JHK’s Three-Act Play
Beh0ld, this humdinger, The Wrapper” (artist’s rendering) designed by architect Eric Own Moss for Culver City, California, a dreary gerrymandered backwater of Los Angeles under the LAX flight-path. Is the building wearing a straight-jacket to prevent it from hurting itself? It demonstrates that the architecture “community” won’t tire of playing self-referential computer games with large objects that the public has to live with for generations. Developer Frederick Samitaur Smith told The LA Times it’s been repeatably delayed given the difficulty gaining city approvals for the structure, because of its unique exoskeleton. What a surprise! Notice the anticipated pedestrian activity around the building’s base. Makes Blade Runner look like Jimmy Stewart’s Bedford Falls. Happy New Year everybody!
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I’m at a loss for words.
If you strip away the outer bindings (what else could they be called?) you might have an acceptable, albeit unremarkable, bit of modern architecture.
“Bindings” describes them quite well. It also has the added advantage of giving a hint (whiff) of S&M, which is quite appropriate.
It’s fairly obvious that we desperately need a few years of serious deprivation to clear out this kind of nonsense. The fact that this crap gets even a scintilla of mental houseroom shows we have way too much ease. Truly, this goes beyond humor. It is shameful.
Bondage & Discipline Building? Oooo it says spank me! Spank a little harder, you filthy beast!
Anyway… vines grow well on the “bindings” and should completely enshroud this.
The architect could use a little spanking for cobbling together this pile of turds! I hope nobody lives down wind of this place?
I agree it is a hideous building, but I disagree about your characterization of Culver City.
It is not “a dreary gerrymandered backwater of Los Angeles under the LAX flight-path.” First, it is about 5 miles from the LAX flight path. So that’s just fake news. Second, over the last couple decades they have made the downtown area quite nice. (I mean it’s not Paris, but considering where they started, they have done a great job.) It’s walkable. The sidewalks are wide and have beautiful trees. There are lots of retail establishments and restaurants on both sides of the streets. And the Culver Hotel is a renovated gem from 1924. One of the old red cars used to pass by here but now the new exposition line light rail from downtown LA to Santa Monica opened a few blocks away. Check out this view: https://www.google.com/maps/@34.0238097,-118.3946249,3a,75y,178.63h,80.07t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sx6ezm-DnANJ042MdF7aIhQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656
Maybe you drew your conclusions from the immediate vicinity of the new light rail station where the EOTM will be built. For that area, your description might be correct…except for the LAX flight path. That is still fake news.
Caption contest!
“Apparently, no one told Mega-Spiderman that with great power comes great responsibility.”
“Look at that, kids! We’ve got to be getting close! The World’s Largest Roll of Electrical Tape has to be right around here somewhere…”
“No, no Mr. Flint, it’s not supposed to look like that! I got up to go to the bathroom and my cat started playing with the touch-tablet, then managed to click ‘Send!'”
“The way things are going these days, even office buildings wanna tie one on once in awhile.”
Just a note of support for your eyesores series, which I do check monthly.
I don’t feel like I am architecturally sensitive enough to pass judgement on the eyesore-ness of some of your candidates, but I must say that when the January 2017 building popped up on my computer, the first words that popped into my head were, “What the h*** is that.”
So there we have it, my personal baseline as it were.
F- 5 tornado vs. theme park roller coaster.
I HAVE NEVER SEEN ANYTHING QUITE LIKE IT.
Maybe they’re planning to do really poor construction of the glass building and this is the artists rendering of the expected bad duct tape job to ‘repair’ the leaking building?
Will the units that have a view of nothing but the duct tape cost extra?
gerrymandered backwater? That is a bit strong.
Culver City has two amazing museums: The Museum of Jurassic Technology and the Center for Land Use Interpretation. CLUI could use your support.
“Clearly, it symbolizes, rather portentously, how even the mundane, dare I say boring, government commissioned architecture is strangled and stunted by California bureaucratic red tape. Making boring daring”
Here’s a new building proposed for downtown Los Angeles. It’s the most hideous design I’ve ever seen.
http://la.curbed.com/2017/2/3/14500112/52-story-tower-toyota-car-dealership-renderings?utm_campaign=issue-51760&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Curbed+LA
Really awful.
I feel those binding should be barbed wire
It reminds me of the Amnesty candle logo
Maybe it is the idea that the occupants are having to be bound in somehow?
Quite a few eyesores of the month are just silly zigzag shapes etc
That one somehow really is quite unpleasant
Claustrophobic to look at
Top eyesore ?