Butt-Fugly Building of the Week-- September 20th

Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts (aka Annenberg School Center for Communication Arts and Sciences)

3680 Walnut Street

Ah jeez. Image from Microsoft.

                     This piece of shit really boils my balls. This is a theatre? This is a center for arts? Then why does it look like a center for donkey taint? I know the picture above is really showing the back of it. Well, guess what? That's the side that anyone ever sees.... the blank wall that faces Walnut Street. The front entrance that faces toward the Penn campus ain't no picnic either. I'm sure nice shit goes on inside there, but fuck, that's an ugly building.
                     What happened to cool looking theatres? Really, what the fuck happened? The Academy of Music, the Musical Fund Hall, the Walnut Street Theatre, the three Chestnut Street Theatres, the Trocadero, the two Forrest Theatres, the Broad Street Theatre, the Victoria, the Boyd... these were built to be attractive and attract people. This motherfucker makes even the Kimmel Center look like the fucking Chrysler Building. It's not very inviting to have a giant blank wall and a diagonal wall of windows facing everyone.
                    In 1966, the Annenberg School of Communications at the University of Pennsylvania needed a space for performances. Walter Annenberg, the mighty business tycoon-philanthropist, gave over the dough to build and run the place. This crazy motherfucker was so rich that he wiped his ass with more money than this thing cost. Seriously, this guy was so loaded that he could have funded a performing arts center 10,000 feet tall made of platinum.
                  The school, for some dumbass reason, decided to go with Vincent Kling for the architect. Vincent Kling is responsible for some of the ugliest piles of concrete lard in the city and he made no exception here. I would call him Vincent Klingon, but Klingons have way better architecture than this shit.

Model of the place before it was built.

                   Look at that picture above. You're telling me that whomever was in charge of this shit looked at that and approved it? Was the person blind? Drunk? A bribe? WHAT THE FUCK!?!?! Someone fucked up. By the grace of Lucifer, this piece of shit was built in 1971.

The main entrance when it was new. Told ya it was crap.

                       This building makes most my previous Butt-Fuglies look like masterpieces. Ass I say! Ass. I'm pretty sure the dump I took this morning is superior architecture. I'll call it the GroJLart Center for the Performing Bowel Movements. Take that, Kling.