Comments on Having Guts

Yes, by all means let's ignore all the bridges about to collapse and make sure the County Building is pretty.

Good architecture is all fine and good, but there are core functions of local government, and there are nice to have things.

Why won't they let them build 40 storeys instead of 28? Coz it'll ruin the "neighourhood" of our financial/government district?

Just FYI, Rom Sims doesn't inhabit this building lest anyone think poor Ron has sad outdated digs without aesthetic appeal. His office is located at the Bank Of America tower.

i don't think we should rip down an "ugly" building and put up a "pretty" building just because some think aesthetics should be part of our society.

I think our society needs to nuture, support and fund the arts, but i'm againsts the masses having to pay loads and loads of $ for a new building just to say we have a "better, prettier" building.

PS--The giant building in the background behind the KC Administration building.

I think this:
http://www.floridavacations.com/_pictures/13664_1.jpg
...is a lot uglier (other 3,000,000,000 examples of identical architecture not shown).

Wait. There's a square building and Charles DOESN'T like it? My world has been shaken.

Also, you're just plain wrong here. Aesthetics has its place when putting up new, needed buildings. The question that needs to drive policy is, do we need a new building, and can we afford a new building. Then and only then is aesthetics a matter for leaders to consider. Ferguson's right, Sim's wrong. He may be right about the building, although I'm neutral (it looks like a classic government building to me), but he's wrong to use aesthetics as an argument.

i like mr practicalnoguts because i like the building. i think it's great, and would hate to lose it. if being practical attains that end, then sobeit.

I like it too. I'd like to see it fixed up.

Actually, the UW's Odegaard Undergradute Library has been scientifically proven to be the ugliest building in the world.

The new building will be called the X-Seed 27.

Ugly? Yes. Cause to tear down? No. That said, the article was rife with this actually penciling out for the county. If that is the case, I really hope they do build something else AND get rid of the sky bridge to the jail.

I like this building. Seriously.

does anyone remember that odd blob of a building at the bottom of queen anne? it was torn down years ago, but must have been the ugliest building ever. it reminds me of the EMP.

1-It's called Columbia Center now.
2-Odegaard is tied with Kane for ugliest building award.
3-I agree with Charles on this.

@2 The City does not want shadows on their new city hall... in downtown Seattle.

Tell you what.

Ron Sims can have a new building if he imposes an income tax on people owning more than $1 million in property or income.

Otherwise, tell him to stop whining and get busy with more bus service for King County instead.

aesthetic problems should inform policy?
he doesn't have a spine because he defends his position using a good reason?
so if ferguson had said it's an ugly building and it doesnt make financial sense to demolish it, that would have been fine?

come off it chaz, you're clearly making logical leaps and filling in blanks that exist in your own mind.

I've got Sims' back on this one. After I saw this building for the first time, I felt like I needed a shower. Ugly ugly ugly.

#18, "come off it chaz, you're clearly making logical leaps and filling in blanks that exist in your own mind."

this is new?

...and like it or not, that building IS Seattle. What makes so many people think the whole goddamn town should look like an Eddie Bauer store?

Cities everywhere are losing so much mid-century-to-70's architecture, just when it's more in fashion than ever, and replacing by 10 years-out-of-fashion, won't-be-back-in-fashion-for-another-30 shit hulks.

Maybe I'm just bitter for what they did to my 16th and Mission BART station last year. It's a crime.

@10 & @15: Odegaard and Kane don't even win the Ugliest Building on Campus award. That goes to Sieg Hall. If you don't believe it, you haven't been on a campus tour.

It's no skin of my nose, but I think Seattle should be forbidden from any more taxpayer funded buildings until Safeco and Qwest Fields are paid off. Y'all are worse than teens with $500 cell phone bills.

Wait...what did they do to the 16th and Mission BART station? I was just there for the first time on Sunday and the whole thing looked like it had a couple of decades of grime on it to me.

i think most people would agree, theyd rather have 10 years out of date architecture than 40 years out of date architecture.

i have a love hate relationship with the crap built in the 1950s/1960s. living in california most my life, and in a suburb to boot, most the architecture was from that era, so there is an emotional attachment to it. on the other hand, it's not that good to look at and gives this sense of "this was the future and the future died!"

With all the talk of how everyone wants to build think about this. First it is expensive and we have real problems to fix in Seattle, transit comes to mind. And is it really environmentally sound? Everytime you build something new the impact is more than just where you are building at. It consumes massive resourses. And once they tear that down something else will be built in it's place even once they move the offices.

Consume, tear down, waste and consume some more.

Another dreamy and poetic post. I agree aesthetics should be the first consideration in Seattle buildings.

Our downtown library is one of the world's most important buildings. It feel like an noisy airport inside because it's a space for ideas to take flight. Only ignorant rural rubes don't understand it.

