April 2014 | Eyesore

Commentary on architectural blunders in monthly serial.

Behold the new Emerson College “complex” (so-called) for television, film, and advertising production studies on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles, designed by Thom Mayne of the firm Morphosis, which has been reviled on this site before for its techno-narcissistic archi-stunts. This one is as if the Jolly Green Giant dropped a crate of seltzer bottles in the parking lot of the local beverage center. Note how nicely it blends in with the shitty strip-mall buildings on the block — is that a pole-dancing bar in the lower left? The building is being touted as “futuristic.” That’s rich. If anything it’s a sentimental glance into the recent past of its designers. The future will actually look nothing like this.