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When is the revolution in architecture coming?

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Re: When is the revolution in architecture coming?

#91

Post by dr_dshiv »

d--b wrote: post #35

So. Fucking. True. The state of architecture is a disaster. Ever since Adolf Loos wrote “ornament is crime”, architects have booed anything decorative. We get textures, sure. Oh boy do we get textures. We get all the woods, all the stones, all the 3d printed concrete. Sculpture? Hell, no… And no it’s not that expensive. When you build 234 park avenue, every apartment sells for $10m. maybe there is some of it that can…

I am imagining a psychology experiment to collect data on the value of ornamentation— eg, having people estimate the relative value of similar buildings in different styles. I think the modernists never got that part of the “function” of forms is to create a neighborhood vibe. Ornamentation can have a huge effect on this.

I’d love to see a return to small sculpture elements based on 3D printing and concrete casting — even if it starts with wholesale copying of ornamentation that works well from the late 1890s.

Re: When is the revolution in architecture coming?

#93

Post by gnramires »

One of my favorite architectures is not anywhere real, but Morrowind (Elder Scrolls game). All cities are astonishingly beautiful. More, they all sort of fit together internally. They form a coherent style. Plus the interiors and the exteriors are both gorgeous and work together.

See Ald'ruhn: https://elderscrolls.fandom.com/wiki/Ald%27ruhn,_Manor_Distr...

and Vivec (not sure I went there years ago): https://elderscrolls.fandom.com/wiki/Vivec_City_(Morrowind)?...

The function of every building is clear from the outside, and it's clear they are part of the same picture/vision. Of course that's because the game designers made them all at once coherently.

So more than any style being particularly bad, I think We have mainly a lack of vision and coordination (the greatest problem of modern humanity). Each building does its own thing. So we over-regulate each building so they can't be too deviant (because there is otherwise no say in style). The result is jarring, boring, uninspired cities.

(See my proposal of a new economic system to address this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29043752)

A good start would be having communitarian, and maybe city architects responsible for (at least part of) every project in a certain region. Each neighborhood should be designed as a whole to be most coherent, functional (for everyone, not individually), psychologically well designed.

Re: When is the revolution in architecture coming?

#94

Post by mkl95 »

Brutalism somehow made it to the 21st century, and it's still popular. The only explanation I can find is that those architects have never lived, studied, or worked in those places. Personally they bring me memories of incompetent teachers, insufficient heating, and specks of dust I'd rather forget.

Re: When is the revolution in architecture coming?

#97

Post by recursivedoubts »

jahewson wrote: post #13
recursivedoubts wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stone and wood is carved by machines quite easily. Sears used to churn out homes with loads of detail and mail them out wholesale to middle class folks. Those homes are now worth fortunes. We have terrible architecture for ideological reasons. Flat roofs are not signifincantly cheaper to build than pitched roofs, and far less adept at roofiness, but we got flat roofs from bauhaus philosophy. As with most modern art,…

> we got flat roofs from bauhaus philosophy. Not really. Frank Lloyd Wright was building with flat roofs a decade before the Bauhaus school even opened. But it was certainly an artistic endeavour and he’s a great example of somebody who had an adversarial relationship with pretty much everybody.

Wright used flat roofs and I'm sure other folks did before him, but bauhaus was the intellectually dominant influence on schools of architecture in the west.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_Bauhaus_to_Our_House

Re: When is the revolution in architecture coming?

#98

Post by chasd00 »

MeinBlutIstBlau wrote: post #37
d--b wrote: post #35

So. Fucking. True. The state of architecture is a disaster. Ever since Adolf Loos wrote “ornament is crime”, architects have booed anything decorative. We get textures, sure. Oh boy do we get textures. We get all the woods, all the stones, all the 3d printed concrete. Sculpture? Hell, no… And no it’s not that expensive. When you build 234 park avenue, every apartment sells for $10m. maybe there is some of it that can…

Every architect I've met is like a jaded COBOL programmer at the government that refuses to leave their niche because change increases the chances of you getting fired.

That’s a good way to put it. I know a number of architects, 99.9% design the equivalent of Taco Bell’s. Unless you’re exceptional it’s a very mind numbin job where you’re easily replaceable (like most everything else).

Re: When is the revolution in architecture coming?

#99

Post by nathias »

gnramires wrote: post #93

One of my favorite architectures is not anywhere real, but Morrowind (Elder Scrolls game). All cities are astonishingly beautiful. More, they all sort of fit together internally. They form a coherent style. Plus the interiors and the exteriors are both gorgeous and work together. See Ald'ruhn: https://elderscrolls.fandom.com/wiki/Ald%27ruhn,_Manor_Distr... and Vivec (not sure I went there years ago): https://elderscr…

No, there is only one thing that can achieve this, local urbanism, clear rules that all buildings being built must adhere to.

Re: When is the revolution in architecture coming?

#100

Post by ivanche »

Haemm0r wrote: post #50
zbrozek wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm trying to pitch a flat section of roof on my house because it leaks. Flat roofs are sometimes flat because of too-low or badly-defined building height limits. Boringness also probably comes from increasing numbers of people involved in approvals. Try getting some wild thing through public hearings and city councils. Much harder than a cube. The boringness is a feature, not a bug. I bet there's a ton of other fact…

The way I see it, in Central Europe the reason for a flat roof on a single family home is mostly cost advantage (on short sight) or architectural. Someone said: There are two types of flat roofs: Those that are leaky and those that are not leaky yet.

I really wonder how is that so. Even in my home country which is easily in the bottom 10% of Europe's poorest I lived in a building built in 1977 (!) with flat roof. It never had a leak until this year, and on the first sign of it tenants found some company to install some membrane and gave them 10 year no-matter-what warranty on it. And it was super cheap when divided on 30 owners. And we're talking about a country with average monthly salary of $400 or so.
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