# The Worst Building in the History of Mankind **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [February 1, 2008, 5:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-building-in-the-history-of-mankind/435829 "2008-02-01T05:51:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Mahna\_Mahna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e47c2d/32.png) [@Mahna\_Mahna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahna_Mahna)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2008, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-building-in-the-history-of-mankind/435829/41 "2008-02-01T17:06:05Z")
[QUOTE=Mangetout] I like that one. But only if, as I suspect, it cantilevers up out of the ground so that a rocket can be launched from underneath it. Please confirm that this is the case. [/QUOTE] Unfortunately, I don’t think that was included in the budget. I shall send the builder a copy of Moonraker in an attempt to sway them in this direction, though. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2008, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-building-in-the-history-of-mankind/435829/42 "2008-02-01T17:09:54Z")
[QUOTE=Dinsdale] I don’t get it. Why do people dislike modern architecture? 😕 [/QUOTE] It is one of the great mysteries of our time. Is there any discipline other than architecture where its practitioners purposely try to screw things up at every level and sometimes even admit as such (brutalism)? I suppose high end fashion designers do but those designs aren’t really released into the wild. You can’t just blame the architects though. Someone else is writing a check to let them do it. In murder for hire cases, both the hitman and the hiring party get charged. In the links above showing the “art” buildings, I think it is clear that those art departments needed to be shut down as soon as the design was approved yet no one did it. I assume that it takes more than one person to approve these projects. Where are they finding whole groups of people that think these types of designs are the best ones out of the whole universe of options? ---
**Author:** ![Kid\_A\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ed8c4c/32.png) [@Kid\_A\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kid_A_1)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2008, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-building-in-the-history-of-mankind/435829/43 "2008-02-01T17:10:25Z")
I like OCAD and I love walking past it, you can’t help but stare. I don’t mind the ROM but I with you on Robarts. It’s ugly…very, very ugly. ---
**Author:** ![Mahna\_Mahna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e47c2d/32.png) [@Mahna\_Mahna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahna_Mahna)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2008, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-building-in-the-history-of-mankind/435829/44 "2008-02-01T17:15:56Z")
[QUOTE=Dinsdale] I don’t get it. Why do people dislike modern architecture? 😕 [/QUOTE] Actually, I love modern architecture (a quick glance at my bookshelf should support this theory, as between me and The Boy, we’ve got dozens of books on the topic). However, there’s good modern and bad modern. I especially have a hate-on for architects who somehow garner an international name-brand reputation, despite the fact that their designs are entirely focused on form and completely forget function (and occasionally, forget the basic tenets of physics and engineering). Architecture should always be both pleasing to the eye and pleasing to live/work in. Simply put, Liebeskind is BAD design. One could argue about the aesthetic qualities (personally, I find them lacking), but there’s no one out there who would agree that a giant mass of angles and jagged edges is a suitable design for a freakin’ museum. Climate control is a nightmare in a space like that, not to mention exhibit layout Walk two blocks west to the Bata Shoe Museum and you’ll see a perfect example of clever modern design that is well-suited to its intended use. ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2008, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-building-in-the-history-of-mankind/435829/45 "2008-02-01T17:18:43Z")
[QUOTE=Desert Nomad] Tbilisi has some real gems. “Andropov’s Ears” [http://www.travel-images.com/georgia40.jpg](http://www.travel-images.com/georgia40.jpg) [/QUOTE] Dear Og. It’s the [Selwyn Outreach Centre](http://www.peterboroughpromotions.com/selwynoutreach/) on steroids… The picture of the Selwyn Outreach Centre in the link is… optimistic. In reality the front of the building rises from a gravel parking lot. The back of the building, a plain concrete-block biox, is clearly visible from the front, which makes the concrete arches appear cheap and tacked-on. It is a thoroughly-unappetising building. ---
