Un-canny in Architecture

Philip Johnson was an american architect, in 1930 he founded the Department of Architecture and Design at the museum of Modern Art in New York City. Something that inspired me in to looking at Philip Johnson was his design of the 'Glass house', a see through pavillion for viewing the surrounding landscape. This design is something directly opposite to a normal house which is used for privacy. The glass house opens up for anyone to see in, nothing is hidden. It is a design that I have never seen before and I would never have thought something like this would have built because peoples take on privacy.

There are hundreds of other buildings that are not quite normal to the eye, these are a few;

I am very interested in buildings with unusual shape. I often enjoy looking at old houses and old buildings within Sheffield and then finding out about their past, what they were used for and what they are now. It's also the same for old abandoned railway stations, I like to educate myself on the history of these abandoned stations and even dig deeper and look at archive photos and comments on these. Its fascinating but haunting to find out why most of them suddenly closed down and why some are just left the way they were back 50/60 years ago. What also fascinates me is how some places just die off. An example would be Attercliffe is a suburb Northeast of Sheffield, many years ago Attercliffe was thriving and had many inquisitive shops, a market and a theatre. In the early 90's Attercliffe's popularity began to wear off and now all that stands are empty shops and buildings, the once popular suburb is now dead. There is a lot of history behind Sheffield and there are a lot of buildings that tell this. 

One building that is also fascinating is the old town hall which now stands disused, grubby and forgotten. This building is said to be the first town hall in Sheffield, built in 1807. It is said that the town hall was built without room for extension and so this caused it's demise in the 1980's. No-one would recognise that this was once an important building. It stands dirty and full of graffiti in the not so nice area of Sheffield. I find it sad that the building has been left to become a trash for people to doodle and disrespect it. Hopefully one day with the new renovations to Sheffield that this building will be restored to its former glory.

                                    The Building then.                                              And now.

JOHNSON, P (1949) 'The Glass House' [online] Available at:
http://philipjohnsonglasshouse.org/history/buildings/glasshouse/(Accessed 4th February 2013)

VIDLER, A (1992) The Architectural Uncanny [online] Available at:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Architectural-Uncanny-Essays-Modern-Unhomely/dp/0262720183 (Accessed 4th February 2013)