Many old commercial buildings that still stand today were built with quality, not quantity in mind. They may not be much to look at now, but back in the 50’s and 60’s they were the best on the block.
Today is a different story as many new commercial properties are built on a mass scale with quality moving down the priority list, as Owen Hatherley from BBC’s Four Thought expressed, “Go to many of the new schemes and you recognise that the order of modernism has been reversed. For better or worse, the buildings of the 1960s were designed from the inside out.”
Many modern commercial buildings are oversized, brightly coloured or metallic and have not been built properly for their purpose, as Owen Hatherley put across, “The new blocks are designed from the outside in, irregular windows and brightly-coloured cladding hide the tiny, mean proportions and a total lack of planning for human use.”
The United Kingdom has many of these ‘eyesore’ buildings, but editors from VirtualTourist.com have voted Sheffield Hallam University (SHU) Student’s Union as the ugliest building in the world. They said the building, “Resembled a mash up of a Jiffy Pop package, a salad spinner, and a food processor.” I wonder what the buildings designers, Branson Coates Architects will think about that? The building was originally open as the National Centre for Popular Music in 1999, but closed a year later due to lack of visitors. Sheffield Hallam University acquired the building in 2003 and have no plans to leave the monstrosity as yet.
With many new commercial developments being mocked for how they look, should the focus be turned back to the 1960’s when buildings were designed around the use of the property, over how it looked? Or are new commercial properties all about appearances?
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