#ArchiTalks 30 "ugly
“ugly”
I really do not like this word as far as appearances go. I don't like saying that anything is ugly, people or architecture.
I think it mostly comes from people seeing something that is different or unique and then all of a sudden it's "ugly " so it is no wonder that many supermodels have a lot in common with frank gehry's architecture as far as people thinking that they were ugly in their early years but they were perceived to be beautiful once they were being marketed as such in magazines.
I actually have heard people call certain supermodels that and I just think that it's about jealousy, which is the same as calling a building ugly.
BECAUSE
I never actually hear people saying that a person or building that is fairly unattractive is "ugly". It's always something that is fairly attractive and someone says that it is "ugly" I have a friend who would always look at a beautiful woman and would say "she's so horribly ugly" as a joke.
And most times that I have heard people talk about a building, who are the general public, they just don't like the fact that anything is being built. It doesn't really matter that they have have no idea that it's not "ugly", it's just their response to something that they don't understand most of the time, it might be tall or overbuilt for the neighborhood, but barely is architecture by architects really "ugly" and believe me if it is, it's not because the architect tried to make it that way, it's the "other extenuating circumstances". Which gets to the "ugly"
So if I’m not going to to talk about ugly buildings, then what am I going to be talking about here, this is going to be a pretty short post isn’t it?
In third year, we had a project that was a fast food restaurant on the corner of Hollywood Blvd. and I think it was Gower, and for anyone who has ever been around there, you know that there is a lot of traffic and activity and so my concept was that the building would look like a car had driven through it and the architecture would express this in a fun way. Ya, pretty philosophical for a third year project, eh? Anyways, my boyfriend at the time, thought that it would be really cool to help me build the model and that it should be like these gehry/morphosis type models at the time and I was like,
uh, i don’t know...
and I used modeling paste and pink and gray paint and little metal pieces to hold up the canopy and I thought it didn’t look that bad, but when I brought it into the studio, it got some looks, because it was ¼” scale and the actual street level was more than halfway up the model and then I can remember the instructor looking at it and saying,
uh, i don’t know...
and I used modeling paste and pink and gray paint and little metal pieces to hold up the canopy and I thought it didn’t look that bad, but when I brought it into the studio, it got some looks, because it was ¼” scale and the actual street level was more than halfway up the model and then I can remember the instructor looking at it and saying,
“I like the project, i like the drawings and that model is so ugly it’s beautiful…”
And what happened to that boyfriend? I married him, but not because he helped me build the model, (which was maybe the only one that I mostly finished in school), because it was supposed to look unfinished…
So anyways back to other types of ugly that I will talk about..
“I don’t want to look at that ugly house in front of mine…”
Well, what is interesting is that a lot of times the “ugly house” that you don’t want to look at is looking about the same as the “ugly house” you live in. I can attest to this because I have neighbors on both sides of me who didn’t put windows on their additions because (I’m assuming) that they didn’t want to look at my ugly house or yard which looks the same as their ugly house and yard because they were all part for the same tract that was built in 1953, (except for the fact that our house still has windows on the side elevations). The other thing is that it seems like a lot of people seem to think that they have one way glass and that if a new building goes up, it’s the person whose building is older that is the only person one can see the newer one. Where in fact, many times I would be much more offended by looking at some of the older buildings next to that building that is being built. Which was one of the reasons why we bought our house, because it was not that cute of a house at all. When we were in Venice, we had a very cute house but it was not ours and we wanted to buy a house and so we bought the one we did because we figured that we could tear into it and do whatever we wanted because it didn't have any redeeming qualities, it wasn't cute!
Well no, what I’m going to talk about is "ugly" related to another aspect of architecture and that's ugly as it relates to behavior.
There have been several times, ok let’s be honest, I’m in my third term and ninth year as a planning commissioner so year nine, so it has been numerous times that I have heard the public or even one time one of the applicants of a project (that's a story for another time) get up in front of the microphone, identify themselves and start talking about a project and how ugly it is.
First, as a planning commissioner, we are not in the business of talking about beauty, that's the design review boards problem , a job of which they receive no compensation while we as planning commissioners, receive a $50/meeting stipend, yes, that is per meeting, we are making the big, big bucks here to sit and listen to people accuse us of letting apartment buildings to be built in a city where people want to live but cannot afford the $500,000 median priced home here.
That said, most of the time, the building, by the time it gets to us and also the competition of being in this area is what it is, and it is not an ugly project by any means. The "people" may use examples of the firm's previous buildings (that have won awards and are very successful projects) as ugly. They may object and stereotype people who want to live in the apartments as being “losers” when in fact, they can be college graduates and double income earners who cannot afford to live anywhere else.
How about people who want to live in an apartment because they are in an older age demographic and don’t want to live in a house that they can’t maintain and can sell their house to a family who wants to buy it?
So, some of these people who have already purchased their house or inherited it when the housing prices were lower and more affordable don’t like to see people move into the area into multi-family housing and enjoy the same life that they have….
.
And that is ugly.
These were my thoughts on "ugly", please read these other opinions on ugly by these other beautiful architects:
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