# ugly building award **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 23, 2003, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ugly-building-award/203209 "2003-09-23T00:45:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Angua](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8baadc/32.png) [@Angua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Angua)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2003, 10:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ugly-building-award/203209/61 "2003-09-26T10:04:23Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Gartog \* > \*\* > **Angua** the last time I was there, Moor St station was being renovated, any idea how that looks now? \*\* I have no idea what Moor St looks like at the moment - I don’t have much reason to go to Moor Street at the moment. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2003, 12:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ugly-building-award/203209/62 "2003-09-26T12:17:19Z")
These phoros don’t do tthe Science Center at Wellesley College justice: [http://www.wellesley.edu/CampusMaps/Buildings/science.html](http://www.wellesley.edu/CampusMaps/Buildings/science.html) The building has exposed piping painted in bright colors, like a stateside version of the Pompidou Center. ---
**Author:** ![NFlanders](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a9adbd/32.png) [@NFlanders](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NFlanders)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2003, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ugly-building-award/203209/63 "2003-09-26T15:14:02Z")
While it’s perhaps not the ugliest building in the world, the [FBI’s J. Edgar Hoover Building](http://www.cia.gov/cia/ciakids/aerial/fbi.html) is certainly an eyesore (and just a few blocks from the Canadian Embassy!). ---
**Author:** ![threeorange](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@threeorange](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/threeorange)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2003, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ugly-building-award/203209/64 "2003-09-26T19:38:01Z")
I was going to nominate our own [James R. Thompson Center](http://www.illinois.gov/gallery/imagemenu.asp?category=jrtc), but after seeing some of these, I’ve decided to count my blessings. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2003, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ugly-building-award/203209/65 "2003-09-26T21:37:02Z")
My nomination would be the Weisman Art Museum on the University of Minnesota Campus in Minneapolis. See [here for a set of photos](http://hudson.acad.umn.edu/WAMbldg.html). Worse, it’s covered with a very reflective silver material (looks like tin foil) and is directly across the river from a major hospital. So the afternoon sunlight reflects off this mostrosity and glares into the rooms of patients who are stuck in bed and can’t get up to close the shades. People seem to either hate this building, or just love it (a minority). I do know some workers in this building, who pointed out that they could have built a conventional building aobut twice the size for the amount that was spent on this one. So this expensive facade came at a cost to the functionality of the building. And I just now noticed that it was designed by Frank O. Gehry, who’s been mentioned often in this thread! Is there some award for lifetime achievement of more hated buildings than any other architect? ---
**Author:** ![cher3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/da6949/32.png) [@cher3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cher3)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2003, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ugly-building-award/203209/66 "2003-09-26T22:19:15Z")
Our credit union was formerly housed in a pleasant little redwood shingled building set among the eucalypti on the UCSD campus. Now it’s in here, right behind the huge concrete cockroach legs: [http://parking.ucsd.edu/facil/pubs/pu00su.html](http://parking.ucsd.edu/facil/pubs/pu00su.html) Yes, this structure is complete. That’s the way it’s meant to look, apparently. ---
**Author:** ![Laughing\_Lagomorph](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/6bbea6/32.png) [@Laughing\_Lagomorph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Laughing_Lagomorph)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2003, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ugly-building-award/203209/67 "2003-09-26T22:20:06Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by jk1245 \* > \*\*Yucch. These are some truly horrible buildings. > > As a Madisonian, I was going to bring up our “smurftastic” blue court house, but someone already did. I am therefore forced to bring you a hotel about 30 miles outside of Madison. > > I present…[The Gobbler](http://www.lileks.com/institute/motel/). > > Notice the stunning architecture at first glance. Take a guided tour through its lovely rooms. Note that some are actual photos. > > I have spent a few nights in its rotating bar. > Sadly, this masterpiece is no longer open. Perhaps we can take up a collection to see that it is opened to the public again, as it should be. \*\* \*\* jk1245\*\* I only just now got a chance to check out The Gobbler. Wow. All I can say is…wow. If anyone else hasn’t checked out the site \*\* jk1245\*\* linked, do it…it is hilarious. Sadly, not only is it no longer open but it was apparently demolished a year or two ago, according to pictures I found on another site. ---
