Architecture with a twist!

There Goes the Neighborhood: Ten Buildings People Loved to Hate by Susan Goldman Rubin

With all of the construction going on in our county, do you catch yourself analyzing the new buildings? Not everyone likes what they see. And, of course, some do. This is not unique to 2007 in Fauquier county. Architectural criticism has been going on a long, long time. This library book, There Goes the Neighborhood: Ten Buildings People Loved to Hate, will give you a taste of strong opinions from the past. You know these extremely famous buildings already. So what do you think about the Eiffel Tower, the torqued Guggenheim Museum in New York City, or Washington D.C.'s very own Washington Monument? Mark Twain has an individual view. Once a newspaper man, Mark Twain described the Washington Monument as a "memorial chimney" with "cowsheds about its base, and contented sheep nibbling pebbles...in the holy calm of its projecting shadow"? Not exactly what politicians would say today. And then there is New York City. Architect Frank Lloyd Wright hated cities and viewed this grand place as "a forest of skyscrapers." But then there was a swirling museum thrown in it's midst. The poor Guggenheim Museum has been called, "Screwy." Someone even asked, "What is it?" "A toilet bowl?" Read more about these places and make up your own mind what you think about the buildings and their critics. Check out the stories behind "ten unique and now-famous buildings that initially generated negative public response."