Sensational-Adelaide.com

Virtual Tourist's Annual World's Ugliest Buildings.

http://members.virtualtourist.com/vt/t/354

Rubbish list from people whose opinions don't matter. How can Ontario Museum be considered ugly?

^ true. Fed Square is magnificent and suits it's surroundings perfectly imo.


Royal Ontario Museum could do without the cutting into the existing building.. i find that a little unsympathetic.. but all in all, not ugly.

I don't think Federation Square in Melbourne is ugly. I'd accuse it of a worse civic crime: I think it's unimaginative and boring.

Here's why. In the early 90's, the architectyre firm Ashton Raggatt McDougall, working on a French model, came up with the random-looking glass facade for RMIT's Storey Hall - the one with the angular jigsaw of green and clear glass windows. Everyone applauded, so the ragged jigsaw motif was used again, and again, and again until it became boring. In the 80's, New York architect Daniel Liebeskind was designing jagged, fractured-looking facades. Arresting at first, but in the 20th iteration, boring.

So, Federation Square - a pastiche of the ragged jigsaw and the jagged fractures, masquerading as 'cutting edge': boring.

Admittedly I haven't spent much time at Fed Square, but I'm not much of a fan. The plaza is the best part of the place, and I feel like there's a certain degree of irony there: the best part is where they built the least. The buildings themselves are a bit brutal - apart from the green glass one, most of them are almost devoid of windows - and the streetscape along Flinders St is rather soulless (not helped by the fact that there's nothing next to it). The tessellated exterior seems almost like a smokescreen, masking a less than exciting design.