**Author:** ![Swallowed\_My\_Cellphone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9d8465/32.png) [@Swallowed\_My\_Cellphone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Swallowed_My_Cellphone)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2008, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-building-in-the-history-of-mankind/435829/46 "2008-02-01T17:19:28Z")
[QUOTE=Dinsdale] I don’t get it. Why do people dislike modern architecture? 😕 [/QUOTE] I like modern architecture. I dislike _bad_ modern architecture. ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2008, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-building-in-the-history-of-mankind/435829/47 "2008-02-01T17:31:09Z")
[QUOTE=Mahna Mahna] the new wing to the Royal Ontario Museum is worse than OCAD x 10. I mean, it’s [aluminum siding](http://chau84.files.wordpress.com/2007/09/img_1540.jpg) gone bad! [/QUOTE] _ **OM NOM NOM NOM** _ ---
**Author:** ![SmartAleq](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smartaleq/32/163_2.png) [@SmartAleq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmartAleq)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2008, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-building-in-the-history-of-mankind/435829/48 "2008-02-01T17:36:52Z")
Y’know… if you take the Pyongyang Hotel, then move the Gherkin and the Agbar Tower to the base of the pyramid you could have a really badass looking rocketship! Now THAT would be COOL! You could use the Boot as a launch tower–perfect! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2008, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-building-in-the-history-of-mankind/435829/49 "2008-02-01T17:40:12Z")
[QUOTE=SmartAleq] Y’know… if you take the Pyongyang Hotel, then move the Gherkin and the Agbar Tower to the base of the pyramid you could have a really badass looking rocketship! Now THAT would be COOL! You could use the Boot as a launch tower–perfect! 😃 [/QUOTE] Okay, that’s the official nickname of the L Tower now: the Boot. I’m going to start using it on the UrbanToronto formums. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Spoons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spoons/32/3141_2.png) [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2008, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-building-in-the-history-of-mankind/435829/50 "2008-02-01T18:04:38Z")
[QUOTE=Sunspace] Okay, that’s the official nickname of the L Tower now: the Boot. I’m going to start using it on the UrbanToronto formums. 🙂 [/QUOTE] Help me out here. Is this Boot on top of the O’Keefe Centre\*? Or beside it? I gotta say, that in the angles these pictures show it at, it’s hard to tell. Unless, of course, it’s humping the O’Keefe, which looks to be a distinct possibility… - Yep, I said “O’Keefe” Centre. The name it bore up until a small little computer company with a big ego that the public had never heard of but which thinks it’s a major player like IBM and Microsoft bought the right to rename it. Plus, it would be nice to have some permanence to building names in Toronto–so to me, it will always be SkyDome (not Rogers Centre) as well. What’s next? The TD Bank Roy Thomson Hall? The Petro-Canada Royal Alex Theatre? The Ontario Legislature Buildings Brought To You By Bell Canada? The mind boggles… ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2008, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-building-in-the-history-of-mankind/435829/51 "2008-02-01T18:06:45Z")
Let us not leave out [Boston City Hall](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_City_Hall), another IM Pei masterwork. That entire neighborhood needs to be levelled. ---
**Author:** ![Lanzy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/74df32/32.png) [@Lanzy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lanzy)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2008, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-building-in-the-history-of-mankind/435829/52 "2008-02-01T18:14:09Z")
wow, turns out, I love ugly buildings. whoda thunk it. IANA, but I would live in most of these. ---
**Author:** ![Sal\_Ammoniac](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8dc957/32.png) [@Sal\_Ammoniac](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sal_Ammoniac)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2008, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-building-in-the-history-of-mankind/435829/53 "2008-02-01T18:21:26Z")
Ditto. Maybe I’m just frivolous beyond words, but I _love_ these buildings. I’d take them over a half-hearted cracker box any day of the week. ---
**Author:** ![LonesomePolecat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a88e57/32.png) [@LonesomePolecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LonesomePolecat)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2008, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-building-in-the-history-of-mankind/435829/54 "2008-02-01T18:31:36Z")
[QUOTE=drm] A while back The Ontario Academy of Art and Design (OCAD) built [this](http://www.hughpearman.com/illustrations5/toronto%20OCAD1b.jpg) monstrosity in Downtown Toronto. [Another angle](http://images.google.ca/imgres?imgurl=http://www.planthub.com/attachments/pph/OCAD%2520bldg%25202.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.planthub.com/pph_project_detail.asp%3Fc%3D18&h=397&w=627&sz=254&hl=en&start=13&um=1&tbnid=XVZa6E_6x1mOHM:&tbnh=86&tbnw=136&prev=/images%3Fq%3DOCAD%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26sa%3DN) I cringe every time I look at the damn thing. [/QUOTE] No exaggeration, that photo actually made me shudder–and I thought people only shuddered in bad horror novels … ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2008, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-building-in-the-history-of-mankind/435829/55 "2008-02-01T18:51:17Z")
