# Skyscrapers that make you angry



## Urban Dave (Apr 18, 2004)

That Epson building in HK is really disgusting.


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## hkskyline (Sep 13, 2002)

Taller said:


> LOL!!! That is such an irony, hkskyline... you have chosen a Mies Van der Rohe
> building, and he was the master of "detail"!
> Please don't think I am being rude, but if anyone ever studies architecture
> they learn the incredible insistence on detail that was put into his buildings.
> ...


I am not particularly a big fan of that whole movement actually. I'm acccustomed to the detailed architecture that adorns European buildings so I don't like the simplicity of Van der Rohe's work. The TD Centre was particularly bad because during the cold winter in Toronto the building layout whips up the winds and it's virtually impossible to walk in the courtyard.


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## TalB (Jun 8, 2005)

I tend to find 26 Astor Pl being out of scale with rest of the neighborhood.


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## Taller Better (Aug 27, 2005)

hkskyline said:


> I am not particularly a big fan of that whole movement actually. I'm acccustomed to the detailed architecture that adorns European buildings so I don't like the simplicity of Van der Rohe's work. The TD Centre was particularly bad because during the cold winter in Toronto the building layout whips up the winds and it's virtually impossible to walk in the courtyard.


This is the CBD of Toronto, and land is at a premium. An intense grouping
of buildings is required and that will always enhance the wind, but that would happen with any group of highrise buildings, regardless of the individual design,
or layout. You will find the same thing in any of the bank plazas down there.
A grouping of highly fanciful, Byzantine-Wedding-Cake-Extravanganza towers
would in no way be able to stop the winds whipping off Lake Ontario in the winter. That is just one of the drawbacks of requiring a large number of 
highrises in a small area, and also being on the shore of Lake Ontario.
I was at harbourfront last weekend, without even so much as ONE building
between the lake and myself, and I was nearly picked up and flown back
home against my will. 
When you talk of detailed architecture adorning European buildings, are
you referring to historical ones or contemporary buildings? I am a huge fan
of historical building styles (Italian Renaissance being my fave) but I 
studied architecture and learned to appreciate the seemingly simplistic 
modern highrise buildings of the older masters like Van der Rohe. To some
people they look like boxes; to me they scream out intelligent planning
and clear thought... Van der Rohe believed that architectural integrity meant
if you are building a tall structure, then honestly represent the verticality with
clean, uninterrupted lines. He did not clad these buildings with tiles to give
and illusion they were made of stone; his theory was they were steel
buildings, so let everyone know that, and emphasize the steel I-beams
as corner details:










He was so obsessed with purity of design that he had contracts drawn up
with the building owners to prevent a ghastly future "modernization" that
might make a mockery of his original intent. That is why the interior of the
first TD building in Toronto looks much the same as it was when in was
built in the 60's, and probably same for the Seagram Building in New York
(although it has been years since I was there). 
I know it is only a matter of personal taste, but I raise a toast to the
Father of the Modern Skyscraper! :cheers: Without him, unlikely we would
all be on a skyscraper forum today...


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## hkskyline (Sep 13, 2002)

Taller said:


> This is the CBD of Toronto, and land is at a premium. An intense grouping
> of buildings is required and that will always enhance the wind, but that would happen with any group of highrise buildings, regardless of the individual design,
> or layout. You will find the same thing in any of the bank plazas down there.
> A grouping of highly fanciful, Byzantine-Wedding-Cake-Extravanganza towers
> ...


The problem is the placement of the buildings and the courtyard. It enhanced the vortex effect so winds would be trapped there, which makes the courtyard virtually unwalkable in the winter. If winds blow in from the lake then things will get worse. Had the buildings been bunched up together more like the rest of the CBD, the highrises could have blocked out the winds. The TD Centre is not by the water, so it shouldn't be as windy as standing by the lake. That is one of my concerns. The others are embedded in the Jacobs criticism in this article :

*'The coffins' leave them cold *
The Toronto-Dominion Centre turns 25 next year, but this famous project, both powerful and poised, has never inspired much love 
30 October 1991
The Globe and Mail

IN the near future, the people who operate the Toronto-Dominion Centre, the city's most important work of Modern architecture, will be announcing how they plan to celebrate next year's 25th anniversary of this famous project's dedication. 

