Upcycle 

I wanted to get this lovely Kalamunda piece of ugliness earlier, but it would be harder to show that the building is essentially derelict right in the town center. No doubt not helped by proximity to tired ole John Day’s tired ole electorate office. Kalamunda business, the powerhouse of the hills, where lights blaze late into the early afternoon. In other news, Kalamunda Cartridge World had closed. True and sad story.

 

About AHC McDonald

Comedian, artist, photographer and critic. From 2007 to 2017 ran the culture and satire site The Worst of Perth
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20 Responses to Upcycle 

  1. Slanderer says:

    Okay, I’ll bite. This is the Silicon Valley end of Canning Road, right?

    Like

  2. Reign of Error says:

    Eavesdropping or dropping eaves……take your pick

    Liked by 1 person

  3. Anonymous says:

    Vodafone and Optus are the only tenants taking space in Kalamunda these days.

    Like

  4. Zuben says:

    Replace it with 12 storey mixed use residential development NOW

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  5. Bag O'Turnips says:

    That sturdy sans serif “12” is a big fat Fuck Off to handwritten style or brush script in a hexagonal box Po-Mo Shit fonts that are de jour with the crowd who peddle Teh Vibrancy. That merits its existence for mine.

    Also, those 1970s design cues just cannot be made Vibrant; a dreary but effective bulwark that is resistant to hipsterism (as is Kalamunda in general). Besides, I’m certain that the flaking whitewash doesn’t conceal the type of brickwork that these charlatans covet… again, makes me kind of appreciate it in a vindictive manner.

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    • I don’t mind this building. That it has that phone tower on it, is tenantless and near derelict in the centre of town is the issue.

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      • Bag O'Turnips says:

        Good point: I did solely focus on the building itself. Those other aspects are indeed qualifiers for Worst Worthy. They could rip it down and replace it with some Po-Monstrosity, but it’d still be saddled with a mobile tower, be tenantless and quite rapidly reach dereliction. It’d just uglify it more, become a worst (though not a Worst) utterly bereft of charm.

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      • Zuben says:

        As Bernard Tschumi once wrote of the unrestored villa savoie in Architecture and Transgression :

        ‘ The most architectural thing about this building is the state [of decay] in which it is . ‘

        Oui ou non ?

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  6. Zuben says:

    Perth Regional Style

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    • Zuben says:

      Helvetica Bold would be part of it

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      • Bag O'Turnips says:

        I thought as much too: the “1” certainly looks like that font, but not so sure about the “2”, if only for the angle confusing the perspective. At least it’s not Arial Bold.

        Still, could be even worse than Arial, the signifier of amateur signwriters everywhere: at least it’s not some hideous current hipster-approved marker-style typeface that plagues most new developments. Nothing like an extra bold-type Univers, Helvetica, Microgramma or yes, even Gill Sans Ultra Bold, to tell Po-Mo Shit to verily Get Fucked.

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        • Zuben says:

          Helvetica bold was the go-to ‘Letraset’ font of all brit-trained architects of the 1970s . Yank ones at pretentious schools too .

          (The Vignellis were in ascendant as graphic designers in those days .)

          One had to rub it off waxy sheets and on to ones Canson vellum 6-H pencilled axonometrics in the aspirational paleo-Eisennann style .

          ( NB where it comes to sanserif and architecture i am a Futura man myself )

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We can handle the worst