[QUOTE=Mahna Mahna] If we’re going to mock bad Toronto architecture, I’d posit that the new wing to the Royal Ontario Museum is worse than OCAD x 10. I mean, it’s [aluminum siding](http://chau84.files.wordpress.com/2007/09/img_1540.jpg) gone bad! [/QUOTE] Context does matter. Ouch. Holy fuck, does that ever fail to fit in with the neighborhood. ---
**Author:** ![Sir\_Dirx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b77776/32.png) [@Sir\_Dirx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sir_Dirx)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2008, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-building-in-the-history-of-mankind/435829/56 "2008-02-01T18:54:22Z")
I still like probably 95% of the buildings posted, especially the ones being labelled as “brutalist” or whatever (the dildo towers, not so much). Either I’m from Mars, or y’all are a bunch of crazies. ---
**Author:** ![JoseB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/joseb/32/1530_2.png) [@JoseB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JoseB)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2008, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-building-in-the-history-of-mankind/435829/57 "2008-02-01T19:27:42Z")
[QUOTE=Sir Dirx] I still like probably 95% of the buildings posted, especially the ones being labelled as “brutalist” or whatever (the dildo towers, not so much). Either I’m from Mars, or y’all are a bunch of crazies. [/QUOTE] You should be more careful when keeping your cover, Dirx. Besides, why are you using that name, which is obviously from the Syrtis Major region? You should use something less notorious, like Millicent. And, back to weird buildings… Let us not forget the Cube Houses from Rotterdam: > **[File:Rotterdam Cube House.jpg](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rotterdam_Cube_House.jpg)** > > Click on a date/time to view the file as it appeared at that time. > You cannot overwrite this file. Yep. They are what their name indicates: Cubic structures standing on a vertex, on top of pillars, and you live inside. I’ve seen them from close up. Absolutely hideous. Just my 2 eurocent! JoseB ---
**Author:** ![Gangster\_Octopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a8b319/32.png) [@Gangster\_Octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gangster_Octopus)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2008, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-building-in-the-history-of-mankind/435829/58 "2008-02-01T19:33:49Z")
Not all bad buildings are bad on the outside. The [Humanities building](http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://photos.news.wisc.edu/photos/Humanities_Building94_1.jpg&imgrefurl=http://photos.news.wisc.edu/view.php%3Fid%3D187&h=400&w=600&sz=43&hl=en&start=1&sig2=1mTZGgh5lGL2FqWsBJ5dQQ&um=1&tbnid=FKskL3rRSioBfM:&tbnh=90&tbnw=135&ei=43OjR7vhB5jgigH488mtAQ&prev=/images%3Fq%3DUniversity%2Bof%2BWisconsin%2BHUmanities%2Bbuilding%253D%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26rlz%3D1T4GGIH_enUS233US233%26sa%3DG) at the University of Wisconsin, looks somewhat interesting on the outside. On the inside it is a mess of corriders and stariwells and offices that require a class in orienteerring to find where you are going most of the time. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2008, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-building-in-the-history-of-mankind/435829/59 "2008-02-01T19:40:50Z")
I am loving the new wing to the Royal Ontario Museum. I think it’s fantastic! ---
**Author:** ![ShadowFacts](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shadowfacts/32/2934_2.png) [@ShadowFacts](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ShadowFacts)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2008, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-building-in-the-history-of-mankind/435829/60 "2008-02-01T19:53:31Z")
[QUOTE=drm] A while back The Ontario Academy of Art and Design (OCAD) built [this](http://www.hughpearman.com/illustrations5/toronto%20OCAD1b.jpg) monstrosity in Downtown Toronto. [Another angle](http://images.google.ca/imgres?imgurl=http://www.planthub.com/attachments/pph/OCAD%2520bldg%25202.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.planthub.com/pph_project_detail.asp%3Fc%3D18&h=397&w=627&sz=254&hl=en&start=13&um=1&tbnid=XVZa6E_6x1mOHM:&tbnh=86&tbnw=136&prev=/images%3Fq%3DOCAD%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26sa%3DN) I cringe every time I look at the damn thing. [/QUOTE] BWHAHAHAHAAAAHAHA! Oh, that’s a fun model. Can you imagine if someone actually built that ridiculous cartoon thing? Wait, what?!??! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-building-in-the-history-of-mankind/435829.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-building-in-the-history-of-mankind/435829.md?page=4)