The Telegraph has a photo essay titled 'The world's 30 ugliest buildings'. I'm not sure that some of them aren't actually attractive, in a strange - or at least 'different' - sort of way, but there are certainly some eyesores among them! Here are a few examples.
The ArcelorMittal Orbit sculpture and observation tower at the London 2012 Olympic Park
The Mirador Building in Madrid, Spain
Federation Square in Melbourne, Australia
The National Library in Pristina, Kosovo
There are many more at the link. Worthwhile viewing, if only to ask yourself what on earth the architects and designers were smoking!
Peter
The Aldar headquarters building puts me in mind of a giant magnifying glass, as seen in The Tick episode "Ants in Pants!", or possibly Calvin and Hobbes.
ReplyDeleteThat Barclays Center has the permanently-under-construction look, which I suppose was intentional...?
And I was wondering whether they'd include the huge virus that is the main library at UCSD! Looks like they've added some sort of trench or wall around it since I was there.
(Also, once upon a time, there was a church visible from the freeway, south of San Francisco if memory serves, that was commonly known as the Giant Washing Machine Agitator. No idea if it's still there. Not quite as WTF as the collection.)
Indeed, that collection includes quite a variety of WTF. Might lead one to wonder what those who paid for it were thinking... but most of those were funded with Other People's Money, so any folly is perfectly fine, right?
Looking at that building in Kosovo, all I could think was "I hope someone is working on a cure!"
ReplyDeleteOn the one hand, they're fantastic triumphs of architecture and modern construction.
ReplyDeleteOn the other, the North Korean and Beijing ones tell you exactly what their governments do to people.
On the gripping hand, it'd probably have been better if the designers had been restricted to brick and mortar.