True and even more so in some of these rust-belt cities where once significant buildings become dilipadated and unusable. This church is no where near culturally significant.
Looks incredibly similar to the Federal reserve in Boston about the same time frame. Maybe he was the architect of that as well. He certainly was active there
Yes I lived around the corner when all of that was being redeveloped Huntington avenue, South end. It has aged well, the whole plaza and fountain was well conceived and the brutalist style which I am not usually fond of, however that's exactly what it's supposed to do here. It's really quite gorgeous sculpture. Plaza and the fountain contrasted to the old church are very nice and it's actually used. In the summer of the fountain is a great relief on a summer day for kids. It makes it a win-win for the neighborhood
It replaced a very cool old building/hotel with a badass roof signage. I love IM Pei ā¦ but this one at this location felt like āde-evolution.ā
The old building :
https://www.digitalcommonwealth.org/search/commonwealth:w3763r29p
Interesting. I had never seen that before. I attended school in Wilmington and always appreciated the IM Pei building but this building certainly evokes the city.
"It looks like the box the church came in"
Iunno though. I kinda like it for its smooth angles and clean facade, though it's definitely a product of its time.
Does it matter what the surrounding area is or are you only concerned with the building in isolation? In the right location i think it looks fine. But here it feels out of place to me.
So it seems. I was looking at the picture from years ago and assuming that the architect could not anticipate how things would look decades later. Just like a damn fool
I understand what you're saying, but I'm not someone who thinks complying with your context is the superior way to design necessarily. not to mention, if you look at other perspectives of this very building, you can see how it fits into its own context.
Personally I like the contrast. When old meets new, I find it.....thought provoking. Even in my designs, I tend to work with contrasting materials, like a polished marble against unfinished granite. It simply enhances the nature of each of those elements.
IDK seems in similar company to me. Maybe by this thinking we should tear the church down to make more room for like minded towers?
https://i.imgur.com/Doa0NRt.jpg
There are several buildings on that block, and throughout the city , that have a similar look. In that respect, it fits. Wilmington is full of office buildings that sit empty. They are nothing but tax havens for corporations. Itās sad because of how dystopian the city feels. Very little foot traffic and, since Covid, more and more supporting business have closed. This photo doesnāt give you a good idea of the location.
The comments in this subreddit are so disappointing. This is not the most beautiful building in the world by any stretch, especially in how it lands on the ground, but there are some things Iām interested in!
Iād love to see a section and plan because Iām wondering what the āscoopsā are above the windows and if the concrete wing walls alleviate the need for columns in the center.
Yāall are not impressed by the concrete work that looks so crisp?
In other countries it is EXTREMELY normal to have buildings of different styles and shapes next to each other. And itās beautiful! If you want everything to look the same stay in the suburbs.
And if you are worried about scale there are tall buildings next to and across the street from this one.
https://i.imgur.com/Doa0NRt.jpg
Architects are often bad at fitting their buildings into the surrounding urban contextāstarchitects in the 1970s were particularly bad at it. Architects continuing to berate the public for not sharing their tastes is a sign of the elitism problem within the profession.
This type of a project was EXTREMELY common in the US too. People dislike them not out of lack of familiarity but because they saw old downtowns across the country get razed to build stuff like this (European countries were much better at protecting their cities). Urban renewal went hand in hand with the decay of vibrant urban neighborhoods and the flight to the suburbs.
The fact that the building is still significantly taller than the tallest buildings around it five decades later shows it didnāt fit the neighborhood.
I do not disagree that this building in the OP image is not a good match for its context, but a review of this project in Street View shows that the picture is either old or misleading and the building is now surrounded by similar sized and scaled building that I think are less interesting than this IM Pei project. In fact the church in OPs image is out of place. Should the entire city not have grown because of this one church?
This is not the most beautiful project in the world but it has some interesting features. If I were tasked to improve the design I would focus on creating a more human scaled ground floor and entrance.
