Most Disliked Buildings

[bobthebuilder]

always thought 495 summer looks like the side of a cruise ship

 

[Subdivisions]

495 summer the Barnes building (aka the Fargo building)
Has grown on me, I like the nautical windows. I like to think of it as an ode to the seaport.

Both of these look like something that a 1990s Tier 3 Chinese city would build to prove their modernity.[/QUOTE]

 

[393b40]

495 Summer Street.... I had almost forgotten about that monstrosity. That is hands down the worst building in the city but fortunately it's way out of the way.

I have a personal hatred for the Revere Hotel mostly because of it's soul crushing garage on the edge of Bay Village. I also really really hate the Fiduciary Trust building, mostly because it's wasting a super premium piece of real estate.

The Symphony Apartment Towers are pretty awful.

Not a big fan of the Stata Center even though I usually enjoy Gehry's stuff. It doesn't work and exposes an incredibly anti-urban street presence on Vassar. On that side of the river I also hate 101+100 Main Street and 1 Memorial Drive. There are just some fantastic examples of hideous shit among the early-Kendall Sq. buildings.

500 Boylston. Another Fuck You from Philip Johnson.

 

[odurandina]

remarkable how much crazy garbage we have.

 

[Hubman]

Longfellow place barely beats out the Harbor Towers, and if were including suburbs, Design Consultants Building by a landslide.

 

[odurandina]

i'd like to see the concrete resurfaced in pastel colors at Longfellow Towers.

Maybe a Tuscan red and a deep rich or navy blue....

 

[Hubman]

i'd like to see the concrete resurfaced in pastel colors at Longfellow Towers.

Maybe a Tuscan red and a deep rich or navy blue....

This is a good idea, but part of whats wrong with them is the shape. No amount of Tuscan red is going to change that.

 

[tangent]

International Place... The pink torpedo Miami building with the living room picture windows repeated over and over. Not the worst building in Boston, but given it's prominent location and the potential... the most disappointing.

 

[statler]

Well as the style cycle goes, Post-Modernism is pretty much at it's nadir but I'm not sure that Johnson's idea for Palladian sticker windows was ever particularly well received

 

[Beton Brut]

On the small scale, can anything even compete with this?

 

[davem]

^ Yes. Various heights of this same, horrible, apartment building you see repeated all over the outlaying neighborhoods. (At least the last two have balconies, I guess.) Amazingly, they all have the same stale smell -- I used to do deliveries, I know.


The first two I had friends who lived in them, and they were terrible. The rest I found by knowing they exist and looking for their ugly shape surrounded by parking in their natural habitat: otherwise cohesive, double and triple decker neighborhoods.



Edit: I have a new hobby finding these terrible things.

Here's one hiding by facing sideways.

Here's one hiding by wearing a hat. Found you!

Allright, I have work to do.

 

[Scipio]

That's a style ubiquitous enough to have a name: the Arlington Pillbox.

 

[Blackdog]

^ Yes. Various heights of this same, horrible, apartment building you see repeated all over the outlaying neighborhoods. (At least the last two have balconies, I guess.) Amazingly, they all have the same stale smell -- I used to do deliveries, I know.


The first two I had friends who lived in them, and they were terrible. The rest I found by knowing they exist and looking for their ugly shape surrounded by parking in their natural habitat: otherwise cohesive, double and triple decker neighborhoods.



Edit: I have a new hobby finding these terrible things.

Here's one hiding by facing sideways.

Here's one hiding by wearing a hat. Found you!

Allright, I have work to do.

I found another one for you! This one is absolutely horrible!

Brick box surrounded by a sea of pavement.

 

[bigpicture7]

I found another one for you! This one is absolutely horrible!

Brick box surrounded by a sea of pavement.

I hear ya, but at least that has mature shade trees around it. Think of how much WORSE it would be if it were sun-scorched pavement + brick box. I think the trees save it.

 

[Hubman]

On the small scale, can anything even compete with this?

If your talking about that yellow building than, no, nothing can compete with that.

 

[Hubman]

That's a style ubiquitous enough to have a name: the Arlington Pillbox.

I think you could expand that to be the Boston Pillbox, because they are littered around the Boston area so frequently.

 

[bigpicture7]

These are my nominees:

1) How about a second story that has no windows at all. Hmm, what's in there? Oh and let's tack on an autobody to the side of it, with sloping roof terminating into a vertical wall.

2) Because every orthodontist's office needs to look like this.

3) Let's have a contest to see how many clashing facade styles we can merge into one building

4) enough said

5) Let's take a shitty '50s motel and plunk it ON TOP of a shitty row of stores

 

[Blackdog]

3) Let's have a contest to see how many clashing facade styles we can merge into one building

Oh man I hate this building but everyone I know thinks it's 'quirky' and 'cool'. Glad I'm not the only one who hates this building.

 

[Riverworks]

Has anyone seen "Boston's 10 Ugliest Buildings, Mapped" on Curbed yesterday? Some worthy of nomination, some not, in my opinion. The Clarendon Apartments is on the list, which seems to be an odd pick.

http://boston.curbed.com/maps/boston-ugliest-buildings-mapped

 

[chrisbrat]

it's funny to me how many of these recent examples are in camberville -- the most expensive places to live in metro-boston (outside of the tony neighborhoods actually IN boston). those brick boxes you all are referring to as the boston/somerville/whatever pillboxes -- ooof... walking around in somerville and it's all nice victorians, triple-deckers, georgian, blah blah and then BAM -- one of those shitboxes every block.