15 Replies to “Honey, I Finished The Internet”

  2. Yes, that’s awful, but we live in a world of dreadful architecture. The crystalline cancers tacked on the side of the Royal Ontario Museum was commissioned by former Globe editor William Thorsell and carried out by the dismal architect Daniel Libeskind. And equally appalling is the Brutalism style of which the Robarts Library at the University of Toronto is a prime specimen.
    Libeskind is probably the worst. He takes existing attractive neo-Gothic buildings and destroys them with his “improvements”. There should be a special circle in Dante’s hell reserved for this kind of vandalism.

  3. Humbug, Ms. McMillan! I only know Gehry’s renovations to the Art Gallery of Ontario,
    but whatever it looks like from the outside, from the inside it works well.
    From the outside it doesn’t do too much violence to the older structure, or
    disguises it mercifully.
    No, the world’s worst architect is Daniel Libeskind. His extension to the Royal
    Ontario Museum in Toronto looks ridiculous (as his additions to existing buildings
    usually do) and is dysfunctional inside.
    I have lived in one house designed by an architect for his own use, and my present
    house was renovated by a good architect. Both show the skill of their designers in
    one’s everyday life. Appearance isn’t everything.
    I suppose that functionality is the strong point of Jack Diamond, who was hired by
    Valeri Gergiev to design the new Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg. His building
    is unspectacular on the outside, but apparently satisfies the many requirements
    for a large theatre/opera house very well.
    So, Ms. McMillan, you are an applied artist of varied talents. Have you ever turned
    your thoughts to designing a house? I would imagine that you would do it well.
    Why not have a go if you haven’t done so already, and post your plans online?

  6. First one looks like an up chuck of a dinner of confetti. The second like the stomach that contained it
    I am an engineer by trade and have a second career as an architectural draughtsman, Mostly residential mine are mainly planer surfaces that average folk appreciate at 100$ a square ft

  7. Too many modern architects confuse ‘different’ with ‘art’. The most expensive and difficult jobs for the rest of the trades are the ones where the architect goes crazy with odd angles and curves. Architects almost never allow enough room for the mechanical equipment to make their creations habitable. Every one of them should be forced to spend a year in construction before they can practice architecture.

  8. This is what happens when you allow architects to play with computers, the earlier article about English “heating” systems/solar arrays is what happens when engineers play with computers.
    Hint from an ex-heating system design engineer and construction project manager, if you want a home or an office designed then select an designer (not necessarily an architect) that uses a drafting table and preferably uses a slide rule for calculations, he (yes he) should also have a pair of muddy boots by the entrance.
    The examples shown are of course mainly publicly funded buildings, nobody really has any money at stake so the most outrageous monstrosities will occur, think Winnipeg’s house of horrors, the museum of human wrongs, Gail Aspers vanity project paid for by the long suffering Canadian taxpayer. But that is only one example among many.

  12. Those were the days when they knew how to build beautiful structures and you can be assured they will out last the garbage being done today. I look at the cathedrals of Europe and my first thought is always, “how did they build anything back then that looks like this.
    To paraphrase a well know saying about todays architecture, “just because you can design it doesn’t mean it should be built.”

  13. For some reason, I’m getting flashback to Discworld’s most famous architect ‘Bloody Stupid’ Johnson, who despite the inherent incoherent nature of his construction (it’s mostly against the law of nature) was quit popular with the moneyed class who though having a Johnson structure in their collection was the in-thing to do. Thus, we have some genuine weird structure in that universe all thanks to one man.

  14. There is one in every town.
    I read once that architecture is an art and a science, each building makes a statement from the architect .
    My favourite worst architect’s buildings all say this;”Help me, Kill me”.
    Having met his ex-wife , I can now see him point.

  15. An expensive study in Post-it Notes.
    As an architect, and one who has heard Gehry lecture (even had a few drinks with him after), I respected him back in the day. But now… it’s old. Just so much loud, “look at me!” kitsch. Modernism, Post-modernism, and New Wave and New Modernism have given way to a self-referential triumph of the shrill.
    I weep for my profession.

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