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Fuck The Vessel

thebaffler.com

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Re: Fuck The Vessel

#91

Post by deogeo »

cam_l wrote: post #88
deogeo wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And I hope to God I never have to live or work in one of those abhorrent bare steel&glass modernist (postmodernist? whatever the style is called) neighborhoods, yet every major city is turning into one. This style of architecture, which appears to be the only one allowed (certainly the only one being built) deserves far worse than contempt. Yet it is architects that treat everyone else with contempt, ignoring the cle…

It started life as a style called internationalist. It is brought to you by the same people that champion open plan offices. They are cheaper to build than traditional style buildings, by an order of magnitude. But critically allow for maximising flexible floor space for optimum returns. Architects don't really have much power in the design of these kind of buildings beyond window dressing. Edit. Also, refer to the a…

> They are cheaper to build than traditional style buildings, by an order of magnitude.

Are they? According to [1,2 (especially last post)] (better sources welcome) traditional style is cheaper, and according to [3], there's bias against traditional architecture.

Besides, it's the "window dressing", that architects supposedly have power over, that's the ugliest part of modern architecture.

Edit: As seen in https://www.city-journal.org/html/can-we-still-build-real-ar..., 'traditional' architecture is rarely more complicated than a simple rectangular cuboid - it's the 'window dressing' that gives it charm.

[1] https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-general-cost-difference-be...

[2] https://www.reddit.com/r/architecture/comments/ae2mcs/buildi...

[3] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/aug/05/archit...

Re: Fuck The Vessel

#92

Post by Thriptic »

tobr wrote: post #90
Thriptic wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Saying "I hate you for having more than me and I want your stuff" is just straight up jealousy, and it should be easy to understand why wealthy people respond with hostility to this, creating a negative feedback loop.

Your quote is a straw man, but what does it matter if jealousy is involved or not? You can disregard any animosity stemming from social injustices with that logic. Women are just straight up jealous because men are paid more. Blacks are just straight up jealous because whites have longer life expectancy. LGBTs are just straight up jealous because straight cis people don’t have to conceal a central part of who they ar…

I think my interpretation of the thread was that anger towards people with money just for having money was legitimate. If your thought is that those people are actively retarding the ability of the poor to improve their situation, then I think you have some ground to stand on, but otherwise I don't think it is reasonable. I think it's ok to wish things were different; I think it's ok to be angry at a system; I think it's ok to be angry at people who have personally done you wrong; but I don't think it's ok to be angry at people who haven't personally done you wrong just because they have something you don't. I actually happen to fall into one of those minority groups that you mentioned, and I don't hate the other people that can do things that I can't; I hate the system and the people perpetuating the stupidity. That may predominantly be composed of people in that other group, but it is certainly not anywhere near all of them, and I have the ability to make that distinction and avoid prejudgements. That being said, all of that nuance went unstated in my original post, so my bad.

Re: Fuck The Vessel

#93

Post by whack »

cam_l wrote: post #85
whack wrote: post #39

This article is a perfect encapsulation of our current culture of contempt. It is no longer sufficient, or even possible, to just disagree or have different tastes. "I'm personally not a big fan of that building's aesthetics, but maybe there are others who do like it." That would have been a reasonable opinion to hold... instead we have: "Designed by Thomas Heatherwick, one of architecture’s premier grifters... The d…

Have a look at heatherwick's buildings. Tell me what you think. Nobody does architectural criticism anymore. In the industry it is all breathless, feint praise. Like the Hollywood cliché. I for one, enjoy hearing someone's critical thinking about the architecture underneath the skin of a building. As in, the systems and processes that structure space and movement and interaction and emotion and society. What is the f…

> I for one, enjoy hearing someone's critical thinking about the architecture underneath the skin of a building. As in, the systems and processes that structure space and movement and interaction and emotion and society

The article contains none of that. As another commenter perfectly described: this piece doesn't seem to make any coherent argument. Nowhere does she explain why she dislikes it aesthetically.

Re: Fuck The Vessel

#94

Post by reaperducer »

zwkrt wrote: post #89
notyourday wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is snobbery, mostly. How dare those unwashed masses live in those houses?! And those houses are "Ewww!"

The houses she lambaste are almost exclusively upper-middle class and high-class houses. I think she is railing against lazy/incompetent architects more than the owners of the properties.

Architects build what their clients specify. Those terrible parking garages at the bottom of square high rise towers? Architects hate them, too. But they're what the developers want because they maximize revenue.

With the exception of Frank Lloyd Wright, Mies Van Der Rohe, and a very few others, no architect gets to hear the words "Build what you like."

