Ugliest building in the world

[ganjavih]

He's just saying it's ugly, and you want to fight with him as if he's spearheading its demolition.

On UT, you're asking for trouble if you call modernism ugly... even if they are.

 

[TKTKTK]

On UT, you're asking for trouble if you call modernism ugly... even if they are.

Only from a small coterie of old handbags. I realize it must be disquieting to see the return of ornament when you remember, first hand, what it was like to abolish it.

 

[Urban Shocker]

And pippypoo wraiths have existed since the world was in short pants.

 

[TKTKTK]

And pippypoo wraiths have existed since the world was in short pants.

People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones (especially while not wearing pants.)

 

[JasonParis]

Here's a pretty ubiquitous one...

 

[adma]

He's just saying it's ugly, and you want to fight with him as if he's spearheading its demolition.

Well, it may be more the fact of his singling the Peachtree Center out as "ugly"--which really begs the "what kind of rock is he under" question, especially given the competition in Atlanta (particularly of the recent Buckheadian LoPo variety that'd make Kirkor/Graziani/Corazza puke), or the fact that trends in taste have worked in favour of, not against, 60s-era Portman's favour over the past generation.

So, who now would go to the effort of singling out the Peachtree Center as an exemplar of Atlantan ugliness? Besides him, of course.

 

[Brandon716]

He's just saying it's ugly, and you want to fight with him as if he's spearheading its demolition.

And trying to attach some cultural new south shift to a building that has nothing to do with the new south marketing term. Yokel and New South aren't architectural terms.

...anyway...

I have a hard time believing that any of these are 'the ugliest building in the world.' The ugliest would probably be some unremarkable dilapidated box in Russia or something. Like this, or the thousands like it around the world:

That looks like Chernobyl. There was a documentary on how Chernobyl is today on the National Geographic channel in the US. Quite an interesting city, because at the time it was abandoned for the radioactive poisoning, it was actually one of the newer towns in the Soviet Union.

 

[Brandon716]

In relation to John Portman's blue space ship in Atlanta, the place I did grow up in has one of those nice space ship hotels with an atrium in the interior.

Here is the Nashville downtown Sheraton, 27 floors, 300ft. Smaller, and about 10 years younger than the Portman space ship in Atlanta. Since it lacks the cheap blue color and has a more appropriate texture, its much improved over Portman's bigger, yet more tragic design.

You can see it in the upper left middle, the only space ship available.

And you can see the interior by clicking here:

http://www.emporis.com/en/il/im/?id=393543

You can see the Sheraton here as well:

And as you move to the left you can see the older, more ugly looking buildings. The far left building is one of the ugliest buildings available, LOL.

And here is the new office building going up on the right that you could kind of see in the first photo.

Its interesting, more glassy.

And the entire skyline from a distance, with the rugged rural landscape just north and west of downtown.

...BTW, since Nashville has a metropolitan government that includes all of Davidson County, all those rugged hills in the background are considered the city proper. Quite interesting, IMO. But honestly its for the better, I like it when metropolitan regions move away from so many different levels of government. Here in Allegheny County, PA there has to be a new town every half mile.


I hope Nashville is new south enough for ya, because I was raised on cheesy commercials and themes like this one, all about "New South Spirit"...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIJSmNqv33o

Ironically, part of that new south spirit was getting a new shiny automobile manufacturing plant, but now GM is scaling it all back. The Saturn plant was mentioned here in this news clip.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ICI37gvqzI&feature=related

I was way too young to understand the significance of the Saturn plant in its day, but its interesting seeing that its been switched to a Chevrolet plant today. I wonder if its days are numbered.

Atlanta got several American car plants as well, one from Ford, and I think a GM plant opened in Doraville but is now shuttered.


I think I understand this whole "new south" concept adma keeps speaking of. Its still a pretty conservative "new south" if you ask me, but of course that is a cultural/political word that has nothing to do with architecture.

 

[adma]

In relation to John Portman's blue space ship in Atlanta, the place I did grow up in has one of those nice space ship hotels with an atrium in the interior.

