The Ugly Environment. Steve Sailer points us to the NY Times article, "Why Are They Greener Than We Are?". The article is about how architects are trying to design buildings that are ``green'' and "sustainable", if I may use the misleading buzzwords. What struck me, though, is how uniformly ugly they are. (The buildings, not the architects). They are eyesores, insults to their environment.

"Historically, Germany’s industrial waste flowed down the Rhine to be deposited in Rotterdam’s harbor. “We are the main collecting point for all of Europe’s pollution, its garbage dump,” he said with a smile.

Like many of his contemporaries, Neutelings doesn’t see this landscape as ugly. Nor does he see the creation of bold industrial forms and a sustainable environment as necessarily in conflict. Neutelings and Riedijk’s recently completed Shipping and Transport College, which rises at the edge of an aging industrial pier, looks perfectly at home. The building’s cantilevered top evokes a gigantic periscope; its corrugated metal skin brings to mind the stacked shipping containers still scattered around the port."