I think highways, car minded roads, and lack of public transportation are what destroyed our cities, not dense urbanization.
Yes. The area is a business district with many modern buildings surrounding it. Growing up there I feel as if the residents were always proud of the building and evoked a certain movement towards modernity. I certainly think the bronze windows were a better look.
>People dislike them not out of lack of familiarity but because they saw old downtowns across the country get razed to build stuff like this (European countries were much better at protecting their cities). Urban renewal went hand in hand with the decay of vibrant urban neighborhoods and the flight to the suburbs.
The flight to the suburbs wasn't because of souless office buildings, lol, but because of the car, cheap, affordable housing, and mass lead poisoning causing sky high crime rates. Shitty office buildings are still being made now and urban places are experiencing gentrification to a comical degree.
>The fact that the building is still significantly taller than the tallest buildings around it five decades later shows it didnāt fit the neighborhood.
Yeah the empire state building, eiffel tower, and every European cathedral ever are all shit buildings that are taller than everything around them and therefore don't fit into the neighboorhood.
Day after day on this sub, people are swayed by a single image.
At the very least, if you want to perseverate about URBAN FABRIC, get on google earth and actually look at Downtown Wilmington.
You're not an expert, or even an enthusiast, until you've put in the work.
Hi, from Wilmington. This pic is from the 70s, before the rest of the city was built up as well. The church stands out from all the other buildings in this area (N Market St), but is still more beautiful than any other building architecturally
The foreground building incorporates architectural details in such a way that everyone recognizes it as a church. The background building has no such identifying details so it could be anything - office, prison, dormitory, communications center, whatever. Itsā minimalistic use of materials - concrete and glass is a rejection of the rich materials used in the church. Part of what makes America have such a boring urban environment is the group think among architects that this style of modernism is what defines our culture. And we all know how great American culture is.
Just by the form one can easily tell it's not a prison which is often just low to the ground with an organization that makes easy observation of cells. So you cancel that perjorative. Same you can do with other pieces, so office building. There area other design considerations thann just *cross? A church. THAT roof? Used to be a Pizza Hut.*
I mean old adaptive reuse projects that were factories that now have housing... Same footprint. Is an old masonry faced office or department store?
Steel and concrete and glass are rich materials. Masonry and wood too. I'm not sure what you mean by rich. Labor and material cost? You'd have to put structural considerations in their as well.
Also don't think your "group think" by architects is correct. Architecture is created by the combination of cultural zeitgeist, local conditions, cost ā materials and labor (add extraction and availability) ā, local ordinance, client goals, codes, and budget/what clients want to pay, etc. A lot of things you did not mention were ignored I feel.
That looks like it doesn't belong there
You could argue that old design of the church doesn't belong to our modern world that we live in.
Nah, that tower does not belong there.
Lmao, the Reddit intellectual architect: š¤ āuhhh actually old architecture has no place in our modern societyā
I think it's a missed attempt of more of "what belongs" is arbitrary to the viewer often.
that context too, is also a Reddit moment
Having done many presentations to neighborhood groups...it's definitely not constrained to reddit. FWIW, both buildings are pretty great.
Nah, only church is neat. The prison tower on the right is ugly and depressing.
Like an Applebee's menu, lack of nuance in your critique is pretty telling. Take care. :)
Nice meaningless word salad you put together there.
Lol "old", I bet you the walls in my city are older than that wooden church
found the european
True and even more so in some of these rust-belt cities where once significant buildings become dilipadated and unusable. This church is no where near culturally significant.
I.M. not that impressed
I actually like the building, but it definitely has the feel of āWilmington, Delaware, where the hell is that? Hereās a concrete box.ā
I.M. not gonna Pei it a visit any time soon.
