41–50 of 134 posts
It would be helpful if the author provided examples of modern buildings that he considers beautiful, or modern architects who he thinks are doing it right.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It's an open air museum of brutalism. I am not sure how to interpret your comment. Was this meant to be in a negative sense or in a positive sense? Or without any judgement?
Brutalism is an architecture style common in the mid 19th century
The only pre-20thC buildings that remain are the ones that survive. The ones that survive are the ones we like and that are able to survive (not plywood and well built). Survival is the real measurement of how much we like it - it is the ultimate arbiter of aesthetics/beauty/cultural significance/engineering excellence, and it trumps all the chatter of self-appointed critics. If it's garbage, we tear it down or stop…
Well, apart from the "listed building" system which freezes them on an entirely political basis.
(Yes, I read it, go easy on me.)
[1] Link has SPOILERS, so you were warned: https://www.shmoop.com/the-fountainhead/ellsworth-toohey-tim...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, apart from the "listed building" system which freezes them on an entirely political basis.
It's telling that architects feel the need to list their beautiful creations to keep them from being torn down by the philistines.
No pictures when writing about architecture?
Is a literary review of a book about architecture, so has quotes from the book. I assume the pictures are one level down.
He can sort-of draw buildings and architectural details but basically he doesn't really have a great eye for architecture. If he did, he would think twice before making the tedious old right-wing arguments in the book. He's an example of someone who is conservative in way that's not grounded in practicality. Disliking the way 20th C architecture played out is one thing, trying to convince us to return to pre-modern architecture is something else.
By the way, it sounds odd to describe the content of a book as "one level down" from a review of that book.
It's fascinating how neatly being politically conservative or progressive lines up with the corresponding architectural view. I like brutalism, but I disagree with the removal of Scruton from that position, it seems political. What annoys me about articles like the above is that they seem to ignore the possibility that aesthetics involves a lot of subjectivity. The argument seems to boil down to, "of course it's ugly…
Yes, but only because the heart of the modernist movement has been an attempt to deny, belittle and mock the idea that the instinctive aesthetic reaction of the majority to their creations is important or valid. If you think their constructions are ugly, that's not their problem, it's your problem. Firstly, you're too stupid, conservative and narrow-minded to perceive its genius, and secondly, in fact, you actually do like it, or eventually you will, if you just shut up and wait long enough.
It's as if avant-garde jazz advocates were put in charge every radio station and music streaming service on Earth, and given free rein to remorselessly enforce their taste on the whole population, with any dissenter being shouted down and told that, when they eventually forget what all other music sounded like, they'll come to love atonal jazz noise.
In such a situation, the fightback would have to begin with people being told it's OK to trust their own instinct and hate the music that's been forced upon them. Likewise, the fightback against overweening modernism has to begin by bursting the elitist bubble of faux-intellectual obfuscation that modernists have created around architecture. It has to begin by telling people that they have as much right to judge the aesthetics of huge changes to the places they live and work as anybody else, and that if they think the changes are ugly, then that's valid, without any "but..." unfolding into a lecture about how daring and original the latest edifice being foisted upon them actually is.
It's fascinating how neatly being politically conservative or progressive lines up with the corresponding architectural view. I like brutalism, but I disagree with the removal of Scruton from that position, it seems political. What annoys me about articles like the above is that they seem to ignore the possibility that aesthetics involves a lot of subjectivity. The argument seems to boil down to, "of course it's ugly…
Scruton was a tobacco shill years ago: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2002/jan/24/advertising.to... He's incapable of not being political. Publishing conspiracy theory garbage about Soros at the time of a major hunt for antisemitism in public life was what got him fired. (The author of the original article, Dalrymple, is also a full time culture warrior)
It's fascinating how neatly being politically conservative or progressive lines up with the corresponding architectural view. I like brutalism, but I disagree with the removal of Scruton from that position, it seems political. What annoys me about articles like the above is that they seem to ignore the possibility that aesthetics involves a lot of subjectivity. The argument seems to boil down to, "of course it's ugly…
> It's fascinating how neatly being politically conservative or progressive lines up with the corresponding architectural view Only it's really not that neat. When the brutalist monstrosities (you may correctly infer I don't like most of them one bit, though I do like much modernism) were being designed and built post-war, brutalism particularly was embraced as enthusiastically on all parts of the political spectrum.…
This was also a time of far heavier air pollution than we today ever experience, at least in "the west". The typical multi-family building were therefore built not right at the sidewalk, but about 15m further back. Adjacent buildings no longer connected, but had similar spacing. The fraction of open space vs that used by buildings easily tripled, and the free space was planted with grass or brushes.
This was also the time when mixed zoning was mostly abolished in favour of homogenous residential or commercial areas.
As it turned out, this style isn't necessarily what people want. It tends to be too quiet, distances increase linear with lowered density, cars became somewhat required, etc. But the motives were mostly pure.