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If you need further evidence that cultural awareness is increasingly non-existent among the general populace, look no further than college blog Campus Squeeze. Following on the heels of its list of the 20 most beautiful college campuses, the site recently weighed in on what they deemed the 20 ugliest campuses in the country. While the prison-style buildings of Drexel University and the utilitarian blocks at Rochester Institute of Technology certainly didn't look appealing, we were screaming sacrilege upon hearing the site denounce the acclaimed designs of the Illinois Institute of Technology. The author recommended that the school get "better architects" (what, architectural geniuses, Mies van der Rohe, Rem Koolhaas and Helmut Jahn won't cut it?), and described the low-rise buildings as being "so nasty and dull that they feel like a blast from the past," and said some "serious renovation is in dire need at this school."
Let's hope they don't start renovating Rem Koolhaas's tunnel, by Photoshop Abuser
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IIT does have some cool buildings, but if you've ever seen the campus in the winter, you will understand why it made this list. The dead trees & gray sky give it the impression that you're in post-war Eastern Europe, and your potato crop has failed & all you have to survive on is right angles & mathematics. A little Mies goes a long way.
"The dead trees & gray sky give it the impression that you're in post-war Eastern Europe, and your potato crop has failed & all you have to survive on is right angles & mathematics. A little Mies goes a long way."
best post ever. hahhaahaha.
I wonder how many of the other 19 schools on that list have several buildings designed by world-famous, well-respected and similarly-hyphenated architects. I think that's the reason why IIT doesn't belong on the list. Does it look like Pepperdine in the middle of the winter? not really, but what in chicago really does? Our great architecture is just one of the things that gets us through the cold, gray, winters and keeps us from fleeing to warmer climates.
I mean there's nothing like the loving embrace of right angles to get you through the hard winter...
+1 to Rocketslide
The dead trees & gray sky give it the impression that you're in post-war Eastern Europe, and your potato crop has failed & all you have to survive on is right angles & mathematics.
Ha, yeah all bandwagon and say that made me laugh. Nice one.
Having attended IIT, I will jump off the bandwagon and defend Mies for depressing the many years I was there with his bleak, dark and very right-angular design of how life should be if earth lacked green trees, green grass, curves and anything to evoke pleasurable emotions and happy thoughts
Really, I get a little pissed off when other architects get on people for saying anything remotely critical of oh dear god all gods Mies.
"what, architectural geniuses, Mies van der Rohe, Rem Koolhaas and Helmut Jahn won't cut it?"
in other words,
"you don't think Jesus, oh I mean Mies, Rem or Helmut are worthy enough for you? Then you must be a tasteless uncultured philistine who will go to architecture hell when you die"
Mies is just another architect and not everybody likes is boring crap.
Get it Straight! Famous Architects are NOT Gods
In your Holy Architecture Church, Mies may be God but to everybody else he is Joe Schmoe.