Bob Collins
The Twin Cities gets a little architectural love today with MSN including the Weisman Museum in its slideshow of the “world’s wildest architecture.” (Hat tip: Tom Weber)
Being a contrarian, I’d like to assemble a slideshow of the worst and least imaginative of the architecture in Minnesota. Send your suggestions (and your photos) and we’ll put a little vote together to select the “winner.”
In the government buildings category, I’ll nominate St. Paul’s Centennial Building. It was completed in 1958 and named in honor of the 100th anniversary of Minnesota statehood, it says here. A commenter at the site says “this building has been misunderstood,” which is probably the kindest thing to say about it. On the other end of the spectrum is the observation that you can apparently miss a lot of classes in architecture school, and still get an occasional gig.
The Centennial Building, unfortunately, serves as a bookend to an otherwise gorgeous display of buildings on the Capitol complex. It shares the role with another hideous building, the state transportation building, which appears to be crumbling; it’s somehow metaphorically appropriate.
Use this form to send me your images.
Submissions (so far)
Block E (from Flickr):
Social sciences tower at the U of M (from Flickr). BTW, want to see something cool. Use your mouse wheel to scroll down the page while watching the windows in the social sciences tower.
Multifoods Tower, Mpls (from Flickr)
The science classrooms building at the U.