**Author:** ![macabresoul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e68b1a/32.png) [@macabresoul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/macabresoul)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2003, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ugly-building-award/203209/68 "2003-09-26T23:03:56Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by romansperson \* > \*\*And the Pro Football Hall of Fame is probably one of the ugliest building’s I’ve personally seen: > > [http://www.profootballhof.com/index.cfm?section=info&cont\_id=182109](http://www.profootballhof.com/index.cfm?section=info&cont_id=182109) \*\* Why does this building make me want to go squeeze orange juice? ---
**Author:** ![Dr\_Paprika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr_paprika/32/3042_2.png) [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2003, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ugly-building-award/203209/69 "2003-09-26T23:54:36Z")
> [@](#): > > I think some of your Canadians might have overlooked the extension to the Ontario College of Art and Design. No, I was going to use this one. In all fairness, the real thing looks far worse than the PhotoShop rendition. ---
**Author:** ![OxyMoron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/e9a140/32.png) [@OxyMoron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OxyMoron)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2003, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ugly-building-award/203209/70 "2003-09-27T02:34:10Z")
I’m finding this thread extremely depressing. Gehry is, IMHO, overrated and becoming derivative, but the Bilbao, the Dusseldorf complex, the long-gestated Disney Hall and the Weissman Center (Minneapolis) are brilliant, wonderfully sculptural, optimistic, buildings. For all their titanium, I find them marvelously humane - they give the eye something to do, and that’s ultimately what we want, right? We’ll have to see how the surface ages - but if the Weissman is still shining ten years on, in Minneapolis of all climes, that’s a good sign. (The Weissman happens to be the only one I’ve actually seen in person.) See, the thing of it is, if you try to prohibit the wild stuff, all you will end up with is the International Multifoods and the Boston City Halls. Or, worse, the sort of contextual Ye New/Olde Crappe so beloved of Prince Charles. Timidity and contextualism are two big reasons why architecture in New York has become so dreadful. I’m very much with NY Times architecture critic Herbert Muschamp - buildings should be _buildings_, dammit, and they should be willing to grab the eye and hold it. That means tolerating some spectacular failures, too. (That Masonic building is a doozy.) And before anyone gets _too_ offended, let me hasten to add that I expect a buiding to function well, too, and part of that function means making it work for human beings who use it. Part of the reason contextualism became so popular was because of the Le Corbusier-inspired, social-reengineering disasters of the 50s and 60s - such as Boston City Hall, actually. But a lot of what I’m seeing here was parodied by Gilbert and Sullivan about 125 years ago: _Of course you will pooh-pooh whatever’s fresh and new, and declare it’s crude and mean, For Art stopped short in the cultivated court of the Empress Josephine."_ ---
**Author:** ![Lissla\_Lissar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8491ac/32.png) [@Lissla\_Lissar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lissla_Lissar)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2003, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ugly-building-award/203209/71 "2003-09-27T02:57:21Z")
_If he’s content with a vegetable love Which would certainly not suit me Than what a particularly pure young man This pure, young man must be!_ The cranberry sauce building’s a good idea. I do like some modern architecture, but I just think Robarts is funny. ---
**Author:** ![Antigen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/848f3c/32.png) [@Antigen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Antigen)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2003, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ugly-building-award/203209/72 "2003-09-27T03:12:32Z")
McGill’s new Trottier building ([http://ww2.mcgill.ca/science/newsletter/wcover.GIF](http://ww2.mcgill.ca/science/newsletter/wcover.GIF)) is actially beautiful, but it was built right in front of the beautiful old strathcona Anatomy and Dentistry building, which is now pretty much invisible from any street. [http://blackader.library.mcgill.ca/campus/pictures/icc/StrathMed1.gif](http://blackader.library.mcgill.ca/campus/pictures/icc/StrathMed1.gif) Doesn’t anyone else find it wrong to put the ultra-modern buildings right next to the turn-of-the-century ones? Now, if you want UGLY, try the Leacock building. Ugh. Hated by pretty much everyone. [http://blackader.library.mcgill.ca/campus/buildings/Stephen\_Leacock.html](http://blackader.library.mcgill.ca/campus/buildings/Stephen_Leacock.html) ---
**Author:** ![Laughing\_Lagomorph](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/6bbea6/32.png) [@Laughing\_Lagomorph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Laughing_Lagomorph)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2003, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ugly-building-award/203209/73 "2003-09-27T12:55:40Z")
The Pro Football hall of fame always reminds me of a bishop’s mitre (is that what they call those hats?) **OxyMoron** you make a very eloquent argument. Like I said I like the Gehry in Bilbao, and I was frankly as surprised as **I Love Me, Vol. I** that Frank Lloyd Wright’s New York Guggenheim was nominated-that building is a modern icon. I guess my point is that just because a building is modern or post-modern doesn’t automatically make it a masterpiece. ---
