World's Ugliest Buildings

[Michael]

World's Ugliest Buildings (http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/10/22/ugliest.buildings/index.html?iref=intlOnlyonCNN#cnnSTCPhoto)

That link shows 10 notably ugly buildings.

I have to agree that the Scottish Parliament (Holyrood) is by far the most ugly building I've ever seen a picture of. Paul Allen's Experience Music Project in Seattle is also a hideous eyesore. Over all, I have to agree with the critic's choices here. These are all ugly buildings.

So what do you think of these buildings? Do you know of any truly ugly buildings that deserve mention here?

[partofme]

I could see Scottish Parliament being ugly and also the sports venue in London but the others seem cool to me. I like modern looking architecture though.

[Michael]

I could see Scottish Parliament being ugly and also the sports venue in London but the others seem cool to me. I like modern looking architecture though.
How about Buck House? (aka Buckingham Palace) - the critique is a good one - the building looks like it could have been built by Stalin to house the official Soviet archives. Truly an uninspiring building to serve as the home of the world's most prestigious (and still surviving) Royal family.

(Windsor Castle is a far more architecturally impressive home for such a family).

As a rule, I loath modernism unless it is done with minimalism (Le Corbusier style). Otherwise, it just looks like a grotesquely enlarged child's toy (that Music Experience thing in Seattle comes to mind).

I'm trying to find a good picture of the hideousness that Frank Gehry has inflicted upon Toronto... (I loathe EVERYTHING by Gehry starting with that monstrosity in Bilbao, Spain).

[partofme]

How about Buck House? (aka Buckingham Palace) - the critique is a good one - the building looks like it could have been built by Stalin to house the official Soviet archives. Truly an uninspiring building to serve as the home of the world's most prestigious (and still surviving) Royal family.

(Windsor Castle is a far more architecturally impressive home for such a family).

As a rule, I loath modernism unless it is done with minimalism (Le Corbusier style). Otherwise, it just looks like a grotesquely enlarged child's toy (that Music Experience thing in Seattle comes to mind).

I'm trying to find a good picture of the hideousness that Frank Gehry has inflicted upon Toronto... (I loathe EVERYTHING by Gehry starting with that monstrosity in Bilbao, Spain).

I don't think that one is good but at the same time I'm not sure I would say worst in the world either. I have seen uglier buildings on road trips. I think people see modern buildings as ugly because they are not used to them. It's like when a car company comes up with a car that has a really unique design and for the first six months people think they are ugly until they get used to them and eventually they are quite popular.

[Michael]

Here's Gehry's renovation of the Ontario College of Art... hideous monstrosity is what most people describe this thing as. It is a huge eyesore in an otherwise rather trendy neighborhood of historic townhouses and lowrise buildings.

[Michael]

The jury is still out on the renovations done to the Royal Ontario Museum - one of the oldest and most venerable buildings in downtown Toronto - sitting astride a very high profile intersection.

Gehry didn't do this one (I'm sure it could have been worse). Some describe it as looking like giant crystals from space have smashed the roof.

[dilettante]

I'm not sure Buckingham Palace or the Romanian House of the Republic belong on that list. Neither are attractive, but their ugliness is hardly noteworthy; they're bland and austere, but no more so than hundreds of other buildings.

There others, I admit, were all pretty hideous, at least from the angles from which these pictures were taken.

[Donkey]

I don't see what's so bad about the Romania building, and Buckingham is only "ugly" because of the context of what it is for. It's not a particularly visually offensive building.

I also rather like the Cleveland Rock Hall, though that could be hometown bias. I think it looks nice in context on the lakefront.

[Greendruid]

Do factories count as buildings? If so, I think my hometown beats everyone hands down. These are the steel mills in Hamilton, Ontario as viewed from the "picturesque" Skyway Bridge over Burlington Bay. What an introduction to a city! Personally I think they should blow up that bridge and force people to cross in on the west side of the city.

[neorealist]

I liked the Bucharest building:shrug:

[SMadsen]

Apart from the Barbican Center, which I regard as truly ugly, I couldn't disagree more with those choices. On the contrary, they've managed to present some very interesting and innovating projects that, for the most parts and, of course, in various degrees, also succeed aesthetically.

I can't believe Buckingham Palace is included. As a conglomerate of earlier buildings and rebuildings, each with slightly different styles and footprints, it may not be all that coherent but the East Front facade is quite pure (as pure as a Victorian empire style that needs to rely on Classical Greek can be). Others are more pure Classical, such as the one facing the gardens. A beautiful facade.

