i love obscure modern architecture, the buildings that don't appear in your typical coffee table books. i want this to be a thread where people can post images or information on great buildings that other archinectors may not be aware of.
i'll start. one of my favorite buildings in detroit is the henry and edsel ford auditorium by o'dell, hewlett, and luckenback built in 1956. the auditorium was a gift of the ford family and became the home of the detroit symphony orchestra. eero saarinen's master plan for the detroit riverfront included the cobo convention center on its west edge, hart plaza, a large modern concrete park along the detroit river, in the middle, and a large cultural anchor that became the auditorium on its east edge. to the north on the opposite side of jefferson avenue are the city government buildings and the michigan consolidated gas building designed by minoru yamasaki among other high rises.
ford auditorium has a very simple elevation with a thin concrete frame around a dark perforated metal mesh. after the detroit symphony moved back to its original location at orchestra hall in 1987, the ford has sat empty for the last twenty years and has fallen into disrepair. currently, the city of detroit is threatening to tear it down to build an outdoor amphitheater, and replace the concrete of hart plaza with "grass and plantings." it makes me nervous to lose such a great modern icon integral to a great modern urban master plan.
here is an image of the ford auditorium in the shadows of portman's renaissance center:
Not significant or what I'd call a favorite except on a very personal level of daily routine: This little gem - architect unknown by me - is doomed to demolition in the next few days or week. You can see the big brick pile behind it - a former school - is being torn down, and this little mod-pod addition is next in line.
The Y columns are clad in glass mosaic tile, and the stair tower is a boomerang curve also clad in glass mosaic.
Aaaah, lars, that Saarinen chapel was a groundbreaking moment for me in my architecture education, and is still one of my absolutely favorite buildings. It's perfect.
maybe not so obscure, but clearly a reason i wanted to be an architect;
the only times i wanted to go to church.
the organ has an incredible reverberation when they'd hit the lower registers. i'd sit and pray that the organist would let it rip and start making the building and our bodies shake with the low frequencies...
a pretty immersive spatial experience for a youngster.
st. mary's in san francisco (pier luigi nervi with pietro belluschi)
corson auditorium on the campus of the interlochen arts academy in northern michigan was designed by alden dow in 1970. it's an elegantly proportioned brutalist structure, some of the best concrete i've seen done in the midwest. it's difficult to photograph because it's in a fairly dense pine forest, but the interior of the auditorium starts to hint at its appeal.
good call. I went to Interlochen for both camp and high school. Alden Dow did some great stuff. The campus had many wonderful buildings. I used to get drunk on the roof of Corson...
dept. of water and power downtown los angeles by a.c. martin
it is even better at night. and has the best calculated suspended stairs ever. you go up but it feels like you are walking on a horizontal plane.
William Morgan, houses in Neptune Beach (Jacksonville), Florida
the mound on the left holds 2 apartments that Morgan owns and rents out. The traingle in the center is his, and the tower on the right houses his son's family. The mound and Morgan's wooden house have been there for a while (early 70's?). His son's home is relatively new.
son's house
all 3
this low slung triplex, a few houses down the beach from the other 3, has been around as long as the mound and triangle houses. There are 4 or 5 other houses by Morgan on the block. 8 or 9 unique homes built over a 25 year period.
Educated at Harvard under Walter Gropius and Jose Luis Sert, in the offices of Paul Rudolph, and as a Fulbright scholar in Rome...
the Chapel of the Holy Cross, Sedona. By Marguerite Brunswig Staude, a pupil of FLW.
When I saw it in person, I thought cross had a little sexually suggestive siting.
by architect Wilson Chung in the 1960s, serves as one of the back drop buildings around the heroes circle - only 3 of the planned buildings were constructed
designed was heavily influenced by Le Corbusier (adjacent work of similar time in latin america)...ground floor is given up for parking/landscape, brise soleil on the south face, orientation east-west to minimize heat gain, services act as a thermal buffer on flanks.
Those apartments in Rotterdam are wacky, but what got me there was the Van Nille factory and Villa Sonneveld. Both early modern masterpieces that never got their dues.
well, i've just wasted a bunch of time looking for a lot of louisville treasures that aren't online. the best i could do was bruce goff's 1941 bartmann house:
my real favorites, however, would be any of several by local architect jasper ward, a master of cast-in-place concrete. i may just have to take some pix of my own to post.
also the north addition to the louisville free public library done sometime in the late 60s by local firm louis&henry. no pictures of that one either.
It seems I'm using this thread to post non-significant buildings that are about to be demolished.
I'm excited about the Barnes Foundation building being built in Philly on the Parkway, but I always liked the building that will be torn down for it: the Youth Study Center aka Kid Jail:
News item on the shortlist. I love Mayne, but I think I'm pulling to TWBT on this one.
Wow, I would've never guessed that anyone would like that building, LB. I do think the building itself is interesting, but it is (understandably) highly anti-social. Not only is the the building obscured by rows of trees (I hope the new architect will be sensitive to them though) but it turns its back on one of the most important streets in Philadelphia. I do wonder where all the homeless people that habitate the front of this building will go once this building is gone. Because there are no windows in the front of the building for at least 15 feet above ground and the site is so obscured by trees, this is probably the most dense area for the homeless in the entire city.