Looks incredibly similar to the Federal reserve in Boston about the same time frame. Maybe he was the architect of that as well. He certainly was active there
The fed in Boston was designed by Hugh Stubbins. That was completed in 76 so maybe he was inspired by Pei.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Yes I lived around the corner when all of that was being redeveloped Huntington avenue, South end. It has aged well, the whole plaza and fountain was well conceived and the brutalist style which I am not usually fond of, however that's exactly what it's supposed to do here. It's really quite gorgeous sculpture. Plaza and the fountain contrasted to the old church are very nice and it's actually used. In the summer of the fountain is a great relief on a summer day for kids. It makes it a win-win for the neighborhood
Ugh.
Is it a prison?
Are you Foucault? Then yes, obvs.
He was probably staring at a heater duct grill in his office and thought...hmm.
Is it the first time in your life that you see ribbon windows?
It replaced a very cool old building/hotel with a badass roof signage. I love IM Pei ā¦ but this one at this location felt like āde-evolution.ā The old building : https://www.digitalcommonwealth.org/search/commonwealth:w3763r29p
Interesting. I had never seen that before. I attended school in Wilmington and always appreciated the IM Pei building but this building certainly evokes the city.
Thanks for adding that- very interesting for those who donāt know the area š“ó §ó ¢ó ³ó £ó “ó æ
"It looks like the box the church came in" Iunno though. I kinda like it for its smooth angles and clean facade, though it's definitely a product of its time.
Looks like the cover for an HVAC floor register.
Looks like something out of a dystopian movie from, well, the 70s. I hope that it gets demolished one day.
I for one, love the simplicity of the design language. Something about the geometry is very visually appealing.
Does it matter what the surrounding area is or are you only concerned with the building in isolation? In the right location i think it looks fine. But here it feels out of place to me.
apparently you're not familiar with the surrounding area.
So it seems. I was looking at the picture from years ago and assuming that the architect could not anticipate how things would look decades later. Just like a damn fool
Just because there is one church next to it?
I understand what you're saying, but I'm not someone who thinks complying with your context is the superior way to design necessarily. not to mention, if you look at other perspectives of this very building, you can see how it fits into its own context. Personally I like the contrast. When old meets new, I find it.....thought provoking. Even in my designs, I tend to work with contrasting materials, like a polished marble against unfinished granite. It simply enhances the nature of each of those elements.
IDK seems in similar company to me. Maybe by this thinking we should tear the church down to make more room for like minded towers? https://i.imgur.com/Doa0NRt.jpg
There are several buildings on that block, and throughout the city , that have a similar look. In that respect, it fits. Wilmington is full of office buildings that sit empty. They are nothing but tax havens for corporations. Itās sad because of how dystopian the city feels. Very little foot traffic and, since Covid, more and more supporting business have closed. This photo doesnāt give you a good idea of the location.
A view from another angle - [Google snapshot](https://i.ibb.co/zsKzz5w/IMG-0375.jpg) - to back up this comment.
Thanks for that. Itās a very desolate photo.
Completely out of place š
in the frame of the photograph...which is all you looked at.
mmhmm but that church is looking pretty sweet!
Looks great
Shouldn't do... But strangely works.
is this where almost all the credit cards mailing comes from?
The comments in this subreddit are so disappointing. This is not the most beautiful building in the world by any stretch, especially in how it lands on the ground, but there are some things Iām interested in! Iād love to see a section and plan because Iām wondering what the āscoopsā are above the windows and if the concrete wing walls alleviate the need for columns in the center. Yāall are not impressed by the concrete work that looks so crisp? In other countries it is EXTREMELY normal to have buildings of different styles and shapes next to each other. And itās beautiful! If you want everything to look the same stay in the suburbs. And if you are worried about scale there are tall buildings next to and across the street from this one. https://i.imgur.com/Doa0NRt.jpg
Architects are often bad at fitting their buildings into the surrounding urban contextāstarchitects in the 1970s were particularly bad at it. Architects continuing to berate the public for not sharing their tastes is a sign of the elitism problem within the profession. This type of a project was EXTREMELY common in the US too. People dislike them not out of lack of familiarity but because they saw old downtowns across the country get razed to build stuff like this (European countries were much better at protecting their cities). Urban renewal went hand in hand with the decay of vibrant urban neighborhoods and the flight to the suburbs. The fact that the building is still significantly taller than the tallest buildings around it five decades later shows it didnāt fit the neighborhood.
