Noneuclidian Building madness

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

On the way into town here is a new building that is seemingly designed to mess with your perception as you drive past it.

  1. The road climbs a hill as you pass, but the building is built out onto a terrace so you approach it from below before pulling level with the front.

  2. No face of the building is parallel to an adjacent street; they are all angled by maybe ten degrees.

  3. The building is not rectangular; it’s on an odd lot, so it is a skewed trapezoid, with one narrow end, two long sides that diverge, and then a wide end. The ends aren’t parallel either.

  4. It’s a tall two story building with a roofline that slopes down from the wide end to the narrow end in a single plane; it’s wedge shaped from top to bottom as well as from side to side. Because of this, the distance from the tops of the window frames to the roof increases along the length of the building.

Because there isn’t a right angle to be found on the outside of the building, and because the road passes it at a tangent while also being on a slope, this building offends the mind at a profound level. It’s sinking into the ground at one corner! No, it’s rolling away from you as you pass it! No, it’s looming over the sidewalk! No, the building is straight but the windows are all crooked!

As it was going up, when it was just a steel skeleton, I thought it was going to be a parking ramp because it looked like the floors were so far out of level. But no, it’s all level and plumb, you just can’t tell by looking. I’m sure it’s very nice inside, and the materials and landscaping are all very lovely, but by God I expect shoggoths to come pouring out of it every time I see it.

2

Sounds fascinating. Can you post the address so we can look it up on Street View?

3

My friends who have an (older slumping) house without any right angles call it “Cthulu house”.

4

Street View doesn’t really do it justice, but here’s the building under construction: Google Maps. If your brain assumes that the roof of a commercial building is flat, as they usually are, then the windows look like they are sloping downhill.

5

If you make a right on Dubuque Rd, it turns into an empty lot with a for sale sign. Odd indeed! I know it’s just an older version of the map on that street, it was just funny to see.

6

The M by Montcalm hotel in Shoreditch, London, hurts my eyes to look at. It’s actually worse to see it in person. Here’s another picture.

7

Nah, that’s accurate. The whole thing only exists when viewed from certain angles.

8

There is a similar, but much smaller, parking garage in Pioneer Sq, Seattle:

http://www.viaducthistory.com/images/structures/SinkingShip.jpg

The “sinking ship” building.

9

I really hope those two streets are going uphill…

10

Is it a car dealership? For the Sir Vival?

11

They are. I remember walking past that building and thinking about the interesting use of space.

12

It’s a parking garage with mandatory parking brake use! Chocks opptional :smiley:

13

And then there’s this one. I’ve been inside, and it’s like having vertigo, but in different directions at once.

14

It reminds me of the Crimson Permanent Assurance…

15

Here’s one that makes your eyes hurt.
the Ontario college of arts and design

It follows the rules of Euclidean geometry, so maybe it doesn’t count for this thread.
But,damn, it’s weird.

16

It’s the choc-chip icecream bar that ate Ontario!

Me, I’m a fan of Storey Hall (also part of an educational institution)

But damn, that link of panache45’s is painful

17

I walk past that bugger whenever I’m working in London. Bloody awful it is. Trying far too hard to be clever.

18

Ah yes. The Tabletop. :slight_smile: Ever since they built it, I’ve wanted to put a vast papier-maché teapot and cups on top.

A few kilometres north, I used to work across the street from this.

19

Nothing to see there. Just a rendering error.

20

That HAS to be a Gehry…