Might be worth noting that this was written in 2004. The building has since been open for more than a decade, and has picked up some more considered evaluations, which Wikipedia nonconfrontationally describes as “mixed”.

My totally off-topic-for-lobste.rs rant on architecture, for everyone’s enjoyment:

First, to be very clear, I have nothing against art. I don’t particularly appreciate most modern art (representationalism is not required, but I like to enjoy looking at things), but I don’t think that’s a reason for it not to exist or for other people not to appreciate it. In fact, I think it’s very important that artists be able to create stuff that I don’t like and don’t want to experience, and that society be able to have reasonable discussions over this.

All that said: architecture is not art. Architecture has nothing to do with art. See, buildings are functional. People live or work in them, spend substantial amounts of time in them, have to use them. They’re not sculpture writ large. Funny angles waste space, huge interiors are echoey and unpleasant, garish colors hurt to look at, featureless expanses are boring and uninspired.

And the people on the inside aren’t the only ones affected by a building; everyone outside it has to deal with it, too. Quite aside from the potential to be an eyesore the size of a building, shiny curved surfaces almost always cause glare problems, and sometimes worse. Did the architect ever consider reflection angles when sketching those artsy curves? Evidently not.

I don’t think we need to go totally boring and neoclassical in our architecture. There’s room for buildings to be interesting! But an awful lot of modern architecture totally ignores the fact that there’s not room for buildings not to be buildings, and they have functional requirements that trump whatever artistic or professional statement the architect wants to make.