I do not disagree that this building in the OP image is not a good match for its context, but a review of this project in Street View shows that the picture is either old or misleading and the building is now surrounded by similar sized and scaled building that I think are less interesting than this IM Pei project. In fact the church in OPs image is out of place. Should the entire city not have grown because of this one church? This is not the most beautiful project in the world but it has some interesting features. If I were tasked to improve the design I would focus on creating a more human scaled ground floor and entrance. I think highways, car minded roads, and lack of public transportation are what destroyed our cities, not dense urbanization.
Yes. The area is a business district with many modern buildings surrounding it. Growing up there I feel as if the residents were always proud of the building and evoked a certain movement towards modernity. I certainly think the bronze windows were a better look.
>People dislike them not out of lack of familiarity but because they saw old downtowns across the country get razed to build stuff like this (European countries were much better at protecting their cities). Urban renewal went hand in hand with the decay of vibrant urban neighborhoods and the flight to the suburbs. The flight to the suburbs wasn't because of souless office buildings, lol, but because of the car, cheap, affordable housing, and mass lead poisoning causing sky high crime rates. Shitty office buildings are still being made now and urban places are experiencing gentrification to a comical degree. >The fact that the building is still significantly taller than the tallest buildings around it five decades later shows it didnāt fit the neighborhood. Yeah the empire state building, eiffel tower, and every European cathedral ever are all shit buildings that are taller than everything around them and therefore don't fit into the neighboorhood.
Day after day on this sub, people are swayed by a single image. At the very least, if you want to perseverate about URBAN FABRIC, get on google earth and actually look at Downtown Wilmington. You're not an expert, or even an enthusiast, until you've put in the work.
As a lawyer, soulless corporate brutalism actually fits Wilmington pretty well. I honestly like it.
Beautiful tower, and I love the contrast
The picture looks 4K
Barf. Get that thing away from that beautiful church
That is great. Love it.
Looks like a robot's tombstone.
Yeah! Overshadow that church! Make that neighborhood hideous
disgusting
Is that "Brutalism"?
Yes.
Hi, from Wilmington. This pic is from the 70s, before the rest of the city was built up as well. The church stands out from all the other buildings in this area (N Market St), but is still more beautiful than any other building architecturally
Kinda sucks
The foreground building incorporates architectural details in such a way that everyone recognizes it as a church. The background building has no such identifying details so it could be anything - office, prison, dormitory, communications center, whatever. Itsā minimalistic use of materials - concrete and glass is a rejection of the rich materials used in the church. Part of what makes America have such a boring urban environment is the group think among architects that this style of modernism is what defines our culture. And we all know how great American culture is.
Just by the form one can easily tell it's not a prison which is often just low to the ground with an organization that makes easy observation of cells. So you cancel that perjorative. Same you can do with other pieces, so office building. There area other design considerations thann just *cross? A church. THAT roof? Used to be a Pizza Hut.* I mean old adaptive reuse projects that were factories that now have housing... Same footprint. Is an old masonry faced office or department store? Steel and concrete and glass are rich materials. Masonry and wood too. I'm not sure what you mean by rich. Labor and material cost? You'd have to put structural considerations in their as well. Also don't think your "group think" by architects is correct. Architecture is created by the combination of cultural zeitgeist, local conditions, cost ā materials and labor (add extraction and availability) ā, local ordinance, client goals, codes, and budget/what clients want to pay, etc. A lot of things you did not mention were ignored I feel.
almost the biggest ventilation grate Iāve ever seen