Houston Guilty Building Pleasures

[Luminare]

We all have our buildings that we don't like, or even ones which we all despise as a whole, but what about those building which we go against the grain. Even though the title says "guilty building pleasures", it doesn't necessarily mean you have to be guilty about it. What Houston buildings does everyone dislike, but either you secretly, or admitted like/love/think is ok?

 

Beauty really is in the eye of the Beholder.

 

Lets try to keep it inside the Beltway

 

Doesn't have to be just one building either!

 

 

Ex. I actually like most of the brutalist buildings that we have here in Houston. Especially Allen Theater, and the Houston Chronicle building. Most people either don't understand brutalism or just don't see the point in it or just think they are ugly.

[HoustonIsHome]

Number one for me is Exxon/Humble Oil. Everyone seems to hate it but I think it is classically elegant and shouldn't be funked with.

[Luminare]

^ I completely agree! Very little appreciation for many of the great modernist works we have.

[Subdude]

I'll admit a certain weakness for the old Magic Island at Greenbriar and 59.  Some might have found the giant pharaoh's head on top to be in dubious taste, but it always made me chuckle.  

[mollusk]

The artistic giant neon signs, not to be confused with signs that are just big.  Most, but not all, are gone.  Examples:  The animated display that used to rotate above the Anheuser Busch brewery, Bubba the Holders Cockroach, the humongous crab above Gaido's in Galveston, the giant spinning neon piano above the Southwest Freeway.  On the bubble is the Gulf sign that used to be downtown, the Continental/United globe projected onto 1600 Smith (more credit if it were an actual installation and not a slide in front of a projector).