The picture is indeed just a proposal, but the building itself seems to be well under way, according to the “Construction Update” page of the OCAD website (The page uses flash and java and stuff, so i can’t give direct links to individual pages). Go to the bottom of the page and click on the “Construction Update” link.
For example (i’m not sure what day this was posted):
If you click on the “Ideas Need Space” link at the bottom of the main page, and then on the “Status of Building Project” link on the left, you’ll see the project schedule. The Sharp Centre for Design (that cigar-box held aloft by chopsticks) is due for completion in January 2004, with faculty to be relocated to the Centre by May.
Daowajan, that building is indeed very ugly, as are many of the University buildings, but I think the ugliest building in the Madison area must be the United States District Court downtown. Damned if I can find a photo of it online, but I’m sure anyone who’s ever lived in Madison knows the one I mean. The bright blue cube that looks like a monster Lego piece, with the “chandelier” that resembles nothing more than a neon IUD.
As some may know, I’m a fan of Modern and Post-modern architecture (I like the Exploding Crystal at the ROM, for instance), but I have to admit that I liked the original OCAD design better. Same ‘tabletop’, but it was red and yellow. Apparently the original plan was to cover it in some European cladding material that ultimately was never approved for Canadian use. So they went with the black-and-white squares. Which suck.
I can see that the art students are going to have some fun with it. I expect to see a vast teapot with cups and saucers on the roof come April Fools Day, for instance.
Boston City Hall was in one of the original Planet of the Apes movies, wasn’t it? I’ve been wondering what that location was for years…
I like the Robarts Library (otherwise known as Fort Book), but the University of Toronto has some other buildings that are horrors. Two of them are at the corner of Spadina and Harbord: Graduate House and the Phys Ed building.
What were they thinking with Graduate House? The sign that sticks out over the street has this big metal O on the end, but all the rest of the letters on the glass are next to invisible in comparison. If they’d made them of solid metal, or made the O of glass, or something, it might have had some balance, but nooo…. I’m surprised someone hasn’t tried to swing from it.
And the ribbed outer cladding on the Spadina side is so frickin’ dark! Incredibly depressing in the winter.
It doesn’t matter which building, each is uglier than the last until you look back think “no, that really is the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen.”
MIT is full of aesthetically questionable buildings and still the thing linked by CalMeacham tops them all in sheer hideousness. It’s even worse than the decades old “temporary” building that was very nearly falling down around people’s heads.
There’s a spot that I drive by frequently. It used to be a beautiful lookout, you could see Lake Union, you could see downtown Seattle, you could see the Needle. Now, you see what looks like the remains of an ashtray after a particularly nasty party blighting the view. It’s also known as the Experience Music Project (also linked above)
There is the new Walt Disney Concert Hall. The man brought joy to millions. And he’s being honored with that monstrosity?
Gehry needs to be stopped before he’s allowed to design again.
Angua, you must not like shiny things very much, cos I think that building is absolutely gorgeous. It’s like all retro-futuristic and stuff, and more importantly, it’s really really shiny. Shiny things are cool.
Sunspace I don’t know about Boston City Hall and the Planet of the Apes movie…would that be one of those movies set in a dystopian future just before the Apes take over, when Man as a species has lost all his virtues and is about to descend into a horrific nightmare of brutality and savagery?
'cuz that building is the perfect setting for such a movie.
amarinth thanks for reminding me about the MIT building that used to be there. It wasn’t beautiful -it was basically a giant Quonset hut-but it had quite a bit of history in it. Legend had it a lot of work on the development of radar was done there during WWII.
And take note of the Asahi Beverage headquarters in the background, with gold-tinted windows and round white thingies on the roof designed to make the building look like a mug of beer.
I like reading threads like these. People offer links to pictures of so-called ugly buildings that I have never heard of. I then click on the links and discover beautiful examples of brilliant modern architecture. The best exaple so far is the Stata building at MIT. It is stunning and wonderful. The Bullring in Birmingham looks to have promise too. though a tad off-balance (at least in the images). I thank everone for their provincial, muted vanilla tastes. The common hatred and misunderstanding of modern architecture make many of the buildings seem even more dynamic.
Calling the NYC Guggenheim ugly? That’s just shameful! I suppose next we’ll see people knocking the Sydney Opera House.
PS-- But just ‘cause it’s post-modern, don’t make it great. That thing at the art-school in Ontario is a friggin’ bad joke.
I Love Me, my problem with some Modern and Postmodern designs is that sometimes the designers don’t seem to think of what the light and climate of the surroundings will be like during the changing seasons, and also of how the building will age.
IMHO, many Brutalist designs might do well in a equatorial climate with strong sunlight, few clouds, and dry conditions, but in Toronto? As an example… early winter is unpleasant: dark, grey, and drizzly, right around the freezing point.
Badly-arranged masses of grey concrete can seem almost suicidally depressing for passersby under these conditions. Wide steps in plazas far from railings can be treacherous during freezing rain. Reinforced concrete eventually cracks under the influence of water and the salt used for de-icing, and needs to be patched: this is expensive, and it ruins the visual expanse of walls.
There is an office building on the east side of University Avenue in Toronto (just north of Dundas) that is a beautiful example of Modern, but its soaring sandstone facing has been patched; the patches don’t match the facing, and it just looks wounded now.
They put up a Pompidou Centre-style computer building at Waterloo University a while back. When I first saw it, it was new, and looked amazing. Two years later I was astounded at how much normal weathering had affected its appearance: water runoff marks scarred its wall paneling, and it just looked dusty and cheap. Many of the other structures nearby seemed hardly changed.
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.
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.
Doebi – I lived in that flatblock you’ve pictured, the takk one to the left with all the coloured blocks on it!
God, the memories that brings back…:eek:
Thought I had blocked out that experience…one year of grad school at the UMinn…
Fortunately, will be back home to London for a visit at the end of the month – I loves me some BT Tower and Centre Point (honest!)…funny, innit how a particular building can make Person A bleed from the eyes, and Person B go all misty…
That’s just because of your provincial, muted vanilla tastes. If you were a true card-carrying elitist you would recognize that building for the stunning and wonderful piece of modern architecture that it is.
