Old State Building Coming Down

Ugliest? How about the new Caltrans HQ. Sorry, I just don't get it, what emotions are they trying to express. It doesn't mesh with the surroundings and it has no groundfloor retail. Just seeing it makes you want to turn around and walk the other way.

The ugliest? Hands down, I nominate beauties like these:

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/23/32111503_bbcdd9ba1e.jpg?v=0

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/23/32112089_dfd96266f6.jpg?v=0

The CalTrans/LA DOT building is a post-structural gem in my opinion (and I know I stand in the minority here).

First of all, it does have public "retail" in the courtyard -- a bank and a very reasonable cafe -- whereas most government buildings do not. It also has a public amphitheater and a very nice seating area where an interior air/light shaft is revealed to visitors.

What is it trying to express? You'd have to ask the architects.

But what I see is a 'traditional' glass office tower with an exoskeleton which regulates its temperature from sunshine with automatic shades.

It should be noted too that one of the realizations after the bombings of two American embassies in Africa last decade was that the terrorists used an initial small explosion to draw workers from their desks to the windows and then detonated their primary device which sent glass into people which caused most of the casualties. So CalTrans is a building which comes close to being car bomb proof and I suspect this weighed heavy in the design plans.

As such, what I see is a government building designed for the 21st century in more ways than one.

p.s. I forgot to mention some people who work for CalTrans refer to 100 S. Main as "The Death Star" for aesthetic and bureaucratic reasons.

i second benjamin's opinion of the CalTrans building, i rather like it too.

I also really love the CalTrans building. It all comes together in such a wierd and cool way. My vote for ugliest goes to ..hmm I don't know. Well, it's not a building, but I think Pershing Square is the ugliest piece of ugly since the last really ugly thing that was ugly.

Caltrans building - original and rather daring - that says a lot about a gov't bldg. I can't really say too much negative about it - though I really don't care for the gigantic egotistic address numbers, and that scrunched sunshade structure is rather overbearing. Yeah, it really gives LA Street the bird, doesn't it!

Hmmm. Uggggliest building Downtown. Hard to say - there are so many great buildings - and quite a few uglies as well. Yeah, Pershing Square is an abortion, but it is not really a building...

So - I'd have to say, now that the old State building is going away, that the boring, bland, oh-so-obviously mediocre City National Bank tower near Pershing Square would get my razzy... only because a developer building a high-rise has no excuse (and had no excuse back then) to put up such a lame building.

I've said it before and will say it again

ugliest downtown building is 600 s spring. Now owned by Barry Shy. Not likely to get better, unfortunately

The top is fair, unremarkable, the bottom 4 stories are an abomination of blank marble and really really cheesy cheap aluminum extrusion. The inside it pretty awful too, though empty, so who knows what it could be like occupied.

Go look at it, yikes!

Can't really tell if it ever looked better or if the marble siding is covering up something good.

I would have given second place to the shingle covered thing, now being torn down, I guess.

600 S. Spring is waaaay out of place. In the suburbs, surrounded several acres of asphalt parking lots and freeway interchanges, it would look a little more appropriate.

But jammed into a traditional urban canyon setting, surrounded by Beaux Arts bank buildings from the 1920's (which, fortunately, were not torn down), it is utterly at sea. The people that built it there, instead of further west (along Figueroa or Flower Street), where the financial district was about to move in the late 1950's, took a big risk in using that location, and ate it big time.

The best thing about 600 S. Spring St. is the depth of its parking garage. Something which will be very much needed around here in the near future.

The Cal-Trans building is very "green" and will be appreciated longer it's around. I also agree, the worst in downtown is Pershing Square. They should take it back to its historic look a large grass lawn and a fountain.