November 2016 | Eyesore
Commentary on architectural blunders in monthly serial.
Behold the Cahill Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics at Caltech in Pasadena, California, designed by Thom Maynes’ Morphoses team. I’d call the style “Bizarro Corbu” after the early Modernist, Le Corbusier (human name: Charles-Édouard Jeanneret). Bizarro derives from the trope in the old Superman comics, “Bizarro World: an alternative universe of industrial madness populated by sub-humanoids with crystalline bodies. Note the surpassing dreariness of the ground floor with its squashed down entrance portico, dull concrete “pilotis” and ghastly chain-link fencing (a material that should be relegated to dog kennels and prison yards.) Horizontal windows, of course! And that’s a great color choice: monkey-shit orange!
Thanks to Patrick T. Lynch for the nomination.
