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Ugly high-rises


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  • 2 weeks later...

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I have always hated 60 Wall St. - J.P. Morgan Building in downtown Manhattan. It's a giant PoMo mess.

jp_morgan_broad.jpg

60wall_street_top.jpg

The worst part has to be the public lobby -- a mess of stone, chrome and trellis -- when I worked in the area I would go to a subway exit that was farther from my office just so I could avoid qwalking through that ugly lobbby!

60wallp1.jpg60wallp2.jpg60wallp3.jpg

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I have always hated 60 Wall St. - J.P. Morgan Building in downtown Manhattan. It's a giant PoMo mess.

jp_morgan_broad.jpg

60wall_street_top.jpg

The worst part has to be the public lobby -- a mess of stone, chrome and trellis -- when I worked in the area I would go to a subway exit that was farther from my office just so I could avoid qwalking through that ugly lobbby!

60wallp1.jpg60wallp2.jpg60wallp3.jpg

You are so right in calling out this horrible building. It's bulk compounds how bad the design is because it obscures the view of better buildings like the AIG Building.

Another blight on an American skyline is the Marriott in downtown San Francisco.

mcsfo.gif

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the coleman young municipal center in Detroit, good god! make it go away.

Do you find the United Nations building in New York to be ugly? Because the building is based off of that one. Plus there are uglier buildings in Detroit. Trolley Plaza comes to mind.

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Do you find the United Nations building in New York to be ugly? Because the building is based off of that one. Plus there are uglier buildings in Detroit. Trolley Plaza comes to mind.

I think the UN Secretariet is one of the better highrises in NY and among the best modernist towers - along with the Seagram Building, Lever House, Chase Manhattan Plaza, etc. Part of it's allure is the massing, the slender slab set off against the East River makes it quite elegant.

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  • 3 weeks later...

I take back my previous post. I forgot the most obvious candidate. Hands down:

http://www.emporis.com/en/il/im/?id=274712

39 stories of gray concrete and faded "colorful" panels. A huge complex of buildings that, thankfully, was never fully realized back in the 1970's. The original master plan included dozens of structures similar to this one and thousands of apartment units. It looks particularly atrocious after a rainstorm, when the concrete is streaked with dark grays.

Sad, because I know the architect. He's really a nice guy!

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I take back my previous post. I forgot the most obvious candidate. Hands down:

http://www.emporis.com/en/il/im/?id=274712

39 stories of gray concrete and faded "colorful" panels. A huge complex of buildings that, thankfully, was never fully realized back in the 1970's. The original master plan included dozens of structures similar to this one and thousands of apartment units. It looks particularly atrocious after a rainstorm, when the concrete is streaked with dark grays.

Sad, because I know the architect. He's really a nice guy!

I see in that photo that Ug buys ugly houses. Perhaps he should buy those. :P

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I take back my previous post. I forgot the most obvious candidate. Hands down:

http://www.emporis.com/en/il/im/?id=274712

39 stories of gray concrete and faded "colorful" panels. A huge complex of buildings that, thankfully, was never fully realized back in the 1970's. The original master plan included dozens of structures similar to this one and thousands of apartment units. It looks particularly atrocious after a rainstorm, when the concrete is streaked with dark grays.

Sad, because I know the architect. He's really a nice guy!

Yup, that's a great candidate... I always used to drive by those towers and think to myself, "What happened in the 70's to make people think these were a good idea? Was it all the drugs?" And they're actually even worse at street level than the upper part of the towers themselves. Terrible, terrible buildings...

- Garris

Providence, RI

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I take back my previous post. I forgot the most obvious candidate. Hands down:

http://www.emporis.com/en/il/im/?id=274712

39 stories of gray concrete and faded "colorful" panels. A huge complex of buildings that, thankfully, was never fully realized back in the 1970's. The original master plan included dozens of structures similar to this one and thousands of apartment units. It looks particularly atrocious after a rainstorm, when the concrete is streaked with dark grays.

That building looks really bad... :sick:

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  • 1 month later...
  • 2 weeks later...

Yeah the Modis is a monstrosity. It was built in 1973, and for decades was the Independent Life Building. For years and years, it was the ONLY high rise on the Northbank of the St.John's River. It towered above everything else in an ominous threatening way.

It is a monstrosity in so many ways---almost no entry from the street. You have to SEARCH how to enter the building. It is a statement of "no art is good art". The building has absolutely no grace, no elegance...no architectural flourishes. It always makes me think it is essentially an enormous billboard for the lead tenant.

Jacksonville has a wierd quirk of enormous signs on the tops of skyscrapers...i.e. Modis. tacky tacky tacky

BUT at night, when all lit up and sparkling over the St.Johns River, the tower is wonderful. Daytime hours aren't as kind to the building though~~~

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  • 2 weeks later...

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