i can't stand boston city hall. it screams inaccessible government bureaucracy to me, like it's on stilts that you can't climb up. like it's not meant for the public. all those offices look unreachable, the way it's narrower on the ground floors and gets wider towards the top, it just tells me that i shouldn't waste me time trying to approach it because i can't. i tried to register my car there once and it took like 15 minutes trying to find the appropriate entrance.
― marcos, Thursday, 18 July 2013 14:15 (ten years ago) link
*my time
here's another view
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/13/Boston_City_Hall.JPG
― marcos, Thursday, 18 July 2013 14:16 (ten years ago) link
it seems so weird and ugly and unsure of itself, though, especially compared to the more conservative-looking architecture that surrounds it. it's almost the opposite of intimidating to me.
― Treeship, Thursday, 18 July 2013 14:19 (ten years ago) link
7/8 of the problem with Boston City Hall is the brick hellscape around it, IMO.
Lawrence Halprin - that is how Brutalist landscape is done. Such a fascinating figure, total ILM-bait - him and his wife Ann were tight with Berio, Terry Riley, LaMonte Young, the Fluxus types (and their daughter starred in Zabriskie Point!). But he's somehow also a bridge to Project for Public Spaces colored-pencil-rendering banalitude - one of a few translating Happenings into team-building wilderness exercises.
If his "concrete harmonizes surprisingly well w/ wild greenery" to Contendo, it's not from happy juxtaposition - it's that he was that he figured out how to make those forms (horrors!) mimetic, credibly transporting swimming holes into the urban public realm. Very kitschy guy but somehow a total hero.
― bentelec, Friday, 19 July 2013 01:46 (ten years ago) link
http://www.altaplana.be/_media/dossiers/darius/pyramiddatepalms.jpg
― licorice oratorio (baaderonixx), Friday, 19 July 2013 12:58 (ten years ago) link
If his "concrete harmonizes surprisingly well w/ wild greenery" to Contendo, it's not from happy juxtaposition - it's that he was that he figured out how to make those forms (horrors!) mimetic, credibly transporting swimming holes into the urban public realm.
that's true in the case of halprin, but i was talking about this sort of concrete architecture in general. tbh, i frequently dislike it in an urban environment devoid of greenspace. in that context, as its critics say, it often does seem oppressive, inhumane, and just plain ugly. a green & growing environment gives the forms & material chance to exert contrast and texture, enhancing the style's most idealistic qualities. imo.
― IIIrd Datekeeper (contenderizer), Friday, 19 July 2013 13:25 (ten years ago) link
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7094/7165659014_9bfd890950.jpg
― Elvis Telecom, Friday, 19 July 2013 22:20 (ten years ago) link
The Clancy Real Estate Group office in Phoenix.
http://joeorman.shutterace.com/Bizarre/bizarre_pyramidoncentral1.jpg
― Elvis Telecom, Friday, 19 July 2013 22:24 (ten years ago) link
Awesome.
― it itches like a porky pine sitting on your dick (Phil D.), Friday, 19 July 2013 22:26 (ten years ago) link
Sunkist building, Sherman Oaks, CA (LA)http://extras.mnginteractive.com/live/media/site200/2013/0331/20130331_123249_do01%20sunkist%20building%20sherman%20oaks.jpg
Soon to be re-purposed, I believe.
― nickn, Friday, 19 July 2013 22:56 (ten years ago) link
Kerr Hall, UCSB
This is the first concrete building I'm aware of experiencing (1975), and I loved it. The surface reminded me or corderoy.
http://farm1.staticflickr.com/30/60577588_2c44f42577_z.jpg?zz=1
http://media7.troverapp.com/T/4e1f50d646dcf12800000020/large_2x.jpg
― nickn, Friday, 19 July 2013 23:09 (ten years ago) link
Pacific Mutual Building (now Pacific Life), Fashion Island/Newport Center, Newport Beach, CA.
http://farm5.staticflickr.com/4087/4964251915_9f177f6cdb_z.jpg
Fashion Island (which we always called Fascist Island) was the nearest shopping mall to home, so I got to see this being built in 1971-72. Semi-scandal for conservative Orange County when it was finished. Cars would stop, people took photographs, etc.
I thought it was fantastic.
― Elvis Telecom, Saturday, 20 July 2013 00:09 (ten years ago) link
beautiful photos, nickn
― IIIrd Datekeeper (contenderizer), Saturday, 20 July 2013 00:22 (ten years ago) link
This is like a bird watching checklist for some folks: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_William_Pereira_buildings
― Elvis Telecom, Saturday, 20 July 2013 00:25 (ten years ago) link
xpThanks, but I didn't take them. The building has a dramatic acute angle on one of the outside corners (like a wedge) but I couldn't find any pictures of that.
― nickn, Saturday, 20 July 2013 01:07 (ten years ago) link
Fendi has bought the Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana. Even without the history, it's a strange, sinister building for reasons i've never quite been able to put my finger on.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/11938018/Fendi-unveils-restored-Mussolini-building-as-its-headquarters-in-Rome.html
― Al Ain Delon (ShariVari), Friday, 23 October 2015 07:27 (eight years ago) link
it looks more like an aquaduct than a building and it gives me the same unsettling sense of emptiness you get in some of giorgio de chirico's paintings. being elevated heightens it
https://zoowithoutanimals.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/de-chirico_melancholia-1916.jpg
http://www.galleryintell.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Giorgio-de-Chirico_cropped.jpg
― ogmor, Friday, 23 October 2015 10:23 (eight years ago) link
Used to good effect in Taymor's Titus (1999):
http://youtu.be/t-TC2CxtVgw?t=5m17s
― Lust, etc. (Sanpaku), Friday, 23 October 2015 10:48 (eight years ago) link
It's a fascinating building - though we should note for the record that Mussolini would not have stood for exposed concrete here! That's all travertine, the new Rome and all that.
― Gorefest Frump (Doctor Casino), Friday, 23 October 2015 14:21 (eight years ago) link
New book and museum show explores mid-century Brutalism.
https://hyperallergic.com/427997/a-colossal-compendium-of-brutalist-architecture-argues-for-saving-our-concrete-monsters/
― nickn, Friday, 23 February 2018 23:10 (six years ago) link
I have a short piece in the catalog and a few photos in that and the affiliated conference proceedings, so I got an advance copy and I can say that it's gorrrrgeous, really well put together and I can't wait to have the time to actually read it all.
― Doctor Casino, Saturday, 24 February 2018 15:49 (six years ago) link
Anyone bought this?
https://www.waterstones.com/book/iconicon/john-grindrod/9780571348138
― djh, Saturday, 9 April 2022 15:05 (two years ago) link