Speaking as somebody who takes an architect's crazy designs and makes drawings somebody could actually use to build something, Gehry's stuff makes me angry. It's just so ridiculously complicated and wasteful.
My rival high school was designed by a guy who pretty much only did prisons outside of that one high school, and it showed. It was a source of much glorious derision.
Like it looks great in a movie but I would not want to live there
So I sort of don't understand why anyone would build those things! Why not build things from the "happy eco-friendly white and swooshy sci-fi future" movies?
Apple wasn't around in the 50s-70s...
God I hate that look. I'd rather everything was all brutal and oppressive and dirty and shit than look like it came straight from a Mac ad.
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EncA Fool with CompassionPronouns: He, Him, HisRegistered Userregular
Over here at least, tt was just a really weird architectural fad when these schools were being built.
But yes, the spaces are incredibly depressing. I specifically didn't go to UofT Scarborough because the place just looked so awful.
-Depressing Buildings-
can't wait to get my learn on
A lot of Colleges built between 1960 and 1990 look like this because of the threat of riots and damage to the buildings, along with serving as potential military sites during an invasion. During the cold war, colleges were deemed to have a high protest-gone-wrong rating and most financing companies wouldn't support construction unless the campuses made concessions in construction to minimize the possibility of riot damage, including building with heavy concrete, minimizing the amount of windows on first floors where possible, and ensuring narrow balconies on third floors or higher for defensive positions. The idea was to limit damage of the interiors of the building should students riot by limiting their abilities to enter the building, while ensuring that police or security forces within would be able to hold the buildings against a particularly violent populace.
If you look at colleges that have a long history, you'll see Ivy League-eqsue English themed buildings up until the mid fifties, then a sharp change to heavily fortified looking buildings until about 1990. when buildings once again started being built in more open styles (currently using lots of glass and open spaces as a sort of rejection of the former appearance).
A professor at our college does a lecture on it each year.
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WeaverWho are you?What do you want?Registered Userregular
Over here at least, tt was just a really weird architectural fad when these schools were being built.
But yes, the spaces are incredibly depressing. I specifically didn't go to UofT Scarborough because the place just looked so awful.
-Depressing Buildings-
can't wait to get my learn on
A lot of Colleges built between 1960 and 1990 look like this because of the threat of riots and damage to the buildings, along with serving as potential military sites during an invasion. During the cold war, colleges were deemed to have a high protest-gone-wrong rating and most financing companies wouldn't support construction unless the campuses made concessions in construction to minimize the possibility of riot damage, including building with heavy concrete, minimizing the amount of windows on first floors where possible, and ensuring narrow balconies on third floors or higher for defensive positions. The idea was to limit damage of the interiors of the building should students riot by limiting their abilities to enter the building, while ensuring that police or security forces within would be able to hold the buildings against a particularly violent populace.
If you look at colleges that have a long history, you'll see Ivy League-eqsue English themed buildings up until the mid fifties, then a sharp change to heavily fortified looking buildings until about 1990. when buildings once again started being built in more open styles (currently using lots of glass and open spaces as a sort of rejection of the former appearance).
A professor at our college does a lecture on it each year.
Like it looks great in a movie but I would not want to live there
So I sort of don't understand why anyone would build those things! Why not build things from the "happy eco-friendly white and swooshy sci-fi future" movies?
Apple wasn't around in the 50s-70s...
God I hate that look. I'd rather everything was all brutal and oppressive and dirty and shit than look like it came straight from a Mac ad.
Speaking of Waterloo, there has been a long-standing myth that the designers of the library (which looks a bit like a short version of the Rainier building) failed to account for the weight of the books and so it's slowly sinking. Totally untrue but fun to make fun of the engineers at UW.
Also the math building that Rolo posted before used to have a giant, two-storey hole in the middle of it for their mainframe (since filled in with offices). My dad still has a couple of his punchcards from when he was a student there. He was a computer science major when comp-sci was still part of the Math department.
