Featured Eyesore of the Month

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And thanks to all my Patrons for your support!

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Behold: Blockchain City, Nevada, proposed for a wasteland outside Reno. Styling itself as a new “cryptocurrency-powered smart city,” the project un-smartly (i.e. stupidly)  incorporates every techno-narcissistic trope possible: megastructures, “green” everything in the desert, a continuation of car-dependency, solar-powered everything, etc. Did you know that cryptocurrency “mining” — churning algorithms in computer server farms — is one of the biggest electric power hogs in the US economy? (And do you think that churning algorithms actually produces anything that resembles wealth? No it’s an hallucinatory speculative activity that is a big net energy loser.)

The CEO of  Blockchain LLC, the holding company behind this scheme, one Jeffrey Berns, said, “I want to create a place where blockchain is the foundation for creativity, honesty and transparency, and then build a smart city to serve the people who live there.” he added: “That’s ultimately the goal — to democratize democracy.” I’m sure that’s what the wizards behind Twitter, Facebook, and Google also told themselves in the beginning, before they somehow transformed into the greatest censorship, snitchery, and propaganda agents in world history. Anyway, don’t worry too much about this thing. It ain’t gonna get built. As we await the Joe Biden financial crisis, America stays busy blowing green smoke up its ass.

Thanks to John Hallett for the nomination.

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Support this blog by visiting Jim’s Patreon Page And thanks to all my Patrons for your support!   Behold: Blockchain City, Nevada, proposed for a wasteland outside Reno. Styling itself as a new “cryptocurrency-powered smart city,” the project un-smartly (i.e. stupidly)  incorporates every techno-narcissistic trope possible: megastructures, “green” everything in the desert, a continuation of car-dependency, more »

Support this blog by visiting Jim’s Patreon Page And thanks to all my Patrons for your support! Behold the Helix,  Amazon’s new East Coast headquarters proposed for Arlington, Virginia, across the river from that great National Swamp of grift and favors known as the District of Columbia. You know what’s going on here, right? Trick question more »

Support this blog by visiting Jim’s Patreon Page   Behold, a proposal to redevelop the block around St. Lucy’s Church, Jersey City, NJ.  Yet another exercise in misunderstanding the future counterposes a human-scaled ensemble of traditional buildings squashed underneath a despotic death Borg of computer-assisted banality designed by the firm MVMK (Minervini Vandermark Melia Kelly). You more »

Support this blog by visiting Jim’s Patreon Page And thanks to all my Patrons for your support!   Behold, the fabulous sculpture called “Jubilee!” installed next to the Home Suites 2 by Hilton (a hotel, if you’re wondering) at the Sea Shells Collections Shopping Center in Gulf Breeze Florida . It is supposed to represent three more »

Support this blog by visiting Jim’s Patreon Page Behold: the proposal for a 160-story, 2418-foot tall “carbon neutral” skyscraper from the French architecture firm Rescubika on New York City’s Roosevelt Island. It incorporates 36 wind turbines, 8,300 shrubs, 1,600 trees, 83,000 square feet of plant walls, and nearly 23,000 square feet of solar panels. The project is more »

Support this blog by visiting Jim’s Patreon Page Architect Sir David Adjaye becomes the first back-to-back winner (Oct, Nov) at the Eyesore of the Month with this unfortunate and misconceived humdinger for lower Manhattan at 130 William Street. Unfortunate because this kind of residential mega-tower was the-thing-to-do just a year ago, before Covid-19 rang out around more »

Support this blog by visiting Jim’s Patreon Page Behold: the New Princeton University Art Museum!  Or is that the box that it came in??? Yeah, I know, an old gag, but it still works. What you get here is just another exercise in fake originality. How many of these floating boxes are there in the world? more »

Support this blog by visiting Jim’s Patreon Page Behold, the second coming of St. Thomas Parish Church Washington, DC (1517 18th Street NW, off Dupont Circle). Kind of looks like the musical instrument that the space aliens flew down to Earth in Close Encounters of the Third Kind (Spielberg, 1977) to play the dumb-ass tune that more »

Support this blog by visiting Jim’s Patreon Page Behold the “Shipwreck Tower” in Prague, proposed to be the Czech Republic’s tallest building at 440 feet, about 40 stories. This humdinger was conceived, obviously, before Covid-19 raced around the world. What you get is another colossal art stunt incorporated into an office building, a virtue-signaling gag telling more »

Support this blog by visiting Jim’s Patreon Page Behold: the Perot Museum of Nature and Science in downtown Dallas, Texas — if you can even call this inchoate mash-up of low-rise crapola, parking lots, and freeway ramps a downtown. The building was designed by Eyesore of the Month All-time Champeen, Thom Mayne (countless humdingers over the more »