August 2016 | Eyesore

Commentary on architectural blunders in monthly serial.

Behold the new Easton, Pennsylvania, city hall, yet another dismal composition of blank masonry walls and tinted glass curtain claddings for that perfect despotic government effect. Note how its demeanor resembles the attitude of a prison chain gang guard. See below the old Easton city hall, a 1920s beaux arts beauty (and the tallest building in town) connoting beauty, virtue, and aspiration. It still stands a block away, though sold and repurposed for general office space.

The new city hall comes complete with an adjoining massive parking deck (below) — a guaranteed killer of street life. Local Easton urban design activist Dennis Lieb says: “There is uniform contempt among the general public here for both these structures, but as usual the emperor’s new clothes syndrome persists in polite circles.”