OK, somebody has to step in here. You may think the building in the picture is ugly, but it's all about context. This building is positively beautiful in context. Don't believe me? Stand where the picture was taken. Go ahead, stand at 13th and Madison. Now, turn 90 degrees to the west. See what I mean? You're now looking at Pony, one of the ugliest structures on this planet.

traditional and classic homes and row houses look best. a;lso the grander type apt. and condo buildings. first you need more of a setback, so there's some kind of SPACE for the defined entrance. the lego block crap built today has no defined entrance. second, you need the building to occupy the parcel and announce "I am a building" and not be all cut up by view corridors or differential facades because the idiots at design review think it's cool if we try to "make that big building not look like one big biulding." third, you need some symmetry, some ornamentatoin and some style. we can all gasp in pleasure at anhalt buildings, then wonder how come no architect today just builds the same thing. we have thousands of examples not just from seattle but from other cities, yes, including the feared east coast and south, for exemplars and still we build shit. total shit. ultimately, it's us who're at fault because these crap condos actually sell and until they don't there's no incentive to not build crap right? also, can SDOT please stop taking pedestrian bulbs and trying to fill them up with river rocks and trees as if the thing we're dying for to really make this a city is to imitate a bit of national park on our sidewalks? we'd rather just have cafe tables sprawling out over the sidewalk without regulated regulation approved fencing, you know, like la coupole. it's as if conscious of the fact that other cities are beautiful, we deliberately avoid copying their forms and pattern languages as this would prove in fact, we're neither unique nor special and like everyone else we, too, like a plaza with a fountain, rounded paths with benches, a portico, an arch, and traditional colors and forms. but no, that would be too painful, therefore we build lego style buildings that are a Homage to the Rectangle with odd panels of orange and brown and sometimes mauve color to pretent it's 4 separate buildings not one great big one here on broadway.