Europe's Ugliest Sore Thumb Buildings?
 

Just read an article in this week's NYTimes about the architecture of Rome - how it is really a blending of many styles from many ages and not always that harmoniously put together.

And the fairly modern addition, circa 1\early 1900s, to Rome's landscape of the Vittore Emanuele II Monument was pointed out as an especial travesty that is not only uniformly derided as being ugly but was built in a sensitive place on the south side of the Piazza Venezia, in part designed by Michelangelo I believe (not sure but anyway a sublime piece of architecture and also overlooks the ancient Roman Forum.

Like Paris' Tour Montparnass it is said the best views in Rome are from the top of the Monument because you cannot see it!

http://www.romeinpictures.com/vittor...ome-italy.html

ANY CASE - WHAT ARE SOME SIMILAR IYO HIDEOUS STRUCTURES GRACING EUROPEAN CITIES?

Paris' Montparansse Tower must be included as well as Cologne's sparwling main train station built right next to and obscuring much of Cologne's awesome Gothic cathedral.

What are some others?

The Millennium Bridge in London isn't really a building, but it blocks the view of St Paul's cathedral from the Thames. It looks to me like it's wrapped in barbed wire.

I have to agree with you, PalenQ, about the Tour Montparnass....yikes!

Probably blasphemy, and with no consideration given to it's location near Piazza Venezia, I actually like the Vittore Emanuele II Monument. I find it to be both quite beautiful, and very impressive.

I will now brace myself for the expected stoning by the Fodor's masses for having no taste in architecture.

The much-ballyhooed Opera House in Oslo. Sorry -- but it's U-G-L-Y!

phillyboy - I rather agree - rather than just another faux classical edifice of a more modest scale I think the V E II Monment is great because it is so let's say monumnetal.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ol...ruary_2010.jpg

I vomit every time I drive down the A34.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Pr...ion_232-26.jpg

It may be only a place where little old ladies use their senior citizen cards but it drives a lot of people spare. Factions in Preston Council spend most of their budget either trying to demolish it or to make it a world heritage site.

http://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.u...ryraeburn.html

Designed to be so ugly it looks Alex Salmond look like George Clooney.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/62445171@N00/255455467/

Hermitage isn't ugly, it's just brutal. Stand there for 10 minutes and you feel you just have to get away before someone creeps up on you and takes your head off.

When it was new I thought the London Eye looked a little out of place, but I'm used to it now.

I am told there was a time when the Eiffel Tower was disliked by most Parisians.

Berliners are known for their wry commentary on miserable architecture - - this delightful website pictures the most famous, including the pregnant oyster, water meatball, and big asparagus:
http://www.handcraftedtravel.com/blo...n%20the%20road

A rather recent addition to the Munich skyline:
http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?...20110205145634

Looks like a disproportionate fruit bowl, towering over the freeway tunnel.
The only interesting part may be that you can ride the tram through it.

30 St Mary Axe building or also known as the Gherkin in London.
Ugly, Ugly, Ugly!

The I.M. Pei pyramid at the Louvre. The sexual problem that has penetrated London. The Eiffel Tower whose charm has long eluded me and although it is away from most of the Barcelona, Poble Espanyol. The original EPCOT center but with with less insidious tunes.

the Eiffel Tower? come mon Adumchamp - it is to me so so iconic and graceful - you sound like Parisians who shortly after it was put up for some temporary expo wanted it torn down. Have another look and a second and third...lots more edifices in Paris a blight than the Tour Eiffel- the whole Chatelet-Les Halles complex to start...

<i>the whole Chatelet-Les Halles complex to start.</i>

It really depends on the point of view:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mksfca/...57623310709181

A NO BRAINER--- The I.M. Pei pyramid at the Louvre! I don't buy it and never will-- The Emperor has no Clothes people!! It was and it remains an atrocious idea.

the Eiffel Tower? come mon Adumchamp - it is to me so so iconic and graceful
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I have visited Paris four or five times and have yet to visit it. Of course, it is impossible to ignore it. And it is at once a compliment and an insult to be compared to a fin de siècle parisian. (I do not have the opportunity to use that phrase very often.)

The Tower reminds me of a clothes dummy but without the clothes.

I have seen photos of the Eiffel Tower where it was used as a huge billboard with electric lights that spelled Citroën. At least it had some use in the past.

And the last time I was in Paris, a parisienne got at me for not appreciating the I. M. Pei pyramid. I comsider it an an architectual and aesthetic intrusion. And when asked for an alternative, I suggested a neo-gothic structure with blue and red stained glass windows such as those at Chartres and Sainte-Chapelle so that visitors to the museum would bathed in color, depending on the angle of the sun, since the fucntion of the pyramid was to allow light in the main entrance.

Of course Pei is a genius and I have to pay to enter the Louvre.

Scottish Parliment building.

How about the post office in Madrid. It looks like a wedding cake.

Horses for courses ... I like a lot of the buildings that amny of you describe as an eye sore: I like the gherkin, the millennium bridge and even the Preston bus station (very art deco - and i love art deco).

I have to agree that the old trafford is a bit of blight. And to add my own: I'm not a fan of tower bridge in London. I also don't like most baroque architecture. I like the proportions of baroque, but find most their embellishments over-the-top for my taste.

<i>It looks like a wedding cake.</i>

That's what was said of the Opéra Garnier when it was built.

Yep another vote for The I.M. Pei pyramid at the Louvre. What were they thinking. Too much French red me thinks. The Swiss Re building in London - looks like a stool passed after 3 days of constipation. Is the London Eye a building? Either way it should be bought by Dunkin' Donuts, removed and used as a donut mould for "Super Size Me" requests.