What buildings do you really hate?

Came across this in today's Observer

The UK Tory party has said they will allopw the public to name and shame public eyesores that will then become an 'X-list' of buildings scheduled for demolition.

So it got me thinking, what biuildings do you really hate?

I know my own vote would go for the St James' centre in Edinburgh - one of the most shoddily executed pieces of urban brutalism that has been further blighted over the years by hamfisted makeovers. Here is a picture:

Tate Modern itself is great, but the glass bit at the top of the tower looks ridiculous.

and what about Munich's own Hauptbahnhoff:

But the HBH isnt in the UK as your title suggests..

I just asked what buildings people hate. Don't have to be in the UK although the article that got me thinking was about the UK.

Highbury Stadium. Knock the bloody thing down and remove all traces to an unrecorded dumping ground in the middle of the North Sea. When that's complete, the next building would be the Emirates Stadium. Can't stand to think of these monstrocities existing in time and space.

Catchup BTC. The idea of an XList was a solution presented during a C4 show - Demolition

In the followup show aired earlier this year, Kevin McCleod went talking to various politicians with the idea of X-Listing. I guess the torries have just had a quiet week and been looking for policies to talk about

*yawn*

Why not have a more valid discussion - should the public have the right to say what is a good and bad building? How much does joe blogs know about architecture?

And it's going to get a total remod. in the next 5-7 years... It's been in all the papers, complete with Computer sim. pix.

If you has actually read the link you would see that they note that and Cameron acknowledges it too.

I was just interested in what buildings people on TT hated.

Catch up yourself!

Then present the whole story and not just *your* political stance on it!

can you read pootle? Where have I said anything about my political stance on it?

Where's that smiley for nodding your head in absolute bewilderment and disbelief? Interested in what building people on TT hated?!?!? Jesus, start a thread on what people's favourite toilet cleaning products are and really get some interesting stuff going.

Harpic...
End of!

Advert closed??

Not so much the building as the people inhabiting it right now.

The public does, in my opinion, know enough to decide which buildings are ugly and which aren't. This thread could have proved that if it hadn't needlessly descended into a Lets-have-a-go-at-BTC-athon.

I'd have Munichs twin towers, the Highlight Munich Business Towers, knocked down if it was up to me, bloody hideous and ruin the Munich skyline.

if someone explained the complete concept of XListing it might add a bit more to the discussion.

C4-Demolition - XListing


So, find a building and decide why it should be X-Listed.

IMHO - A new office block which provides jobs and money for the local environment doesnt qualify. It got past local planning requirements etc. Sorry

I'm not sure what building there are left in munich which you could take out using the criteria laid out by Geroge Ferguson (president of RIBA)

Ok, I found one. Opposite Hofbrau Keller on Inner WienerStr, towards the Gasteig. Theres a deserted house, hasnt seen any changes in the 2 years I have beeen here. Not sure who owns it or whats planned to it. I think next door is a church from the 7th day adventists or the scientology people. Will go looking for a picture next time in the area.

The first one I posted: The St James' Centre, well and truly fits the bill.

It is a building pretty much universally hated in Edinburgh, even by the people who had to work in it. And it regularly tops the list of the most hated building in Britain. It was built as the first part of a grand plan to demolish Edinburgh's Old Town and Eastern New Town to replace it with a Corbusian city of grey concrete and flyovers. It is astonishing to most people now to realise that a plan like this for Britain's most beautiful city was ever even contemplated. But it was.

In order to build the St James' Centre, a Georgian Square, originally built by Adam, was flattened along with the Eastern End of the New Town's Queens Street was demolished in the face of mass protests from the people of Edinburgh. The protest gradually formed into the Saltire Society which mobilised Britain's fist piece of environmental direct action against rampant redevelopment. And they succeeded, the plans were shelved and never revived and central Edinburgh became a Unesco World Heritage Site. It most certainly would not have done with a motorway running through the old city and a vast expanse of low rise office blocks replacing much of the beautiful skyline of the city Centre.

Sadly, they were not able to stop the mass demolitions at the |Eastern New Town that resulted in the ghastly roundabout at the top of Leith Walk and the truly dreadful St James Centre - a hotchpotch of a seedy hotel, civil service offices, a busstation and a shopping centre.

It was so hated as a symbol insensitive civic development that in recent years facades have been added to the street level to disguise the full horror. Several times its destruction has been mooted but the cost of replacing it has been prohibitive.

Here is another picture of the eyesore - and just remember it sits beside the graceful New Town squares at the foot of Calton Hill, which *should* be one of the most beautiful spots in the City Centre:

Any remaining council houses and affordable housing with the people in them. All should be destroyed or relocated to a remote island in the Hebrides (actually, forget the Hebrides bit, just bomb them!)

Actually, that's already happening. The Noo Labour scheme for social cleansing is called Pathfinder, and basically involves knocking down (not sure if they are actually bombed) entire neighbourhoods of perfectly suitable council housing and replacing them with gentrified housing that the original residents can't afford. All done by private companies of course.

Welcome to Blair's Britain.

In Munich there are a lot of modern churches with a plain square bell tower. They are really ugly and do not compare to some of the wondeful onion tower churches around Bayern.

They're usually evangelische (Lutheran) churches. More of an after thought really as Catholicism has always been the dominant religion locally and so not like the typical romantic stuff with onion domes you'd expect to find out in the Bavarian outbäck...

Like the Auferstehungskirche, Westend:

I hate the Millenium stadium because they don't ahve a big mixed bath now it's individual ones - burst my bloody fantasy bubble

Can i get Old Trafford knocked down please ?

The Arndale shopping centre in Manchester:



This is how it looked after the IRA bombed it in 1996:



Now terrorism is a terrible thing, but on this occasion the IRA were really doing Manchester a huge favour (IIRC, no-one was killed or injured because the IRA for once gave enough advance warning for the area to be evacuated). It would have been a golden opportunity to get rid of the detested eyesore, but no. Some improvements were made in reconstructing the area, but the colossus is still there.


Those are the ones that you see when you look north up Leopoldstrasse, right? I hate them too.

There were in fact more than 200 injured but no fatalities but on the whole i agree, it was known as the World's largest outside toilet before it got decimated. Manchester looks much better now.

What about old buildings? Does anyone hate any old buildings? Me, I have a problem with Buckingham Palace - its a bombastic barn of a building caked inside with the most appallingly bad taste upper crust interior decor. The place is an eyesore inside and out.

Hmm, interesting. You're not alone in your opinion:

BBC News: Buckingham Palace voted 'eyesore'

Personally, I don't have a problem with the architecture. It's the way they use it as a traffic island that bothers me.

I dunno Buck House always reminds me of the Bundestag, or vice versa

not a great fan of the Bundestag but, unlike Buck House, it does have some redeeming features

If you find the Bundestag building an eyesore, there are options:

My building,(sorry no pic) it is a sad and dismal concrete box , however I do have a rather large bed which has poncy curtains round it , and a nifty light. So please don´t knock it down, least while I´m in it, the building I mean.