I don't like flat roofs in residential construction, at least not in Ontario. Too much chance of leaks and way too expensive to fix/replace.
edit: re concrete: the reason Biodome2 failed was because the concrete was still curing and taking CO2 out of the air years after it was poured. Took them a while to figure out why the balance was off.
edit2: also the Olympic Stadium in Montreal went hugely over budget because a lot of the pre-built concrete was pre-built wrong. I personally wouldn't go inside it today. Last time I was near it, big chunks of the copper-and-tar roof were falling off.
when C'thulhu rises all those jocks will finally get what's coming to them
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EncA Fool with CompassionPronouns: He, Him, HisRegistered Userregular
edited December 2011
This is the Majesty Building, in Altamonte Springs
The building was funded by a religious group that was going to build a "skyscraper for god, from the people." They planned to do this via private donations and started work on it almost ten years ago. It went up quickly, then stopped as interest and money vanished and the project went way over budget. The city forced them o cover it in glass despite it being nothing but the bare-bones shell you can see at the bottom because it was such an eyesore. To date there are no plans to complete it.
Back when I lived in Orlando, it was my favorite building because you could see it from downtown, miles off to the north, all barren and alone. A mark of the follies for building on dreams.
Opposing that, this is my least favorite building:
This monstrosity was built on top of an otherwise beautiful place in North Carolina called Sugar Mountain. Bleached white concrete and absolutely ugly, it can be seen from miles upon miles around and never was filled with permanent tenants due to the hate of the locals constantly driving them away. It was considered such an eyesore that there are now laws in most of the Appalachian states preventing this sort of a building from ever being built again.
Enc on
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BroloBroseidonLord of the BroceanRegistered Userregular
Speaking of Waterloo, there has been a long-standing myth that the designers of the library (which looks a bit like a short version of the Rainier building) failed to account for the weight of the books and so it's slowly sinking. Totally untrue but fun to make fun of the engineers at UW.
Also the math building that Rolo posted before used to have a giant, two-storey hole in the middle of it for their mainframe (since filled in with offices). My dad still has a couple of his punchcards from when he was a student there. He was a computer science major when comp-sci was still part of the Math department.
Speaking of Waterloo, there has been a long-standing myth that the designers of the library (which looks a bit like a short version of the Rainier building) failed to account for the weight of the books and so it's slowly sinking. Totally untrue but fun to make fun of the engineers at UW.
Also the math building that Rolo posted before used to have a giant, two-storey hole in the middle of it for their mainframe (since filled in with offices). My dad still has a couple of his punchcards from when he was a student there. He was a computer science major when comp-sci was still part of the Math department.
This monstrosity was built on top of an otherwise beautiful place in North Carolina called Sugar Mountain. Bleached white concrete and absolutely ugly, it can be seen from miles upon miles around and never was filled with permanent tenants due to the hate of the locals constantly driving them away. It was considered such an eyesore that there are now laws in most of the Appalachian states preventing this sort of a building from ever being built again.
Oh, to live on Sugar Mountain
With the barkers and the colored balloons,
You can't be twenty on Sugar Mountain
Though you're thinking that
you're leaving there too soon,
You're leaving there too soon.
when C'thulhu rises all those jocks will finally get what's coming to them
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BroloBroseidonLord of the BroceanRegistered Userregular
I like the St George campus a lot
Although the indoor sections are old enough that everything feels a tad claustrophobic. I'm not sure if it's because the average head height was lower back when it was built or if they just didn't care as much when designing, but some of the ceilings come down way too low.
I... kinda dig Brutalism. The shapes used in the style really interest me, and the only thing I can really be turned down by are the massive blank slabs of concrete that can be prettied up no problem. It breaks the form of my familiar cookie-cutter housing arrangements without bizarre alienation of huge glass curves.
You just need to hire a hundred mural artists to cover all that stone.
The landscape must be covered by a cultural rainbow of ethnic cheer.
Posts
whoops
sorry I was thinking "just outside the space needle" and then wrote in "Seattle" instead
God I hate that look. I'd rather everything was all brutal and oppressive and dirty and shit than look like it came straight from a Mac ad.
