We have all heard of Zar Catherine's lover cum civil servant Count Potemkin and his fake buildings on the Crimea. But who knows that this was fake news created by his rival G. von Helbing! You can still visit remnants of Potemkin's impressive architectural achievements. Nowadays, however, many a picturesque Swiss heritage town is more fake than fact. In Lenzburg, for instance, officials have given the go ahead to destroy all but the façades of the three oldest buildings in the historic centre dating back to 1492. That is when Columbus discovered America... This kind of conservationist heritage myth serves to bluff tourists into spending their money on fakes. Uglypedia's approach is more straightforward: we don't want our kids to adore the ashes as long as there is a cultural fire in the failed monuments of civilization! Heritage is not a value in itself. High time to create new policies and laws that allow the transformation of ugly icons into something useful, beautiful, interesting and durable for the coming generations. Before the invention of cultural conservation, buildings that lost their purpose were given new leases of life with new functions or their building material was used for other uses - the Collisseum in Rome is a case in question.

We have all seen pictures of abandoned or still operating mines and quarries - open wounds on this planet. They are as ugly as could be and make us wonder what will happen to them, when they have been exploited (see our post of the Bereniki potash mine that seems beyond any chance of ever being less than a disaster area with bottomless chasms where the ground caved in!). Here, however, creative architects have found extraordinary solutions for two abandoned quarries in China. And this is what uglypedia is all about: displaying ugly icons from all over the world in order to coax local initiatives to transform them into something useful. Uglypedia's principle differs radically from the conservationist UNESCO World Heritage approach. We feel there are so many potential needs and problems to be solved where ugly icons can be part of the creative solution!

We have talked about useful rubbish. However, the disaster at the rubbish dump in Addis Ababa the other day shows: trying to put rubbish to good use can cost you your life! When Michael Reynolds started his venture 50 years ago, building extraordinary houses out of rubbish he was thinking of the survival of the planet. He jeopardized his livelihood as an architect because clients complained about certain imperfections. So he gave up his license and continued on his search for the house with a zero carbon footprint. Since 2007 the professional world has caught up with him. He was able to reclaim his license and is now a respected lecturer, has published books and runs a blog. In uglypedia terms it means: you can turn ugly into useful even without an ugly icon.

Sanzhi UFO houses, San Zhi, Taiwan

Designed by Matti Suuronen, these homes were intended to be sold to U.S. military officers when construction began in 1978. In 1980, work was halted due to loss of investment. What a pity!

How Ugly are Icons Politically?

Mirny Diamond Mine, Eastern Siberie, Russia The world’s second largest man-made hole, Mirny was constructed by Stalin to satisfy the Soviet Union’s demand for industrial diamond. Further digging efforts were eventually abandoned when it became too difficult to continue digging this massive hole. Another wound on our planet, that speaks of greed, incompetence, and above all a brutal disresepct for the human beings who worked here. Unfortunately this ugliest of icons will hardly ever be transformed into something useful! Die Mirny Diamantmine in Ostsibirien, Russland, ist das zweitgrösste menschgemachte Loch der Welt. Stalin hatte die Mine erbauen lassen, um den Hunger nach Industriediamanten zu stillen. Als man nicht mehr weitergaben konnte, wurde die Anlage verlassen. Hier haben wir wieder eine klaffende Wunde auf unserem Planeten, die von Gier, Inkompetenz und vor allem Missachtung der Menschen, die hier gearbeitet haben, spricht. Leider wird wohl aus diesem unsäglichsten Ugly Icon nie etwas Nützliches werden.

Industrial Heritage into Greencity Zürich

Uglypedia is not about architectural porn! We don't revel in ruinophilia or rustalgia. Our aim is to coax local initiatives to do something about the ugly icons in their backyard and tell the story of transformation. Greencity in Zürich is such a story. It is being built on a huge industrial site that housed a ceramics factory in the 1860s, in the 1870s a spinning factory took over, then a paper factory, and from the 1970s on it was used for storage purposes. Greencity, launched in 2015, is to be the first certified 2000 Watt urban area in Switzerland. 2000 citizens will live and 3000 people will work there from 2020. They will have their own railway, bus and carsharing station; 10% parking for elektromobiles, 3500 bicycle stands. The ecological energy concept will save 1800 tons of CO2 p.a. etc etc. Industriedenkmal wird zu Greencity Zürich Uglypedia ist nicht an Architektur Pornografie interessiert! Wir schwelgen nicht in Ruinenromantik oder Rostalgie. Unser Ziel ist es, lokale Initiativen loszutreten, die etwas aus den Ugly Icons in ihrer Region machen wollen. Und Uglypedia erzählt Geschichten der Umwandlung. Greencity ist eine solche Geschichte. Sie wird auf einem riesigen ehemaligen Industrieareal erbaut, wo um 1860 eine Keramikfabrik, dann in den 1870ern eine Spinnerei und später eine Papierfabrik ihre Waren produzierten, ab 1970 wurden die Bauten vor allem für Lagerzwecke genutzt. Greencity startete 2015 und soll das erste zertifizierte 200 Watt Quartier in der Schweiz werden. 2000 Einwohner und 3000 Arbeitnehmer werden dort ab 2020 unterkommen. Ihnen werden ein S-Bahn und Busbahnhof, 2 Carsharing Stationen, 3500 Veloabstellplätze zur Verfügung stehen. 10% der Parkplätze sind für Elektromobile ausgerüstet. Das umweltfreundliche Energiekonzept wird 1800 Tonnen CO2 pro Jahr einsparen etc. etc.

