bjarke, who is the current Golden Child. He gets the big idea and knows how to sell. His buildings are a bit wonky but whatever.

Piano is a pretty great craftsman. The Nasher is an amazing museum; the Chicago Museum of Art is pretty amazing and the photos of the new expansion of the Harvard museum is pretty dope. He hates landscape though, so he loses a bit of luster for me.

Rem is a visionary thinker but his work is not constructed very well. Jonathan Prince Ramus is carrying his torch fairly well, the Wyly is cool although the site work is poo poo.

Thom Mayne @ Morphosis is growing up and starting to do real buildings.
Michael Rotondi, who split from Mayne, continues to do interesting work.
Brad Cloepfil @ Allied Works is doing good stuff.
Steven Holl makes cool buildings but is a poo poo urban designer.
John Pickard @ PCA is killing the skyscraper game right now.
Pelli Clarke Pelli continues to make interesting commercial buildings.
Tom Phifer is a Meier protege who is also killing it right now.
MAD is also doing cool stuff, mostly in China.

Zaha can loving rot, her recent spate of buildings are so bad. The arena in Japan is so totally devoid of context it's embarassing.

Frosted Flake posted:

I didn't like Liebeskind's work until I visited the Denver Musuem of Art. It's not efficient at all (and sometimes makes people experience vertigo) but they really get the craft and execute incredibly well.

Applewhite posted:

Googled the "architect" who "designed" the Tang so I could send him a strongly worded letter.

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

Predock did an amazing job with the Petco Park, it's really amazing for a baseball stadium.

Not a Children posted:

I don't understand how you can build something that big, ostensibly for public display of collected materials, and then have loving NOTHING INSIDE

Liebeskind, like many famous architects including Gehry and Calatrava, can often breathe new life into institutions through their work. They generate interest, spark conversation and often invigorate fundraising and philanthropy. The buildings are often regarded as sculptural objects in and of themselves. The "Bilbao Effect" is very real.

# ¿ Feb 20, 2015 22:29

Anza Borrego: Feb 11, 2005; Ovis canadensis nelsoni

Frosted Flake posted:

Jesus dude.

A museum should not be full of oddly angled, poorly laid out empty spaces. If you want a sculpture, make a sculpture. Don't ruin public spaces in the name of pretentiousness.

Yep, because buildings totally don't symbolize the aspirations of a city, community or institution and are only machines for displaying art. :agesilaus:

You also don't seem to recognize that many of this buildings are funded by private investors and philanthropists who clearly have an agenda in mind. I get it, Liebeskind's buildings are wonky, but just because you think efficiency is king doesn't mean that they arent meritorious pieces of architecture. The Denver museum is also inefficient but still serves as a great framework for the art it holds. I'm sure the docents get frustrated but the last time I was there it was absolutely overrun with people whereas the original wing of the museum was empty.

# ¿ Feb 20, 2015 22:52

Anza Borrego: Feb 11, 2005; Ovis canadensis nelsoni

Frosted Flake posted:

I'd love to see some pictures of that American city with no zoning laws. Was that Houston or Dallas?

Houston. Their building boom is going crazy right now.

# ¿ Feb 21, 2015 01:43

Anza Borrego: Feb 11, 2005; Ovis canadensis nelsoni

FizFashizzle posted:

Richard Meier designed the High Museum of Art in Atlanta. He won the Pritzker in 1984 for it.

I dunno, I don't really think it has aged well.

It's also remarkable for never having an exhibit worth a poo poo, but if you're a BoA member you can go for free so there's that.

Also they film Red Band Society there now.

Meier's buildings can be pretty great when studied alone (both exteriors and interiors) but fall flat when considered in context because he leaves them naked on a plinth surrounded by nothing but concrete. One of the things that is so great about the Getty Center is the relationship it has with Laurie Olin's garden and Robert Erwin's installation.

# ¿ Feb 21, 2015 06:50

Anza Borrego: Feb 11, 2005; Ovis canadensis nelsoni

anchoress posted:

this is also a good building. loving philistines

Needs more site work to anchor the building.

# ¿ Feb 21, 2015 08:26

Anza Borrego: Feb 11, 2005; Ovis canadensis nelsoni

boom boom boom posted:

There's this

It's a house.

There was originally grass growing on those slanted roof panels but they're too steep so it all fell off the first time it rained.

That appears to be a standing seam metal panel roof, which would be totally unsuitable for turf. Green roof construction has actually gotten much more technically savvy these last few years; it was a small project, but we did the sloped grass panels on the James Turrell installation on Rice's campus.

Making it work is much harder than you would think.

# ¿ Feb 22, 2015 07:04

Anza Borrego: Feb 11, 2005; Ovis canadensis nelsoni

Numero6 posted:

In N�mes, you have La Maison Carr�e 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!

There's nothing wrong with this.

