Featured Eyesore of the Month

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Behold the Burj al Babas, a $200 million ensemble of wannabe French castles in the Turkish town of Mudurnu, about 150 miles east of Istanbul. The castle-ettes are all empty. (No cassoulet for you!) The project, by a money-laundering outfit, called the Sarot Group pulled the plug on this baby when the value of the Turkish Lira fell 25 percent, pranging their business model. The handful of sales had to be cancelled. I’m sorry I missed the meetings where this project was planned and discussed. It would have surpassed the pitch meeting for the blockbuster movie Black Panther. Any ideas for adaptive re-use before the plywood delaminates and the spray-on stucco flakes off? Might make an excellent ISIS training facility. Live in a simulacrum of Western Civ while plotting to wipe it off the face of the earth. I keep telling you: history is a prankster!  Below, wide angle view of this amazing fiasco:

Support this blog by visiting Jim’s Patreon Page Behold the Burj al Babas, a $200 million ensemble of wannabe French castles in the Turkish town of Mudurnu, about 150 miles east of Istanbul. The castle-ettes are all empty. (No cassoulet for you!) The project, by a money-laundering outfit, called the Sarot Group pulled the plug on more »

Support this blog by visiting Jim’s Patreon Page Behold, the new San Diego Superior Court tombstone… er, light box… er, hydroponic grow station… er, Pez dispenser (remember them?)?  Nominator Joshua Hardgrove says: “It ironically consolidates San Diego County’s criminal trial, family, and civil courts into a 25-story monstrosity. Bringing all your problems into one central location, more »

Support this blog by visiting Jim’s Patreon Page Behold London’s latest shwingin’ skyscraper, the proposed “Tulip” designed by starchitect Norman Foster as a companion for the already-built “Gherkin” and “The Shard.” London has decided to make itself a freak show city in these waning days of techno-industrial narcissmo. Obviously, the Tulip’s slender stem does not allow more »

Support this blog by visiting Jim’s Patreon Page Behold, the zippy new sidewalk treatment in downtown Austin, Texas, outside a corporate parking lot that is empty much of the day. Since there will never be any human pedestrians here to liven up the scene, the zig-zag pavement will have to provide all the excitement. (I get a more »

Support this blog by visiting Jim’s Patreon Page Behold the proposal for Boston University’s new Data Sciences Center (corporate naming rights TBD). Seventeen stories of stacked boxes — meant to signify a pile of books, according to the BU Public Relations office — it will be the tallest structure on the campus. Well, yahoo for that. more »

Behold the new SanFrancisco Transit Hub fully loaded with “geek green” tech and LEED bullshit, as befits Internet Narcissism Central. It’s actually officially named the “Salesforce Transit Center” for the company that bought the naming rights (no advertising or PR niche can remain unoccupied!). The 5.5 acre “park” on the roof is a disaster-in-the-making (“green” more »

Support this blog by visiting Jim’s Patreon Page Behold, proposed apartment tower / water feature from the drawing boards (actually, the CAD studios) of China. Further proof that whatever might be done , will be done, no matter how fucking stupid. The list of things that might go wrong with this scheme is too long to more »

Support this blog by visiting Jim’s Patreon Page Behold the new Institute for Contemporary Art at Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, by architect Steven Holl (multiple winner at EOTM!). Whatcha got here: ever a new way to present blank walls to the street. Along with new ways for designing large structured masses to feel like they more »

Support this blog by visiting Jim’s Patreon Page Behold the new Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), Cleveland, Ohio, designed by Iranian-born, London-based, Farshid Moussavi. Yet another borg building? Why, of course. That is how museums of the newest “art” must be designed, as decreed by the hive-mind of the High Culture insiders.  They must be entirely and more »

Support this blog by visiting Jim’s Patreon Page   Behold: Seattle’s new Nordic Museum. (Museum of White Privilege?). Or is that just the box that the museum came in? Designed by Mithun architects. It comes with the usual symbolic narrative: “The new museum is organized around a linear ‘fjord’ that weaves together stories of homeland and the more »