More on Beauty vs brutalism

There have been about six new houses built on our street in the last 18 months, each one uglier than the last, and this without resorting to brutalism. They’re mainly wood and glass.

One has been nicknamed “The Substation” and it’s almost too hideous to describe. The others are iterations of bomb shelters with no architectural merit whatsoever.

They try to disguise these eyesores by adding lots of glass but nothing they can do short of demolishing them can help. And it’s hard to justify demolishing a two million dollar home no matter how much it offends.

By contrast, some of the downtown office buildings have show some artistic merit but the 50 year old concrete ones are showing their age, especially the downtown gulag courthouse by Arthur Erickson . That downtown courthouse has to be one of the worst sensory assaults  against  the local population….. and they now don’t have the cash flow to bring any them up to snuff.

“Office space for lease” signs are the most ubiquitous street art at the moment.