E: aside from the lack of a good landscape knitting the two together.

# ¿ Feb 24, 2015 00:52

Anza Borrego: Feb 11, 2005; Ovis canadensis nelsoni

Darth123123 posted:

YLLS fashionistas.

Do tell

Authentic You posted:

Wasn't the Eiffel Tower originally supposed to be a temporary structure for the World's Fair?

Also, the more I read about Frank Gehry, the more I hate him.

"Hmm, what sorts of structures would best complement the stoic, monolithic epicness of the Battersea power station? I know! A pile of flashy, squiggly, flaccid-looking bullshit buildings with trees sticking out of them!"

"The Eisenhower family hates my idiotic design for the Eisenhower Memorial and has withdrawn their support? Well gently caress them."

"So I guess in grafting a ROM-like starchitectural cancer onto the front of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, I'm also ruining the iconic setting of an iconic movie scene that everyone likes to visit? Lol."

That's just The Guardian, too. Gizmodo (I believe) called him the Guy Fieri of architecture and I agree with that assessment.

This is an eloquent, fleshed-out reflection of my exact thoughts on the state of architecture these days, especially the aspects of these sorts of buildings being put up with utter lack of regard or respect for context or working harmoniously with the existing environment.

The Eisenhower Memorial is pretty reprehensible, but those condo buildings are some of the least offensive things he's ever done. I have a love/hate thing for his work, and starchitecture n general.

I think there is a very important place for people to explore new frontiers in design, but feel passionately that it a disservice to your clients if your ridiculous forms are so unconventional to construct that they are not watertight or have atrocious energy performance. This problem is perpetuated by the trend-based cycles of the architectural world where the shock of the new is important, schedules are short and there typically is an adversarial relationship with the general contractors building their projects.

The industry is also becoming increasingly specialized and large building projects require huge consultant teams to process thousands of drawings to be read by multitudes of project engineers and subcontractors. Mistakes inevitably happen and costs can seriously escalate and end up radically changing a project, even when good people do great work.

Sometimes though incredible buildings can be catalysts that revitalize an area, leading to more investment that can transform the entire city into something better than it was. But sometimes it doesn't. There are constellations of people and pressures that ultimately shape these things, and the results are hard to predict.

Tldr: :effort:

Anza Borrego fucked around with this message at 10:07 on Feb 28, 2015

# ¿ Feb 28, 2015 10:00

Anza Borrego: Feb 11, 2005; Ovis canadensis nelsoni

EoRaptor posted:

Future architectural failure:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3v4rIG8kQA

Bjarke has great ideas and uses amazing diagrams to tell compelling stories, but his buildings are kind of bad. Heatherwick is more of an artist than an architect. Plus his island park for NYC blows.

This is going to be a disaster of epic proportions.

Millions of Crows posted:

Why does nearly everything built from 1960 onward look like poo poo? It can't just be brutalism. Maybe architects all really hate people?
My other option is that anyone rich or influential enough to commision a building is too self absorbed, sheltered and stupid to create anything good.

This is A Bad Opinion.

# ¿ Mar 1, 2015 06:59

Anza Borrego: Feb 11, 2005; Ovis canadensis nelsoni

Professor Shark posted:

It's a pretty good opinion, with that turkey thing as the only exception

Yes, let's only build buildings that ape the styles of yore and disregard all the technological advancements and realities of modern living and development. Good plan.

# ¿ Mar 1, 2015 21:52

Anza Borrego: Feb 11, 2005; Ovis canadensis nelsoni

Professor Shark posted:

lol none of those things are true about modern architecture.

This ugly building is good because it's "advanced" because it's modern. It's ugly as poo poo, but whatever.

Ugly is subjective. Efficiency in materials and energy performance is pretty cut and dry. Take a look at Lake|Flato, Thomas Phifer and Kieran Timberlake if you want to see (IMO) some of the brightest minds in the industry today.

# ¿ Mar 2, 2015 03:08

Anza Borrego: Feb 11, 2005; Ovis canadensis nelsoni

A Winner is Jew posted:

They're usually the ones that figure out how to actually make those hosed up shapes work in the first place... so yeah this gets my vote.

Yeah those people you are talking about are also architects HTH.

# ¿ Mar 2, 2015 09:57

Anza Borrego: Feb 11, 2005; Ovis canadensis nelsoni

Mordja posted:

When will zeppelins make a comeback?

More from Toronto: The Aga Khan museum looks like it's been turned upside down.

Aside from a shortage of good, humane plaza this is pretty awesome.

# ¿ Mar 5, 2015 01:42

Anza Borrego: Feb 11, 2005; Ovis canadensis nelsoni

Rianeva posted:

The Museum of Glass in Tacoma

A new apartment building in the Seahawks' stadium's parking lot. It looks like someone jammed three different buildings together and said "welp. good enough."

