US Navy to alter Nazi Symbol shaped building....

[Jimmypoo]

The new building design will be altered with trees and other misc, at tax payer costs, to resemble the SS insignia instead. When asked by the media, the US Navy replied "If you look at it upside-down, it becomes the ZZ Top logo."

http://tech.yahoo.com/blogs/null/46586

[AAA]

When I worked in Chicago for a 'large' telecom company, the new corporate headquarters was being designed. The secretary near me, her husband was in charge of the construction/design. She showed us the blue prints. In the main area, it was like 3 or 4 stories open air atrium-like. There were two fountains. From 'the air' (blueprint vantage) they looked like a swastika and the mirror image of a swastika. I asked her if the architect was German (before pointing out the fountains) and she said "Yeah, why?".

I laughed then pointed them out to her. She was astonished, had not noticed it.

I had left the company by the time the building opened up, but once I visited it, I noticed the fountains were turned off. I asked. They said the tall atrium and open-air offices overlooking the atrium, were too noisy from the fountains and they were turned off after the first week.

You can kinda get an idea of this from the Google overlords' spy pics.
http://tinyurl.com/23curn

The co-worked I mentioned in a previous post about moving to Shanghai is a person I worked with at that company. We used to race our cars at this location BEFORE they bulldozed it and built the HQs there. It was like NOTHING... just an old back road. They bulldozed the whole place and imported (IMPORTED..like we don't have any HERE) trees and made those three pond/lakes. They also imported a ton of bamboo trees for INSIDE the place. I see from the google maps that they never expanded as planned. There was going to be a retail/hotel on the SE quadrant area. Looks like the helipad made it.

[mikebw]

And if you look at it from the side it looks like a rectangle! Waste of funds IMO.

It's funny sometimes how people react to something as simple as a shape.

Side story- One time in grade school I was just doodling on some paper during class as I often did, just making shapes and such, happened to come up with what looked like a swastika by accident, didn't even realize it until the teacher came by and was like "I don't want to ever see that again" (pointing to my paper). I didn't understand what she meant at first but then I was like, oh- oops. Actually, I'm kinda glad she saw that, must have thought I was a neo-nazi or something, being very light skinned probably helped with that image. Nobody liked that teacher anyway.

EDIT: And look- http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=Swastika,+Black+Brook,+Clinton,+New+York,+United+States&sll=42.071469,-88.125801&sspn=0.034023,0.068407&ie=UTF8&oi=georefine&ct=clnk&cd=1&geocode=0,44.523820,-73.747610
There's a Swastika, NY! How un-American... ;*(

[IronMac]

Well, you never know what your teacher or her family may have gone through during the war.

[Craig]

The swastika of the Nazi party was rotated 45 degrees on axis. The swastika shape of the buildings is not the same as the one corrupted by the Nazi party since it is clearly set parallel with the streets. I saw swastikas in Indonesia and nobody seemed to worry about it because a shape is only a symbol if someone wants it to be. How about spending $600,000 to refurbish Walter Reed.

Craig

[Craig]

That google siteseeing site is pretty cool: http://googlesightseeing.com/

[AAA]

nvmd

[Zoidberg]

Of course you always have to keep modern meanings in mind when this kind of situation comes up but, as Craig notes, they didn't invent the symbol, they just perverted it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swastika

And, agreed; that money would be better spent elsewhere.

[OWC Jamie]

A little artistically applied paint on the roof could easily fool the eye into seeing something a bit different.

[threeprong]

[quote billb]A little artistically applied paint on the roof could easily fool the eye into seeing something a bit different.
Exactly, I would place a large round planter around the whole building and fill with white potato rocks. Then outside of that area , a large rectangular plaza area of red brick .

I'm not sure where the large eagle statues would go though..

3P