Buildings
New Web Site Showcases China's "Bad Architecture"
(archrecord.construction.com - 10/11/04)
By Betsy
Lowther
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| Images on
badarchitecture.org |
Think of Beijing architecture these
days, and you're likely to conjure up impressive images from
the city's current and much publicized renovation scheme:
Rem Koolhaas's planned CCTV tower; Paul Andreu's dome-shaped
National Theater; even the famous Forbidden City, now undergoing
at multimillion dollar overhaul. But in between these grand
plans is a very different sort of design style—one that's
best summed up in the name of a new website that showcases
it:badarchitecture.org.
The site, a collaboration of four architecture
aficionados in Beijing, skips the commentary and lets the
pictures speak for themselves. There are photos of the garish
office towers lining Beijing's main boulevard. A series of
gaudy, Greek-inspired buildings from across the city. An artist's
rendering of a planned structure that looks, frankly, "like
a giant ball on top of a toaster oven," says Daniel Elsea,
a RECORD contributor who co-founded the site with Jeremy Wingfield,
Connor Wingfield, and Daniel Shupp.
The project is "not a critique,
but an observational exercise" designed to highlight
some of Beijing's tackiest facades, Elsea says. "China
has a beautiful heritage—the nicest buildings are the
ones that have been here for centuries. A lot of detail, craftsmanship,
and elegance went into those buildings, but something happened
to those ideas along the way."
Now, the Chinese capital houses a mishmash
of architectural styles taken from all over the world—the
best of intentions, with the worst results, Elsea says. "It
seems a lot of people who create these buildings are copying
an idea," he says. "They see a picture from a book
or a movie, but they don't see the details. The result is
a building that might look okay from a few blocks away, but
up close you realize it's a Modern structure with Baroque
light fixtures."
Since the site's official launch in
mid-September, online traffic has risen to a steady 18,000
page views per week from fans eager to see what the next featured
monstrosity will be. Not that there's any chance of running
out of ideas: "We've only covered a tiny fraction of
what's out there," Elsea says. "There's literally
mile after mile of these buildings. And the rest of China
is even worse."
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