The Most Hated Famous Buildings
There are many buildings that are unique, because of their shape, and because of the material from which they have been built. People seem to hate what is new and what is different than the norm. In what follows I am going to present you the list of the top 10 popular buildings which were once hated by people.
This structure was planned in 1799, right after George Washington’s death, but the creation of the building could not be achieved because a war started in 1812, and because they did not have the required money to build it. The Washington National Monument Society was created in 1833, and it had the main task of raising money for the creation of the memorial. Robert Mills, an architect from Charleston, South Carolina submitted the winning design, but since they did not raise enough money, they only approved the construction of the obelisk inspired from the Greco-Roman architecture.
As soon as it received the green light, the building was criticized by many people and by the media as well. Mark Twain criticized it, and so did the New York Tribune. The Civil War halted it construction, so it remained unfinished for many years. The construction was resumed in 1877, and it was completed in 1885. There are some people who contest it up to this day as well.
The government of France wanted to celebrate the centennial of the French Revolution, and they wanted to use a symbol of France’s industrial prowess for the occasion. The plan was to build the highest tower in the world, and they selected the Eiffel Tower from all the entries. The plan and the location were made public, and people soon started to complain because of it. Guy de Maupassant and Alexandre Dumas and many other artists signed an angry letter which was sent to the minister of public works, asking him not to construct the tower. They believed that it was very ugly, and that it worsened the aspect of the country. The people who lived in the proximity of the area where the tower was placed feared that it will fall on their houses, and because of it, they sued the ones who constructed it.
The city stated that it would not pay the people in case of such an accident, so Eiffel himself decided to insure them. The construction resumed but people still hated it. Once it was finished, the situation was different, as the Eiffel Tower became a huge success, people from various countries coming to see it, including the artists who contested it. Maupassant was the only one of them who was not charmed by it, still calling it a “tall skinny pyramid of iron ladders, a giant and disgraceful skeleton.”
The Fuller Building which was soon nicknamed The Flatiron Building because of its triangular shape. It has 23 stories, and at the moment when it was constructed, it was the biggest building in New York City. Daniel Hudson Burnham, an architect, was the one who designed it, and contractor George B. Fuller, was the one who constructed it. The building was pretty unique for that period of time, as it had many elements which were only present in the sky-scrapers. The building was constructed in the Madison Square neighborhood, which was quite stylish, and that drew the criticism of the people. They believed that the building made the entire neighborhood uglier, and that it should have been constructed in some other place.
The people feared that the building would collapse because of the strong winds, but that was not the case. In fact, the building was effective against the wind, as it pushed it down. Of course, that was another reason for complaining, as people now stated that the heavy winds which were pushed down on the streets, knocked down the women and the children. It is said that the winds were so powerful down there that they often broke the windows of the other buildings. Despite of all these problems, the building managed to win the heart of the New Yorkers, and nowadays is seen as one of the most iconic buildings from the city.
The architect Philip Johnson bought land in New Canaan, Connecticut in the year 1946, and for the next three years he constructed what would become one of the most hated buildings from the area. He designed a building which was made completely out of huge sheets of glass. The people from the area complained about the fact that it was to modern for the region, as all the other houses from the area had a more classical look. The interesting thing is that the house was not visible from the road, as he decided to place it on a rocky shelf halfway down a hill.
It seemed that the locals were mad because they needed a reason to be mad. The problems started when it was completed, as people often went and threw rocks into it, in order to break it, and the birds kept on flying into it because they did not see it. The problem was eventually solved when he decided to open his house for a tour once a year.
The architect Frank O. Gehry moved into a new neighborhood from Santa Monica, California, in 1978, into the house his wife picked. The house was very simple, so he decided that it needed some modifications. He said that he wanted to make a shell around it, so he did. He gathered lots of materials, from wood to metal, and then he started to add layer after layer on top of the house. He cut the materials into odd shapes, and as you can imagine, that drew criticism from the neighbors.
They stated that the house looks as if an insane person created it, but he was not too affected by what they said. The house became known when it won numerous national architectural contests. That’s the moment when the neighbors started to accept it as well.
