Slog
News & ArtsThursday, January 5, 2012
Architecture The Gates Foundation Building Is a Vapid Utopia
Posted by Charles Mudede on Thu, Jan 5, 2012 at 8:28 AM
Critic at Bloomberg calls NBBJ's Gates Foundation building bland...
Artifacts from many countries hang on the wall and strategically placed screens play videos of work being done, but they are background ambience, not front and center. The place is almost aggressively impersonal, as if any meaningful architectural gesture might offend someone or be read as colonialist bullying.Blame for the blandness? Probably all involved: the clients, the firm, and the city itself. Seattle knows lost opportunities like nobody's business.
A visitor center will open next year, but it’s conceived as a museum, and may feel like a defense against interested citizens rather than an invitation to them.The default to blandness is a lost opportunity.
The building appears to be a mirror of our town. For example, what do we see in the future visitor center: "...it’s conceived as a museum, and may feel like a defense against interested citizens rather than an invitation to them"? If you live in Seattle, you will recognize this instantly: It's the architectural expression of being passive–aggressive.
2
Isn't the Gates Foundation mostly for international concerns? I suppose they're more interested with looking impressive for foreign or Federal visitors than they are mingling with Seattleites.
3
The Gates Foundation building is primarily a bank, isn't it? I was walking around it the other day at night and the design and security around it reminded me of some of the biggest banks in Switzerland. The whole purpose of the foundation is to funnel massive amounts of money out to various global projects, seems to me all the other architectural design choices are a pretense for the giant bank vault below it.
4
Hah.
I actually love it.
It's a slap in the face to Urbists because he basically brought a Microsoft campus building...complete with greenspace...into a solid wall of structures that use every last square inch.
Maybe this is a sign of Seattle's inevitable surubanization, or a humorous insider joke (always the possibility where the Founding Families are concerned) that Microsoft could, would have been in downtown Seattle if the taxes weren't so dam high...
I actually love it.
It's a slap in the face to Urbists because he basically brought a Microsoft campus building...complete with greenspace...into a solid wall of structures that use every last square inch.
Maybe this is a sign of Seattle's inevitable surubanization, or a humorous insider joke (always the possibility where the Founding Families are concerned) that Microsoft could, would have been in downtown Seattle if the taxes weren't so dam high...
5
I'm okay with it except for the exterior (limestone?) cladding. The horizontal sheets of rock clash terribly with the windows and general horizontal massing of the structures. Plus the gold-ish color would be far more appropriate in a Southwestern US location and is completely incongruous with the local color palette. WTF were they thinking?
6
Ah, the local color palette.... At last count, it was 13 shades of beige. And then I cried, and wiped my tears on the bumpy spray stucco.
7
@ 6
I was thinking more along the general lines of blue, green, white, silver, brown, etc, which are colors that are pleasantly coherent with the natural and built environment. A nearby successful example of a similar-style building that is better integrated into the neighborhood is 2901 3rd Avenue, across the street from the Pacific Science Center on Denny.
I was thinking more along the general lines of blue, green, white, silver, brown, etc, which are colors that are pleasantly coherent with the natural and built environment. A nearby successful example of a similar-style building that is better integrated into the neighborhood is 2901 3rd Avenue, across the street from the Pacific Science Center on Denny.
8
well, just tear it down and start over. and have that critic lead the design presentations with the client. i'm sure he'd do a much better job than nbbj.
9
i think 'blandness' might have been the gates foundation's intent. who the hell hires NBBJ for showy buildings? they routinely throw up competent but rather banal buildings. if gates foundation had wanted something with kick, they would have gone with herzog & de meuron, SANAA, ingenhoven, etc.
though i will agree the color and material selection on this building may be the worst i've seen since michael grave's portland building.
though i will agree the color and material selection on this building may be the worst i've seen since michael grave's portland building.
10
I've been waiting for this. Someone needs to attack this building. It is the worst, least urban building built inside a city in the past forty or fifty years.