We urban dwellers have deeper understanding than those who live in the sticks.

Isn't it obvious that whatever takes the place of this building will be seen as ugly by half of us? Replacing an "ugly" building should be pretty low on King County's list of priorities. Make it dog friendly and call it "X-Seed Budget."

aesthetics shouldnt be the first concern of any building. functionality, DOES IT ACTUALLY WORK and accomplish the purpose of the building.

Especially when a designer's idea of aesthetically pleasing is either so pedestrian, or so off the wall that it pleases no one.

JW #24 - the grime is just about all they left intact... the interior is the same, it's the upper platform that's been destroyed.

The 16th stop used to be very similar to the 24th street stop, replete with those trademarked transitioned bricks rounding out most of the right angles, which not only served as a hit-and-run joy for skateboarders, but made urinating on extremely difficult as the pee would run back toward the shoes of the offender thanks to the banked surfaces.

All that lovely modern brick was torn out and replaced with some terrible late-80's looking gray and marble colored designs, that not only offends the eyes, but the nose and shoes as all the nice new hiding spots allow the whome south side to fill up with a good 1/4" of urine. Nice going!

Seattle, leave it alone. The old library did suck, but because it lacked all character and no one cared, not because some people didn't like it. Sorry, but I think the new opera house is a shit-ugly ode to the 90's, it looks like a goddamn Starbucks on the outside (the inside ain't bad) - and I may be alone in that opinion, but it makes me think ya'll got lucky with your library.

Not only does Sims have guts, but my take on the article is that his plan may actually make "financial sense" and that is one of the underlying reasons for actually doing it. If the "ugliest building in the world" has reached the end of its useful life and it is time to rip it down and build a new one, then it becomes a financial and operational question about how best to replace it. I assume that an analysis would be done on that before Sims would unveil some plan. For Bob Ferguson to claim that he has a monopoly on "financial sense" sounds petty and combative. The exact kind of attitude that I simply hate in politicians. Maybe he is mad that he doesn't get to take credit for this interesting idea? Personally, I like it when our public buildings are both functional and attractive.

Aesthetics do matter. Our public buildings should inspire us, not oppress us. Ugly buildings can kill vibrant streetlife by subtly encouraging pedestrians to avoid block, and can therefore lead to neighborhood deterioration, loss of value for surrounding buildings, and an increase in street crime. The US Green Buildings Council collects studies of the role of building function and aesthetics on the productivity and health of the people who work inside. So, an ugly public building can even cause a waste of tax revenue by, essentially, depressing the people who work inside it.

I don't know the realities of the County's capital budget, how you measure the impacts on workers, or what a newer, more inspiring design might cost. So, maybe now is not the right time, but that building is ugly, inside and out. It must be oppressive to most everyone who works in there, and is certainly oppressive to most people who walk by. Aesthetics should certainly be a factor in deciding when to replace the building and what to replace it with.

If aesthetics don't matter, let's just do what Eastern Bloc governments and US public housing agencies did in the post-war years - build all public buildings with the same, cinder-block, high-rise design.

Bill, I took issue with aesthetics being the first and foremost factor in building design and new building cites in seattle.

it matters but it isnt the first thing that matters.

This post does not relate sufficiently to Star Wars.

By being geometric, rigid, boxy, and logical, the design of that building shouts "this is a building of thinking and decision making". If Seattle's skyline was a circuit board, the KCAB would be the BIOS chipset, making menial but important decisions for the body as a whole. With the light playing on its diamond shapes, making it almost sparkle like mottled mica or silicon, it would be completely at home in William Gibson's cyberspace, and would likely represent exactly the sort of thing it is today.

In short, Charles, you and Sims are off your rockers. And you know as well as anyone else that the sort of building Sims will want to replace it with will be Yet Another Gimmicky Travesty of Broad Curved Glass And Oblique Angles. Like City Hall... of about a half dozen cities in the metro area.

If I could definitively decide that the KCAB was brutalist (it would possibly seem to qualify), it would be a champion of that style's legacy by being such a good reflection of purpose in form.

Mudede delivers a curve ball to the strike zone!

@32 "Our public buildings should inspire us, not oppress us."

Oh deard lord. DO get out more. You're looking to a building - a GOVERNMENT building - for inspiration? And you're actually oppressed by buildings as well? Wow, all those Iraqi war orphans ain't got NOTHIN' on YOU, you poor li'l fella!

Stupid SLOG entry, stupid Sims, stupid hippy-dippy pointless crap that gives Seattle a bad name. We're all doomed with "oppressed" dipshits like you running around Seattle.

lmao Marci FTW!

If i want to be inspired I want crazy roman inspired architecture. classic, timeless, and inspiring to me.

K #35, very well put.

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