Eyesore of the Month

Professional curmudgeon James Howard Kunstler has been running a great feature over at his site for the past few years called, fittingly enough, Eyesore of the Month. He writes frequently funny, often apopleptic, always well-considered illustrated dissections of atrocious architecture and landscaping unlucky enough to cross his path (or sometimes sent his way by readers). Take a look at this July 2004 review of a student housing complex at Harvard Business School:

Welcome to the new student housing complex at Harvard's Business School, designed by cutting edgers Rudolfo Machado and Jorge Silvetti. Notice the attempt to make this despotic corporate box sporty and playful with the arbitrary placement of windows. Interestingly the home page of the building's website, doesn't even show a picture of the building. What they're really proud of is the "green space and courtyard." Check it out:



Is that welcoming or what? Just take a seat under a 300-ton slab of concrete and steel and relax. . . like a pill bug under a hiking boot.

His critiques aren't merely aesthetic; his ire is most often directed towards the social dimension of our built environment, and backed up by his belief in an impending oil apocalypse. Then again, sometimes he just does a bit of good old-fashioned bitching. Always a good read.