Which do you think is the ugliest building in the city? For me, it’s the Aquatic Centre on Beach Avenue:
Is it:
- One end of a coffin sticking out of the ground?
- Some kind of stuccoed alien landing craft?
- An homage to speed bumps everywhere?
In truth, the Beach Avenue entrance is less heinous, and the inside is pretty nifty, but seen from most angles, it’s truly appalling. And, I think you’ll agree, that’s some pretty valuable (in terms of cash and eyeballs) urban space it’s occupying.
I did a quick Google search to see if I could turn up some history on the building, but came up empty. Maybe I’ll wander over and do a meatspace search.
UPDATE: Tanya’s got a different perspective on the Aquatic Centre, which, charitably, is slightly more flattering.
DarrenBarefoot.com 
ok, I have to admit, Vancouver’s got Toronto beat there 😉
Maybe it’s some metaphor. It reminds me of an overturned boat. I think there are uglier buildings in Greater Vancouver.
I think it’s that green monstrosty of an apartment building at the south end of the Burrard Street Bridge. It’s gawdawful.
According to the Parks Board website, the Aquatic Centre won awards for its design by Duncan McNab and Partners in 1974. They set it into the hill and were thus able to maximize space. It’s still incredibly ugly, IMHO. But I have never been able to decide if it’s uglier than the green building Sean mentioned. I overlooked both when I lived on English Bay. Only the view of the Creek and Bay offset those monstrosities!
The VPL has/had a building database on their website. I just tried to find it, but no luck. You can look up building names and addresses to see what info there is. Maybe start there.
I’d prefer this building to Yet Another Condo tower.
Yes, it’s ugly. Ugly with a capital UGH! But I have to agree with Chris – I do prefer it to the condo ‘forest’.
Condo towers may be generic, but the VAC has the distinction of visually detracting from the space it’s in, which is already ugly because it’s under a bridge. That’s an accomplishment.
The Masonic Hall and CBC building might beat it, though.
Incidentally, when I first saw the building as a kid, I thought it was a heap of sawdust, like you see beside beehive burners.
It’s got to be that horrible green high-story building at the entrance to Kits (just across the street from the molson factory)…
Apparantly that building has a big waiting list though – because of the views..
I vote for the CBC building as suggested by Derek. The Aquatic Centre at least seems kind of odd. The CBC building is just painful to look at.
I knew the excellent researcher Andrea would come up with something–I had but to ask.
I agree with Duncan – that green building is hideous. Half of the windows are covered with aluminum foil – it looks like it’s infested with grow-ops.
It was just that I’d looked it up myself recently.
Definetly Top 10. Can’t think of any others off the top of my head but I remember as a kid despising having to do backstroke in that pool at a top swim meet and running into the lane ropes and shreading my shoulder – the lines on the roof aren’t aligned with the pool lanes. Threw me off every year.
I’ve been thinking about it, and there are any number of uglier buildings in the city, such as the dozens or hundreds of slapdash retail-ground-floor-condo/apartment-above, two- to four-floor “leaky condo” quickies built in the ’80s and ’90s, which were originally painted in faux-California pastel colours, and are now encrusted with algae and stained by water, cracking around the windows. I can think of several along Kingsway and Main Street alone.
They aren’t prominent structures, but they make parts of the city uglier. At least the VAC is actually a nice pool, and the skylights make the inside relatively pleasant.
I’ll vote again for the Masonic Hall, since I still have bad memories of taking a Grade 4 Royal Conservatory guitar exam there in 1982. And I’ll point to my nominee for the ugliest part of Greater Vancouver, from March 2005.
“faux-California pastel colours”
Good old Teal and Veal …
The Aquatic Centre is an eyesore, maybe if they blasted a wall of windows along the side, it would lighten it up a bit. The view would be v. cool, and the light inside would improve immensely.
This building is not the ugliest in vancouver. I admire the clarity of its form…much better than another contorted stack of window-wall condominiums. At least it aims at something poetic,whereas most of vancouver’s condos only aim at capitol profitablility. even if the aquatic centre is a failed expression of something poetic I prefer it over the successful expression of what amounts to a bar graph at the scale of a city.
by the way,
that “hideous green building” is one of my favorite in the city. The coulours are beautiful and fit well with the surroundings and the form is clean, well proportioned and dignified.
It is ugly from the outside, but looks pretty good on the inside. What this building needs is a total makeover for its exterior building enveloppe to enhance and update its look for the 21st century.
On the inside, its fine as it is. On the same note, I can think of other hideous looking buildings that could use a real exterior makeover such as the Sears building downtown( I hate its roof, and windowless tiled facades) and of course, the Masonic Building on 7th avenue at Hemlock street.
There are buildings in the City that are really ugly.
No doubt about it. Some could be retrofitted and altered dramatically to enhance their appearance in order to renovate them and not demolish..But there are some HIDEOUS buildings in the City that are PRIME CANDIDATES FOR DEMOLITION.
1-Canasoy Warehouse on Powell Street
2-Opsal Steel Building (2nd Avenue near Main).
3-Big characterless office building at 6th and Main
and not to mention, tacky “monster houses” all over the city!
In my view, the VAC is without a doubt the ugliest public building in Vancouver, if not the entire province. It’s bunker-like structure is reminiscent of Stalinist architecture at its peak. A true homage to the 1970’s … and that’s not a good thing. It’s quite tragic that this swimming pool – the only 50 metre indoor pool in the entire city (a whole other complaint of mine) – is located just feet from False Creek, and yet it didn’t occur to the architect to include some windows on that side of the building! What an idiot.
Also, I disagree with some of my fellow swimmers who say they like the inside of the VAC. I think the inside is a dump. The men’s locker rooms are disgusting – the worst I’ve seen anywhere by far – and the pool (especially in the evenings) is way too crowded. The pool is already very dated and needs to be replaced. It was built in the mid-70’s at a time when Vancouver had a fraction of the population is has now. It is now too small; the water is too warm and overly chlorinated; and it doesn’t have any of the amenities that are now standard in modern pools such as a separate play area for kids. The pool in West Van and Commonwealth Pool in Victoria are perfect examples of what the VAC should be like. The entire building should be bulldozed and replaced with an aquatic centre that does this city justice.