How Ugly are Icons Politically?

Monteforno steel plant in Switzerland (TI) opened 1946 closed down 1994 killing hundreds of jobs in the valley. Credits: Sozialarchiv

Unnoticed Ugly Urban Space

Vincent Callebaut’s redesign of the former customs clearance and storage complex Tour&Taxis in Brussels. Credits: Vincent Callebauts architectures

Sports Stadiums often turn Ugly when the Event is over

Unfinished Zabroshennyj-Ledovyj Ice Stadium in Kiev, Ukraine. Privately owned. The construction of the stadium was stopped in 1996 because of the Chernobyl desaster and became covered in fungus. The funds intended for the stadium were deflected to mitigate the Chernobyl accident. Since 2006 a construction company rented the stadium up to 2030, but after a change of power building was again stopped. A more recent example of an abandoned stadium is the Macarana Olympic park in Brazil: 6 months after the event in 2016 it has been looted and damaged, the pitch is unplayable. The golf course is struggling, the swimming facilities are abandoned! And the corruption scandals behind Odebrecht builders are expanding into several countries apart from Brazil! In Athens, Sarajewo and other Olympic destinations the situation of the mega-facilities is no better! Unfertiges Zabroshennyj-Ledovyj Eisstadion, Kiev, Privatbesitz. Nach dem Gau in Chernobyl wurde der Bau 1996 gestoppt. Die Mittel wurden für Notarbeiten im AKW benötigt. Seit 2006 mietet die Anlage eine private Firma bis 2030. Aber nach einem Machtwechsel wurde der Bau wieder unterbrochen. Ein neueres Beispiel einer vernachlässigten Olympischen Anlage ist Macarana in Brasilien: 6 Monate nach den Spielen wurde es vandalisiert, der Rasen ist unspielbar. Der Golfplatz ist unternutzt. Die Schwimmhallen sind verlassen. Der Korruptionsskandal um die Baufirma Odebrecht weitet sich aus andere Länder aus. Kein besseres Bild finden wir in den olympischen Anlagen von Athen, Sarajevo u.a.m.!

Cement Factory turned into Home

The Spanish architect Ricardo Bofill bought the WWI cement factory in 1973 and turned it into his home. The ugly icon and former pollution machine is being transformed into the marvel of an architectural dream to this day: spaces are reclaimed, façades are covered by plants. We ask ourselves why most of the ugly icons we have collected are not treated similarly by banking on their potential rather than discarding them as rubbish! Credit: Ricardo Bofill Der spanische Architekt Ricardo Bofill kaufte 1973 die Zementfabrik aus der Zeit des 1. Weltkriegs und verwandelte sie in sein Heim. Der Umbau der ehemaligen hässlichen Dreckschleuder ist ein laufendes Projekt: Räume werden rückerobert und Pflanzen überwuchern die Fassaden. Es fragt sich, weshalb so wenige der von uns gesammelten Ugly Icons auf diese Weise angegangen werden, indem auf ihr Potenzial aufgebaut wird, anstatt sie auf den Müll zu werfen!

Uglypedia Network The Facebook prototype version of uglypedia has been online for more than two months. Time to take stock of what has happened. Uglypedia has generated a number of likes and comments. It has reached more than 1'000 people. But the principal goals of uglypedia have not been reached by any means! The idea was (1) to collect images of ugly icons (so-called failed monuments of civilization) worldwide via crowdsourcing, (2) to get the images evaluated as to their potential for a transformation into something locally useful (crowd-feedback), (3) collect stories of successful transformations and post them on uglypedia with a view to coax local initiatives and deciding bodies or investors to start transforming "their" ugly icon, (4) generate ideas and project sketches among architects and engineers worldwide for specific ugly icons to help the local initiatives to get going. So far none of these goals have materialized. So I feel that Facebook is not the appropriate medium to reach such goals. The next step must be (a) to create a network of architects, engineers, and interdisciplinary creative workers to help the idea get off the ground. (b) The original concept of a website that allows for the above goals to be reachable needs to be put in action. (c) the funds needed to create the uglypedia website must be raised. Our network would have to evaluate the draft concept of the website and work out the definitive form. This then is a call for interested specialists in the field of architecture and engineering, community and development work who would like to be part of such a network. Uglypedia is a non-profit organization whose member work on a voluntary basis. But when specific projects to transform an ugly icon turn up, the members of the network will be first in line for carrying out such a venture.

Fading Faith vs Fanatic Fundamentalists

The images in the album are only a small sample of what is happening on the religious front: Christian churches are being closed down for lack of churchgoers, while fundamentalists of all creeds and colours are rife. The abandoned churches are having a hard time attracting new purposes, but a lot of creativity is being spent on turning them into bars, libraries, living quarters and the like. In postwar Russia, as our examples seem to suggest, innovative ideas do not go beyond storage space.