Fugly

Like a lot of people, I am sometimes blind to the beauty of the things I see regularly. Then there are the things I see regularly that make me wish I were blind.

A few weeks back, I was walking near my apartment with a modish globetrotting pal of mine when he paused, pointed at this hideous monstrosity of a building and said, "What is THAT?"

I had gotten used to looking at it. But as soon as he said that, I came back around to seeing just how mind-bendingly ugly the Hospital Naval is.

Oh, you're saying, it looks straight out of the '50s. Or the '70s. Or the bowels of hell.

But, in fact, work began on it in 1981. It cannot hide behind age as an excuse.

Look at those bizarre, dingy window coverings. And that horrendous tile. It's obviously trying for a nautical theme, and part of me wants to admire it for the ways in which it succeeds here -- the portal-style windows, the conning tower-type structure on top.

However, I cannot help but feel that this effort would have been better spent on designing something that does not make me want to claw my eyes out and rend my garments.