The Bath Building: Ugliest In Raleigh
This is the Bath Building. I’m not sure what state business or research takes place here, but it is pretty dreadful looking from the outside. If it had more windows then it would probably blend in with the rest of the bland state government buildings around it.
What do you think is the ugliest building in Raleigh?
UPDATE: Karl has provided the following photo of the bath building when it was new in 1972:
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06/25/2008
I agree that this building needs some natural light, but I don’t think it’s lack of fenestration makes it ugly. This white monolith sports a very rigorous, classic modernist composition; it is strongly expressive of structure and volume, and has a nice, clean, unspoiled surface. While I would never, ever want to work inside this building, I think it’s an interesting piece of 70’s late modernism, but is unfortunately characteristic of the type of architecture that postmodernism revolted against. Thank you, John, for so beautifully documenting this building; as it will undoubtedly be altered or replaced in the years to come.
06/25/2008
I still go with NCSU’s Harrelson Hall.
06/25/2008
Ugliest buildings in Raleigh? Easy: all the Wal-Marts.
06/25/2008
I’ll put my 2 cents worth in…It’s a tie >> between the Archdale Building (@ the north end of the mall) and the Bath Building.
06/25/2008
mark – thank you for your thoughtful and insightful response. I agree it is quite expressive of its structure and volume, but sometimes less is more. It seems to shout out “look at how large and geometric I am!” I also agree it is an interesting artifact of that era of modernism.
While I may think it ugly, it is nonetheless a part of Raleigh–much like a sibling or child who may not be much to look at.
m. lail – I can share your sentiment somewhat with Harrelson Hall, but much of its ugliness lies on the inside rather than the outside.
raleighrob – yes, you got me. In posing the question I certainly was not factoring in the structures built by corporations/chain stores located outside of Raleigh. I also was vague about “Raleigh” and not specifically mentioning the downtown area.
So, if you had to chose the ugliest building in downtown Raleigh, what would it be?
06/26/2008
Downtown? Hmmmm….
How about those high-rise dorms on Shaw University’s campus (between Blount & Person Streets) that look like a 1960’s mental hospital? You know the ones? Hideous!
06/27/2008
John, it definitely does shout “look at how large and geometric I am!” I Stumbled! this blog post, a good read which may be relevant to this discussion. Perhaps some day this building could be rehabilitated. I think it would be nice to perforate the surface and reskin it with glass. Makes me think of that Duda/Paine project on Glenwood Ave or Cameron Village Library — both great adaptive reuse projects, while I’m sure this building would be much more difficult to rehabilitate than the others, it could yield much more interesting results.
07/03/2008
I nominate the Dobbs Building:
http://www.consultwebs.com/ncphotos/images/images/dodd_6037_550_dropwm.jpg
07/05/2008
An old UNC English professor, describing Greenlaw, the English Department building, called it a “waffle ice cream cone,” and that’s what this building looks like to me. ( I live 3 blocks away).
07/06/2008
The First Citizen’s bank building on Fayetteville Street. Ugh.
07/07/2008
While I don’t love the Bath Building, it is easily surpassed in ugliness by thousands of stores and houses across Wake County made of cinder blocks and fake stucco and vinyl and styrofoam.
The Bath Building is worthy of preservation as perhaps Raleigh’s best example of the Brutalist style of architecture. This style was founded by Le Corbusier, and became popular in the 1950s and 1960s. The term “brutalist” derives from the French word for raw, as in raw concrete, a material favored by Le Corbusier and other architects of the style. Many of the buildings in the style do have a brutal aspect, so the term stuck.
I don’t like the Bath building’s unfriendly relationship with the finely detailed historic houses facing Blount St. But it is actually a much better building than the plain white box across Lane St. The Bath Building is ugly in its own handsome way.
07/28/2008
I believe the Bath Building is where one would send the head of an animal who bit you so it can be tested for rabies ;-) Someone please correct me if I am wrong.
08/10/2008
I have to agree with Matt Brown about the redeeming features of the Brutalist design. The empty lots next to it just need some infill to give it better context. A number of government buildings near it look worse.
The windowless AT&T box beats everything downtown by a mile.
10/05/2008
I’m surprised no one mentioned the News and Observer Building in downtown and the ugliest building in Raleigh is the Aeroglide building on Hillsborough St. on the way to Cary. Doug
01/04/2009
I agree that the Bath building isn’t very attractive but it does have a simple form of charm . The main thing that bugs me about this building (I wonder if anyone has noticed this as well) but those rows off blocks that make up the to portion of the facade is a huge dust and dirt collector. I just want to go up to that and power wash it. It’s almost like those “waffle” squares suck in all dust and dirt particles from the air.
01/29/2009
Uh uh. the Garland Jones Office Building on South Salisbury is just about the butt-ugliest building in the state, not just downtown Raleigh. In fact, that abomination might be in the running for Top 10 Ugliest Buildings on the East Coast. There is absolutely nothing redeeming about that design. It looks like it was built from factory defects and leftovers of other buildings. Blecch!
