Two things come to mind: was it absolutely necessary to paint this building in emergency orange? And why, when sculptures in the public domain attract such controversy and opinion-venting, why is it that such garish examples of poke-in-the-eye ornamentation pass without comment? Surely both are public artefacts, both exist in public space, both have equal capacity to attract or repel? Where are the architecture critics when we need them? Talking to their lawyers? P.S. Trying to track who were the architects, we came across this little Photoshop “Toy-ota” gem… pity about the lawn…
7 responses so far ↓
1 max // Feb 9, 2009 at 5:18 am
You forgot to mention that this thing (Kinloch Lodge) is on the ANU campus, together with another one (Davey Lodge) by the same developer, which is less gaudy but no less terrible.
2 yolande // Feb 10, 2009 at 8:21 am
Bahahahahaha!!!
Gold.
3 megxx // Feb 10, 2009 at 9:54 am
Those architects need a good smack, Nige. They’re getting carried away with themselves and it’s not pretty. Are they the same mob responsible for that ‘public art’ travesty on Childers street that was installed by Thylacine. What a shocker that is.
By the way, I think they ought to pay you to leave the troopie there…
4 Nigel // Feb 10, 2009 at 5:49 pm
Our non-expert observation was that none of these decorative screens appear to set out to achieve a window-shading, energy-saving objective. Do any readers have a more informed view?
5 Bernice // Feb 19, 2009 at 7:34 pm
Presumably it’s a response to the NMA? FastfoodMo on PoMo if you like. (and oddly, the NMA don’t name the architects on the relevant webpage http://www.nma.gov.au/about_us/the_building/ but ARM aren’t so shy http://www.a-r-m.com.au/ )
6 Nigel // Feb 19, 2009 at 9:30 pm
FFMo is closer than the histrionics of the NMA, yet walk around UniLodge – eyeball the straight lines and the curves, watch the fall of the sunlight, look at the steel screens, and you’ll see that this is really FauxMo – colour and form without meaning, and structure with no sense of building for climatic or economic rationality. Now look at the NMA, and see how fast its fabric has deteriorated. Want to bet that UniLodge will look just as tatty in eight years time? Who cares? It will have paid for itself by then…
7 architecture and eco-scepticism | iconophilia // Sep 11, 2009 at 10:05 am
[...] the ANU’s UniLodge (architect unknown) is peppered with brightly coloured decorative elements which do no more than [...]
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