Re: Fuck The Vessel

#95

Post by reaperducer »

CptFribble wrote: post #52
crazygringo wrote: post #29

I mean, I'm not a big fan of Hudson Yards... ...but this piece doesn't seem to make any coherent argument. Nowhere does she explain why she dislikes it aesthetically. She simply seems to dislike that it was designed to be Instagrammable (is that so bad for art/sculpture which is inherently visual?), has some bizarre thoughts on climbing staircases (she's against climbing the Eiffel Tower as well, does she hate exerci…

(one of) the other layers is that its only purpose is to inflate real estate values of luxury apartments that already were built only to be sold to the criminally-wealthy international investor class that uses luxury US real estate as a form of international banking/money laundering, while masquerading in the press as a "community" and the Vessel itself as a "public space," when in reality it is anything but. The com…

People said all the same ugly things about The Bean ("Cloud Gate") [1] in Chicago. Now it's a beloved icon of the city.

People in New York just have to get used to it.

The comparison to the Eiffel Tower is to say at least that structure has a restaurant and a shop at the top, so there's a reason to go up there.

When the Eiffel Tower went up, people were aghast and hated it. They demanded it be torn down at the end of the Expo. But they got used to it.

Same story for the big Ferris wheel in Paris.

[1] https://www.chicagoarchitecture.org/tag/cloud-gate/

Re: Fuck The Vessel

#96

Post by viivaux »

0db532a0 wrote: post #69
viivaux wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See that would all make sense if there weren't an alternative - non classist, non ugly, aesthetic and thoughtful artchitecture out there as an alternative; one explicitly referred to itfa. But you and pesmhey feel the need to ignore that part so you can shove your inane babble into the authors mouth to criticise. Could you not?

The thing that you and also Kate miss is that things like "classist", "ugly" and "aesthetic" are simply terms which define nothing objective and which reside in your head alone. You see a building and call it "classist", allowing the capitalist pigs to get your knickers in a twist once more. I see the same building, either call it "aesthetic" or "non-aesthetic" and move on.

Sure, I get it. Kinda like how I'm gonna call this conversation "with a moron", and move on.

Re: Fuck The Vessel

#97

Post by cam_l »

whack wrote: post #93
cam_l wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have a look at heatherwick's buildings. Tell me what you think. Nobody does architectural criticism anymore. In the industry it is all breathless, feint praise. Like the Hollywood cliché. I for one, enjoy hearing someone's critical thinking about the architecture underneath the skin of a building. As in, the systems and processes that structure space and movement and interaction and emotion and society. What is the f…

> I for one, enjoy hearing someone's critical thinking about the architecture underneath the skin of a building. As in, the systems and processes that structure space and movement and interaction and emotion and society The article contains none of that. As another commenter perfectly described: this piece doesn't seem to make any coherent argument. Nowhere does she explain why she dislikes it aesthetically.

Aesthetics is not architecture! Not sure how much clearer i can be.

Talking about architectural aesthetics is like discussing the success of Amazon or Google by way of the colour palette of their website.

The articles argument is about the underlying processes which spawned and support the building. It is one valid criticism.

Re: Fuck The Vessel

#98

Post by notyourday »

zwkrt wrote: post #89
notyourday wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is snobbery, mostly. How dare those unwashed masses live in those houses?! And those houses are "Ewww!"

The houses she lambaste are almost exclusively upper-middle class and high-class houses. I think she is railing against lazy/incompetent architects more than the owners of the properties.

They aren't. They are from people who are stretching themselves into mortgages and those McMansions in the middle of nowhere are 250k-300k tops. They aren't three million dollar houses.

Re: Fuck The Vessel

#99

Post by d0100 »

Thriptic wrote: post #82
tobr wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Are you suggesting that the simple fact that one has more money than you is sufficient to justify animus? Not if the difference is trivial, but absolutely when it is as enormous and as unmotivated as it often is. Why would it be strange that obviously unfair inequality would be a source of animus?

Saying "I hate you for having more than me and I want your stuff" is just straight up jealousy, and it should be easy to understand why wealthy people respond with hostility to this, creating a negative feedback loop.

The saying would be closer to:

"I hate you for having ∞x more than me and actively preventing me from having a decent life, just to milk a little bit more from me. I want my stuff"

Re: Fuck The Vessel

#100

Post by atombender »

zwkrt wrote: post #89
notyourday wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is snobbery, mostly. How dare those unwashed masses live in those houses?! And those houses are "Ewww!"

The houses she lambaste are almost exclusively upper-middle class and high-class houses. I think she is railing against lazy/incompetent architects more than the owners of the properties.

I think she's railing against bad architecture — and implicity the structures that enable them — more so than architects specifically.

Insofar as these buildings violate principles of architecture, are these architects "lazy" for not pushing back? I don't know.

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