10 Ugliest Buildings in the World

Originally Posted by LabelKing

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Brutalism is unappreciated, and besides, it has strong intellectual tenets unlike the Hummer H2-driving family homestead here.

+1. I've really started to appreciate the brutalist government and university buildings I see. I'd love a brutalist home.

And I'll briefly note that Koolhaas is an example of a wildly influential and talented architect that provides influence to the practice largely inconsistent with his thinking. Most view his architecture as formal compositions but ignore the methodology of it's creation. He takes programmatic needs and very logically designs his buildings to best accommodate those needs in hopes of ignoring any set of conventional guidelines that have arisen that "restrict" the potential of the building's use. You can see this thinking in his book Delirious New York and aforementioned Maison a Bordeaux. His influence among architects (particularly young ones) is one merely of visual representation and aesthetic tendencies. His building' skins, forms, and patterns are often copied mindlessly devoid of the logic in process that was used to create them. I personally have a lot of respect for him and find him very interesting but I've become less and less inspired or influenced by him because of the overt plasticity of his material choices and their implied cynical and nihilistic viewpoint. Case in point.... Casa da Musica Content "magazine" book.

Here's the aforementioned eyesore that is E.M.P.:

That's some schlock right there.

You could do worse visually. Gehry was really discouraged with Paul Allen over that project. He got very little helpful feedback towards the design from what I read in an interview and basically alluded to the fact that he had no idea what to give Allen because Allen had no idea what was needed or what he wanted.

Originally Posted by StephenHero

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You could do worse visually. Gehry was really discouraged with Paul Allen over that project. He got very little helpful feedback towards the design from what I read in an interview and basically alluded to the fact that he had no idea what to give Allen because Allen had no idea what was needed or what he wanted.


But what he got was THIS:



I mean, holy ****. If someone asked me to design something, and basically gave me no feedback or expectations, I'd consider that free reign to do something awesome. Not to take a giant technicolor crap in the middle of Seattle. I dunno.

The excuse was this " It's supposed to look like a smashed electric guitar. FAIL in both idea, and execution.

Almost ironically, I think that the site for the project is really terrible. Positioning a self contained sculptural mass on a large, low density site almost limits the building's use as an event destination and limits casual pedestrian foot traffic. If it were right in the middle of downtown in might have worked better and become used more. I have a sense that there are only so many days out of the year Seattle residents say to themselves "Let's go check out some Hendrix memorabilia." You could probably clear the place out and put an Ikea, Target, or Barnes & Noble in there and it would instantly become the most awesome version of each because people would be more willing to go there and make a trip out of it.

But as an object, I still have no hard feelings towards it. The texture and colors of the metal are really appealing. I think it's more of a disappointment than an ugly, bad building. But I've never been there so I'll reserve a definitive view.

I love how there's some sort of fairground behind it and that maglev train goes in--total Disney fare.

Some of the POVs are not that bad - especially that first elevation above. But the aerial view is grotesquely ugly.

I can only hope that I'm rich enough one day to purchase the EMP building and then level it.

Originally Posted by LabelKing

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I love how there's some sort of fairground behind it and that maglev train goes in--total Disney fare.
It was built on the site of the 1962 world's fair and the carnival rides behind it are permanent fixtures. The space needle is right next door as well: http://www.seattlepi.com/specials/worldsfair/ While on the topic of other awful Seattle architecture, the Westin "corn cob" towers are also quite bad.

The plan views are just as bad as the overhead view. Take the monorail in and it is like riding into a multicolored turd. The space needle is just off to the side there with a big food court, and there is a park with lots of foot traffic as well as the opera house so it's not as isolated as it looks.

--Andre

Originally Posted by robin

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I can only hope that I'm rich enough one day to purchase the EMP building and then level it.


It was built on the site of the 1962 world's fair and the carnival rides behind it are permanent fixtures. The space needle is right next door as well: http://www.seattlepi.com/specials/worldsfair/

While on the topic of other awful Seattle architecture, the Westin "corn cob" towers are also quite bad.

Reminds me of the cover of Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot.

Originally Posted by robin

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While on the topic of other awful Seattle architecture, the Westin "corn cob" towers are also quite bad.

See... I don't mind those as much. Dunno why, but I like round buildings. I applied to live in Tower 801 way back in the day, before they crammed all the new convention center crap around it.

I drive past that building in covington, Ky almost every day. I think it is rather interesting, and a breath of fresh air to the surrounding area.

Originally Posted by LabelKing

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Reminds me of the cover of Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot.
Marina City Towers in Chicago