81–90 of 122 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
While I tend to agree that brutalist is sometimes an excuse for ugly, even you gotta admit that most of the pictures in the article are quite stunning.
All the pictures in the article are in B&W. Maybe if humans had grayscale vision brutalist architecture would be more tolerable.
A long time resident of Prague. I hate this shit. All of it. If there ever was an architecture designed to squeeze the soul out of you, spit on it, curb-stomp it AND, to add insult to injury, age like milk in absence of proper maintenance, this is it. The modern glass-and-steel architecture is "only" soulless in comparison.
There is a reason aesthetics are always the first to come under attack.
It contrasts with everything else so much.
As a Westerner, when you visit, it makes you feel like there was a giant foot on the neck of all of the people for generations.
Or like there was a 'Concrete Ice Age' over everything.
We reiterate the stories about the Nazis quite a lot, because 'we fought them', but we don't do a good enough job in entertainment of providing a visceral exposure to that era, and what it meant for so many.
To add salt to the wounds and make an even more complicated argument, so many of the most talented people have left these countries for W. Europe, thanks to the EU. This actually might be net-net beneficial in the economic short run (i.e. market clearing for labour), but in the long run it also means a hollowing out of the most precious resource of these places, and leaving them to be the West Virginia's of the EU. Not quite, but almost.
Every time a holier-than-thou architectural magazine waxes poetic about the beauty of "poor forgotten brutalism", they make their point by showing extremely well-cropped, always black and white, high contrast images to make the shadows pop. And then say wow isn't it a shame we're tearing these down? It's because that's not what crumbling Soviet-era buildings look like. Sure they're fun to photograph. I've seen these…
Concrete requires protection against water intrusion. Unfortunately everyone from Prizren to Surfside doesn’t want to pay. That doesn’t mean it can’t look nice. The DC subway is brutalist, and very well might be the most beautiful subway system in the US.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is a reason aesthetics are always the first to come under attack.
I can't help wishing you would flesh this out a bit, because it's true that it seems to be the case, but the reason isn't clear to me.
Separating humans from simple beasts of burden, toiling away in suffering, hoping only to be well-fed, and survive another day -- but no more.
Aesthetics are a respite.
Without, man becomes alienated from his humanity. Demoralized from losing a powerful moralizing force.
My interpretation of Marx, Engels, Hegel, et al.
In a certain vein, the U.S. lacks the same richness for it, compared to much older Western European countries (who haven't had theirs, their history, their culture, their identity, the very things that enliven their soul, destroyed by oppressive regimes. E.g. Stalinist communism).
Why do the French constantly raise hell when things are going poorly? Because it's in their history, it's their aesthetic that they cling tight to; for otherwise, they would be swallowed up by the world, and swept away.
One could even postulate that this is why our nation (the U.S.) has had such a rough adolescence, and hasn't yet made any truly novel attempts at Making Things Better (TM).
All are demoralized, with no true moralizing factors besides one's kin (but those are always unstable sources of moralization, and liable to one day disappear -- compared to the more concrete nature of culture).
If you kill a man's family and friends, what can bring him out of this abyss? Having lost his only moralizing force, that which enlivens the soul, what is there truly left for him to do, but become an animal toiling away until he one day dies?
Attacks on culture are rampant eveywhere, but the U.S. has not yet cemented theirs in the ground -- so there's not much at all of a culture to attack.
Truly exciting times: to think what happens in the next hundred years will serve as a foundation for the future.
There will still be strife; but what type of culture will mature?
Every time a holier-than-thou architectural magazine waxes poetic about the beauty of "poor forgotten brutalism", they make their point by showing extremely well-cropped, always black and white, high contrast images to make the shadows pop. And then say wow isn't it a shame we're tearing these down? It's because that's not what crumbling Soviet-era buildings look like. Sure they're fun to photograph. I've seen these…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is a reason aesthetics are always the first to come under attack.
I can't help wishing you would flesh this out a bit, because it's true that it seems to be the case, but the reason isn't clear to me.
Anti-human art and architecture, of which Brutalism is one example in my book, is revolutionary in that it attempts to sever the connection between humanity and higher ideals / planes of existence, creating closed loops of despair and grayness.
In Japan (where I have the most cultural experience outside of the US), there is a phrase "inki-kusai" which is similar to our word "inky" - it calls to mind dark, moldy places filled with litter and insects. I think it's one reason that solar reverence has been so prevalent in their history, sunlight and fresh air serve as disinfectants.
A long time resident of Prague. I hate this shit. All of it. If there ever was an architecture designed to squeeze the soul out of you, spit on it, curb-stomp it AND, to add insult to injury, age like milk in absence of proper maintenance, this is it. The modern glass-and-steel architecture is "only" soulless in comparison.
While I tend to agree that brutalist is sometimes an excuse for ugly, even you gotta admit that most of the pictures in the article are quite stunning.
LIving in a brutalist building still sucks.