Hmm, I wonder what they've been putting in the tea at Hamilton Architects? The practice has what you might euphemistically describe as a 'mixed' portfolio, ranging from fugly Georgiana to a plasticky hospital. But here they were clearly given a bit of a budget, and decided to give free reign to their frustrated avant-gardism.
It riffs on the new (and nearby) Museum of Liverpool by 3XN, with a stone-clad slightly angular form. they've then gone ahead and made some hideously ill-considered glazed cut outs that collide horribly with the already deeply questionable geometry.
This building is what happens when a bad architect reads a few too many architecture magazines, and think that doing shapes is a good idea. The result is this anti-context, anti-scale, uncivilised building, exuding a staggering lack of decorum on the benighted World Heritage Site that is Liverpool's waterfront.
When shit practices do shapes, it also reveals the absolute stupidity and rampant subjectivity of architecture today. This was the winner of an international competition - the jury probably thought they were getting a B-team Libeskind or something.
Liverpool people will be relieved to hear that the programme of this building is an absolutely essential addition to the city's cultural landscape - a second Beatles Museum. The museum promises a "magical journey through the music of the Beatles, complete with motion, sound and water". Sounds like a museological fucking revolution.
According to the architect, the building has become popular with 'photographers' because of its 'quirky' 'angles'. Unfortunately, as you can see from the photos above, it has become popular with really shit photographers, who barely know how to hold their cameras up straight.
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It's like the 2012 Olympics logo had a fling with some of David Chipperfield's less inspired work, and this is the unwanted child.
ReplyDeleteFuck me, that *is* awful.
ReplyDeleteI quite like it...
ReplyDeleteWayne will love that!
ReplyDeletehttp://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/
By Jove, you have highlighted some shite! It is reassuring to see that Liverpool is not the only place under seige from the Defocation School of Architecture. Hideous and abominable as some of these developments are, I think you have to go a long way to beat Liverpool 1 Park Gone West Apartments which as I prove were actually based on a toilet product. (if you skip through the rest of my ramblings)
ReplyDeletehttp://profchucklebuttychronic.blogspot.com/2009/05/shanghai-asbo-city-heritage-at-knock.html
How dare some-one from out of our city talk about it in a way that poors scorn on all the wonderful things that has come from Capital of Culture 2008. The Council and the Daily Post..well they are both the same actually, tell us its great so we have to believe them.
ReplyDeleteI think its terrible what you have said about my city.
Oh, and heres one we did earlier.
http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/2009/05/liverpools-world-heritage-site.html
http://liverpoolpreservationtrust.blogspot.com/
I have seen this thing. From the river in particular it manages to destroy any enjoyment of one the most sublime urban views there is (was). Its unnecessary bulk is added to by a Beatles museum. Liverpool has a cultural problem of the highest order if it wants to promote a half dead band by this means, or perhaps a Gerry and the Pacemakers turret could be added?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.bdonline.co.uk/story.asp?storycode=3146320
ReplyDeleteHey you were right its been nominated along with One Park Gone West in Grosvenor-pool for BD Carbuncle Cup
And it won! Mighties Minger of 2009!
ReplyDeleteI find your blogg so foul mouthed, so opinionated and vile that I can not help but read it.
ReplyDeleteYou are lucky to live in the UK where architecture is banal and dreary, I live in sweden where it is both of the above but has the extra dimension of being utterly out of date. North Koreans would find english architecture right up their street....and I mean in a rectal sense.
Whilst I think that HRH Prince Charles's opinions about architecture totally bovine he has managed to get Wayne and Kevin talking down at the Frog and Whistle.
Here in sweden we bulldoze, vandalize and destroy our city with glee, claiming it to be the new cutting edge of architecture, much as Bomber Harris thought he was doing Poland a favour when he flattened Warsaw.
Keep up the bile and invective.
S
Isn't that a set left over from the Cabinet of Dr Caligari?
ReplyDeleteEveryone involved in the building of that and all the hideous modern builds that have destroyed the river front should hang their heads in shame.
ReplyDeleteTake out the hideous silly sharp angled windows from the side and the geometry when viewed from the side and I could actually quite like that. It could be a great simple design, almost bauhaus, but it's been ruined by fussy irregular angles.
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