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

Prague's Brutalist Buildings

calvertjournal.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 122 posts

Re: Prague's Brutalist Buildings

#101

Post by mc32 »

aclimatt wrote: post #64

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…

I'm not even sure why exposed concrete architecture took off. It's not economical, it looks rudimentary and institutional (functional without adornment). But, it costs more, is tougher to maintain, and has drawbacks --like massive loads which must be accounted for when building them. Raw concrete makes sense for dams and hydroelectric projects because you need mass to hold water. Otherwise, it's a poor choice and in today's climate with carbon footprint considerations, it should be a choice of last resort.

Re: Prague's Brutalist Buildings

#102

Post by kfprt »

aclimatt wrote: post #64

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…

Brutalism was just another communist crime, razing old europe so they could stamp their manifestations of authoritarianism on it.

Re: Prague's Brutalist Buildings

#103

Post by pmontra »

RNCTX wrote: post #99
throwaway2331 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aesthetics are disalienating. 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…

There are two stories that come to mind, and I agree with your assessment. 1. In 2007 during the height of the financial market crash CNBC had a helicopter hovering over the northern VA house of a finance guy from one of the banks / insurers who was going belly up that had killed himself. The striking thing to me was how poor, aesthetically, the house was. Typical DC burbs McMansion trash. Plastic (vinyl) patio raili…

I didn't know about the glass walls at Apple HQ. A little googling returns several news stories. This is the best one I found so far: https://www.newsweek.com/apple-employees-call-911-walk-glass...

Re: Prague's Brutalist Buildings

#104

Post by DonHopkins »

janto wrote: post #68
gattilorenz wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that's true for all brutalist architecture, otherwise how could you explain its presence in the UK and other countries where there was no communist regime? Here is a good video about it: https://youtu.be/VGwVAxRHxgM

There were intellectuals that believed in communism in non-soviet countries.

...So they got architecture degrees and jobs designing buildings to spread communism?

Re: Prague's Brutalist Buildings

#105

Post by jollybean »

jollybean wrote: post #83

Those are all over E. Europe and they are a stark, daily, reminder, like a 'trigger', of the brutal totalitarianism of the past. 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 'w…

Here [1] you see direct evidence of this in the Danish context, but it's the same everywhere.

The population of E. Europe is literally in decline [2]

It's not birth rate [3] (it's note hugely different in Europe, but errs higher in the East).

The people leaving E. Europe are 'able bodied workers' and 'the educated' and 'students leaving to get education and jobs in the West' - i.e. E. Europe's absolutely most valuable 'assets'.

E. Europe is clearly being hollowed out in a very material way.

The 'freedom of movement' foundation of the EU is not really a humanitarian issue, though it's usually framed popularly as such, it's fundamentally a neoliberal policy, i.e. 'worker mobility' as European leaders believe this is a fundamental advantage of the US.

[1] https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=202106161...

[2] https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/eastern-europ...

[3] https://www.statista.com/statistics/612074/fertility-rates-i...

Re: Prague's Brutalist Buildings

#106

Post by jollybean »

scyzoryk_xyz wrote: post #73
vvm wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a little surprised by what you say. I've been living in Prague for 9 years (moved here, not Czech) and 8 of them I lived in Prague 5 bordering the Old Town, in 2 buildings build in Art Nouveau style, from around 1900. They were renovated, with modern elevators and looked pretty good both inside and outside.The area was very beautiful. Now I live in a communist tower block in Prague 4 and to be honest it's really…

That’s because it was socialist modernism - a utopian vision that drove support. A sort of more sustainable socialist version of the American dream. I live in such a neighborhood myself - it’s not very glamorous but it’s what living should be like in the age of environmental collapse.

Yes, nations with less wealth, more poverty and lower productivity consume fewer resources.

So if the argument is Totalitarian Socialism of the late 20th Century kept us poor, and now we're green, well that would be an argument.

I don't believe there is any evidence to suggest that there is anything other than that going on, as those formulations for living are otherwise identical to those in more capitalist W. Europe.

The architecture itself I don't think lends to any argument one way or the other, other than most people who have to live with it don't like it.

The 'prison' analogy used by some commentors here is apt, the fist time I visited the areas in E. Berlin with those types of buildings I literally thought they were reformatted prisons.

Re: Prague's Brutalist Buildings

#107

Post by jollybean »

wodenokoto wrote: post #10
inglor_cz wrote: post #7

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.

They are stunning photos, yes.

So I guess this should be a discussion about how we can romanticize and contextualize anything with art.

Re: Prague's Brutalist Buildings

#108

Post by m4rtink »

newby wrote: post #97
spaetzleesser wrote: post #94

I visited Czechoslovakia and East a few times when the Wall was still up. The biggest impression was how gray and drab everything was in the cities. It seemed everything was gray and covered with a thin layer of dirt. Very depressing. The countrysides were just neglected and decrepit. Also depressing in a different way.

I grew up in Czechoslovakia and I remember vividly how we visited Austria shortly after the fall of iron curtain. Everything seemed so clean and colorful and well maintained - it was shocking. I saw billboards for the first time in my life and they seemed incredibly beautiful to me. Until that visit I never realized how gray and falling apart was my normal environment (I was 13 at the time) - it seemed normal and I a…

Yeah, flaking of facades not repaired in decades used to be the norm, with some of them even still having shot holes from the last days of WWII! And all that covered by soot from all the many houses burning poor quality coal.

It took many years after The Fall to put things in order and now such a facade is the exception, not the norm.

Still, there is that one house with nicely painted iron fence clearly showing WWII bullet holes, from a long forgotten firefight.

Re: Prague's Brutalist Buildings

#109

Post by m4rtink »

busyant wrote: post #93

It just hit me that I associate brutalist architecture with Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange, in particular the marina scene ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtRGeyznv7k&t=27s ). I'm not even sure if that's brutalist architecture in the background, but brutalist architecture has a dystopian vibe that goes hand in hand with the film.

That was filmed in Thamesmead:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thamesmead https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ov2btkixcAc

The architecture there should be apparently Cubist/Brutalist/Modernist.

Post reply on HN