Architecture - the good, the bad and the ugly

whiel you're on the ugly of Toronto, how abouthis *beauty* perched on the shore of the lake? Mind you the Hilton (at the time) harbour Castle was constructed at a time when this land was basically industrial and little used, but now? It should be the one building in the city that is torn down:

 

@Leto, another great example of a building that fails to meet the street in any useful way. If you get rid of the god-awful podium, the building above it isn't all that bad.

 

One of my favourite Toronto buildings -- Ontario College of Art and Design designed by Wil Alsop.

 

Given my user name and avatar, it is surely no surprise that I am interested in urban planning and architecture.

The office building in D.C., now named for Eisenhower, is the former State, War & Navy Building, which had a very high public profile in the old days. I think it is fantastic inside and out.

I like many Modernist buildings, but I hate and detest Modernist architectural thinking. In particular, I object to its intolerance, the arrogant notion that to build any other way is morally wrong. And that idea is still prevalent among architects, who apologize to each other for designing postmodern buildings.

I have a much longer rap about this, but basically Robert Venturi made it "okay" for architects to use ornament on buildings, but only if it is "ironic", that is, thin and fake-looking and not integral to the structure. It as if they hope for some messianic era in the future when all that ornament can be stripped away.

 

You know what they say, ROM wasn't built in a day!







--- merged: Nov 28, 2013 at 1:04 PM ---
Okay, I drive past the Parkway Mall every day. I see the grocery store there (currently a Metro, but used to be a Dominion and before that, a Steinberg's) and often wonder what style of architecture it is. The mall was built in the late '50s. Is this Modern? The place makes me want to stop and go in and shop. Not like the current style of institutional looking groceries:

 

@Leto, I love that swooping roof. Is that the one one a Victoria Park and Ellesmere? I have had the se reaction since I was kid: I want to go inside and shop.

It's definitely modernist in style.

 

That's the one. Vic Park & Ellesmere. There's another grocery on York Mills (not too far away from that one) that has a more angular style. But again, it is very airy and exposed to the outside:



I dunno, I've heard some people say they don't like Modern, but it is nice, clean and welcoming in my eyes. By the way, what is post modern?

I mean, h ow can you go from those to this and call it progress?

 

The large arch-roof supermarket is a wonderful icon of which at least two survive in southeast Michigan. I will post photos later. The interior space is glorious.

That last photo, if it's a newly built building (which I doubt), would not be one whit more attractive if the exact same developer with the exact same budget built it in a "correctly" Modernist way.

What you see here is the scourge of Dryvit (also known under other names which I forget at the moment), essentially something like Styrofoam with sprayed-on concrete. It's fragile stuff that would be destroyed by a toddler hitting it with a tricycle. I see badly-damaged ground-level Dryvit all over the place. Careful builders avoid the tricycle problem by using concrete for the first six feet from the ground, and Dryvit above that.

Dryvit was first popular in US desert areas like Phoenix, Arizona, and spread to everywhere. But in wet climates, water eventually gets behind the concrete scrim, mold develops, becomes unsightly and smelly, health issues, etc., etc.

The city of Chicago has banned the stuff.

What really gets my goat is seeing Dryvit (which is inherently short-term stuff) being used to "repair" protected historic buildings.

 

EIFS?

(Exterior insulation finishing system)

we tend to call it generically stucco, even tho it isn't
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So are you saying that the budget determines the materials and construction? That last one must have been built in the '80's - but it has been replaced now by a more cottagy style supermarket: it looks a bit like this:




The green picture above that seems to be low budget but is still more attractive than the more modern. It looks much more inviting, less fortress like.

 

@Leto, postmodern architecture is largely a response to modernist architecture. Where modernist is all about clean lines and functional space, postmodernity is about ornamentation and pastiche (a form that refers to previous forms and ideas without context of meaning). See the bad examples below.

The other element of postmodernism, where I think it can work, is in the deconstructionist style... where the classic form is broken down and a sense of play is derived from laying bare the perception that modern forms are stiff and formal... boring. See: Frank Gehry below.

Examples of Postmodern at its worst


Mississauga City Hall is a good example of Postmodern at its worst


It can also be a force for good...

Singapore office tower... looks like it was built in the 40s but was built in the 90s


Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur


Frank Gehry's work...

 

This Mies van der Rohe-inspired residential building is the only major private structure on the lakefront side of Lake Shore Drive in Chicago. I love it's soft, blue-tinted curves, which vary in hue depending on the type of light reflected upon it. It was conceived by two of van der
Rohe's proteges, John Heinrich and George Schipporeit.

SOURCE: Lake Point Tower

 

@Fangirl - I really l ike the way the windows repeat. Seems to add two types of scale: human and majestic. It plays well with the curves.

and brings to mind another structure in Mississauga, just down the road from the atrocious city hall posted by Charlatan:

The Absolute Towers (aka the Marylin Monroe towers):

 

They are very pretty. Mississauga sure is a mish-mash of sublime to ridiculous these days. I remember when it was just a generic suburb. I turn 54 tomorrow so--yeah, a while back.

 

@Fangirl - It's still fairly generic - the pockets of development occurring near these buildings where they built the large Square One mall. It seems odd to see these areas of development in the middle of what I considered to be nowhere! I confess that everytime I go out to Mississauga I get lost. It's just so spread out and foreign to my inner city sensibilities. (by the way we're the same age!).
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Just thinking about Canary Warf - the centrepiece building there (One Canada Square) was built by Olympia & York and Pelli as the designer:



and is almost a duplicate of Olympia & York's One Financial Centre in NYC (also designed by Pelli):



Earlier on, Olympia & York built First Canadian Place in Toronto (mid '70's):



But it wasn't designed by Pelli. What sort of style are these buildings? They seem to elaborate on the style of Mies Van der Rohe. The First Canadian Place is also a copy of the AON (ESSO) building in Chicago:



The windows are arranged differently. Both designed by Edward Durell Stone. (i'm no architect student, I just looked these up and am curious as the terminology being used when describing different styles)