Flibbertigibbet

Taipei 101 doesn't belong on that list... although I guess you have to be able to appreciate Asian architecture before you can appreciate that building.

I'm not a person who claims to "appreciate" Asian architecture, but I have to agree with you. Based on those photos nothing really offends my eye.

The staggered-stacking effect they've employed doesn't exactly wow me, but it doesn't disgust or frighten me. I don't think I would even put it on the same list with the others, frankly, but the others... oh dear.

I love how the Russian embassy looks like a prison.

The thing about Taipei 101 is that the shape has an adverse psychological effect on passersby. The shape deliberately runs against what people visually expect - distant objects (like the top of a skyscraper) get smaller. This is exploited by "normally-shaped" skyscrapers. By getting smaller at the top (e.g. Chrysler Building), the building gives the impression that it is taller, when viewed from the base. By flouting this convention (and normally, I'm all for flouting conventions), the Taipei 101 appears from below as a hovering, domineering structure, looming over and pressing down upon passersby, instead of reaching upwards to lofty new heights. It is, in effect, the tallest building trying to look shorter and fatter than it really is. I hesitate to use the phrase "psychologically oppressive," but in this narrow application, I think it is appropriate.

In short, I'm not all that fond of it.

~Q

I accidentally created a smaller replica of the Taipei 101 building in my kitchen. This is where I stacked weeks worth of Chinese take-out boxes.

I actually find the building to be charming.

Ugh. I neglected to mention that that list neglected to mention anything by Frank Gehry.

Seattle's Experience Music Project, The Guggenheim Bilbao, the Lewis building at CWRU in Cleveland (there was a shooting in that one), and, coming soon, a performing arts complex at World Trade Center and a stadium, shopping and residential complex at Atlantic Street Station in Brooklyn.

Barf. Literally. They all look like barf.

~Q