You've got to hand it to Tony Chavira at the urban living blog FourStory — he doesn't hold back when slamming L.A.'s failed 21st-century architecture. A case in point comes with his most recent post blasting local new buildings. (His series bears the unambiguous title, “The Ugliest Architecture in Southern California.”) This one focuses on South L.A. — specifically, USC's Galen Center (“the most self-serving, self-important, and self-appreciated building in Los Angeles, and proof positive that the city of L.A. lets USC do whatever it wants in South Los Angeles”), LAPD's Newton Community Police Station (“a flat, gray building with flat gray walls overlooking the flat gray street”) and a new structure at L.A. Trade Tech (“the moment your eye hits this structure you can't help but see a regular ol' boring building right underneath it”).

The L.A. Trade Tech building is an especially poignant example because its conceptual model looked so promising, only to turn into the Ugly Betty the school ended up getting. Chavira rather cruelly shows both the cool artist's rendition and the drab, finished reality.

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