The Tacoma museum is pretty cool because not only does it hold glass art, parts of it ARE glass art. It's also lit really well at night.

That building by ZGF is also pretty cool, is highly efficient and has a number of sustainable features.

TLDR: Oh noes, modern buildings!!1!

# ¿ Mar 5, 2015 07:33

Anza Borrego: Feb 11, 2005; Ovis canadensis nelsoni

Neutrino posted:

Milwaukee had an architect in the 1960's that had some interesting designs and proposals. He built this addition to a historic downtown hotel which is a unique blot on the landscape. Back then, cylindrical buildings were a space age wonder.

I've stayed here several times and the floor plates are terrible. Awful, awful plans.

# ¿ Mar 7, 2015 19:42

Anza Borrego: Feb 11, 2005; Ovis canadensis nelsoni

quote:

Photo of Orville Simpson, Jr.
"Victory City, Orville Simpson speaking," says the voice on the other end of the line. It's not "hello" or "good afternoon," mind you. No, when Mr. Simpson answers the phone, he is all business, and his business is Victory City � even if it doesn't really exist yet.

Orville Simpson II is not your average guy. He is fascinated with urban planning, architecture, engineering, artistry, and in general, making the world a better place to live by promoting his plans for the city of the future.

He had 23 different jobs in the first 15 years of his working and business career. The last job was acquisition clerk in Urban Renewal at Cincinnati City Hall. This job qualified him to take several evening courses at the University of Cincinnati at half price. The courses were: business law, business management, the principles and practices of real estate, real estate appraising, and economics. He passed all except the economics. This new knowledge was helpful when he bought a 4-family apartment building in January 1958 and a 9-family in 1959. His first large investment, however, was Grumman Aircraft common stock in 1948 for $3,000. This was the first investment in the stock market. It went very well and encouraged him to buy more, which he did often in the future.

When his father died in September 1968, his net worth had risen to $111,000. He received $114,000 when the distribution was made in 1969. The new net worth was then $225,000. It took him 61 years to make his first million in December 1984. It took 7 more years to make the second million, and 5 more years to make 3 million. Now, the entire estate is destined to go to the promotion of Victory Cities.

Yep, this sounds like the kind of fellow that I'd like to put in charge of a future dystopian society!

What a terrible waste of $3m.

# ¿ Mar 11, 2015 04:26

Anza Borrego: Feb 11, 2005; Ovis canadensis nelsoni

All I can surmise is that guy really hated people.

# ¿ Mar 11, 2015 05:30

Anza Borrego: Feb 11, 2005; Ovis canadensis nelsoni

Paddyb posted:

RIP Michael Graves. Much like this thread, you had some good buildings and some bad buildings.

His work really offends me. It's just so goddamn banal.

Also his color choices are usually revolting.

# ¿ Mar 13, 2015 05:31

Anza Borrego: Feb 11, 2005; Ovis canadensis nelsoni

Captain Clown posted:

I dunno how bad this is to all of you, but I have to walk by it every day and... ugh. not that the old one was any better either but...

The newly renovated Rhode Island College Art Center:

And that is a picture from when it was first finished a year ago. Now, the metal is already tarnished and dirty looking. It just looks like someone took a dated light brown brick building (aka every other building on campus) and slapped an ugly metal building on top of it.

Schwartz Silver does pretty good buildings, there's nothing wrong with that except for the need for a better landscape. The exterior cladding is weathering steel, which oxidizes over time and is a very intentional decision. The interiors also look pretty rad, which is about what I would expect from SS.

# ¿ Mar 18, 2015 07:27

Anza Borrego: Feb 11, 2005; Ovis canadensis nelsoni

yoctoontologist posted:

You can't talk about Rothko Chapel without mentioning the music Morton Feldman wrote for it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZZ0DYIkaP8

I have been intrigued by the Rothko chapel for a while now but HOLY poo poo I am going there the next time I am in Houston!

Xotl posted:

I saw a mention of Edmonton earlier, but how anyone can mention my home and not mention this thing boggles me.

A bunch of mismatched glass, some random melty poo poo plopped on top of it, and an East German outhouse crazy-glued to the side. It's just the ugliest goddamn building in a city full of ugly goddamn buildings.

Yeah, that's pretty heinous. GIS turns up some early concept sketches that had more curling metal facade and less glass, which would have been better. loving VE!! :argh:

# ¿ Apr 3, 2015 03:39

Anza Borrego: Feb 11, 2005; Ovis canadensis nelsoni

C.M. Kruger posted:

The National Congress building in Brasilia is hideous:

And go figure, it was designed in the 60s. Apparently the bowl and dome are the seats where the senate and congress meet, and a few years back their air force broke a bunch of windows with a low-level flyby.

