so slimy

Blob fish always frowns.  

Tate Modern?

Careful it might bite you.

Have you ever heard the sound of an alligator's jaws snapping shut? Terrifying.

*sheepishly* I kinda like it...

The interior wall panels are specially designed to optimize acoustic properties though so that should count for something. Look for their work in progress images, it's a work of art actually.

Not sheepish about it, love it.

Do you only like huggable architecture?

As a personal preference that's fine, but it's a bit like saying you only watch feel-good movies. Fine, but you're going to miss out on a lot of the good stuff.

I might question it if this was a hospital or elementary school, but for a concert hall wedged at the corner of a post industrial redevelopment hard-edged is totally fine. To the point of being formulaic, though in this case there is some redeeming weirdness going on. Better than caixa forum in barcelona x 1,000,000.

The Philharmonie facade reminds me more of the surface of a cheese grater:

One to One designed the interior for acoustic didn't they? Every part of the wall acoustic barrier was custom.

I want to throw myself at the wall and bounce off it.

Nice, randomized. But imagine if that cheese grater mated with a squid. Or with the cutest octopus, the Opisthoteuthis adorabilis.

.

Ouch, that would be painful.

Sharp edges to cut through the fog.

That's an amazing photograph.

<cue shark approach music from Jaws>

I thought it was the Burger King headquarters.

...and not a crumbling pile of rubbish.

What?!? David Curtis, WHAT?!?!?! Graves' Portland building is magnificent compared to this mashed-up ice queen humping a tree stump!!!*











*That's my story andI'm stickin' to it.

 

screw architecture

At least they are doing their own thing and not copycatting.

donna i cant believe your inability to hug this building. It's beautiful. I cant say why though, only an opinion.

Regardless of it's merits as a statement, the Portland Building - as a building - is a total failure.

I mostly agree. 

Why can't clients see ugly architecture and say "damn that is some ugly architecture"  and not drop the check?

If that architect could sell the Portland Building he could probably sell Trump a Prius limousine.  

"Do you only like huggable architecture?

As a personal preference that's fine, but it's a bit like saying you only watch feel-good movies. Fine, but you're going to miss out on a lot of the good stuff."

This is an interesting subject.  It seems to me that architecture is really different than movies, or frankly, different than a lot of fine art.  Architecture exists in the public realm, and is a civic enterprise.  You can not buy a ticket to a movie, or walk out if you bought a ticket and find the experience unpleasant.  In your own house, you can surround yourself with art you personally enjoy, or visit a museum to see it.  But architecture is by it's nature almost always part of the civic environment, and I believe that the architect bears a duty to design in a way that is, in some sense, "huggable".

What huggable means, is of course debatable, especially in 2017.  A hundred and fifty years ago, that would have meant creating beauty.  Since 1915 or so, that concept has been a challenging one for many artists, and architects.  But I think, at a minimum, the architect should understand that they are contributing to an environment that is shared by all. 

at a minimum, the architect should understand that they are contributing to an environment that is shared by all. 

+++

Bah. If we want hugs, get a stuffed bear.

I want architecture that provokes provocation. This, clearly does. The public voted for a douchecanoe, I have zero faith in an educated consumer. 

Architecture that provokes provocation? Is that like choking on your own tongue?!?

I love bourbon. I would hug alllll the bourbon.

"Moreover, his tiny windows (Portland Building), which were meant to also evoke the body – or "one window, one worker," as he said in his 1982 lecture – were immediately criticised by occupants as too small, leaving the interior dark and uninviting. "Perhaps they were too small, but that was the intention," Graves conceded in the League talk. Graves also lost a bid to outfit the building's interiors." De Zeen

 So, in the Pacific Northwest, where light is precious, Graves designs a building with tiny little windows and blows it off when the occupants complain?

quick question, I am witnessing the final touches on construction of a building/space that has every cliche of  "modern" or "contemporary" details.  You know, like fake concrete formwork holes (not even made in concrete), veneers of fake Scandanavian wood, etc....it resembled the cliches in logic of PoMo but its not.  What do we call that?  (fake modern honesty of materials in abstract = fake EIFS columns)  Post-Contemporary? Post Dwell Magazine? Low grade high-end modern?

Faux(st) modern

will roll with it. done. nice phrase.