March 2017 | Eyesore

Commentary on architectural blunders in monthly serial.

Behold the Troy, Michigan, Children’s Hospital, apparently based on the idea that little kids will associate chemotherapy with playtime. Yes, the USA is a toxic stew of molecules not found in nature, and this building actually looks like Willie Wonka’s Carcinogen Factory. The yellow stands for “Roundup” (Glyphosate) engineered into the very genetics of the corn that ends up in your child’s Froot Loops; orange stands for the dye that gives Cheez Doodles their vivid radioactive glow; and blue represents the clinical depression induced by all the off-gassing carpet back in the family room at home in the subdivision. Love the planting bed in the foreground with the rusty steel pipe mysteriously protruding. And that would be for… uh…? The usual tropes of brain-dead, off-the-shelf Modernism are on display, of course: the horizontal window bands evoking Ye Olde Insecticide Works, the canonical flat roof, the absence of any ornament that alludes to natural forms or expresses the contours of femininity (horror!). The kicker: you can be sure the grounds crew is using Roundup on the grass.

Thanks to Frank Griffo for nominating this humdinger.