**Author:** ![Absolute](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b2d939/32.png) [@Absolute](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Absolute)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2003, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ugly-building-award/203209/74 "2003-09-27T13:57:18Z")
I haven’t read part of this thread, but after a recent visit to MIT I feel compelled to mention: [Simmons Hall](http://alumweb.mit.edu/clubs/colorado/img/Simmons.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![Laughing\_Lagomorph](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/6bbea6/32.png) [@Laughing\_Lagomorph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Laughing_Lagomorph)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2003, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ugly-building-award/203209/75 "2003-09-27T14:22:09Z")
That Simmons Hall is also near where I work and as they were building it I was kind of dubious but you know, it has grown on me. I might be biased by the fact that the site of that building was formerly a series of weed and trash festooned parking lots. Literally anything would have been an improvement. ---
**Author:** ![casdave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c6cbf5/32.png) [@casdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/casdave)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2003, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ugly-building-award/203209/76 "2003-09-27T15:16:37Z")
Blimey that Canadian Design College looks like a jukebox maker had a bad LSD trip! Here is my contribution. [http://www.garfnet.org.uk/pictures/20030629.htm](http://www.garfnet.org.uk/pictures/20030629.htm) [http://www.portsmouth.gov.uk/pcc/residents/Planning\_Images/Info%20Sheets/Tricorn.jpg](http://www.portsmouth.gov.uk/pcc/residents/Planning_Images/Info%20Sheets/Tricorn.jpg) [http://mysite.freeserve.com/owenluder/page7.html](http://mysite.freeserve.com/owenluder/page7.html) This is a retail centre is supposed to attract shoppers. As the years have passed, it has become uglier and uglier due to the effects of weathering. It started off as the UKs third ugliest building in 1968 and slowly but surely achieved Ugliest Building In Europe in 1992. As for other candidates [http://www.mybrightonandhove.org.uk/kingsway\_court\_personal.htm](http://www.mybrightonandhove.org.uk/kingsway_court_personal.htm) This building is made worse by its context, it is surrounded by large old houses and it just does not fit in ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2003, 8:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ugly-building-award/203209/77 "2003-09-28T08:48:45Z")
Like **OxyMoron** , I think many of the buildings nominated here are actually fairly interesting. That Frost Tower, for example, is quite striking. The checkerboard tabletop deal on pipes, though, that’s pretty bad. Still, there’s a difference between good adventure and bad adventure. Gehry’s Bilbao Guggenheim, I find quite appealing. His Experience Music project, on the other hand, as previously linked by **criminalcatalog** , is just awful. You can sort of see what he was going for on paper, and as a feat of engineering it’s impressive (e.g., all of the structural ribs and exterior bits of sheeting are individually formed), but on the street, it just sits there like a misshapen, somewhat embarrassed mutant. A contradiction? Perhaps. It’s brash, but it seems self-conscious somehow; it just feels _odd_ and doesn’t work. Oh, and for my nominee? My wife and I were in Chicago a few weeks ago, and had occasion to drive by the newly (re)built Soldier Field a couple of times. Again, you can sort of see what they were going for; Chicago is an architecturally beautiful city, and from the appearance of the new stadium I surmise the architects were given an impossible task by city planners: We want something new and modern, but at the same time we also want to stay consistent with the old stadium, and the Chicago tradition in general. But rather than trying to blend the two ideas, it appears the structure has two completely separate identities, rather like a giant UFO was plopped down on top of a turn-of-the-century brick-and-column college. I couldn’t find a really good picture, but I did find [an article about it](http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/arts/chi-030907soldierkamin,0,7789794.story?coll=chi-leisurearts-hed). ---
**Author:** ![Austin\_city\_limits](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@Austin\_city\_limits](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Austin_city_limits)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2003, 9:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ugly-building-award/203209/78 "2003-09-28T09:54:45Z")
Well, “Sports Stadiums” at least on the outside pale in comparison to the new/old Chicago Soldier Field Football stadium… Examples… [![](https://www.thewolfweb.com/photos/00162391.jpg) ](https://www.thewolfweb.com/photos/00162391.jpg) [![](https://www.thewolfweb.com/photos/00162392.jpg) ](https://www.thewolfweb.com/photos/00162392.jpg) I DARE, you to look at this next picture and not think of a frigg’n spaceship has landed!!! [![](https://www.thewolfweb.com/photos/00164916.jpg) ](https://www.thewolfweb.com/photos/00164916.jpg) Here is what a Chicago writer said about it too!!! Chicago, once the Second City, fell to third place when Los