A lot of Colleges built between 1960 and 1990 look like this because of the threat of riots and damage to the buildings, along with serving as potential military sites during an invasion. During the cold war, colleges were deemed to have a high protest-gone-wrong rating and most financing companies wouldn't support construction unless the campuses made concessions in construction to minimize the possibility of riot damage, including building with heavy concrete, minimizing the amount of windows on first floors where possible, and ensuring narrow balconies on third floors or higher for defensive positions. The idea was to limit damage of the interiors of the building should students riot by limiting their abilities to enter the building, while ensuring that police or security forces within would be able to hold the buildings against a particularly violent populace.
If you look at colleges that have a long history, you'll see Ivy League-eqsue English themed buildings up until the mid fifties, then a sharp change to heavily fortified looking buildings until about 1990. when buildings once again started being built in more open styles (currently using lots of glass and open spaces as a sort of rejection of the former appearance).
A professor at our college does a lecture on it each year.
Oh hey, that's really interesting.
I like the one in the lower left though. Just giant eagles everywhere.
Yeah, more buildings need gargoyles and/or perched statuary.
Also the math building that Rolo posted before used to have a giant, two-storey hole in the middle of it for their mainframe (since filled in with offices). My dad still has a couple of his punchcards from when he was a student there. He was a computer science major when comp-sci was still part of the Math department.
John Hancock Tower in Boston, based on the file name.
The Hancock Tower in Boston! You may have seen it on Fringe, where it's portrayed as the location of the Boston FBI.
edit: re concrete: the reason Biodome2 failed was because the concrete was still curing and taking CO2 out of the air years after it was poured. Took them a while to figure out why the balance was off.
edit2: also the Olympic Stadium in Montreal went hugely over budget because a lot of the pre-built concrete was pre-built wrong. I personally wouldn't go inside it today. Last time I was near it, big chunks of the copper-and-tar roof were falling off.
The building was funded by a religious group that was going to build a "skyscraper for god, from the people." They planned to do this via private donations and started work on it almost ten years ago. It went up quickly, then stopped as interest and money vanished and the project went way over budget. The city forced them o cover it in glass despite it being nothing but the bare-bones shell you can see at the bottom because it was such an eyesore. To date there are no plans to complete it.
Back when I lived in Orlando, it was my favorite building because you could see it from downtown, miles off to the north, all barren and alone. A mark of the follies for building on dreams.
Opposing that, this is my least favorite building:
This monstrosity was built on top of an otherwise beautiful place in North Carolina called Sugar Mountain. Bleached white concrete and absolutely ugly, it can be seen from miles upon miles around and never was filled with permanent tenants due to the hate of the locals constantly driving them away. It was considered such an eyesore that there are now laws in most of the Appalachian states preventing this sort of a building from ever being built again.
Oh the old sugar cube myth
god I wasted so much of my life there
this was kind of amusing though
Oh, to live on Sugar Mountain
With the barkers and the colored balloons,
You can't be twenty on Sugar Mountain
Though you're thinking that
you're leaving there too soon,
You're leaving there too soon.
But it also has War Memorial Hall
and this, which I forget what it is (spoil'd for pretty big):
They have this nifty old portico thing that's kind of in the middle of nowhere for some reason:
The new buildings are also pretty okay:
Although the indoor sections are old enough that everything feels a tad claustrophobic. I'm not sure if it's because the average head height was lower back when it was built or if they just didn't care as much when designing, but some of the ceilings come down way too low.
XBLGT:Banzeye SC2: Apollo.394
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shard_London_Bridge
Its like TransAmerica, only newer, and in London. Welcome to the modern skyscraper game, England.
One all alone just looks dumb
PSN ID : DetectiveOlivaw | TWITTER | STEAM ID | NEVER FORGET
I'm sure there are valid demographic reasons that decide these things but I want to live near the biggest possible building
Gotta start somewhere.
Unless you're Russia, in which case you just build a bunch of buildings in the middle of what appears to be nothing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_Capitals
You just need to hire a hundred mural artists to cover all that stone.
The landscape must be covered by a cultural rainbow of ethnic cheer.
The new face of the modern skyline
everything gray and drab forever
work on a weather control machine so you can have it raining all the time and you're in business