Bailo's priorities are inside out as always, but he has inadvertently nailed the premise of this building: it is the suburban Microsoft campus brought into the city. It even LOOKS like a virus, with it's spinning hook shapes ready to latch on and infect the city around it.
What does this building say to the city around it? It says "stay away". There's no retail presence, no street presence at all. It's like a fractured Pentagon, only the war it is planning is on the city that surrounds it. It might as well have a moat.
Beige walls doesn't even begin to touch on what's wrong with this monstrosity. Charles is exactly right: it is an expression of passive-agressivity, the kind that sucks the soul out of the suburbs of Seattle, not Seattle itself. It has absolutely nothing to do with Seattle itself.
Pure evil. Look at those green spaces. Look at how it meets the street.
@3, there is no "bank vault". It's a parking garage. The Foundation doesn't have piles of cash on the premises. This is not a building one can walk to (or from). The people who work here won't be allowed to eat lunch in the neighborhood; they'll be in the safe interior cafeteria, eating what the Gateses tell them to eat. Like high school.
Bailo's priorities are inside out as always, but he has inadvertently nailed the premise of this building: it is the suburban Microsoft campus brought into the city. It even LOOKS like a virus, with it's spinning hook shapes ready to latch on and infect the city around it.
What does this building say to the city around it? It says "stay away". There's no retail presence, no street presence at all. It's like a fractured Pentagon, only the war it is planning is on the city that surrounds it. It might as well have a moat.
Beige walls doesn't even begin to touch on what's wrong with this monstrosity. Charles is exactly right: it is an expression of passive-agressivity, the kind that sucks the soul out of the suburbs of Seattle, not Seattle itself. It has absolutely nothing to do with Seattle itself.
Pure evil. Look at those green spaces. Look at how it meets the street.
@3, there is no "bank vault". It's a parking garage. The Foundation doesn't have piles of cash on the premises. This is not a building one can walk to (or from). The people who work here won't be allowed to eat lunch in the neighborhood; they'll be in the safe interior cafeteria, eating what the Gateses tell them to eat. Like high school.
11
One of my best friends worked on that building. From the stories I heard...well, I don't want to get him or her in trouble.
12
@10: if your analysis is correct, it has met the client's goals perfectly. and that is an architect's job.
14
For good or ill, you have to love the almost novelistic tale that is told on 5th Ave. Our two most famous billionairs have built monuments to their awesomeness within spitting distance of each other and both buildings couldn't better reflect their personalities.
17
@10,
And also consider where they put it. There aren't many places in Seattle better suited to their mission of closing employees off from the surrounding neighborhood. That monstrosity is surrounded by parking lots, Seattle Center, and Aurora, and pedestrian access at Fifth and Mercer is shit. Ever tried to walk to Dexter from there?
And also consider where they put it. There aren't many places in Seattle better suited to their mission of closing employees off from the surrounding neighborhood. That monstrosity is surrounded by parking lots, Seattle Center, and Aurora, and pedestrian access at Fifth and Mercer is shit. Ever tried to walk to Dexter from there?
19
@17, and of course the city is trying to solve that problem, but first they allowed this monstrosity in.
@18, yup.
@18, yup.
Advertisement
Most Commented on Slog
-
It's Spring! Who's Ready for Street Harassment? by Cienna Madrid
-
SL Letter of the Day: Insane Demands by Dan Savage
-
SL Letters of the Day: Just Say No to DSGs by Dan Savage
-
New Gun Enthusiast... by Dan Savage
-
Bigot Florist Files Countersuit by Dominic Holden
-
America Doesn't Care About Black People by Charles Mudede
-
SL Letter of the Day: Gonna Boil My Laptop After Answering This One by Dan Savage
-
"Bus service shouldn't be optional—it should be a right." by Cienna Madrid
-
US Military Grants Itself the Power to Police American Streets and "Quell" "Civil Disturbances" by Brendan Kiley
-
Fucking NBA Rejects Kings Move to Seattle by Goldy
Stranger Personals
The Stranger
RSSSeattle Art & Performance Quarterly
A complete guide to Seattle's current art, film, dance, and theater season.
Facebook
Twitter
Comments (21) RSS