Green Bay City Hall, built in 1956 at 100 N. Jefferson St., is considered the 33rd “ugliest” public building in America, according to a 3,012-person survey conducted in July by a New Jersey real estate brokerage firm.
The New Jersey Real Estate Network asked 3,003 respondents “based on age, gender, and geography” to give their opinions on what America’s most unattractive civic buildings were, compiling a ranking of 100 buildings. It concluded, “There’s something oddly democratic about this list. These aren’t tourist sites or architectural darlings … They’re workhorses, not showpieces. But as this survey makes clear, design still matters to residents.”
Only the top five buildings got blurbs detailing their perceived unattractiveness with the Flint, Michigan, Municipal Center at No. 1.
There was no accompanying description or explanation for Green Bay City Hall, the sole building from Wisconsin on the list, slotted 33rd place.
But from the explanations that were given for the top five places, a common architectural theme ran through the buildings that were supposedly harsh on the eyes: boxy-silhouettes cut from stark, straight lines with little details or ornamentation.
Such a description describes Green Bay’s steel-framed, brick-clad City Hall in a site file to the National Register of Historic Places available through the Wisconsin Historical Society.
“The architectural firm of Foeller, Schober, Berners, and Jahn was responsible for the contemporary, box-like style design of the building,” read the site file.
The building was constructed after a 1953 fire in the old City Hall Annex left several city departments, state offices, civic groups, and some renters homeless, a 1957 Green Bay Press-Gazette article reported. To make way for the new building, the former City Hall — built in 1901 in the colonial revival style popular at the time with an arched entrance, ionic columns, and a bell tower — was razed in late 1956 and became the parking lot for the current City Hall, according to the Wisconsin Historical Society.
It stands six stories tall, the first story made of polished red granite. Almost all window openings in the upper floors are identical, and the windows are in regular grids on the sides of the building.
“The building … is an excellent example of mid-century, contemporary style architecture with high-end material finishes,” the site file concludes, referring to the mid-century modernist style popular in American federal buildings from 1950 to 1979 for their lack of ornamentation, flat roofs, smooth walls, massive scale, exposed walls meant to project functionality and simplicity.
Here are the top 10 ugliest public buildings, according to the survey:
Jesse Lin is a reporter covering the community of Green Bay and its surroundings, as well as politics in northeastern Wisconsin. Contact him at 920-834-4250 or jlin@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Green Bay Press-Gazette: See where this Green Bay building ranked in survey of ‘ugliest’ public buildings in U.S.
Reporting by Jesse Lin, Green Bay Press-Gazette / Green Bay Press-Gazette
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