Waterloo Region's Architectural Hall of Shame -- the Bottom 10

[jgsz]

Since there is a thread on Waterloo Region's Top 10 Buildings I thought it would be appropriate to have a thread about the Bottom 10 -- Waterloo Region's Architectural Hall of Shame. 

I am not an architect and I have never studied architecture but I know what I like and what I don't like.  Here's a partial list:

• Big Box stores -- I can't think of one that has any architectural merit. 
  
• Engineering buildings on UW campus.  The older ones are rectangles with windows.
  
• 250 Frederick.  A stunningly boring highrise in a quiet, low-rise, residential area.
  
• Kitchener Market.  It has some architectural merit and major fails.  The stairs on King St are forbidding and effectively hide the market if you drive up King.
  
• Market Square.  What were they thinking??
  
  
• The former Provincial Court House on Frederick, behind the Centre in the Square.  Court House??  Could easily be mistaken for the jail. 
  

[BuildingScout]

The WLU "gate" building on University and Hazel that one drives under to enter the campus.

[panamaniac]

This thread would need a sub-thread for student apartment buildings.

[BuildingScout]

This thread would need a sub-thread for student apartment buildings.

Actually while none of them are my favourite I couldn't think of a specific one that I would single out. Maybe I'm just blocking my most painful memories, but nothing as bad as the market square comes to mind.

[panamaniac]

Yes, perhaps it's better to consider them collectively as one of the Region's ten worst.

[BuildingScout]

Here's another one selected for being so out of context: A faux medieval timber and  frame structure in the middle of the parking lot, next to a shopping mall, and half a block from award winning original architecture.

[Drake]

I give you that building is odd, but also charming. The Duke of Wellington pub is located in that building which is a lucky stroke because it works.

[jgsz]

Here's another one selected for being so out of context: A faux medieval timber and  frame structure in the middle of the parking lot, next to a shopping mall, and half a block from award winning original architecture.

"Faux medieval?" I always thought it was Waterloo's answer to Frankenmuth, MI. 

[DHLawrence]

I don't find it that offensive. Wouldn't say no to something better, but it does its job.

I like the glass part of Market Square, including the clock tower. The rest seems awfully forbidding.

Perhaps covered by "big box stores", but I would submit all of Hespeler Road between the 401 and Can-Amera, with the exception of the new retirement home.

[Spokes]

This thread would need a sub-thread for student apartment buildings.

Actually while none of them are my favourite I couldn't think of a specific one that I would single out. Maybe I'm just blocking my most painful memories, but nothing as bad as the market square comes to mind.

For me it's easy.  The one that has numerous shades of brown stucco.  King's Crossing I believe.

[DHLawrence]

The all black one (Preston House?) is probably the best of the bunch, or at least the least regrettable.

[nms]

Here's another one selected for being so out of context: A faux medieval timber and  frame structure in the middle of the parking lot, next to a shopping mall, and half a block from award winning original architecture.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.  Remember that when the Atrium was built, there was no other award winning architecture nearby.   Some parts of King Street in Waterloo looked like this: low-rise, people-focused, with independent shops and with nods to the other 19th-Century buildings in the area. Compared the newer sections of the Shops, this building has more charm.

As an aside, the Record recently wrote a piece of sponsored content about the building: "a boutique experience and sanctuary from the frenzy of malls and big-box stores."

[BuildingScout]

In my opinion bad reproductions of a style that has no connection to the region, with the town having been settled in 1880 and not 1380 are as bad as a big box store. Slightly more charming but equally misguided and architecturally limp.

Some people have a weakness when you tickle their nostalgia bone, and thus are willing to overlook the many flaws of even something horribly reminiscent of the past, like the Barra Castle.

[Markster]

Yeah, historicist dreck is the absolute worst.

   

This isn't 1000 B.C. ancient Greece!  This is 20th Century New York! Tear this travesty down!  Jesus, they couldn't even bother to put friezes in the pediments.  Garbage.

[BuildingScout]

Yeah, historicist dreck is the absolute worst.

You can reinterpret the past or badly copy it. Usually it is not hard to tell the difference.

Luis Barragan is an example of an award winning architect whose main style is a reinterpretation of Mexican-Spanish colonial architecture.