I've been excited about this high-profile project on the Parkway since I've first heard about the Barnes Foundation moving years ago, but I'm still unsure how the founder's intentions will translate onto the Parkway. The premise of this building is so interesting, intricate and culturally important; this would probably be a landmark project for the architect. Moving one of the largest collections of impressionist art in the world that is arranged very specifically in relation to each other and to other items - from an obscure suburban location to the most culturally significant in the city. Wow, that is just about the perfect program/problem to work with. My solution for a studio project with the same program years ago was to keep the original Barnes Foundation in its current location, "re-create" rooms that change periodically (to encourage repeat visits) in the new location in some kind of shell, and additionally have other works that have only 1 painting per "room." Not perfect, but I think better than moving the entire collection.
I'm personally pulling for Tadao, because I don't want to have to go to Japan to see his great work. Although hopefully I'll be visiting Japan later this year anyway... I've been waiting for an Ando building in Philadelphia after the Calder museum on the Parkway didn't go as planned. Now that I think about it, I don't think Moshe Safdie's Library expansion didn't go through either.
Sorry for hijacking...I'll post something more relevant later. Hopefully shorter.
Apr 29, 07 10:48 pm ·
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your favorite obscure modern building
i love obscure modern architecture, the buildings that don't appear in your typical coffee table books. i want this to be a thread where people can post images or information on great buildings that other archinectors may not be aware of.
i'll start. one of my favorite buildings in detroit is the henry and edsel ford auditorium by o'dell, hewlett, and luckenback built in 1956. the auditorium was a gift of the ford family and became the home of the detroit symphony orchestra. eero saarinen's master plan for the detroit riverfront included the cobo convention center on its west edge, hart plaza, a large modern concrete park along the detroit river, in the middle, and a large cultural anchor that became the auditorium on its east edge. to the north on the opposite side of jefferson avenue are the city government buildings and the michigan consolidated gas building designed by minoru yamasaki among other high rises.
ford auditorium has a very simple elevation with a thin concrete frame around a dark perforated metal mesh. after the detroit symphony moved back to its original location at orchestra hall in 1987, the ford has sat empty for the last twenty years and has fallen into disrepair. currently, the city of detroit is threatening to tear it down to build an outdoor amphitheater, and replace the concrete of hart plaza with "grass and plantings." it makes me nervous to lose such a great modern icon integral to a great modern urban master plan.
here is an image of the ford auditorium in the shadows of portman's renaissance center:
one of my favorites:
some more pictures here:
http://figure-ground.com/travel/image.php?mit_chapel
Not significant or what I'd call a favorite except on a very personal level of daily routine: This little gem - architect unknown by me - is doomed to demolition in the next few days or week. You can see the big brick pile behind it - a former school - is being torn down, and this little mod-pod addition is next in line.
The Y columns are clad in glass mosaic tile, and the stair tower is a boomerang curve also clad in glass mosaic.
Oh well.
Aaaah, lars, that Saarinen chapel was a groundbreaking moment for me in my architecture education, and is still one of my absolutely favorite buildings. It's perfect.
jafidler, when I lived in detroit that was one of my favorites...
I think Villanova Artigas' FAU is pretty amazing. Haven't been able to find much on his work...
Also, this uber-brutal gem in Columbus, which disturbed me as a kid but fascinated me as an architecture student:
paul rudolph at wellesley
maybe not so obscure, but clearly a reason i wanted to be an architect;
the only times i wanted to go to church.
the organ has an incredible reverberation when they'd hit the lower registers. i'd sit and pray that the organist would let it rip and start making the building and our bodies shake with the low frequencies...
a pretty immersive spatial experience for a youngster.
st. mary's in san francisco (pier luigi nervi with pietro belluschi)
corson auditorium on the campus of the interlochen arts academy in northern michigan was designed by alden dow in 1970. it's an elegantly proportioned brutalist structure, some of the best concrete i've seen done in the midwest. it's difficult to photograph because it's in a fairly dense pine forest, but the interior of the auditorium starts to hint at its appeal.
I love Clorindo Testa's Bank of London building in Buenos Aires:
FLW's little gem on Maiden Lane in SF.
Not too obscure, but a relative unknown compared to most of his oeuvre...and so darned cute!
there was this incridebly simple white box by the higway in dowotwn Atlanta that always fascinated me...
yep this one, thanks j. I think it's some sort of archive storage right?
jafidler,
good call. I went to Interlochen for both camp and high school. Alden Dow did some great stuff. The campus had many wonderful buildings. I used to get drunk on the roof of Corson...
I think Saarinen was paying respect to Corb....in that building....think it might actually be a bust of Corb with a feather in his hat.
lb, save a brick.
silverlake, that brutal pup in ohio used to appear in my dreams.
This guy sits all pretty on a hill in front of my friend's house in Boulder.
Aparently featured in Woody Allen's "Sleeper".
