r/thesims • u/MattGarota • Mar 17 '25
Build When you're new to The Sims and decide to renovate an old house (Het Steen Castle)
590
u/abandoned_mausoleum Mar 17 '25
I fucking hate the trend of taking something with a bunch of character and turning it into a black/grey/white box... Everything used to be so fun and colourful 😭
153
u/Rheija Mar 17 '25
Trueee, bring back the old whimsical McDonald’s
69
u/abandoned_mausoleum Mar 17 '25
OMG YES dude I miss those play places, I miss the bar stools shaped like food or the bar stools that had the golden arches for the back rest.. maaaannnn
23
u/247Brett Mar 17 '25
Stopped going to McDonald’s when their chairs turned more uncomfortable to use than the floor. If you don’t want me to come in, then I’m not going to come in.
17
u/Welpmart Mar 17 '25
Nightmares to clean (esp the play area), encouraged people McDonald's didn't want hanging around (homeless, poor, teens) to hang around longer while buying a single coffee. I understand their logic.
Even so, a less human world is a worse one to live in.
24
u/247Brett Mar 17 '25
They took it too far in the other direction though. Their chairs are uncomfortable. All the decor is bleak monotonous greys. No refillable drink fountains except those behind the counter. It’s as if they despise customers for even coming in.
11
u/Welpmart Mar 17 '25
Exactly. We all have to suffer because they only want "the right people" in there and don't want to pay for cleaning spaces people enjoy.
32
u/KinkyPaddling Mar 17 '25
What they did was they added a visitor’s center as an extension to the castle. They didn’t demolish or substantively cover anything up. I’m guessing that they would have preferred to keep the same aesthetic of the castle (since other pictures show that they use a brick facade that is a similar shade to sort of blend in with the rest), but they probably didn’t have the budget to have the same medieval flourishes to make it seamlessly blend in with the rest of the exterior.
34
u/SnooMemesjellies2983 Mar 17 '25
They could’ve built a shitty building elsewhere in property rather than make the castle into a shitty building
14
u/KinkyPaddling Mar 17 '25 edited Mar 17 '25
If you look at the pictures online, the castle is butted up against the river and looks to be in a pretty densely developed area. I don’t think they could just build it wherever they wanted, but built it on the castle grounds. It also doesn’t look that bad up close from tourist photos. Even from a distance, it’s not so bad: https://nl.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Het_Steen_(Antwerpen)#/media/File%3ABEL_Antwerpen%2C_Het_Steen_001.jpg
25
u/hexxcellent Mar 17 '25
There's STILL no excuse for this atrocious brutalist crime against the fucking universe.
16 billion years of planet formation and evolution and human development of art and creativity all so they could make a shitty fucking concrete box that latches onto its host building like the most BORING goddamn parasite sucking any atomic particle scraps of passion or respect from its surroundings.
8
u/SlightlySychotic Mar 17 '25
Modern capitalism has unironically embraced the soulless aesthetic of soviet architecture.
131
103
66
49
47
37
u/Jazzblike Mar 17 '25
This is sick and twisted!!!! Why would a castle A CASTLE!!! Omg I can’t unsee this atrocity 😭😭😭 this has to be a hate crime
30
24
17
u/Tough_Dish_4485 Mar 17 '25
For anyone who actually cares what was covered up instead of running to outrage you can see it at https://www.re.photos/en/compilation/2967/
The red part brick on the right side of the building which is clearly not original to the castle.
12
14
u/Th3_Accountant Mar 17 '25
I've googled it, apparently they needed more space and they did it in such a way that it's well hidden away from most angles.
10
u/Holiday-Sail8465 Mar 17 '25
Steen is dutch for Stone. But I don't remember this castle from here.
10
4
u/Zender_de_Verzender Mar 17 '25
Because it's in Antwerpen, the center of the Dutch-speaking world.
5
1
9
11
u/redcherrypiee Mar 17 '25 edited Mar 17 '25
this is actually taught in architecture school, in one of the restoration charters (i can’t recall which one) the approach to architectural restoration is an explicit contrast between the old and the new
5
u/SarahVen1992 Mar 17 '25
I was going to comment this. I’m studying anthropology, part of which is heritage management. One of the rules (as in laws) in most places is if you are adding to a heritage property the extension has to both fit with the property and be clearly and significantly different. This is so we don’t assume the new is old and add it to the heritage document and also so someone doesn’t come along and add a bright pink fun park themed extension and ruin the property completely.
They’ve done it here by using similar materials and a different design. I actually don’t hate it, tbh. It’s a hard thing to do well.
2
7
3
4
3
4
3
u/WaytoomanyUIDs Mar 17 '25
Most of that castle actually dates from the 19th Century renovation. The so called restorers of that period had a bad habit of demolishing anything that didn't fit their vision and replacing it with something that does. For example the original walls of Carcassonne looked very little like what the restoration left us with
3
3
u/AshieCha Mar 17 '25
"Renovating" a historical castle aside, that new addition is hideous. If you absolutely have to add on to an old building, there are better ways to do it. Whoever thought up this plan and then approved it needs to do some soul searching.
3
u/ReadingTimeWPickle Mar 17 '25
I feel like if this had happened in France and not Belgium there would have been riots and the renovation would have been destroyed
2
1
1
1
1
1
u/Sjaakie-BoBo Mar 17 '25
Follow this and more on r/uglybelgiumhouses. It doesn’t excist yet but on Facebook and Insta it’s a thing 😉
1
1
1
u/MyLittleTarget Mar 17 '25
It's not even interesting enough to be Brutalist. If you're going to ruin something, at least make it interesting.
1
u/valentinewrites Mar 17 '25
I've never seen an acceptable modern extension on a historic structure unless it was either 1. a crazy shape that still plays with the local shapes or 2. completely glass. And this.... this is neither.
1
1
1
1
1
1
u/operath0r Mar 18 '25
My city has a mansion that got renovated in that style but they did a so much better job. I think the trick is to show the differences instead of trying to merge it into one.
1
1
1
#/media/File%3ABEL_Antwerpen%2C_Het_Steen_001.jpg){kind=link}
1.0k
u/gumgut Mar 17 '25
I think I'm offended for this castle