#CladdingFails: The Wackiest Crumbling Façades in the World

Death by building. Some architects might think that is the ideal way to go. Buildings can kill people any number of ways, including collapses, falls from treacherous heights – one can even be eaten alive by a mechanical system. Architecture can also kill you when you are on the street, if its cladding starts to shed. This week, a chunk of concrete cladding fell from Zaha Hadid Architects’Library and Learning Center in Vienna. The piece weighed about 170 lbs and fell from the sloped façade that overhangs a pedestrian plaza at the Vienna University of Economics and Business.

Image via www.arup.com

Of course, this is not the first ZHA project that’s fallen apart. The Guangzhou Opera House has famously had many of its granite slabs replaced. The building also had problems with cracking in the façade and falling glass panels falling. The building fell into disrepair only about a year after opening, and serves as an example of the perils of overaggressive Chinese construction.

Image via www.domusweb.it

Santiago Calatrava has had a number of controversies surrounding his buildings, including the time that masonry fell off of the Valencia Opera House when a storm caused high winds. The building was already under scrutiny — it was four times over budget. Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners also had a piece of their tapered London “Cheesegrater” come down during construction. A bolt the size of a human arm fell to the ground after it came loose from the structure.

Image via www.designboom.com

Image via www.dezeen.com

And it’s not just new high-profile designs that have trouble “keeping it together.” Wells Coates Embassy Court has been one of Britain’s most hated Modernist buildings since 1935. The Art Deco “eyesore” had some cladding fall off as part of a more general state of disrepair that has sparked debate over its future.

Embassy Court. Image via wikipedia.org

Narkomfin.Image via wikipedia.org

The Constructivist Narkomfin by Moisei Ginzburg was another early work that shed some of its skin. While Embassy Court was private luxury housing, Narkomfin was state housing. The Colorado State Capitol Dome doesn’t have the same utopian, communal vision, but it has had problems with parts of its cladding falling onto an observation deck.