The Barnes Foundation Philadelphia Campus
2001 Ben Franklin Parkway
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| Those trees need to bloom right fucking now. |
Man... I was really excited when I heard that the Barnes Foundation was moving to the Parkway. I'm not going to rehash all the drama that unfolded about the move, because fuck that, it's OVER! The motherfucker is almost done. Unfortunately, the building we ended up with looks... like... ASS!!!!!
THIS is what we were all waiting for all those years? THIS is what we get after winning World War Motherfucking TEN over moving the collection here? I remember the excitement I had waiting for renderings to come out for this thing. I kept thinking about how the old Barnes building was cool as fuck, so the new one would have to be cool as shit, right? Then the renderings were revealed in October of 2009.
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| Uh... |
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| Wait a minute... |
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| Yeah.... |
HORRIBLENESS. I started telling myself that it was good, just underwhelming in the rendering. I pretended that it wouldn't end up looking like a big white shipping container sitting on a suburban bank branch. Even as it started going up, I told myself that it'll look good. Well, now that its almost done, I can be assured it saying that it LOOKS WORSE THAN I EVER COULD HAVE FUCKING IMAGINED!!
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| Pictured: White shipping container on a suburban bank branch. |
Let me be fair... the building's not done yet. Maybe something will be different when its done... maybe that white box is covered with white craft paper on the inside that will be removed when its finished. Maybe the landscaping of the Zen Garden will be so badass that no one will notice the building... I'm fuckin' reaching here!!
What's with that facade? All the time I've been writing this blog, I would rag on how buildings need to have stone facades again, like in the old days. Finally a new building comes along with a stone facade and all it ends up doing is proving me the fuck wrong. It looks like a kitchen counter. I thought it was bad when we were building stuff out of sidewalk, now we're building out of countertop!!
You know what would have been a good design for the new Barnes Foundation? THIS:
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| Image from the Athenaeum of Philadelphia |
That's right... they should have built a replica of the old Barnes building on the Parkway. It was designed by Paul Phillipe Cret, designer of plenty of other shit that's already on the Parkway, the old Barnes design would look perfect between his other masterpieces... which not only include buildings but also the lampposts and shit. Makes perfect sense right?? Instead, we all got dicked. Maybe some awesome piece of public art will distract away from the building... oh wait..
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| Those rendering people on the right are like "Let's get the fuck out of here!" |
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...nope. That's all I can say about this mess. What a missed opportunity for something cool. What fucking bummer.