And the parliamentary building in Bucharest is as complete as it can be. A simplicity yet grandeur that renders it quite beautiful. And the Birmingham Bullring Centre is an absolute stunner. And .. so on.

Man, if one wants to go look at really really ugly buildings, nothing tops Las Vegas. It has 10 of the 10 most ugly buildings in the world.

[SMadsen]

I'm trying to find a good picture of the hideousness that Frank Gehry has inflicted upon Toronto... (I loathe EVERYTHING by Gehry starting with that monstrosity in Bilbao, Spain).
Say what?!

You're nuts :D

[Michael]

Say what?!

You're nuts :D
Gehry has a similar failing as Frank Lloyd Wright - massive cost overruns and lots of long-term problems with water leakage, dampness and structural cracking due to the weird structural designs employed on his radically weird looking buildings.

Here's another one of Gehry's hediously ugly masterpieces...

[Michael]

Here's another Gehry monstrosity...

[Michael]

And the mother of all Gehry ugly buildings... the museum in Bilbao...

[SMadsen]

Gehry has a similar failing as Frank Lloyd Wright - massive cost overruns and lots of long-term problems with water leakage, dampness and structural cracking due to the weird structural designs employed on his radically weird looking buildings.
You can have problems with the aesthetics, with the engineering or with both but you can't get from the presence of engineering problems to an absence of aesthetics.

[Michael]

You can have problems with the aesthetics, with the engineering or with both but you can't get from the presence of engineering problems to an absence of aesthetics.
I'm making the point that aesthetics may be 'subjective' but engineering problems are not.

I think Gehry makes ugly buildings. That doesn't prove that he's a bad architect.

But the engineering problems of Gehry's buildings (like Frank Lloyd Wright's) do show that they are not great architects.

I'd also add that radical structural designs have a notoriously bad history of structural engineering problems. Architects like Gehry and Wright apparently just didn't care.

[Americano]

I'm making the point that aesthetics may be 'subjective' but engineering problems are not.

I think Gehry makes ugly buildings. That doesn't prove that he's a bad architect.

But the engineering problems of Gehry's buildings (like Frank Lloyd Wright's) do show that they are not great architects.

I'd also add that radical structural designs have a notoriously bad history of structural engineering problems. Architects like Gehry and Wright apparently just didn't care.

I like some of Wright's stuff but the images of Gehry's efforts remind me of windowpane acid trips.

[SMadsen]

I'm making the point that aesthetics may be 'subjective' but engineering problems are not.

I think Gehry makes ugly buildings. That doesn't prove that he's a bad architect.

But the engineering problems of Gehry's buildings (like Frank Lloyd Wright's) do show that they are not great architects.

I'd also add that radical structural designs have a notoriously bad history of structural engineering problems. Architects like Gehry and Wright apparently just didn't care.
I can certainly agree that aesthetics are subjective. I can also agree that structural issues are resolved as far as putting one layer of bricks and mortar on top of another is concerned.

However, whether or not someone is a great architect because he relies on engineers to make a structure work that deviates from layers of brick'n'mortar depends on what is being put into the word, or title as it may be, of architect.

I believe that there are great architects, great engineers and great financial wizzes. When they get together, fine. When not, not nearly so fine. But less of a greatness in one field doesn't exclude greatness in another.

[Michael]

Well, I think Frank Gehry's buildings are the very definition of ugly architecture. That's just my subjective opinion.

However, it doesn't surprise me that Gehry is one of the 'worst' architects when it comes to environmentalism! (gives me more good reasons to hate his work!)

"Look at the architecture of the last 15 years," says James Wines, a professor of architecture at Penn State University and the author of Green Architecture. "It's been more flamboyant and more wasteful than it's ever been before. To build any of these buildings by Frank Gehry, it takes, what, 60 to 80 percent more metal and steel and construction than it would to enclose that space in a normal way. So you're talking about incredible waste. Mind-boggling waste."
Source (http://prospect.org/cs/articles?article=green_building_blues)

That's Gehry - sacrificing functionality, efficiency and sustainability for pure aesthetic design - and a bloody ugly aesthetic that is!

[Michael]

I believe that there are great architects, great engineers and great financial wizzes. When they get together, fine. When not, not nearly so fine. But less of a greatness in one field doesn't exclude greatness in another.
So if an architect designs a building that can't actually be constructed, but everyone agrees that the building would be awesome if it could be built, does that make the architect a great architect?

(I think it makes him a useless architect - architects are only as good as the buildings they build - designs on paper are just 'fake architecture' until they get built)

[Michael]

Since you are all no doubt bored of my hatred for Frank Gehry, I suppose I'll shift over to another icon of architecture that I loathe... Corbusier.

