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The mid in fake midcentury modern

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Re: The mid in fake midcentury modern

#121

Post by micromacrofoot »

epolanski wrote: post #101
micromacrofoot wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes exactly. When choosing colors or amenities for my home, my real estate agent and contractors would bristle — "that's not going to be good for resale value" This has impacts on the industries surrounding as well. If I want a custom siding color, it's going to be more expensive. We're normalizing everything around the most widely palatable, so it's all fairly bland.

> We're normalizing everything around the most widely palatable My counter argument to this is that then it is the "norm" and society conditioning our taste and dictating what's palatable. This goes as deep as influencing and forming our sexuality. We get aroused by things that would've not aroused people centuries ago, the canons of beauty themselves changed a lot.

sure, it's cyclical — the emphasis is on "value" or "ROI" before "aesthetic", which in itself is a certain aesthetic

Re: The mid in fake midcentury modern

#122

Post by cjohnson318 »

version_five wrote: post #46
ericmay wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To latch on to this great post there are a couple of other worthwhile discussion points: We're still in a nuclear war mental model. We can't build beautiful things if we think they'll be destroyed in a war. We still have a societal level PTSD from World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the Soviet Union, and other things. World War I veterans came back with horrific problems. That's why architects like Frank Lloyd…

Two random comments: 1. When I was younger I though brutalist concrete buildings were ugly, now (even if they still are) i find they are usually the most interesting thing in a city core. 2. > Even their own houses typically look like architectural garbage. Agreed. I can't believe how cheap and ugly so many of the "rich people" houses are. It seems to be a competition for who can have the most different rooflines, an…

> I can't believe how cheap and ugly so many of the "rich people" houses are.

If don't have the money to build, then you bid over whatever is on the market; whatever some developer and architect duo thought would differentiate themselves ten or twenty years ago. People prioritize commute, distance to family, distacne to the grocery, school zones, number of bedrooms and space, kitchen/bath vintage, and price way, way before what a home actually looks like on the outside. No one really wants to live in a McMansion, but outward appearance is so far down on the priorities that it doesn't matter.

Re: The mid in fake midcentury modern

#123

Post by incogitomode »

Until a week ago I lived around the corner from the n+1 office and the buildings they're talking about. It's astounding how expensive the new developments are around there — like, $8k/month 2-bed rentals — and how terrible much of the new architecture is. It's a part of Greenpoint that has some of the most beautiful buildings in Brooklyn, most built in the late 18th and early 19th century. Which is all to say, I understand where the author is coming from and mostly agree.

That said, there actually are some attractive buildings in the mix. The massive OMA development, Eagle+West, is grossly overpriced but also shows what some amount of creativity and care coupled with new building techniques and materials can offer. It's not perfect, but we probably have to build in new ways if we want to solve problems of homelessness and affordability — again, my example is not affordable, but I think that has more to do with the developers than the actual input costs.

When you look at the beautiful old streets in Greenpoint you're seeing an investment of human labor and materials that is incomparable in today's terms. Those homes were built in a time when labor was cheap, and the people they were built for far wealthier relative to the labor pool. I just moved into a townhouse built in 1900 and when I hire a mason or plumber for repairs there's a good chance they earn more than I do — and I'm a well-paid developer.

This is all to say, I don't think there's anything fundamentally beautiful about the old — survivor bias, lack of context, and aesthetic conditioning are all at play. Nor does the new have to be universally ugly. I've seen plenty of new, dense construction in northern Europe that is beautiful and affordable.

Re: The mid in fake midcentury modern

#124

Post by Kukumber »

keiferski wrote: post #97
pixl97 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, but now you've delved off into opinions. I'd have to say the article itself is just a gigantic opinion piece. Ugly is the wrong word. Conformity is. If you consider conformity ugly, you will see it as ugly, if you do not, it will not be ugly. It's all subjective.

No, I don’t think it’s just “all subjective” or “that’s just your opinion, man”, but actually discussing aesthetic topics to a deeper level requires more expertise and has less immediate implications (than say, civil engineering) that people are just content to be intellectually lazy about it.

oh right, "you are not an artist or an engineer therefore you can't understand my biased opinion that prevails"

"it's ugly" is a very compelling argumentation

i think there is a difference between the Eiffel Tower and the random office building in the middle of Roma

Re: The mid in fake midcentury modern

#125

Post by eternalban »

api wrote: post #63
voldacar wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of people responsible for 20th century architecture believed more or less that beauty is Literally Fascism, so that's another component. The ugliness isn't always accidental.

Fascism via "vokisch" movements and ideas attempted to more or less co-opt and own romanticism, classicism, and other forms of non-"modernist" aesthetics. As a result you had a counter-reaction that labeled these things fascist and embraced intentionally minimal, modernist, or decadent themes in rebellion against them. The solution is probably to de-fascize(?) classical and romantic aesthetics. Not sure how you'd do…

> The solution is probably to de-fascize(?) classical and romantic aesthetics.