Angeles surpassed it in population, and even third place is more than it usually achieves in the National Football League standings. But on Sept. 29, on ABC’s “Monday Night Football,” the city will unveil to the nation a title-winner of sorts: the most expensive publicly funded stadium in the NFL. Locals don’t have to be told that the renovation of Soldier Field, which opened during the presidency of Calvin Coolidge, does not appeal to every eye. Rather than tear down the World War I memorial, the Chicago Park District and the Bears agreed to preserve the exterior and replace the interior. A new bowl was therefore shoehorned into the ancient structure. It has been said that the result looks like a spaceship landed on the stadium, a charge I will not endorse for fear of being sued for libel by extraterrestrials. But it is safe to say that the project is the most jarring union of youth and age since Anna Nicole Smith married an 89-year-old billionaire. The proud parents have been inviting journalists to admire the new stadium, and no wonder. From the inside, it looks like an aesthetic success, as well as a huge improvement on a facility that was grossly obsolete–and as anyone who’s ever stood in line to use an overburdened portable toilet at Soldier Field can attest, the term “gross” applies in more ways than one. In the old park, only 40 percent of the seats were on the sidelines, with the majority in the end zones. The new, triple-deck arena puts 60 percent of fans on the sidelines. Bears President Ted Phillips says the new model also has an intimate feel–which is true, and which comes from the fact that seating capacity is nearly 5,500 less than before. With 61,500 seats, it’s the second smallest stadium in the league after the RCA Dome in Indianapolis. In other ways, though, it’s inferior to that facility, which cost just $77 million to erect back in 1984. The price tag on the new Soldier Field is a staggering $632 million, of which $432 million will come from tax revenues. Unlike the RCA Dome, which has been used for everything from the NCAA Final Four to the World Indoor Track and Field championships, this facility is open to the elements, which will limit its uses in a Chicago winter. Nor does the Soldier Field deal look like a bargain next to other renovations. Green Bay’s recent overhaul of Lambeau Field not only cost less than half as much, but added 11,000 seats. Lambeau offers more luxury boxes and a lot more toilets than Soldier Field. Lambeau also has something that the Bears’ arena traditionally and currently lacks: a winning team. But the Packers’ lair doesn’t have the distinctions that make the new Soldier Field a true marvel. As University of Chicago sports economist Allen Sanderson puts it, “If we started out to build the ugliest stadium in the country for the most money with the fewest alternative uses in the worst possible location, we’re pretty much there.” Chicagoans may be wondering about now why they agreed to provide all this. Answer: They didn’t. Unlike almost every other city that has proposed to expend huge sums of public revenue on a football stadium, Chicago didn’t feel the need to let its citizens vote on the matter. Mayor Richard Daley thought the plan was a good idea, and that’s the only vote that matters. Why he reached such a bizarre conclusion is hard to figure, since at one time Daley sounded content to watch the Bears play their home games in Gary, or the suburbs, or Buzzard Gulch. The city got some new green space from the renovation, but it could have gotten more by razing the stadium. That would have opened up this prized lakefront real estate to more attractive uses than staging 10 high-priced football games a year. And wherever the Bears might have landed, most locals would have attended as many NFL games as they did before, which is none. Sports franchises and facilities are always billed as economic development engines, but impartial studies regularly debunk that myth. Grass didn’t sprout in the streets of Los Angeles and New York after their NFL teams fled, and Houstonites have found that the arrival of the Texans didn’t quite make up for the decline of the oil industry. Chicago could probably live without the Bears, too. Compared to watching them lose 12 games, as they did last year, it might be a pleasure. Steve Chapman is a member of the Tribune’s editorial board ---
**Author:** ![j\_sum1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/8baadc/32.png) [@j\_sum1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j_sum1)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2003, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ugly-building-award/203209/79 "2003-09-28T12:58:06Z")
[This](http://www.planetware.com/photos/NZ/NZ228.HTM) is an embarassment. That’s right – our 1970s addition to the parliament buildings. It leaks too. ---
**Author:** ![Laughing\_Lagomorph](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/6bbea6/32.png) [@Laughing\_Lagomorph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Laughing_Lagomorph)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2003, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ugly-building-award/203209/80 "2003-09-28T14:13:36Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by j\_sum1 \* > \*\*[This](http://www.planetware.com/photos/NZ/NZ228.HTM) is an embarassment. That’s right – our 1970s addition to the parliament buildings. It leaks too. \*\* RESISTANCE IS FUTILE! PREPARE TO BE ASSIMILATED! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ugly-building-award/203209.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ugly-building-award/203209.md?page=5)