Here's a great article discussing some of the horrors of Corbusier. Good to see that the field of architecture is finally coming around on Corbusier and seeing him for the human-hating monster that he was (and his buildings are).

Many would have only the vaguest idea of who he was. He designed no buildings in Britain. But as a new exhibition celebrates the work of Le Corbusier, architect and writer Guy Booth argues that his legacy was monstrous.

I only have to hear a fellow architect say "Corb" and I curl.

Le Corbusier will do for me. This vain, mercurial megalith of Modernism wouldn't have given the average architect a glance.

Only a fool would attempt to emulate his work. Thousands have - the public calls it "Modern Architecture", a concrete desert where simple souls bend to an architect's arrogant will.
Source (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7899157.stm)

When I hear someone say "Corb", I want to hurl...

Corbusier was just another (oh-so-common) aspiring petty socialist tyrant. The difference is that most of those types toil in well deserved obscurity. Corbusier was the dean 20th century architectural studies and one of the most heavily immitated architects of all times.

As the article notes, Corbusier is to architecture what Greenspan was to the US economy - the patron saint that they all worship as he leads them into the desert to die.

[wphelan]

I don't know much about architecture, so the name Mies van der Rohe isn't one I'm familiar with. Perhaps some of you know him. Anyway, it looks like one of his 'mediocre' (ugly) buildings in Chicago is about to be torn down to put in a public transit station.

The building looks like nothing more than a rectangular brick box, so I don't know what people objecting to its destruction are trying to save.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-mies-kamin-07-may07,0,1698238.story

*picture included in the link

[Michael]

I don't know much about architecture, so the name Mies van der Rohe isn't one I'm familiar with. Perhaps some of you know him. Anyway, it looks like one of his 'mediocre' (ugly) buildings in Chicago is about to be torn down to put in a public transit station.

The building looks like nothing more than a rectangular brick box, so I don't know what people objecting to its destruction are trying to save.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-mies-kamin-07-may07,0,1698238.story

*picture included in the link
That's a joke.

I do admire Mies van der Rohe's work - and Chicago is famously full of it .... pun not intended! ;) But anyone campaigning to preserve that block of bricks is an idiot.

I'm all for celebrating great architects, but not every building by these architects is great. Some buildings were just entirely utilitarian.

[Michael]

This appears to be a perennially popular topic around the mediasphere! :D

Here are some of the highlights from another world's ugliest buildings (http://www.travelandleisure.com/articles/the-worlds-ugliest-buildings/1/?label=the-worlds-ugliest-buildings) listing.

This 'postmodernist' ugliness is called the Portland building and it is in Oregon...
http://static3.travelandleisure.com/images/amexpub/0009/0986/200910-w-ugly-portland.jpg


And Kim Il-Jong II's pompadour-style hairdo isn't the only hideously thing in North Korea! Here is the remarkably ugly Ryugyong Hotel in Pyongyang...
http://static1.travelandleisure.com/images/amexpub/0009/1040/200910-w-ugly-ryugyong.jpg


The Harold Washington Library in Chicago is definitely ugly, but I think I'm innured to these big fat red-brick and garish fake-green-copper roof type buildings as there seem to be several buildings of a similar type in Toronto (Police HQ and several condominiums - all built in the late 1980's)...
http://static1.travelandleisure.com/images/amexpub/0009/0959/200910-w-ugly-harold.jpg


Now this is just laughably ugly! Pure kitch! Longaberger Home Office, Newark, Ohio. (And I thought tacky Newark was only in New Jersey!) :lol:
http://static0.travelandleisure.com/images/amexpub/0009/0968/200910-w-ugly-longaberger.jpg


Oh boy! This is the National Library, in Minsk, Belarus... :eek:
http://static2.travelandleisure.com/images/amexpub/0009/0995/200910-w-ugly-belarus.jpg


And no list of ugly buildings can ever be considered complete without an entry from my least-favorite architect Frank Gehry... this one is The Experience Music Project in Seattle...
http://static2.travelandleisure.com/images/amexpub/0009/0950/200910-w-ugly-music-project.jpg

There are a half-dozen other buildings highlighted at the website. The ones posted here are just my 'favs' from the collection! :lol:

The Chinese-coin building and a few space-age housing projects are quite funky looking too!

[Zarquon]

This appears to be a perennially popular topic around the mediasphere! :D

Here are some of the highlights from another world's ugliest buildings (http://www.travelandleisure.com/articles/the-worlds-ugliest-buildings/1/?label=the-worlds-ugliest-buildings) listing.

very ugly buildings indeed.

