# 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:** 6
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2008, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-building-in-the-history-of-mankind/435829/101 "2008-02-03T02:22:20Z")
[QUOTE=Pullet] is that the site of the protagonist’s apartment (that he shared with his parents, a snake, and several loose women) from the movie _Clockwork Orange_? [/QUOTE] There’s a protagonist in _A Clockwork Orange_? ---
**Author:** ![InLucemEdita](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/7ab992/32.png) [@InLucemEdita](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/InLucemEdita)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2008, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-building-in-the-history-of-mankind/435829/102 "2008-02-03T03:52:58Z")
I submit for your approval [University Hall](http://www.uofpp.uillinois.edu/docs/UIC/images/0601%20University%20Hall/0601E06%20UH%20SKYLINE.JPG) on the campus of UIC. It brings you Ugly, Boring, Inefficient, and Glaring Contrast with the otherwise impressive architecture of Chicago…all in one upside down Pyongyong Tower package. ---
**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 3, 2008, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-building-in-the-history-of-mankind/435829/103 "2008-02-03T04:33:08Z")
[QUOTE=Spoons] 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… [/quote] It overlaps, but is mostly to the southwest of the O’Keefe. > [@Spoons](#): > > - 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. Sony is not a small company. 🙂 (It’s the Sony Centre now. No idea what happened to Hummingbird. Maybe they got bought out.) ---
**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 3, 2008, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-building-in-the-history-of-mankind/435829/104 "2008-02-03T04:40:20Z")
[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] That’s Will Alsop, I think. You should see the place he’s doing for Filmport down on the East Bayfront. Looks like a [breaking red wave with a tumour](http://chau84.wordpress.com/2007/10/05/will-alsop-please-stop-designing-homes/) (scroll down–the third and fourth pic). Actually, I think I could get used to it. ---
**Author:** ![pasunejen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/58956e/32.png) [@pasunejen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pasunejen)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2008, 6:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-building-in-the-history-of-mankind/435829/105 "2008-02-03T06:02:24Z")
[QUOTE=ElvisL1ves] No, Kallman, McKinnell and Knowles. Got some major prizes for it, too. IM Pei did the Hancock, though. It was, to make room for [Boston] City Hall and the surrounding brick-tundra “plaza”. Planning to move or replace the building, and restore Scollay Square, are chestnuts of architecture/urban planning students’ theses, but don’t expect anything to come from them. [/QUOTE] It’s the plaza that really does it. Crammed in with a bunch of other buildings City Hall would probably be merely an eyesore, but being perched in the center of a complete wasteland has elevated it to the rank of soul-sucking monstrosity. You leave the T and come aboveground only to find yourself face to face with death itself, staring directly at you from across the wind-swept void. (Enough to drain the Christmas spirit right out of any Faneuil Hall-bound shoppers, I tells ya.) ---
**Author:** ![meek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ce73a5/32.png) [@meek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/meek)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2008, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-building-in-the-history-of-mankind/435829/106 "2008-02-03T14:49:21Z")
Behold - The [Butterdome!](http://static.flickr.com/6/9627870_3101a59a3e.jpg) This is the University of Alberta’s rec facility. Another [look.](http://www.business.ualberta.ca/exchange/images/Butterdome1.jpg) (Please use proper eye protection). . ---
**Author:** ![picunurse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7bcc69/32.png) [@picunurse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/picunurse)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2008, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-building-in-the-history-of-mankind/435829/107 "2008-02-03T15:40:54Z")
[Ugly](http://architecture.about.com/library/blspaceneedle.htm), you say? ---
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2008, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-building-in-the-history-of-mankind/435829/108 "2008-02-03T16:25:17Z")
> [@drm](#): > > A while back The Ontario Academy of Art and Design (OCAD) built this monstrosity in Downtown Toronto. Another angle > > I cringe every time I look at the damn thing. It looks like a drawing by a 5 year old that was into the ‘War of the Worlds’ and had a thing for polka dots. You win. Good GOD. I understand that art students want to push the envelope, but that’s not eclectic, it’s just plain ugly. I gotta wonder what the engineers where saying. “Yeah (snicker) we can do it….. but um…… Are you REALLY sure you want too?” [http://www.hughpearman.com/illustrations5/toronto%20OCAD1b.jpg](http://www.hughpearman.com/illustrations5/toronto%20OCAD1b.jpg) eta link ---
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2008, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-building-in-the-history-of-mankind/435829/109 "2008-02-03T16:28:33Z")
[QUOTE=ElvisL1ves] It was, to make room for City Hall and the surrounding brick-tundra “plaza”. Planning to move or replace the building, and restore Scollay Square, are chestnuts of architecture/urban planning students’ theses, but don’t expect anything to come from them. [/QUOTE] You know, one of the proverbial Montreal architectural monstrosities (the Institut de tourisme et d’hôtellerie du Québec) was recently completely reclad without being demolished. It at least looks [kind of better now](http://www.canadianarchitect.com/common_scripts/xtq_images/112258-74414.jpg) and certainly less oppressive. I wonder if something like that could work in other cases of dreadful brutalism. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2008, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-building-in-the-history-of-mankind/435829/110 "2008-02-03T16:43:39Z")
Boston City Hall is quite inefficiently laid out inside as well. Like so much of modern architecture, it was designed to win the firm a prestigious prize, not for its actual utility. **pasunejen** is right, the brick tundra around it is a far worse problem, and no amount of cladding or ivy on the building itself will hide its inhospitability. ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2008, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-building-in-the-history-of-mankind/435829/111 "2008-02-03T17:21:48Z")