It’s possible, since I don’t know what’s housed in this building, that the lack of windows has — or had — a practical reason. buildings that house archives have few if any windows to protect documents from UV light. If the Bath Building is, or was intended to be, a storage facility for archives that would explain its windowless-ness.
01/29/2009
You should see this baby on the inside…
The building houses labs, exclusively DHHS labs I believe. A wonderfully scaled piece of brutalism.
01/30/2009
I now regret making the declaration of the Bath Building as “The Ugliest”, as there are so many more hideous examples: The windowless AT&T building, the Dobbs Building, the Pink Palace (Education Building), and so on.
The Bath Building has come to grow on me a bit. If it were rehabbed and “reskinned” with glass as Mark suggests, I think we would have a much more appealing structure than what is currently there.
01/30/2009
I won’t be sorry to see the Garland Jones Building crumble, but “thrilled” would be overstating it. The expense of replacing it alone would take the thrill out of that.
And there are certainly enough examples of bland and ugly to go around. The Archdale Building, and the Albemarle Building would have to be included in the former category. Those two are about as institutional as they get. Beside either of them, the Bath Building is a work of art. And aside from the cost, I can’t say I was sorry to see the old Civic Center go. Though the new one doesn’t thrill me all that much either.
The Pink Palace had to have been designed by the same firm that built the Forum I, II, III, IV, and V buildings out in North Raleigh. Probably several others too. Not attractive, but not the top of the ugly tree exactly.
05/03/2009
Having been involved deeply in the design, construction and ultimately working in the Bath Building, I feel somewhat qualified to comment. This building was designed to be the State Laboratory of Public Health replacing then inadequate Shore Building on Lane Street. Jesse M. Paige and Associates were the architects and staff of the State Lab worked closely with them in designing the new building. There are no windows on the upper two floors because that is where the original labs and administrative functions were located. Windows serve no function in a lab, and wall space was maximized in this manner. The Bath Building is actually two buildings in one..there are two separate air handling systems with the lab floors served by single pass air for biological safety reasons. The lower floors are conventional recirculated air. Originally, other non-laboratory offices occupied the lower floors, with the long range plan of moving laboratory administrative functions down to the lower floors as expansion of laboratory services necessitated. This plan functioned well over the past 36 years, but now a new laboratory is being planned away from the downtown locality. Having retired after 32 years of service in 1998, I am not involved with this new facility, but will be anxious to visit when completed.
The curious inverted pyramid shape visible from the outside on the upper floors resulted from having to combine a basic laboratory module size with an office module size. It was necessary to rotate the upper floors 45 degrees to accommodate vertical structural elements not being in the middle of halls or rooms. So, in this case the exterior is purely a result of form following function. And believe me, we did take a lot of flack in the early days too. But it is what it is..and has served the citizens of North Carolina well. The State Laboratory provides medical and environmental laboratory support to all the county health departments across the state.
The Bath Building is named for one of the three original counties of North Carolina. Planning started 1968, construction in 1970 with occupancy in 1973. Total cost was 3.9 million which was quite a bargain!
05/04/2009
i dunno, john, i think i like this building, especially after hearing mr. mcdowell’s statements! ugliest? hmm those new mcdonald’s restaurants on peace/boylan and western come to mind
05/04/2009
Yeah, I must admit it grows on me more the more I learn about it. And you may have missed it, but two comments up I state that “I now regret making the declaration of the Bath Building as ‘The Ugliest’, as there are so many more hideous examples”.
12/04/2009
I would call this one of the 3 decent looking buildings in the state government complex. The Archdale and the Legislative building are the other two, and you might notice that all 3 work in the context of each other. It’s those other buildings that need to go.
03/17/2010
The Bath Building is as bad on the inside as it is on the outside. I worked there from 1992-2007…and it is the NC Public Health Lab, testing everything from Radioactivity in Water to Rabies, to bioterrorism, to newborn screening, to cancer cytology. It’s always looked like the top 2 floors are “egg crates” in a post-modern world.
Inside the building, it can be disorienting, since the rooms on the inside are 45 degrees ascue from what you think they should be.
In the coming years, I think it will be torn down when the Lab moves to it’s new location near the I-40/Edwards Mill Rd. area. I’ll be there to watch the old girl crumble when it comes down….and I’ll have a huge smile on my face.
09/12/2010
Don’t they store viruses like Ebola and Smallpox in this building? I don’t mind the lack of windows if that is the case.
10/11/2026
Seeing the 1972 photo really shifts the context—what looked bland now feels more like a time capsule, and your change of heart makes sense. If you ever want to restore or update text on old architectural photos, Picreword (an AI image text editor) can help with fixing typos, replacing headlines, and updating image copy without the original design files—curious which other Raleigh buildings you’d reconsider after seeing their original photos.