Well, what is it? for columbus i nominate the downtown ymca.

runners up would be three sides of the atlas building, although it might be too many stories anyways

and the wyandotte building, chicago school, built in the 1800's

As far as modern/contemporary buildings in Cleveland, I have to agree with the Weatherhead building.

 

If we're talking older buildings, one of my favorites is the Rose Building:

I was going to say the Rose Building!

It looks like he went conservative or something, which he cannot do

 

now this is a Gehry i wouldnt mind having

http://www.guggenheim.org/exhibitions/past_exhibitions/gehry/images/projects/projects_images/nederland9_lg.jpg

Ok, in Cincinnati I happen to not really like either the Vontz Center nor CAC. My favs would be:

1. City Hall

2. Union Terminal

3. Plum Street Temple

but just lots of great architecture . . .

 

I'm from Hamilton so my favorite there is probably the old art deco Municipal Building. This link gets you to a pic I think. Should be the bottom photograph.

http://dbs.ohiohistory.org/hp/dsp_image.cfm?ID=94000170

Also, the Lane Hooven House and the Lane Public Library across the street are pretty cool. Here's a link to the house. The library was designed as an octogon as well. http://dbs.ohiohistory.org/hp/dsp_image.cfm?ID=73001389

 

I also lived in Columbus for a bit and I like the Wyandott Building or the Statehouse. Yeah, I actually like its simple Greek Revival style.

Maybe I'm too much of a traditionalist, but I like Cincinnati's Music Hall

 

http://www.cincinnati-transit.net/citytour5.html

C-Dawg, pretty good pix of downtown Toledo.

 

For Dayton, some of the better buildings are churches and homes.

 

I like two churches, one on east 2cnd near the old Delco Plant, the other this gothic-meets-art deco design in the Linden Avenue neighborhood a few blocks south of Linden.

 

There are some nice mansions scattered around Dayton. ColDayMan posted some pix of two that I like, but there are some nice pre WWII ones in Washington Twp and the Cox Mansion in Kettering, I think.

 

For public buildings the best are the old Courthouse, which is a classial revival building of national signifigance, and the Victoria Theatre, mostly for the excellent interior.

 

 

 

 

The Art Museum and RTA Building are fine examples as well.

youse guys are all over this one good job!

 

i agree the rose building in clevo and the ymca in columbus (especially since i spent many years working out in there i am rather found of that old 'y'). in cinci the union station no question.

 

ef the new gehry buildings that guy is played out -- he should have quit after bilbao and called it a day.

 

i like the new pastel peter eisenman "earthquake" convention center in columbus its not tall but its the coolest new conven center i have seen, inside and esp from above (i hate the san diego monstrosity and the new austin one too, although the new pitts conven center is kinda nice). fyi -- nyc's javits is bland, dumb and isolated.

 

 

 

You LIKE the Columbus Convention Center???  :-o

 

Everyone I talk to seems to either love it or hate it, though the majority seem to be on the "hate" side of the spectrum, lol. I guess the same goes for the Vontz Center in Cincy, which I think is awesome. My candidates for best 12 stories or under building in Columbus would have to be either the Wyandotte Building or the Columbus Public Library.

yep i like it. you columbusites should not be hatin on it. for one thing the architect peter eisneman is as famous as gehry and is your very own columbus homeboy. and more importantly, if not for it you would be left with the old vet, the only place to make the old inside of the cleveland convention center look like the taj mahal!

 

 

 

Columbus is fortunate to have two of Eisenmans best builidngs.  The Wexner was a masterpiece and I think Eisenmenas first non-house commission.  Its altered now, but it was a major work for him, and you can tell he was having a lot of fun with that design, working postmodernism into his own aesthetic.

 

The convention center is also a great design, especially the way Eisenmann activates the High Street facade.  He is playing his gridded system game, but is also being contextual in his own way.  The builiding is actually pretty sensitive to the urban context., and there are some interesting references to the building forms of those long narrow commerical builidng that used to be on High.  The neat thing is he carries this through to the inside, and runs the circulation spine down the middle of the building, not on the peremeter, the way most convention centers do.

 

As an alternative to that High Street facade, think about how monotonous and sterile High Street would look if there was a blocks-long wall of bland precast concrete or dryvit, or a glass curtain wall, instead of the facade Eisenmann designed.

 

I am not a Ghery fan, so I won't say anything about the Ghery buildings here.  Zaha Hadid, however, has provided a modern masterpiece for Cincinnati. 

 

Speaking of modern masters, there is a Frank Lloyd Wright/Taliesen Associates building in Dayton, in Kettering.  Its a doctors office building off of Far Hills Ave.  It is a small building, but is a nice gem-like design, somewhat marred by an oversize sign.

 

 

 

 

The Art Museum and RTA Building are fine examples as well.

 

...yes those are nice.  I miss Dale Smiths postmodern entry to the Art Museum, though. 

 

When you say the RTA Builiding, do you mean the one at 3rd & Main.  That was a very sucessfull adpative re-use, especially the save and reuse of those historic 19th century commercial facades.  That was a closley run thing, too, and a real Dayton sucess story when it comes to historic preservation.

 

I recall Buddy LaChance telling me (back when he was part of Preservation Dayton) how he and someone else from the group went out to the lot where they where storing the disassembled facades and re-marking the stones so the buildings could be put back together again as the markings where washing or wearing away.

 

But, by God, they did save those facades, and they are back up as part of that RTA complex!