But I think you're off the mark on Corbusier, while I agree that his 'box' designs aren't aesthetically pleasing, he was a rather good planner; he designed my hometown of Chandigarh, one of the better planned cities anywhere.

[Michael]

very ugly buildings indeed.

But I think you're off the mark on Corbusier, while I agree that his 'box' designs aren't aesthetically pleasing, he was a rather good planner; he designed my hometown of Chandigarh, one of the better planned cities anywhere.

No, I think not. Corbusier's innovative architectural design ideas have not held up well over time. Some of them look positively horrific now. Too much auto-centricity and way too elitist model of design to be practical or functional.

Btw, does Chandigarh boast a nice skycraper standing alone in some parkland? Or underground roadways (with all that trapped pollution)?

I'll never forgive Corbusier for being so wrong about so many issues. Many of the largest and most hideous of the horrific public housing estates in England and France were inspired by Corbusier's ideas. Some of them have been subsequently demolished as they were so wrong-headed. :shrug:

No praise for Corbusier from me - only rotten tomatos for that arrogant bastard! Architecture needs a whole lot less arrogant egotists like Corbusier. Unfortunately, the field of architecture seems to be designed to produce only arrogant egotists. :shrug:

I'd say that architects need to study a whole lot more sociology before claiming to know how to build huge buildings - that often end up as sociological nightmares. Corbusier is the poster-boy for this. Fact is, buildings are secondary to the purposes that humans put them to. The people rule, not the buildings.

[MeMyselfAndI]

Why did I miss this thread before...

Here are Moscow's ugliest buildings for you, rated by a survey of architects back in 2010:

1. Central Military Store
http://www.tocenter.ru/pictures/pressa_1644.jpg
Original was built in 1913. In 2008, Mayor Luzhkov, despite loud protests of architects and activists, had it 'restored' (meaning 'torn down and rebuilt as new'), completely destroying the original, pre-Revolutionary, Russian monarchist style.

What it once looked like
http://oldmos.ru/upload/photos/9/8/7/800_9878e5345fe5a5d3b167f51a43e68e87.jpg

The modern version has been compared by architects to the 'tomb of Tutankhamun'

2. Alfa Arbat-Center building
http://komissii.net/upload/iblock/3d1/%20-%201_thumb_0_710.jpg
Built in 2005. Houses, among other things, the headquarters of the Russian wing of British Petroleum, TNK-BP.

3. Fundamental Library of the Moscow State University
http://www.eto-moskva.ru/data/media/14/P1010193.JPG
http://observatio.ru/pub/mypersonalphotos/200606_moscow/dscf1433.jpg
Built in 2005.

http://www.nr2.ru/moskow/267910.html

I would also add the FSB building at Lubyanka Square
http://lh6.ggpht.com/-eHklcDagrhk/SrCFT94q2uI/AAAAAAAAEXU/Xc9738RaH1o/IMGP5291_1.JPG
Most people here find it ugly, though perhaps it is not so much for architecture, but for the general dark aura of the place, the memories locked in walls, of the terrible things that went on in there since the 1917 Revolution (before that, it housed a harmless insurance company)

The old, dark building looks quite frightening in the evening, when it is dark
http://s49.radikal.ru/i125/1005/84/374662284ad1.jpg
I would imagine there are crying spirits in that building. Many have died inside there, died in ways I would not wish on an enemy... Including maybe a couple of my relatives... The zastenki, the secret, underground levels, that is where people were tortured to death. And possibly, probably, still are. Maybe that is why people find it ugly...

But the truly ugliest houses you will find on Rublyovo road. The hyper rich area. This is where people live in homes like this:
http://profistroitel.ru/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/AF0948EB-17D9-4F36-A80D-29D3081EB2E6_mw800_mh600_s.jpg

Note the red brick. It is a trend here since late 90s, if you are rich and respected, or want to appear as such, your house or cottage must be built with red brick
http://fagot77.ru/d/85942/d/dsc05748.jpg
Everyone who can afford it, uses red brick now, not just for houses, but for fences
http://img828.imageshack.us/img828/3788/red2z.jpg
http://ozera.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/03452.jpg
I hate it. It makes my teeth ache, how much I hate red brick... I never realise I hated it so much, until now :lol:

[Michael]

Why did I miss this thread before...

Here are Moscow's ugliest buildings for you, rated by a survey of architects back in 2010:

1. Central Military Store
I think this is a fine looking building - and it looks highly functional too. Architects probably hate it because it isn't the kind of ugly modernist/postmodernist crap that they worship - or the contract didn't go to one of the establishment architect firms.