Here is the Nashville downtown Sheraton, 27 floors, 300ft. Smaller, and about 10 years younger than the Portman space ship in Atlanta. Since it lacks the cheap blue color and has a more appropriate texture, its much improved over Portman's bigger, yet more tragic design.

You can see it in the upper left middle, the only space ship available.

Huh? Not that it's *horrible* or anything, but from what I can see, that Sheraton represents the blah formulaic 70s-i-fication of whatever Portman represented.

It's like opting for Boston or Journey or Triumph over Hendrix or early Led Zeppelin because it's less "sloppy" and "more refined"...uh, yeah, to a fault...

 

[Brandon716]

Or you can just face the fact that my opinion is that the blue dome is hideous, and this Sheraton (which is actually only 5 years its junior in design) has a much more refined, appropriate rotating space-ship restaurant.

 

[marcus_a_j]

That AT&T building is quite ghastly. It's like they took the Nestle Building at Yonge & Sheppard and merged it with a couple of those Tridel Triomphe Buildings near Yonge & Finch, put a tunnel portal on top as a hat, then added a pair of 150 ft mini concrete Sears Towers to the top making it look like the worlds tallest field goal posts.

 

[Brandon716]

That AT&T building is quite ghastly. It's like they took the Nestle Building at Yonge & Sheppard and merged it with a couple of those Tridel Triomphe Buildings near Yonge & Finch, put a tunnel portal on top as a hat, then added a pair of 150 ft mini concrete Sears Towers to the top making it look like the worlds tallest field goal posts.

LOL, that is the most delicate description I've ever read.

 

[Urban Shocker]

I believe it's known locally as the "Batman building".

 

[adma]

Or you can just face the fact that my opinion is that the blue dome is hideous, and this Sheraton (which is actually only 5 years its junior in design) has a much more refined, appropriate rotating space-ship restaurant.

Huh? "Refined"? "Appropriate"? It may be your opinion and you're sticking by it, but it sounds to me like you're redefining well-meaning Sunday-painter amateur architectural judgment on behalf of (as opposed to, er, "opposed to") 60s/70s modernism. Look: at least in symbolic terms, we're talking about boring here. We're at the cusp of when Brutalist-hotels-with-revolving-restaurants-and-perhaps-big-atriums became a banal 70s cliche (cf. Harbour Castle, et al--though Harbour Castle hasn't the atrium). Give me that so-called blue-domed hideousness anyday. I mean, I can appreciate the Sheraton Nashville as a local landmark and in general revisionist terms re 70s "hotel modernism" (and if anyone's prone to spearheading such revisionism, it's myself). But not in your bass-ackward terms. Next to your dreaded blue dome, this is but a formulaic footnote--"refined" to a fault (thus my corporate-rock metaphor). I may be open to an architectural big tent, but in terms of historical posterity, I'm a realist. (Though on behalf of the Sheraton Nashville, at least its architectural vocabulary doesn't have that dumb-yokels-grappling-with-this-here-Modern-style quality of Memphis' UP Bank, or New Orleans' Plaza Tower, i.e. it'd be "credible" virtually anywhere else in the US or Canada. Though one whose prone to decrying architectural faceless/placelessness might argue that's its *problem*--and that of 70s modernism in general--as well.)

To return to the Eaton Centre metaphor, that's like saying that the busy 70s high-tech array of Zeidler's Galleria roof (incidentally, the antithesis of a "formulaic footnote") is "hideous" and should be replaced with something "much more refined, appropriate". Yeah, sure, and invite horselaughs and ridicule among Toronto's modern-heritage buffs.

Yeah, I know I may be treading the "insulting" line as per usual: but only to set you straight. Oh, and re Atlanta: if you can scoop up this chestnut, do so. A good architectural guide can work a long way toward soothing many a savage and alienating urban beast. (NB: don't mind the lukewarm Amazon reviews.)

 

[jks]

Holy...Do all Sheratons look alike?!? lol, No but it's in the same style as the Downtown Toronto Sheraton. I gotta say, I really like the AT&T building, if nothing else, the glass is of quality.