Bring Your Wrecking Balls

[VetLegion]

How did this ever get built?

[Kontiki]

Anyone with good taste and a wrecking ball would have a field day in Toronto. There's so many brutally awful concrete boxes here, it's impossible to keep track. Toronto suffered enormously from two major issues. First, it boomed in the 70's following the FLQ crisis in Montreal, and that just ain't a time period known for stylistic greatness. Second, there has never been much in the way of planning, so it's largely been developer rules here. That means that you almost invariably get function over form (read: four-sided concrete box). I often joke that Toronto must be the world's largest non-stop concrete pour.

[Lawrence of Arabia]

that mi -6s headquarters in the bond series.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by VetLegion
How did this ever get built?

Hey, I kinda like that. It's stalinist all right, but it's far less atrocious than most buildings in this thread

[Kontiki]

Originally posted by Lawrence of Arabia
that mi -6s headquarters in the bond series.

It's also MI-6's headquarters in real life.

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by Spiffor

Just googled it. But it's paltry compared to what every Stalinian building should aspire to. Bucharest's palace!

You really need to see inside of it to know what I'm talking about. Aside from the staircase I described, there are high cielings, balconies and monolithic pillars throughout the building.

I wouldn't suggest dstroying it, though, because it's a pretty cool building. Just immensley inapropriate for a city hall. (well then again, maybe not when you consider the city it belongs to and the mayor who runs it ).



And here in Sudbury there's a large tax centre that looks like a pile of papers.

This is the only picture I could find of it on google.

[Dauphin]

Re: Bring Your Wrecking Balls

Originally posted by molly bloom

http://www.channel4.com/life/microsites/D/demolition/form.html

Channel 4 is behind a (semi-serious) poll to find ugly buildings to demolish.

It's asking people to nominate the structure that makes their life hellish, by being awful to work in, to look at, or that is appallingly constructed or unsympathetically situated.

IIRC some townsfolk from Scotland nominated their entire town for demolition.

[Az]

IIRC some townsfolk from Scotland nominated their entire town for demolition.

In my city? THIS



Hideous wall of a building blocking the view of the sea for potential tens of thousands of appartments. on the mountain ridge that is located behind it.


Your building IS evil, but is kinda cool looking, spiffor.

[Provost Harrison]

My nomination...

[Drogue]

I have a worse one, purely for the context. This monstrocity is nominated for Grade II listing, meaning it cannot be destroyed or modified without the government's permission. It's also Christ Church College's first year accomedation:





Not the tasteful brown trimmings, that 'worn-in' look that only permanent black marks can provide, and the stark uniformaty of the grey blocks and plastic curtains. Doesn't it just deserve specially protected status?

Originally posted by VetLegion
How did this ever get built?

Function. It's bomb proof, rocket proof, and practical for defense. I quite like it, too, actually.

[Whaleboy]

OMFG!!! I went on the Channel 4 website earlier to nominate Northampton's Greyfriars Bus Station. I got a call back from Channel 4 a little while ago, saying that they really liked my commentary and they want to quote what I said in the media!!! They also wanted to film me talking about why I hate it but I have a problem with cameras so that was a no-go. But still, pretty sweet!!

And as I said (or something like this I didn't save the text form), Greyfriars Bus Station is both symptomatic and iconic of the post-WWII concrete shoebox architecture that has turned what was a lovely historic county-town centre into a degenerated sprawl, that looks like it came from the same design logic that spawned the Berlin Wall.

Not exactly what I said but 'twas something like that. Molly, if you're going to keep an eye on this and you see something me-esque re. Greyfriars, do drop me a line!

[Az]

Loonies getting airtime

[Bosh]

Forget its name but the Cornell University building whose exterior was build out of a special rust-proof alloy that, um, rusted is quite hideous.

The Clark Univeristy library is also very very ugly, its apparently meant to look like a giant book from the air, from every other angle it just looks like ****.

[DRoseDARs]

I nominate Frank Gehry's Gugenheim Museum. It looks like metalic dogsh*t fer' Crissakes!!

[Urban Ranger]

Hm, what exactly is Stalinist architecture?