Btw, I hate red brick buildings too! :lol:

[Donkey]

Shucks, I love old brick buildings.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c6/Downtown_Cleveland_Warehouse_District.jpg

What I don't care for is yellow brick. And I hate painted brick.

[Michael]

What I don't care for is yellow brick.
What about yellow brick roads?

And I hate painted brick.
I want to paint it black!

:D

[Donkey]

What about yellow brick roads?


I want to paint it black!

:D

:p is all I have to say to this post. :D

[Michael]

What I don't care for is yellow brick. And I hate painted brick.

Really? We have rows and rows of brick houses just like this picture - though usually with pitched roofs - often in much more garish-painted colors, but bright red, rusty red, yellow, pale green and orange (yes, orange!) are quite popular amongst the Portugese and Greek communities. Often with contrasting color window shutters and trims! :shrug:

It actually looks pretty cool on some of those streets if they have lots of trees and its all shady (as is the case in Little Portugal here in Toronto). If there are no trees and the houses glare in the sunshine (like in Greektown), then they look garish to me. We've even got some wild hippy-style 'flower-power' painted brick houses too. :)

http://images.dexknows.com/cms/What_Should_I_Know_Before_Painting_a_Brick_House_5 505451_460.jpg

[MeMyselfAndI]

I think this is a fine looking building - and it looks highly functional too. Architects probably hate it because it isn't the kind of ugly modernist/postmodernist crap that they worship - or the contract didn't go to one of the establishment architect firms.

Btw, I hate red brick buildings too! :lol:

Yes, I wondered about that. There are plenty of uglier buildings IMHO in this city.

Like the Russian State Library, also known from the Soviet times as Lenin's Library
http://www.oknamir-pro.ru/images/pvx-alum/photo_20.jpg
It looks like a mausoleum, a tomb, from a close distance...
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_XVgjqifk5o8/SerZJ_fiFiI/AAAAAAAACPs/UOfKwfn3JUA/s1600/CIMG0527.JPG
http://www.vitjur.ru/uploads/image/RGB_5.jpg
Certainly does not make a person want to come inside...

And the Circus on Tsvetnoi Boulevard, which, in my opinion, looked better in the original 1900 form
http://www.retromoscow.narod.ru/pictures/moscow_back-to-the-future_image081.jpg
Modern one has too much glass.

Bauman Technical University building is also kind of strange to me
http://lh5.ggpht.com/-LmY5ZBVMWyE/SfycknsKejI/AAAAAAAAFNo/mc6-WYVoVnk/P5023782-226-1.jpg
It is not symmetrical, and I dislike that.

Water Sports Palace in Fili, where my daughter takes swimming lessons
http://poolmoscow.ru/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/pool_photo/fili01.jpghttp://plavanie.com.ua/images/poolfili.jpg
Big building. 5 swimming pools, longest one is 50 meters in lengh
http://www.v-stroy.ru/storage/galleries/30/640x480/DSC00456.JPG
http://www.baseiny.ru/catalog/pictures/2010-08-01_1467.jpg
and 1/3 of the second floor belongs to a youth boxing club
http://tvoysport.od.ua/images/stories/de49a5533a34.jpghttp://tvoysport.od.ua/images/stories/a1d7e15ade82.jpg

The building was not built all at once. Over several decades, new sections and areas were added. It is very easy to get lost inside there. I once was waiting for my daughter near their pool, and went to the cafeteria, which is also on the second floor. Ended up in the boxing gym. As it turned out, one of the coaches there was a old military comrade, but one I never liked, because he bore everyone mercilessly with incredibly dull stories of his life. I had to smile and listen to him for two hours. I will never get those two hours of life back. All thanks to that cursed building :)

[Donkey]

Really? We have rows and rows of brick houses just like this picture - though usually with pitched roofs - often in much more garish-painted colors, but bright red, rusty red, yellow, pale green and orange (yes, orange!) are quite popular amongst the Portugese and Greek communities. Often with contrasting color window shutters and trims! :shrug:

It actually looks pretty cool on some of those streets if they have lots of trees and its all shady (as is the case in Little Portugal here in Toronto). If there are no trees and the houses glare in the sunshine (like in Greektown), then they look garish to me. We've even got some wild hippy-style 'flower-power' painted brick houses too. :)

http://images.dexknows.com/cms/What_Should_I_Know_Before_Painting_a_Brick_House_5 505451_460.jpg

It all depends on the context. There is even an occasional yellow brick building that I don't detest.

Mostly I despise what would be a cool, raggedy, rugged brick building painted some solid stupid color. Like a red brick warehouse painted... red. Stupid.