And on that note, in the other Columbus...
dept. of water and power downtown los angeles by a.c. martin
it is even better at night. and has the best calculated suspended stairs ever. you go up but it feels like you are walking on a horizontal plane.
funny garpike... it definitely has a creepy aspect to it...
William Morgan, houses in Neptune Beach (Jacksonville), Florida
the mound on the left holds 2 apartments that Morgan owns and rents out. The traingle in the center is his, and the tower on the right houses his son's family. The mound and Morgan's wooden house have been there for a while (early 70's?). His son's home is relatively new.
son's house
all 3
this low slung triplex, a few houses down the beach from the other 3, has been around as long as the mound and triangle houses. There are 4 or 5 other houses by Morgan on the block. 8 or 9 unique homes built over a 25 year period.
Educated at Harvard under Walter Gropius and Jose Luis Sert, in the offices of Paul Rudolph, and as a Fulbright scholar in Rome...
the Chapel of the Holy Cross, Sedona. By Marguerite Brunswig Staude, a pupil of FLW.
When I saw it in person, I thought cross had a little sexually suggestive siting.
orhan that is gorgeous.
not my favorite but I still can't get over the first time I saw these apartments in Rotterdam:
The Oberfinanzdirektion in Frankfurt... I have no idea who the architect is. The most interesting this is the staircase on the inside.
Oh this is fun, one more:
The Zeche Zollverein in Essen....
chase,
i know the building...
the architect(s) were hans koehler, rolf himmelreich and ernst schirmacher.
can't find anything else on them, though.
cool, thanks!
, Portage MI (in danger of sale and probable demolition)
oops missed the caption
by architect Wilson Chung in the 1960s, serves as one of the back drop buildings around the heroes circle - only 3 of the planned buildings were constructed
designed was heavily influenced by Le Corbusier (adjacent work of similar time in latin america)...ground floor is given up for parking/landscape, brise soleil on the south face, orientation east-west to minimize heat gain, services act as a thermal buffer on flanks.
Those apartments in Rotterdam are wacky, but what got me there was the Van Nille factory and Villa Sonneveld. Both early modern masterpieces that never got their dues.
well, i've just wasted a bunch of time looking for a lot of louisville treasures that aren't online. the best i could do was bruce goff's 1941 bartmann house:
my real favorites, however, would be any of several by local architect jasper ward, a master of cast-in-place concrete. i may just have to take some pix of my own to post.
also the north addition to the louisville free public library done sometime in the late 60s by local firm louis&henry. no pictures of that one either.
kahn in fort wayne...
Nah nah nah nah nah nah nah nah Bartmann.
Starla, those cubes sure are nutty. When i first saw them in person I thought "Should I like these?"
Eh -- how do you go around restoring your Name ???
vindpust, wrong thread.
I love ALL of the buildings in Rotterdam. I think I like those cubes, and I remember being particularly taken with a parking garage as well.
mdler that is making me dizzy.
it makes you feel as if you are proximatey to the shaking
Somebody smoked too much....
Dudok's town hall for Hilversum:
bart prince
Mmmm, Prince Bart. Haven't seen pictures of that in awhile. Has he done anything lately?
go take alook at his web site....some new stuff there
It seems I'm using this thread to post non-significant buildings that are about to be demolished.
I'm excited about the Barnes Foundation building being built in Philly on the Parkway, but I always liked the building that will be torn down for it: the Youth Study Center aka Kid Jail:
News item on the shortlist. I love Mayne, but I think I'm pulling to TWBT on this one.
Wow, I would've never guessed that anyone would like that building, LB. I do think the building itself is interesting, but it is (understandably) highly anti-social. Not only is the the building obscured by rows of trees (I hope the new architect will be sensitive to them though) but it turns its back on one of the most important streets in Philadelphia. I do wonder where all the homeless people that habitate the front of this building will go once this building is gone. Because there are no windows in the front of the building for at least 15 feet above ground and the site is so obscured by trees, this is probably the most dense area for the homeless in the entire city.
I've been excited about this high-profile project on the Parkway since I've first heard about the Barnes Foundation moving years ago, but I'm still unsure how the founder's intentions will translate onto the Parkway. The premise of this building is so interesting, intricate and culturally important; this would probably be a landmark project for the architect. Moving one of the largest collections of impressionist art in the world that is arranged very specifically in relation to each other and to other items - from an obscure suburban location to the most culturally significant in the city. Wow, that is just about the perfect program/problem to work with. My solution for a studio project with the same program years ago was to keep the original Barnes Foundation in its current location, "re-create" rooms that change periodically (to encourage repeat visits) in the new location in some kind of shell, and additionally have other works that have only 1 painting per "room." Not perfect, but I think better than moving the entire collection.
I'm personally pulling for Tadao, because I don't want to have to go to Japan to see his great work. Although hopefully I'll be visiting Japan later this year anyway... I've been waiting for an Ando building in Philadelphia after the Calder museum on the Parkway didn't go as planned. Now that I think about it, I don't think Moshe Safdie's Library expansion didn't go through either.
Sorry for hijacking...I'll post something more relevant later. Hopefully shorter.
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