The Architecture Thread

[imatlas]

“Meditation on Exposed Plumbing”

 

[sugarbutch]

At least it's not boring?

 

[imatlas]

https://local.theonion.com/brutalist-beaver-constructs-paul-rudolph-inspired-dam-1833665215?

 

[sugarbutch]

Getting through the EIR for that must have been a PITA

 

[Big Pun]

Does anyone subscribe to any architecture magazines these days? I was thinking of getting Detail, kind of expensive though.

 

[edinatlanta]

Gotta give the alma mater some love!

Who can say that this isn't the most charming way to anchor a quad with a charming, resoundingly collegiate library?

Somehow the ivory-tower-ensconced leadership believe this plan, bringing the amount of library receiving daylight to ~75% over the current ~20% will be more conducive to student enjoyment and academic pursuits! (Recently unveiled transformation plans)

Also shoutout to our building that was literally designed to model the Bastille. Because who doesn't love thinking they're going to school in a former prison.

 

[Journeyman]

^Reminds me of my university, which has a large quadrange of beautiful, cloistered, classically-appealing sandstone buildings, but then has some pebble-dashed concrete, Brutalist bunkers immediately adjacent to the lovely, older buildings.

The great court:

The library building:

 

[Journeyman]

Oh, and the main administration building is awful, too.

Here's an old photo - the stone buildings of the Great Court are just out of sight to the right of the photo:

 

[imatlas]

Ah, the acrid taste of “raw” cement.

It’s shocking how many schools appear to have drawn inspiration from prisons. I made a joke about a building looking like a prison while visiting the CSU East Bay campus recently, and then a police car left the garage and I realized we were actually in front of the campus jail.

 

[sugarbutch]

The urban myth passed on to freshman in my dorm was that it had been designed by a company that built prisons. I vaguely recall that being debunked, but it had truthiness.

 

[imatlas]

There’s an urban myth about SUNY Purchase that it has tunnels connecting it to the nearby National Guard base in case of riots.

 

[Van Veen]

The urban myth passed on to freshman in my dorm was that it had been designed by a company that built prisons. I vaguely recall that being debunked, but it had truthiness.

The urban myth about my freshman dorm was that it was built with zig-zagging hallways for riot control because of Kent State. I think this is a fairly common one.

 

[FlyingMonkey]

The urban myth about my freshman dorm was that it was built with zig-zagging hallways for riot control because of Kent State. I think this is a fairly common one.

Yeah, the building I work in has the same stories attached to it.

 

[edinatlanta]

I know it's only a train station but Atlanta has some interesting public-transit related architecture. (Yes, this is now an Edina Lauds Atlanta Threak). Somehow the color scheme works as well but they are muting the colors in newer designs so I don't like it as much.

The most peculiar and under-appreciated design (and it is very appreciated I just like it that much) is the Eiseman Building facade that is actually inside the station just under the ground level stretching between the two layers of tracks. When the station was built as a good but generic brutalist train station they demolished the Eiseman Building. In one of the rare piques of preservationism to hit Atlanta, rarer even still during that time, the facade was preserved and installed inside because the terra cotta was noteworthy and I assume fragile.

So anyway, it's always a little trippy to be heading down and inside only to be greeted by a glorious building's exterior.

Of course we also have plenty of stations like this where the generic publicly funded architecture won out. I suppose this is a way of asking any architecture historians: was there a dividing line when architecture for public buildings stopped having any sort of design principles? Like, this is purely function over form and to an extent I'm ok with that as a tax payer. But even buildings roughly 30 years old still had some interest and soul to their design.

 

[Lionel Hutz]

A lautner masterpiece restored

Bob Hope house in Palm Springs, long an architectural footnote, approaches masterpiece status

Architects, designers and craftsmen work to restore Bob Hope’s legendary Palm Springs house.

www.latimes.com