Whatever they do, it probably won't get many Torontonians to put on party hats and dance in the streets. But if the centre has never inspired much love in its first quarter-century, it has nevertheless inspired a certain curiosity, early on at least. 

As late as 1970, reporters were regularly dispatched to the centre to write up broken fire sprinklers, a sighting of a raccoon snooping around the Banking Pavilion, and the anxieties of bird-watchers over the crash- deaths of migrating wildlife. 

The 1971 blow-out of a huge glass window from a high floor of one black tower even prompted a city safety investigation. There were hints of forthcoming revelations from centre employees about more glass about to blow. Whether no more windows fell out, or nobody ever came forward with horror stories, or editors just lost interest, I do not know. But by this time, the centre was well on its way to the state of taken-for-grantedness it enjoys at the present time. 

Both kinds of early newspaper stories - hoots of scorn or ridicule, and tales of things breaking or going wrong - were attempts to deal with these immense, solemn buildings: the first, by dismissing them as brusquely as they seem to dismiss us; the second, by showing that these menacing blocks of machined steel and gleaming glass are, well, sort of human. 

None of it worked. The towers were still "the coffins" to Torontonians. Mentions of the centre's architecture by pundits a quarter-century later, if more rare than they once were, are usually no less dismissive. It's hardly surprising. The prevailing mood among big-city politicians and planners, architectural critics and others with an interest in these matters is friendly to saving neighbourhoods and old edifices, and unfriendly to the kind of militant bulldozing necessary to make way for windswept plazas and huge glass office towers. 

Toronto urbanologist Jane Jacobs's Death and Life of Great American Cities remains, after 30 years in print, the most passionate herald of this conservative sentiment about cities, and probably the most appealing attack ever written on the architectural and urban-planning values embodied in the Toronto-Dominion Centre, and in the autocratic idealism of its famous German-born American designer, Mies van der Rohe. 

But cheer Jacobs's humane criticism of mega-developments as we must, denounce the arid monumentality of much Modernist architecture as we should, the fact remains that all the bad things we have to say about such Modern building in general don't quite match the Toronto-Dominion Centre itself. The four early structures may be deeply problematic, and expressive of values now much in disrepute among thoughtful planners and architects. But they have nevertheless remained intellectually and esthetically compelling, even provocative, in ways that few other Toronto buildings put up in the Corporate Power Style of the 1950s and 1960s can match. 

If you want to know what I'm talking about, take a slow walk among the four earliest buildings of the T-D Centre, as I did one wet, windy afternoon last week. 

For the record, the buildings you see clustered loosely together around the intersection of King and Bay are the Toronto-Dominion Bank Tower (56 storeys, officially opened 1967), the low, flat Banking Pavilion (1968), the Royal Trust Tower (46 storeys, 1969), and the Commercial Union Tower (32 storeys, 1974), all set on a spacious stone platform elevated above street level. You sense immediately what early critics loved to hate about these structures: the vast indifference of the project to human scale, however defined; the unrelenting impersonality of the soaring walls of glass and black-painted steel; the dramatically empty intervals among the buildings; the worship of open space and shunning of cozy nooks; the nearly comfortless stone-lined, glass-walled lobbies. 

One senses the ghost-presences of the older structures and little streets that were swept away to make way for the monumental expressions of corporate power now thrusting skyward from the granite base of the site. Gone is Millstone Lane, and missed, too, if only for its charming name. Gone, too, is a Beaux-Arts, columned bank building which Toronto's tribal memory still recalls as magnificent and noble. Scraps and ornamental fragments from these and other structures swept down by Toronto's postwar- development surge still exist, strewn about the grounds of the Guild Inn, in Scarborough. Without them, we would have very little tangible evidence of what was taken away so that the great downtown towers could rise. 

