Chang W. Lee/The New York Timesfrom the NY Times:
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — A state official declared this week that the ill-starred, long-stalled Xanadu mall would be renamed. But by any name, it will still be the building that Gov. Chris Christie has called “an offense to the eyes as you drive up the turnpike.”
“It’s by far the ugliest damn building in New Jersey, and maybe America,” the governor said last week, drawing cheers at a public forum in Nutley, and knowing nods across the state.
Mr. Christie is hardly the first to complain about the looks of the huge, nearly completed retail-and-entertainment mall alongside the Meadowlands sports complex here. Columnists and online forums have taken swings at it. State Senator Richard J. Codey, a former governor, called it “yucky-looking.” And former State Senator Raymond H. Bateman said, “I think the exterior will always be schlocky, no matter what you do with it.”
The facade of the 2.3-million-square-foot complex has walls of horizontal rectangles, walls of vertical stripes, varying shades of blue, green and orange. An indoor ski slope rises at an angle above the rest. Critics have compared the look to stacked shipping containers, Lego blocks and bar codes. ............(more)
The complete piece is at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/02/nyregion/02xanadu.html?_r=1&em