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Originally Posted by Mr Downtown
It's a perfect example of what we preservationists call "the 40-year pox." After 40 years, every architectural movement and its exemplar buildings are viewed as hideously ugly.
After 60 years, people wail "why didn't they save and restore that incredible building?"
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I’m now 45. I can’t think of a single building that was built in 1962 that I found ugly at 25 that I now find beautiful and cherished today. Still ugly, or I liked it then for its merits.
Reading through this thread, pro comments boil down to “Yes this is a unique mess that should never have been built, but it’s OUR unique mess and dammit we like it!
Alright. But I will never understand the love for this building. As an engineer I own up to my bad design choices.
Quote:
Originally Posted by woodrow
Part of the design program for the Thompson center was to evoke capitol buildings. The atrium was envisioned as a modern day version of a rotunda. My initial comparison is directly to that idea. They wanted a grand public space where the public would interact with the state. They most broke from the idea of a grand government edifice by including retail and restaurants, but that was to further that sense of a public space.
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I disagree, it detracted from the public sense. A rotunda is not a mall, and a mall is not a rotunda. Retail space is not public. Can’t have protests and speeches behind an active counter. Have to pick one. And I don’t see anything in this rehab that addresses that fundamental flaw.
It’s the same flaw the Obama Library is repeating in Jackson Park. Planned single use is no longer public, no matter what the PR team says.