The UFO Mothership has landed

[Retroit]

f) a lame attempt by a modern architect to substitute ugly for beauty in the hopes of convincing people with bad taste that he/she is a good architect.

[archineer]

Originally Posted by Retroit

f) a lame attempt by a modern architect to substitute ugly for beauty in the hopes of convincing people with bad taste that he/she is a good architect.

If you are are talking about the library it is actually a very well thought out conceptual piece of design. There is a whole manual published by OMA documenting the design process - the amount of thought that goes into his buildings is staggering.

Also architecture is not about making things 'pretty'. That is just set dressing.

[Chango]

Here's SLC's latest building, a new federal courthouse that replaces half a block of quality relatively small-scale turn-of the century shops and apartments:

Construction of new federal courthouse to begin after new year | ksl.com

It reminds me more than a little of a certain pop culture icon:



But I guess that it's somehow fitting for the Feds.

We are the Federal Government. You will be assimilated... resistence is futile.

[stevo6]

Originally Posted by memph

There are starchitects that are overrated, but some of them do deserve their fame.

I'm not a very big fan of the Royal Ontario Museum expansion by Daniel Libeskind:

Photo by Saku Takakusaki
Libeskind designed a tower that's currently under construction in Toronto, which looks like it might turn out pretty good though.

I like Gehry too, I especially like the interiors of the Art Gallery of Ontario's expansion:
[img]http://www.thecoolhunter.net/images/frank(1).jpg[img]
The Cool Hunter - Art Gallery of Ontario

I also like Santiago Calatrava, he designed a couple structures in Toronto.
The Allan Lambert Galleria is the main one (there's also a neat little bridge):


I'm not sure if Moshe Safdie would qualify as a starchitect, but I like his Expo 67 building in Montreal


I like the Absolute World Towers in Mississauga quite a lot too by Yansong Ma, although he's only just starting to get famous thanks to this project, the design is unusual like many of the other buildings by starchitects.

Photo by Jasonzed

The Calatrava example is a different sort of building as it is an expression of STRUCTURE. In other words, it comes from something that is part of its making, not from someone's random and personal fantasy. I find that infinitely more interesting.

[tijlover]

Originally Posted by archineer

Eh i like both Gehry and Koolhas. Neither are my favourite architects mind you.

I was hoping Las Vegas would escape a Gehry or Liebeskind buildng but we're now stuck with them, the Liebeskind shopping mall at City Center and the Gehry-designed Cleveland Brain Institute in Union Plaza.

Gehry is too predictable, as you know, in advance, it's going to be cold grey steel/aluminum, and unfortunately, given the material used, it's too easy erase any enhancement to it, like colorful grafitti.

Ah! Santiago Calatrava, where art thou?

[HandsUpThumbsDown]

Preservation commission denies demolition application for Mechanic Theatre - Baltimore Sun

My fave brutalist building gets a 6 month repreive