But really, it just looks more like a set from a low-budget 80s scifi movie than a seat of state power. It just needs a synth soundtrack and the white-jumpsuited, golf cart driving security forces of a opressive utopian regime. (as opposed to Brazil's actual black-clad military death squads)

Oscar Niemeyer's work is still bad in the ways modernism is usually bad, but God drat he was doing it much better than his peers. I love how sculptural his work always was.

# ¿ Apr 22, 2015 07:47

Anza Borrego: Feb 11, 2005; Ovis canadensis nelsoni

you irl posted:

that's an artist rendering, most of the trees aren't there yet and the surrounding land is very under-construction-y. the building itself looks pretty awesome from i4 though. there's also an ugly square building off to the left (from the camera pov in the pic) that doesn't fit with the main building

That appears to be an impressively bad master plan for a college campus.

# ¿ Apr 27, 2015 01:54

Anza Borrego: Feb 11, 2005; Ovis canadensis nelsoni

KernelSlanders posted:

How about aluminum?

I've been seeing this kind of louver system popping up on new projects. What building is this and who designed it?

# ¿ Apr 30, 2015 07:05

Anza Borrego: Feb 11, 2005; Ovis canadensis nelsoni

cubicle gangster posted:

When gehry does something good though, it's real good

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYTti5FkOjE

(I worked on this & all the marketing for this building. i'm very happy it's his best too)

Nice video! I feel like an interior shot looking out of a bay window might have been appropo given his warmup talk there.

# ¿ Jun 17, 2015 04:17

Anza Borrego: Feb 11, 2005; Ovis canadensis nelsoni

drat NIGGA posted:

It's always been my home and I love it here, but L.A.'s skyline is pretty 80's. It looks like Oklahoma city or some other midwest city.

So we put this building up.

Greenland's Metropolis development is going to be pretty modern.

Paddyb posted:

This is rad as gently caress.

Ahem, I mean I love the interplay of solid and void, of light and dark, of man and nature.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad posted:

Oh hey the London Death Ray is finished and it's won it's first award, Building Design Magazine's Carbuncle Cup, for the worst building of the year http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/architecture-design-blog/2015/sep/02/walkie-talkie-london-wins-carbuncle-cup-worst-building-of-year

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlRNO8xcrgU

Good job everyone!

This building is a really great example of why wind tunnel studies are important.

Hermsgerv�rden posted:

The only thing Liebeskind does well is stairs, that's all he should be allowed to do from now on.

This is in the German Jewish Museum in Berlin, and it's otherworldly to stand on the top step.

I love the central stair in Denver. They had some great exhibits when I was there and I came away with a great impression of the museum.

# ¿ Sep 5, 2015 02:48

Anza Borrego: Feb 11, 2005; Ovis canadensis nelsoni

Fabricated posted:

Kunstler's website was down for a little while and it made me sad because no one complains about lovely buildings like him.

It's back now.

He's got bad opinions about open space, HTH.

# ¿ Oct 18, 2015 19:06

Anza Borrego: Feb 11, 2005; Ovis canadensis nelsoni

Azhais posted:

Someone obviously fished the plans for this out of the trash

The drawings you want to refer to are the elevations.

# ¿ Oct 24, 2015 04:37

Anza Borrego: Feb 11, 2005; Ovis canadensis nelsoni

Consist posted:

When it comes to an actual architectural design failure, nothing in Los Angeles beats Pershing Square.

Originally, it was just an ordinary park in the middle of downtown

The park went through a lot of changes over the years, until sometime in the early 90s some hotshot architect was brought on to improve the park, and went on to completely ruin it:

Oh? What's that in the far right of that last picture you ask?

Parking ramps! Completely blocking off the sides of the park to pedestrians. Not only that, but the actual park was raised up for some inexplicable reason, and the only entrances to the park are on the corners.

Needless to say, the only people who frequent the park after the renovation are homeless people, and the city has been extremely reluctant to do anything about the park because they're making loads of money off the parking garage below. Although apparently they're currently having a competition for a new park design, with the parking garage intact of course.

Ricardo Legoretta's renovation of the park is generally reviled. They have been making some improvements to the play area that are akin to moving deck chairs on the titanic right now.

The design competition has attracted serious interest but they are ranking architects above landscape architects, which is a pretty grave mistake. I'm also butt hurt because my firm, who is respected in be field, didn't make the top 10 cut.

The garage will remain because the garage provides revenue that can fund the park, potentially. Most public urban open space is struggling to develop self-sustaining revenue streams as park and rec departments watch their budgets dwindle.

# ¿ Dec 14, 2015 02:00

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# ¿ May 21, 2024 05:44

Anza Borrego: Feb 11, 2005; Ovis canadensis nelsoni

Taupe. Definitely taupe.

# ¿ Dec 22, 2015 06:04

The Something Awful Forums > Archives > Comedy Goldmine > Architectural failures - "nah, it'll hold."