But, on the plus side of the ledger, only the most dogmatic Jacobean anti-Modernist could find nothing of beauty in the rhythm and consummate grace of the slender steel columns holding aloft the roof over the Banking Pavilion, or the rigorous, perfect poetry of black metal, glass and warm grey stone in the ground-level areas of the three towers. It's powerful architecture, to be sure, but graceful, poised, efficient, like the body of an athlete at his peak. If next year's anniversary celebrations probably won't make its foes love the centre any better, perhaps it will at least make Torontonians aware of the peculiarly modern beauty of these renowned buildings in our midst.


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## malec (Apr 17, 2005)

TalB said:


> I tend to find 26 Astor Pl being out of scale with rest of the neighborhood.


I really like this one actually. A great mixture of old and new


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## Sun (Sep 12, 2002)

Great responses everyone!

Remember...It's an opinion. 

The whole point was to vent about some of the buildings that make you angry. It doesn't matter why, it's your right. I could hate those Mies Van der Rohe buildings with all my heart because someone I know died during its construction (didn't happen) but so what? It's an opinion.

It's similar to saying...
a) "I don't like the taste of beets"
b) "YES you do, they are full of nutrients and one should appreciate them"

...Nacho_82, Yeah, I can't stand the MetLife building.


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## mac71 (Dec 14, 2005)

Just pointlessly ugly.


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## Taller Better (Aug 27, 2005)

hkskyline said:


> The others are embedded in the Jacobs criticism in this article :
> 
> *'The coffins' leave them cold *
> The Toronto-Dominion Centre turns 25 next year, but this famous project, both powerful and poised, has never inspired much love
> ...


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## ATILANOS (Feb 4, 2006)

*por fin nuevo rascacielos*








[/CENTER]


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## ATILANOS (Feb 4, 2006)

quiero un dibujo del nuevo rascacielos de la carretera de burgos (madrid) 340 metros!! CARAMBA


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## hkskyline (Sep 13, 2002)

Taller said:


> In any case, my discussing the TD Centre is intended to be about the
> design of the buildings themselves, not wind problems created by
> building placement. I was just responding to your comment:"I'm not a big fan of simple buildings such as these two. I prefer more details" and was
> trying to point out these buildings are chock full of details!!


Times have changed, and people nowadays want more interaction between buildings and the community, which was a major problem under the International Style. Hence something like the TD Centre is not likely going to be built today. Originally, the planners wanted to create a vast public space, but perhaps because of their oversight, the square they created turned out to be a wind trap. 

While these buildings may have details at a more subtle level, they are certainly not the artistic masterpieces that adorn many European buildings and early New York skyscrapers. That's my point in a nutshell.


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## micro (Mar 13, 2005)

I hate buildings that have a 'handle' at their top.

















Looks like a giant handbag


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## broadie (Jan 21, 2006)

i dont like the bank of china over rated


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## voxfan (Feb 2, 2006)

i don`t like this bank of america building in atlanta


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## voxfan (Feb 2, 2006)

i don`t like this bank of america building in atlanta


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## TalB (Jun 8, 2005)

malec said:


> I really like this one actually. A great mixture of old and new


It would be nice if it was built somewhere else, b/c it just doesn't fit in with the East Village or NoHo.


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## [email protected] (Jun 22, 2004)

I just hate this building! 










Honestly? What is the deal with the two toned glass? It would have looked so nice with just a single tone and I would think it would be much nicer if it retained the same colour as the rest of the Wall Center buildings. :rant:

Below is a model shown as single toned


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## Manila-X (Jul 28, 2005)

Urban Dave said:


> That Epson building in HK is really disgusting.


I agree with that 

The tower is not just slim but also the height!


