You can sex it up with starchitects and sprinkle on some perfume and dress it in a diamond bracelet, but public housing will always look like public housing.

We celebrate that ARCHDaily! has "made it to the shortlist for Best Online Magazine at the Open Web Awards" [!!!!!] with...



...a new quonset hut in Rotterdam!

No wait, we got it: A PLATFORM HORSESHOE!

Why does the world need a kilometer-tall artificial mountain?!?!?

Produced by Jeffrey Katzenberg?

Not only can STARCHITECTS come up with pretentious buildings, they come up with pretentious reasons:

The big dilema [SIC] of this kind of project in the city is the public space, most of the times only approached at ground level. Francisco Mangado’s strategy includes public program along the tower, as a vertical boulevard.

After the residences on the first levels, we find a public lobby on floor 27th, with public services and restaurants, where the tower varies in section as you can see on the drawings below. We find more public facilities at the top, continuing with this openness of the program as the tower develops.

TRANSLATION: The sky's the limit if they're selling condos -- and how many of the owners will want the PUBLIC in on their fun?

Now here is a rarity: modern architecture that is humble, that strikes a new note while bowing to the past.

On the other hand:



A fine old building grows a third-rate factory and balcony-shaped zits.

Not too long ago we posted on some Depression-era designs for synagogues that suggested a library, or a bank, or a train station. This is the HIP! modern equivalent: the Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies. It says nothing except that we could afford a sexy starchitect.

Take out all the HIP! angles and it's perfectly banal.