This is all so funny. Rewind a generation or two and all this "fascist" talk was directed at folk who admired men wearing togas while emitting Latin. Back then, 'to strip down to its essence and meaning' was the revolutionary act.

> [Architecture] is a form of "we are smart people who know better and are going to centrally plan and re-make culture the way we think it should be,"

And that is the point of architecture (vs mere act of building). Your myths, religions, literature, music, philosophy, and architecture and most matter of significance that is part and parcel of your culture was most likely created and promoted by a tiny (tiny!) subset of the population. Always has been. Everywhere.

> to centrally plan and re-make culture the way we think it should be,"

Is, has been, and will always remain the prerogative of the ruling class. All this aesthetic talk is blather masking the underlying and reasonable social angst regarding the highly distorted wealth and power distribution among the population. The clique in power sets the tone and direction of culture. Heck, your kings used to have dreams, wake up and change religions, and then presto pagans become Christian or Jew or Muslim. [Don't shoot the messenger. Just pointing out facts.]

And if you think this gray "putty" business is bad, I invited you to review K-Mart catalogues from 70s. Everything came in two neon colors - some washed out puke blue and a variation of 'dirt color'. I remember asking my dad when we first came over to US (and I got my first k-mart shock) as to why won't they make nicer colors for the common people. It remained a puzzle for a long time, this insistence on making cheap consumer items look even cheaper.

So this gray is actually the progression from K-Mart Puke Pallet -> Gap's B&W T -> faux-thoughtful "gray". It is progress, of a sort, believe it or not.

Re: The mid in fake midcentury modern

#126

Post by trgn »

phkahler wrote: post #49
recursivedoubts wrote: post #5

World Wars 1 & 2 happened, shattering the remaining sense of aesthetic unity we had that was followed by modernism which purity spiraled into the ubiquitous glass box, which was then followed by a post-modernist surface-level, purely negative rejection of modernism the post-modernists were unable to return to any pre-modern sense of aesthetics due to their ideological commitment to the ur modernist impulse of pride (…

>> interesting to note that even individual aesthetic disasters like victorian homes, when combined in a neighborhood with common roof-lines, etc. form a charming aesthetic that has been singularly unachievable except in ersatz form since... I just assumed it's all about cost savings. Architecture has been affected by the race to the bottom as much as anything.

No. The race to the bottom doesn't explain the extreme rupture that happened in the 40s.

Another thing that may play into it (beyond a psychological breakdown), that's we diverted spending on architecture to spending on maintenance of car infrastructure. The public realm is experience through a car, and as such, sensory details, sense of closure and safety, are irrelevant. Rather, what becomes relevant is asphalt, large easy to maintain buffer zones between car infrastructure and building.

Re: The mid in fake midcentury modern

#127

Post by itsyaboi »

sbaiddn wrote: post #42
pavlov wrote: post #12

Reminds me of the Parisian art critic who was appalled when they built a modernist colossus that destroyed the beautiful harmony of his home city. The rest of his life he would scrupulously choose walking routes to avoid seeing the monstrosity. The building in question was the Eiffel Tower.

Which is a monstrosity.

a* monstrosity

Use "an" only if the following word starts with a vowel (with few exceptions) -> "The Eiffel Tower is an abomination".

Re: The mid in fake midcentury modern

#128

Post by Jackim »

recursivedoubts wrote: post #5

World Wars 1 & 2 happened, shattering the remaining sense of aesthetic unity we had that was followed by modernism which purity spiraled into the ubiquitous glass box, which was then followed by a post-modernist surface-level, purely negative rejection of modernism the post-modernists were unable to return to any pre-modern sense of aesthetics due to their ideological commitment to the ur modernist impulse of pride (…

Are you saying that Victorian homes, as a rule, are aesthetic disasters? I'm curious to learn more about this as it's not something I've heard before. If you have any recommended reading about that I'd greatly appreciate it.

Re: The mid in fake midcentury modern

#130

Post by keiferski »

Kukumber wrote: post #124
keiferski wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I don’t think it’s just “all subjective” or “that’s just your opinion, man”, but actually discussing aesthetic topics to a deeper level requires more expertise and has less immediate implications (than say, civil engineering) that people are just content to be intellectually lazy about it.

oh right, "you are not an artist or an engineer therefore you can't understand my biased opinion that prevails" "it's ugly" is a very compelling argumentation i think there is a difference between the Eiffel Tower and the random office building in the middle of Roma

No? I didn't say that my opinion was right, just that most people aren't willing to do the work in order to have a deeper discussion on the topic, so they just revert to relativism.

I also didn't say the Eiffel Tower was ugly, I said most people don't think it's an exemplar of beauty, even those that like it.

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