Butt-Fugly Building of the Week-- August 2nd

Fisher Translational Research Center

3300 block of Civic Center Boulevard

Why?

                   This piece of shit hasn't even fully finished construction yet and it already looks like ogre ass. Looks like there might have been an overstock of white Legos in Denmark and they sent them all here. How else do you explain such a shitty design? I mean really... this is one of Philly's latest buildings and it just makes you want to puke when you see it. The worst part is that it is now the most prominent building on the HUP/CHoP mini-skyline.
                The reason that Penn Hospital and CHoP have been building shit like gangbusters along this block is because it just recently became available. Many new Philaphiles are unaware that this area was briefly Philly's cultural and commercial powerhouse. The Philadelphia Convention Hall and Commercial Museum were cool-ass buildings that were part of the five-building Philadelphia Civic Center. Once the Pennsylvania Convention Center was built, these buildings became useless. They were knocked down in 2005.

Convention Hall going down. I'll be telling you more about this mothefucker some other time. Pic by Matt Blaze.

                  Penn and CHoP jumped all over the idea of being able to expand onto this newly empty property. The new buildings they first threw down aren't half-bad looking, but then you get to the Fisher Translational Research Center.
                 It's like the architect, the firm of Rafael Vinoly, chugged a bottle of vodka, huffed a bunch of nitrous and went apeshit with some styrofoam blocks the night before they needed to present the design to Penn. The next morning, they grabbed their styrofoam and scotch tape model and went straight to their presentation. Penn should've known what they were getting into. Just look at the renderings:

The Perelman Center for Advanced Medicine isn't too bad looking.. then you get the Fisher Translational Shitcastle on the right. What the fuck were they thinking?

This is not something someone should be proud to present.

                         I find it hard to believe that whoever was in charge at Penn was like "Sure! That looks like it's worth the $300 million dollars to build!". I mean really... how the fuck did they sell this design? Just look at that side view. It's like they couldn't decide what the fuck to do. It's six ugly buildings mishmashed together.
                         I'm not sure what the fuck Translational Research is but I do know that it'll probably end up saving lives. I guess it's better to have an ugly building that saves human lives than a nice looking building that kills people.

Well...