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## i_am_hydrogen (Dec 9, 2004)

Tower 42 in London is butt-ugly.


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## Harkeb (Oct 12, 2004)

The Chrysler building looks awful!  Come on, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Many of the towers mentioned here look great.


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## HoustonTexas (Nov 30, 2004)

I hate that one in Toronto with the ball on top... the blue one... It makes me very AnGrY!

And that old on in Mexico City.


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## Manila-X (Jul 28, 2005)

HoustonTexas said:


> I hate that one in Toronto with the ball on top... the blue one... It makes me very AnGrY!
> 
> And that old on in Mexico City.


You must be talking about The Torre Latino Americana. I hate that one! It's like a box type imitation of The Empire State Building with a mast 

The Torre Mayor serves better for Mexico City's skyline.


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## Mosaic (Feb 18, 2005)

Epson in HK is really awful.


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## Manila-X (Jul 28, 2005)

Mosaic said:


> Epson in HK is really awful.


But the neon lights look cool though


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## Taller Better (Aug 27, 2005)

HoustonTexas said:


> I hate that one in Toronto with the ball on top... the blue one... It makes me very AnGrY!
> QUOTE]
> 
> No need to be angry.... it was never built.


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## TalB (Jun 8, 2005)

I never did like Metrotech Ctr, b/c it felt out of scale with the rest of downtown Brooklyn, plus us taxpayers were the ones paying for it, not Ratner.


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## ARTЁM (Nov 17, 2004)

i consider *Taipei101* as the ugliest skyscraper in the world, its just too tacky for me and it just too tall for the whola area, it dispropostionate the city











the other real hate is *Torre Garibaldi a Milano* . i live just nearby, so i have to watch this postmodernist nighmare several times a day


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## Taller Better (Aug 27, 2005)

Artiom1979 said:


> i consider *Taipei101* as the ugliest skyscraper in the world, its just too tacky for me and it just too tall for the whola area, it dispropostionate the city
> . i live just nearby, so i have to watch this postmodernist nighmare several times a day
> QUOTE]
> Wow, those are powerfully fugly buildings....
> ...


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## Jules (Jun 27, 2004)

I hate this thing so much, I want to kill it:


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## Middle-Island (Apr 30, 2003)

That is far too offensive.


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## 3tmk (Nov 23, 2002)

I've always been annoyed by the ESB and Conde Nast.
Not to mention that Verizon building by the Brooklyn Bridge.


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## Manila-X (Jul 28, 2005)

Middle-Island said:


> That is far too offensive.


From the looks of it, this building isn't getting much love 

Another


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## KJBrissy (Jan 9, 2006)

Many people disagree with me but I really don't like the currently under construction Brisbane Square in Brisbane. I think it's architects trying to do something different (good) but making it look like kids blocks (bad)

The thread for the building is at http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=214824&page=1&pp=25


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## LibertyTwo (Feb 22, 2004)

*IBX Tower aka G.Fred DiBona Jr. Building* 

Philadelphia, PA 625 feet

OK first off, what is with the new name, megalomania at its best

This one just is too many shapes in one...a square with a triangle on the top with a cross inside a circle...


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## Zaqattaq (Nov 17, 2004)

I hate the Messe Turm, it is like putting a piece of Atlanta in the middle of the wonderful city of Frankfurt. :bash:


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## HoustonTexas (Nov 30, 2004)

Very Angry:










These Two are even angry-er:


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## vid (May 29, 2004)

Don't hate BCE place!

Alot of people have described alot of buildings i've drawn or modeled as being very "Miesian" and I have to say, he _is_ one of my biggest influences, though. His buildings are AMAZING.

As for skyscrapers that make me angry..









Marina City in Chicago.

What the **** is it trying to be?


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## Zaqattaq (Nov 17, 2004)

Uhh condos with parking at the bottom... brilliant


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## Giorgio (Oct 9, 2004)

Some kind of 80's goldcoast rip off.


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