We put the UG in UGLY

Well, it's official. City Hall Plaza has officially been declared the ugliest building in the world. Or at least so says website VirtualTourist.

Everyone knows it's an eyesore, and we still argue over it's replacement. But I can see back then people thinking the brutalist architecture would provide the city with something interesting and different. My parents thought the same when they put their wood paneling up. :)

But I also reflected on this today while looking at the new W hotel going up in Boston. This thing is ugly. I mean they had the chance to put up a really cool looking building. but the BRA, maybe much like the people when looking at a new city hall plaza, let developers put up yet another dull building. Sometimes I want to drag these people to Chicago and show them what nice buildings look like. Half of the eyesores going up today look like the generic "IBM" buildings that went up in the 70's.

You can see how bad the building looks, now that the skin goes up a significant number of stories (I'll see if I can get a pic).

So I wonder if we're doomed to just have dull architecture here in Boston. Regular building look dull ( can you say Kendall Square). Buildings that go through BRA approval are dull (or made to look dull - that's another long story). is Boston somehow cursed that we can't have nice buildings????