It’s All Subjective

There’s a lot of beauty in the world, but a lot of ugly shit, too, and for some perverse reason my eye was drawn this morning to a slide show of “World’s Most Evil Architecture.”
Well, some of the choices I agreed with. I was not surprised that Prague made the list with Žižkov Tower, and the babies climbing up it. That is one of the ugliest structures anywhere and it dominates the skyline of this mainly beautiful metropolis. Jarring. Out of place. Evil looking is not an entirely accurate appellation.
But there were a lot that I thought looked pretty good: The apartment complex in Singapore, the skyscraper that looked a bit like a stack of Jenga blocks, a house (or, more likely a small hotel) in Zakopane, Poland, with a wavy tile roof, and the Seattle Space Needle. How can the Seattle Space Needle be on a list of evil looking architecture?
Of course, there were a lot of angled shots of huge apartment complexes, hundred of rows of identical doors going up forever. It’s a bit of a cliche, and a bit of a cheap shot. It is, I suppose, an accurate commentary on our current, over-populated, over regulated civilization, but… As long as the water runs hot and cold, as long as the electricity stays on, whether an individual or a family living behind those doors is in heaven or hell, has a good life or a bad life, is pretty much entirely up to them. Could be aesthetically improved, I’m sure. But, it’s not necessarily dystopian.
Anyway, fair’s fair, and a double whatever. The lists, and the slide shows we see on Facebook are almost all random, arbitrary, and just something somebody made up. I wouldn’t take them too seriously.