That is what the late Boston historian Francis Russell called it. He is right-the building is ugly, poorly designed and grossly energy inefficient. My question: do we REALLY need big city halls anymore? Most stuff is done online now-so how many people ACTUALLY trek downtown to wait in some bureaucrat’s office? Take the Boston City council-they meet like once amonth-who the hell needs all of the empty office space anymore? Let’s move to virtual city halls-and let the hacks stay home! ---
**Author:** ![Diceman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Diceman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diceman)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2008, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-building-in-the-history-of-mankind/435829/112 "2008-02-03T19:59:39Z")
[QUOTE=matt\_mcl] You know, one of the proverbial Montreal architectural monstrosities (the Institut de tourisme et d’hôtellerie du Québec) was recently completely reclad without being demolished. It at least looks [kind of better now](http://www.canadianarchitect.com/common_scripts/xtq_images/112258-74414.jpg) and certainly less oppressive. I wonder if something like that could work in other cases of dreadful brutalism. [/QUOTE] Your first link is broken. Do you know of another picture of that place in all its original hideousness? ---
**Author:** ![Hypnagogic\_Jerk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hypnagogic_jerk/32/4252_2.png) [@Hypnagogic\_Jerk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypnagogic_Jerk)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2008, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-building-in-the-history-of-mankind/435829/113 "2008-02-04T00:33:02Z")
[QUOTE=Diceman] Your first link is broken. Do you know of another picture of that place in all its original hideousness? [/QUOTE] [Corrected link](http://www.canadianarchitect.com/common_scripts/xtq_images/112258-74410.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![Askance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/askance/32/8281_2.png) [@Askance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askance)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2008, 5:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-building-in-the-history-of-mankind/435829/114 "2008-02-04T05:06:49Z")
We’ve been through this before, but for sheer inappropriateness this one rates mentioning again: in a fairly drab, staid, Victorian-era city, in the state of Victoria, to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Australia’s founding in 1901 - the last year of the Victorian Era (have I said “Victoria” enough yet?)- they plonked [Melbourne’s](http://www.viewimages.com/Search.aspx?mid=57096123&epmid=2&partner=Google) [Federation](http://www.pbase.com/watch_the_birdie/image/65437208) [Square](http://www.federationsquare.com.au/index.cfm?pageID=56). Mind you, the bright yellow garishness of [Jackson’s](http://www.anibou.com.au/install_res_dcm_jacksons_apt.htm) [Landing](http://www.spec-net.com.au/press/0705/alucobond.htm) rising above the warm low-rise sandstone buildings of Pyrmont is pretty vile, too. ---
**Author:** ![Mehitabel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8797f3/32.png) [@Mehitabel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mehitabel)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2008, 5:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-building-in-the-history-of-mankind/435829/115 "2008-02-04T05:49:39Z")
Gaaaaah! “Vibrant Lemon” indeed. Federation Square looks sort of interesting, though, in a Children’s Museum sort of way. My 1959-era kitchen counter has some of those same patterns. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Rosewater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/898d66/32.png) [@Mr.Rosewater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Rosewater)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2008, 6:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-building-in-the-history-of-mankind/435829/116 "2008-02-04T06:25:41Z")
[QUOTE=InLucemEdita] I submit for your approval [University Hall](http://www.uofpp.uillinois.edu/docs/UIC/images/0601%20University%20Hall/0601E06%20UH%20SKYLINE.JPG) on the campus of UIC. It brings you Ugly, Boring, Inefficient, and Glaring Contrast with the otherwise impressive architecture of Chicago…all in one upside down Pyongyong Tower package. [/QUOTE] Hey, don’t knock the upside-down buliding. I love the upside-down building. Drunk architects have to work too. 🙂 ---
**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 4, 2008, 7:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-building-in-the-history-of-mankind/435829/117 "2008-02-04T07:58:23Z")
[QUOTE=Ro Carter] The Pyongyang Hotel reminds me of the headquarters for an evil government/dictator, or a mad scientist’s lair before it blasts into space. Either way, not giving off friendly, welcoming vibes, at least IMHO. [/QUOTE] You watched [that video](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEjqnTcdkXY), didn’t you? ---
**Author:** ![Panurge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/fbc32d/32.png) [@Panurge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Panurge)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2008, 10:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-building-in-the-history-of-mankind/435829/118 "2008-02-04T10:03:59Z")
I actually like most of the buildings in this thread - especially the Soviet style ones… A building I don’t like, however, is [Hall 6](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Pragati_Maidan%2C_Hall_6.JPG) at the Pragati Maidan conference area in New Delhi. The rest of the area is dotted with similar eyesores. ---
**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2008, 10:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-building-in-the-history-of-mankind/435829/119 "2008-02-04T10:42:22Z")
Well, I have to say, [Sagrada Familia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sagrada_Fam%C3%ADlia) looks _very_ good for a sand castle that was fused in place by the heat of a thermonuclear flash. (Heh, I’m just messin’ with you. At least it looks _creative_-weird instead of just “ooh, look at me! I’m all post-moderne and avant-garde and made of concrete slabs that look like they just smell like piss and tears!” weird. 😉 ) ---
**Author:** ![sturmhauke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e47c2d/32.png) [@sturmhauke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sturmhauke)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2008, 12:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-building-in-the-history-of-mankind/435829/120 "2008-02-04T12:51:46Z")
[This](http://www.flickr.com/photos/54568662@N00/1743583703/in/photostream/) is a cathedral under construction in downtown Oakland, next to Lake Merritt. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-building-in-the-history-of-mankind/435829.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-building-in-the-history-of-mankind/435829.md?page=7)