Showing posts with label BAD architecture. Show all posts
Showing posts with label BAD architecture. Show all posts
Thursday, December 15, 2016
Sunday, May 08, 2016
Monday, July 06, 2015
Kunstler: Featured Eyesore of the Month
Kunstler's running late with his weekly column, but below is a link to his featured eyesore of the month, namely a failed appending of a modern condo to a traditional church.
Kunstler: Featured Eyesore of the Month
7 July update: In a comment below, Hattie implies the church is ugly, and not made ugly with the addition of the condo tower. How so? I ask.
Kunstler: Featured Eyesore of the Month
7 July update: In a comment below, Hattie implies the church is ugly, and not made ugly with the addition of the condo tower. How so? I ask.
Wednesday, December 12, 2012
Friday, September 12, 2008
The Future?
Vacant McHouse on the outskirts of Saratoga Springs, New York. Construction begun, 2006. Completed, 2008. Never occupied. Never put up for sale. Never cared for. Weeds and saplings taking over the McGrounds. Who knows the tale of woe behind this embodiment of the burst housing bubble? Divorce? Insolvency? Bankruptcy? Repossession? Death? Whoever finally does move into this pre-haunted dwelling will be greeted by one king-hell of a heating fuel bill. The northeast has not yet seen the kind of new house desolation now visible in parts of California, Nevada, Arizona, and Florida. But the housing bust has long way to go before the median price of a house is equivalent with the budget of the median income.
Decay and promise in Detroit. The "ghetto palm."
This photo is from themotorlesscity.com
Tuesday, December 05, 2006
Vandalism in Canada
Kunstler's Eyesore of the Month for December
"The new addition to the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, by Daniel Libeskind-- scoring a two-in-a-row coup for the architect/savant on EOTM. Why are all those people standing around in the foreground gaping at this spectacle? They are from the Royal College of Physicians, trying to figure out a treatment plan. The stuffy old gentleman of a museum has developed a horrendous steel and glass tumor. It has become the "Elephant Man" of museums. Now, you may ask yourself: why is this sort of thing acceptable to the Guardians of Culture? The answer may be that it sends a truthful but subliminal message (which, alas, we are misinterpreting) that the mis-use of technology has become the fatal disease of civilization."
Kunstler also has a link to Dmitri Orlov's report on how the Soviet Union/Russia weathered its economic collapse.
Tuesday, October 03, 2006
Demolition Men
I found this, on the Ambassador Hotel, at Franklin Avenue. More here and here. The Ambassador was a swank hotel, famous for more than being the site of Kennedy's demise. With Emilio Estevez's upcoming film Bobby, about Bobby Kennedy's assassination at the hotel, you'd think the Ambassador would become a tourist draw (albeit a macabre one). No. The hotel met its own demise a few years back. The above links tell the story of the Ambassador's glory days, then its neglect and destruction.
On the other side of the Pacific Rim, Tokyo officials plan to cleave in two the hip Shimokitazawa neigborhood with an 81-foot-wide thoroughfare. The article says:
The road has set off a rare battle for preservation in a country where big construction projects have long been welcomed as progress and used to grease the wheels of politics. The fight pits boutique and bar owners, among them the first bearers of hippie culture to the neighborhood three decades ago, against city hall and older residents who resent the relative newcomers.
In cities from New York to Bucharest, the practice of plowing large roads through urban communities has been widely discredited. But Tokyo is only just beginning to consider the social costs, after decades of covering its medieval moats and rivers with highways, and replacing tile-roofed dwellings with featureless concrete buildings.
"Until now, nobody cared if we destroyed the culture and environment of Tokyo," said Mikiko Ishikawa, a professor at Keio University here who specializes in urban planning. "People are gradually coming to understand that these things matter, too."
For many Tokyoites, the charm of Shimokitazawa lay in the fact that it had escaped such redevelopment. A sleepy residential community on the city's outskirts, it escaped American wartime bombings.
On the other side of the Pacific Rim, Tokyo officials plan to cleave in two the hip Shimokitazawa neigborhood with an 81-foot-wide thoroughfare. The article says:
The road has set off a rare battle for preservation in a country where big construction projects have long been welcomed as progress and used to grease the wheels of politics. The fight pits boutique and bar owners, among them the first bearers of hippie culture to the neighborhood three decades ago, against city hall and older residents who resent the relative newcomers.
In cities from New York to Bucharest, the practice of plowing large roads through urban communities has been widely discredited. But Tokyo is only just beginning to consider the social costs, after decades of covering its medieval moats and rivers with highways, and replacing tile-roofed dwellings with featureless concrete buildings.
"Until now, nobody cared if we destroyed the culture and environment of Tokyo," said Mikiko Ishikawa, a professor at Keio University here who specializes in urban planning. "People are gradually coming to understand that these things matter, too."
For many Tokyoites, the charm of Shimokitazawa lay in the fact that it had escaped such redevelopment. A sleepy residential community on the city's outskirts, it escaped American wartime bombings.
Ironic, no?
The article also mentions the conflict between older, longtime residents who welcome the development (one reason, the thoroughfare would be an earthquake-evacuation route) and resent the hipper newcomers protesting the project.
Preservation begins at home. The National Trust for Historic Preservation should be your first stop.
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