Fugly Buildings

The Fugliest Motel in Los Angeles? Best Western Royal Palace, 2528 S. Sepulveda Blvd., West L.A.

By Wendy Gilmartin Tue., Feb. 5 2013 at 12:39 PM
Categories: Architecture, Fugly Buildings

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Wendy Gilmartin
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Road-weary tourists and business travelers know it's hard to find an affordable place to get some shut-eye in this town, which is why visitors to the Best Western Plus "Royal Palace" Inn & Suites are fair to judge the rooms here as they are: fine, quiet enough and clean enough, for the low price tag in this high-rent zip code of West Los Angeles. Apparently, the free continental breakfast is not too bad either. But take a step out on to the street and it's a different story.


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Fugly Buildings

The Fugly Brown Wall Off the 405 Freeway at the 90 Freeway, in Westchester

By Wendy Gilmartin Tue., Nov. 13 2012 at 8:00 AM
Categories: Architecture, Cityscape, Fugly Buildings

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Wendy Gilmartin

We can thank the developers and architects who built the Alessio apartments on Centinela Avenue in Westchester for this one. To all those visitors to L.A. who emerge from LAX's arrival terminal and head north up the 405, this is what greets them: A seven-story-tall, poo-brown colored wall -- which almost makes the Promenade at the Howard Hughes Center across the highway look dynamic.


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Fugly Buildings

Le Fugly: The Hideous French Pastiche of the Versailles Apartments, 918 S. Oxford Street, Koreatown

By Wendy Gilmartin Tue., Sep. 18 2012 at 2:17 PM
Categories: Architecture, Fugly Buildings

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Wendy Gilmartin
Finally a building style that will please everyone: Rapunzel, her prince, Dracula, the Wicked Witch of the West and Pepe Le Pew (but maybe not his lady cat friend). The Versailles apartments at 918 S. Oxford between James M. Wood boulevard and San Marino Street are sort of like that castle you pay 80 bucks to visit down in Anaheim, but up here, on this hilly residential street at the K-town/mid-city border, the sugary nostalgia's gone rank and its definitely not the happiest place on earth.

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Fugly Buildings

The Zipper on a Pants Suit: Harmony Gold Theater & Offices, 7655 Sunset Blvd., Hollywood

By Wendy Gilmartin Tue., Sep. 4 2012 at 9:00 AM
Categories: Architecture, Fugly Buildings

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Wendy Gilmartin

7655 Sunset Boulevard stands as a dated throwback to Hollywood's swinging mid-to-late century heydey, and just like exposed chest hair and copious gold chains, the "Harmony GOLD" signage out front really completes the look on this groovy geezer. (Blink too fast and you might mistake the sign for the classic "Solid Gold" logo).


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Fugly Buildings

The Vanilla Villa: Orsini Apartments, Cesar Chavez Avenue & Figueroa Street, Downtown

By Wendy Gilmartin Tue., Aug. 14 2012 at 9:00 AM
Categories: Architecture, Cityscape, Fugly Buildings

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Wendy Gilmartin

Even before construction crews broke ground on the Orsini apartment complex back in 2001, its developers made themselves locally infamous for wriggling out of an inclusionary zoning provision that requires new residential apartment developments to contain at least 15 percent affordable units. (Attorneys on the developer's side argued the provision would cause "difficulties and hardships" by lowering the owners' cash flow.)

Flash forward 11 years later (and two additional phases and two enormous additional buildings later) and the Orsini apartments at Figueroa Street and Cesar Chavez Avenue downtown are currently more than 15 percent vacant. They also host one of the hottest parking garages in town for car break-ins and petty criminal activity.

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Fugly Buildings

The Bank That Looks Like a Del Taco: 6348 Sepulveda Blvd., Van Nuys

By Wendy Gilmartin Tue., Jul. 31 2012 at 12:19 PM
Categories: Architecture, Fugly Buildings

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Wendy Gilmartin

You can walk in and ask for a "Del Fargo" burrito at this Wells Fargo branch in Van Nuys but, sadly, you probably aren't gonna get one.

Built in 2007 where a Mobil gas station used to sit at the corner of Victory and Sepulveda Boulevards, this fairly new, ketchup and mustard-colored building could fool any stoner cruising for munchies late at night through the San Fernando Valley.


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Fugly Buildings

Fugly Landscaping: The Hedge That Looks Like an Afro

By Wendy Gilmartin Tue., Jul. 17 2012 at 10:58 AM
Categories: Architecture, Fugly Buildings

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Wendy Gilmartin
Fro-hedge at the corner of Leyland and Seward in Hollywood
Early on in architecture school, a professor advised me against filling in a half-baked drawing with a row of sycamore trees. Admittedly, I was trying to cover up the unresolved aspects of the design.

"Ah trees," he sighed gently, raising one eyebrow, "the architect's eraser."

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Architecture

The Fugly Neon Aquarium at 11280 W. Olympic Blvd.

By Wendy Gilmartin Tue., Jul. 3 2012 at 10:46 AM
Categories: Architecture, Cityscape, Fugly Buildings

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Wendy Gilmartin
At the busy corner of Olympic and Sawtelle sits a banal retail center that's typical of Los Angeles' low commercial-development standards, complete with all the elements of conventional, early-'90s design and construction. You've got your beige block, your beige stucco, your storefront glass, your copper and teal accents. But this building has that extra something that sets it apart from the others; a garish, eye-popping feature that really makes it an outlier -- its giant, glowing neon aquarium-seascape scene that comes blazing to life each evening after the sun sets.

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Fugly Buildings

Fugly Gets a Facelift: How Will Massimiliano Fuksas Polish the Turd That Is the Beverly Center?

By Wendy Gilmartin Tue., Jun. 19 2012 at 11:35 AM
Categories: Architecture, Cityscape, Fugly Buildings

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Wendy Gilmartin
Seems like everybody hates the Beverly Center. A local "landmark" of sorts, the Beverly Center has been regularly mocked for decades due to its downright fugliness, impenetrable facades that block out the sun, and awkward siting along the Los Angeles/Beverly Hills border.

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Fugly Buildings

Black Is the New Fugly: 2727 W. Olympic Blvd., Koreatown

By Wendy Gilmartin Tue., Jun. 5 2012 at 12:16 PM
Categories: Architecture, Cityscape, Fugly Buildings

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Wendy Gilmartin

L.A.'s got a lot of buildings coated with black glass bleck -- like the horrendous eyesore at Sony Pictures Plaza in Culver City, the Olympia Medical Plaza near San Vicente and Olympic and this newly reopened BBCN bank (formerly the Nara bank, which merged last fall with Center Bank to create BBCN) at 2727 W. Olympic Blvd. in Koreatown.


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