 

 

 

 

 

Dayton does have some good modern things floating around.

 

I like the MetLife building down south off of Springboro Pike.  Its a good "office park" builidng.  The NCR HQ is also pretty good.

 

Other favorite modern buildings:

 

Beth Abramham synagogue at the corner of Salem and Cornell.  I know it wasnt designed by Eric Mendelsohn, but the architects where influeced by his US synagogue designs, and produced a pretty good copy or influenced design. This would be one of the first modern buildings in Dayton, dating from 1949.

 

The Centerville Library

 

The Mont. County Library by the Dayton Mall

 

 

Good choices and yes, I meant the 3rd and Main building.  Another sleeper is the gates to Woodlawn Cemetary.

jeff the other neat thing about the columbus eisenman convention center is that from above it looks like the wire bundle on the back of computers. to even think be thinking much about the top view is pretty wild!

The top view you'll notice the "motion" of the trains through the site (aka they tore down a classic train station, only to "justify" it by creating "motions" of trains going through the building with tacky coloring).

at the time it was being built i read the aerial view was to reflect wire bundling on the back of computers as a modern gesture and to reflect how eisenman likes to design with computer software. i do not recall reading about trains. the old union station was torn down many years before the conven cen was built, in fact to build the crummy hyatt hotel. also, as you can see from above it's pretty crooked or bent up in style to reflect trains imo.

 

otoh, it certainly could be to reflect train cars---who knows with these big ego-maniac architects? i'm sure if asked eisenman he would have it both ways---or any way you like!

 

 

I think those rooftop forms are meant to echo long thin commercial buildings one typiclaly finds on a "main street".

 

 

'm sure if asked eisenman he would have it both ways---

 

Design isnt as concious as you think.  It could be that alot of things where playing into his concept, some of them more concious than others, which makes this a fairly rich desgin..

 

 

 

It was intentionally designed to be the various motion of the railyards at the old Union Station in Columbus.  Thus, the different directions and angles of the site.

rail station train lines are straight, not all bumpy angled like that, but computer wiring is.

 

as i said, thats not what i read about it when it was being built. it was a modern tech reflection, not a nod to an old economy icon. makes sense if you know the architect's work too. but it could very well be both.

 

The rail lines were curvilinear to reflect the motion of trains, not a literal interpretation.

what rail lines?

The "curves" atop the building.

its wiring, a tech reflection. at least that was the press when it was built. eisenman was well known as an early proponent of using computers in architecture. trains are not sharply angled unless its a derailment.

 

He was noted in lecture that his inspiration for the design was for the rail movement through the site (as he always does; extractly) and to pay homage to the Union Station on the former site.  It is (as in a typical Eisenman fashion) abstract to the point of ambiguity.  Thus, we are having this discussion about a silly convention center that belongs in Las Vegas.

lol!

 

the media i remember reading that in at the time i think was one of the weeklies like columbus alive or the other paper. could have been tv news? i looked around (a little), but couldn't find anything definite or that rang a bell. oh well.

Who knows what he was doing and who cares ;)

I love the Fries and Schuele Bdg. on West 25th St. (Cleveland)

Could be more sentimental than anything else ...

I agree with MayDay that the Rose Building in Cleveland makes my list...as does the 1889 Society for Savings Building on Public Square.

 

(thanks to MayDay @ www.clevelandskyscrapers.com for the images!)

 

 

 

I wish that I had a better photo than this one, but I would put St. Ignatius as one of the best in the under-12 category

My city's tallest building is 5 stories, I believe!  :lol:

I really love the castle-like building that houses the United Way offices, on Euclid near E. 14th. It's right next to Idea Center. Sorry, I couldn't find a photo!

I would nominate the former Toledo & Ohio Central Railroad depot on West Broad Street near downtown Columbus.  It was designed by architect Frank Packard and is a designated National Historic Building.  It was used as a railroad station only upto the early 1930's and then was sold for $1 to the Volunteers of America, who used it as a shelter until the early 1990's.  To their credit, they did a very good restoration of much of the building, inside and out.  They vacated the building and sold it to the City of Columbus, which passed control of it over to the Capital South Corporation.  The building is vacant and locked up, but could easily be moved into or rehabbed for other uses.

 

This isn't the best picture of it, but you can see that it is a very unusual design.

 

 

Agreed.  It's a highly underrated building.

This is biased, what with it being the home of my department, but for Madison I am going to nominate Science Hall.  My pictures don't do it justice, but I just love how imposing this building is as you walk toward the University of Wisconsin campus down Langdon Street.  The building is right at the end of that street- quite a terminating vista!

 

Built in 1887, I believe, after the original Science Hall burned down.  This one was supposed to be fireproof, and it sure looks it!

 

 

It stands out form a distance, too.

Here are two more pix of the T&OC railroad depot in Columbus.  The first is of the interior "Great Hall" , which was the passenger waiting area.  It had a two story, arched, vaulted celing with plaster fresco's at both ends, which you can see in this photo.

 

The second photo is actually a postcard of the station as it originally looked and before the railroad was elevated.  It was elevated (BTW) after the 1913 flood of the Scioto River. Inside there is a historic marker on the wall of the waiting room which shows the high water mark of the flood.

 

It's just a cool looking building. I really hope some new use can be found for it.

I've been struggling to pick one for close to a year, and although I love the buildings BallHatGuy suggested for Hamilton, I am going to go with the downtown YMCA built in 1915.