Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Friends of Vast Industrial Concrete Kafkaesque Structures

seriss.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 71 posts

Re: Friends of Vast Industrial Concrete Kafkaesque Structures

#41

Post by rayiner »

seibelj wrote: post #10

Boston City Hall routinely ranks as one of the ugliest buildings on earth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_City_Hall Brutalist concrete building straight out of 1984. Really gets you mentally prepared for the labyrinth, dispassionate and uncaring bureaucracy that awaits you inside. > The building has been subject to nearly universal public condemnation, and is often called one of the world's ugliest buildings. Ca…

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/urbs/why-architectur...

> Almost everyone now understands that the Corbusian legacy was entirely malign, even if they have never heard of the man himself. And the question is often asked how his grim concrete megalomania ever came to hold such sway in the first place. Step inside a Western school of architecture to pose this question, and you might get a shock. You are likely to find that the so-called “fathers” of the International Style in general, and Le Corbusier in particular (he of the tabula rasa concept of urban renewal in which everywhere “must” be “totally rebuilt” using only concrete), are still revered as the philosopher kings of architecture.

Re: Friends of Vast Industrial Concrete Kafkaesque Structures

#42

Post by alfanick »

sworc wrote: post #7

I'm surprised that this construction is considered a "river".

Americans tend to call artificial structures with names usually associated with more natural structures: they have a lot of “parks” in their cities, which usually end up being just a concrete avenue with a few trees in it (still infinite progress from concrete avenues with no trees at all). I’m always so sad to visit US cities as European

Re: Friends of Vast Industrial Concrete Kafkaesque Structures

#43

Post by robocat »

hcrisp wrote: post #3

Nothing in the article explains why it is Kafkaesque.

I also likes the misuse of “distempered dogs”. I actually like “incorrect” words being used - it makes writing far more friendly and sometimes allows me to feel invalidly superior. Intentionally misabusing words is a personal hobby, copied from the best speaker of English that I know.

Re: Friends of Vast Industrial Concrete Kafkaesque Structures

#44

Post by rayiner »

harimau777 wrote: post #17

It frustrates me that so many people hate brutalist architecture. I definitely wouldn't want every building to be brutalist but I'm glad that some are. I also much prefer brutalism to soulless glass and concrete skyscrapers or nondescript office buildings. At least brutalist buildings look like something.

People hate brutalism because it is aesthetic violence. It assaults you with its ugliness. It accosts innocent passers by with the architect’s ideology. Nondescript is far preferable.

Re: Friends of Vast Industrial Concrete Kafkaesque Structures

#45

Post by cgh »

xenocyon wrote: post #35
seibelj wrote: post #10

Boston City Hall routinely ranks as one of the ugliest buildings on earth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_City_Hall Brutalist concrete building straight out of 1984. Really gets you mentally prepared for the labyrinth, dispassionate and uncaring bureaucracy that awaits you inside. > The building has been subject to nearly universal public condemnation, and is often called one of the world's ugliest buildings. Ca…

You're conflating brutalism and soulless/inhuman/ugly concrete-heavy design; this is a common misunderstanding. Brutalism when done thoughtfully and well is beautiful, uplifting, and provides a sense of calm and space. The Simon Fraser U campus is a good example: https://modernistarchitecture.blogspot.com/2015/12/a-brutali...

You should probably speak to some actual SFU grads about this “uplifting” architecture sometime. Locally, it’s known as a place that exacerbates depression.

Re: Friends of Vast Industrial Concrete Kafkaesque Structures

#46

Post by cgh »

seibelj wrote: post #10

Boston City Hall routinely ranks as one of the ugliest buildings on earth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_City_Hall Brutalist concrete building straight out of 1984. Really gets you mentally prepared for the labyrinth, dispassionate and uncaring bureaucracy that awaits you inside. > The building has been subject to nearly universal public condemnation, and is often called one of the world's ugliest buildings. Ca…

From the Wikipedia article you linked:

“Architects and critics considered it to be excellent work, with one poll finding that professional architects describe Boston City Hall as one of the ten proudest achievements of American architecture.”

Re: Friends of Vast Industrial Concrete Kafkaesque Structures

#47

Post by ddtaylor »

aasasd wrote: post #37
ddtaylor wrote: post #4

Since the server linked doesn't provide a secure version of the content here is a link to avoid MITM/downgrade attacks: https://archive.is/de6d

What threat model do you envision for a visitor on this site? (I sorta can imagine one option, but curious about other opinions.)

Someone at the same coffee shop or the owner of the shop injecting ads or botnet mining.

Re: Friends of Vast Industrial Concrete Kafkaesque Structures

#48

Post by tinym »

adunk wrote: post #6

This is great reading for everyone who grew up watching Terminator 2 and was fascinated by the chase scene where the T-1000 terminator bursts through a bridge down into in the LA river. This seems to be the bridge: https://goo.gl/maps/3v3LK6h75LqrzexSA

It's probably been in a lot of movies, but I've always loved this scene in THE CORE where they land a space shuttle in the LA river: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG1RwE_x6Vg

Re: Friends of Vast Industrial Concrete Kafkaesque Structures

#49

Post by tpm »

NullPrefix wrote: post #22
sworc wrote: post #7

I'm surprised that this construction is considered a "river".

What would you call it? Half-pipe ?

In our country, we would call it a drainage channel or something like that. We expect rivers to at least look a bit natural, even if most of them are heavily regulated anyway.

Re: Friends of Vast Industrial Concrete Kafkaesque Structures

#50

Post by baked_ziti »

harimau777 wrote: post #27
JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are you glad some are? Signed, A Brutalist Hater

Human beings are physical creatures and our physical environment can communicate messages that are more powerful than if you just read them in a book. I find that brutalist buildings often communicate a visceral sense of power, profundity, inhuman scale, etc. A Brutalist library can give one the sense that it houses the knowledge of hundreds of generations. From a time when the gigantic heroes of myth necessitated th…

> A Brutalist library can give one the sense that it houses the knowledge of hundreds of generations.

Or it can resemble a turkey: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robarts_Library

Brutalist structures are hideously ugly and oppressive to the human spirit. Why anyone thinks architects and advocates for the dehumanizingly ugly should be allowed to use public spaces for these projects is a mystery to me. We have to share these spaces, and for people to say things like "sometimes you should feel insignificant" and then impose it on the rest of us in building form is objectionable.

Post reply on HN