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ChineseCurbed LA’s ugliest building contest
[tags]curbed la, ugliest building contest[/tags]
Ugly, pug ugly, fugly or pug fugly?
Credit: Tom Bonner, Metro via Public Art in Los Angeles
Curbed LA is calling on the Los Angeles blogosphere for sumbissions to its inaugural Ugliest Building Contest.
Until March 31, users can e-mail a picture of their (least?) favorite architectural abomination, along with an address and why they hate it. Oh, and the building must be within the city of Los Angeles proper.
Robert Coté had his multiple hategasms, with two being Metro’s Taj Mahal and Caltrans’ “Death Star” headquarters in the Civic Center (also James Howard Kunstler’s May 2005 Eyesore of the Month). Coté selected his buildings for their Baathist ugliness: indulgent opulence despite massive public discord.
This ugliness pageant is sure to spawn debate, and this could give an opportunity for MetroReaders to find nominees on transit.
With all this aside, here’s another public transportation horse in this race.
Metro commits a great deal of time and money into station art. Many of them are actually pretty good and give our stations character. Then, there’s the Hollywood/Western Red Line station.
The subway has turned around what was once Hollywood’s most forgotten corner. On top of the station is a colorful low-income apartment complex. Across the street is a mini-mall with apartments built on top. Not too far away on Sunset Boulevard are supermarkets and shopping centers.
But one walk down the escalator is a technicolor catastrophe. It looks like a clown exploded. Maybe it isn’t really art. It could be the shifty contractor just cut corners and instead of an art project, told the workers to run down to OSH on Sunset and buy up all the tiles in the broken and irregular bin. So, instead of leaving bare concrete walls, the construction crew left a multicolored ceramic bukkake before a “job well done.”
Discussion
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Please keep discussions civil: exercise Troll Controll.
The transit way fuggin’ ugly no contest hands down why even bother to ask worst structure is without a doubt the Ventura House/Bus.
http://www.home.earthlink.net/~dennisoppenheim/bushome.html
I don’t care if it isn’t “In LA.” This is ugly that radiates outward and stifles any objection over the entire southland.
I dunno Rob, Hollywood/Western is awful, someone (maybe someone here) described it as one of those things that you used to only be able to see while using LSD. I kind of think that bus shelter is interesting. It wouldn’t fit in everywhere, but if it fits the surrounding architecture it’d be kind of cool.
I don’t know what it says about my graphic design career, but Hollywood/Western is one of my favorite stations. I think the tiles perfectly compliment the Metro housing above the station and the unique nature of the neighborhood (and hell, the city itself). In my opinion there are much worse Metro stations… Civic Center comes to mind… or the above ground portions of Hollywood/Vine (let’s hope that shit disappears when the new development is built over the station.
As for Rob Dawg, I’d take that bus stop any day over the PlaySkool benches most of the city getes. I love it! But like I said, this may not bode well for my design career.
Robert, that looks like a candidate for Kunstler’s Eyesore of the Month. That’s pretty tacky.
The last time I was up at Pacific View Mall was 2002. I did not see that bus transit center there. It might have been built after. Back then, the buses stopped near one of the department stores, but with a simple sign and plastic benches.
That’s tacky, but even that is preferable to what is referred to here as the West L.A. Transit Center. I tried skimming Google for a photo, but none emerged.
The name is misleading. It’s a common bus stop served by several Metro and Culver City lines, and it’s underneath the 10 freeway where Fairfax Avenue and La Cienega Boulevard come together. It’s like a sewage treatment plant, only without the charm.
Anytime somebody wants to come see, you are welcome. The rendering I posted looks far better than the execution. The “stuff” sticks out everywhere posing a head trauma danger, the wind whistles through with horrible protection, it was plunked down at the far end of a dilapidated strip mall extension of the Pacific View Mall, the list is long. Look, I lived with the damn wooden escalators at South Station, the half finished Kendall fiasco, open air Northeastern in winter only to get on a Boeing that finally got the A/C working, I’ve sucked fumes waiting to board decrepit Bluebirds at Canoga where the diesel fumes from the passing Amtrak was a breath of fresh air. This is worse, a soul stealing art as architecture that fails at both.
i’m no graphic designer but i agree with fred, hwood/western is def one of my favorite stations. it could be because that was the station i was closest to when i first moved out here and therefore the station i used the most, some nostalgia points perhaps. either way, great stations. and i dont like the above ground on vine at all, but once you go down i really like the inside. as for designs, vermont and bev is pretty lackluster but def not ugly.
I like hollywood and western a lot too. Was trashing it just an excuse to use a bukkake joke?
i’m with tyke on hwood and vine, but I really hate the underside even more,,,sowwy. daps