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The mid in fake midcentury modern

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Re: The mid in fake midcentury modern

#131

Post by ericmay »

trilbyglens wrote: post #92
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…

How is it that America can still be traumatised from the world wars architecturally but europe is not? I don't really buy the argument that america builds badly because of fear of destruction. It's more that we are an utterly utilitarian culture. We have nothing old, and cannot imagine that anything might become old. Our goals are to maximize profits while minimizing cost, so we end up building $10m houses out of shi…

> How is it that America can still be traumatised from the world wars architecturally but europe is not?

Europe is too, it's just that a lot of the older things survived. You can see brutalist and similar architecture that sprang up in the Soviet bloc. I don't think Europeans are that much more "sophisticated" than Americans or anyone else. It's more of an inheritance by happenstance.

Europe (in general) didn't have the wealth to build car-only infrastructure so it never really suburbanized and mass-manufactured homes like America did.

The factors influencing aren't quite the same. Amsterdam is a popular case [1]

I generally agree with your post, though. The caveat is that it's less about capitalism and more about lack of ability to make choices in the market (lack of capitalism and markets). You can't anywhere in America choose a new home that's built in a walkable neighborhood. It's simply not for sale (new). You can only buy existing homes in neighborhoods that survived demolition after the 1920s, and of course those are the most expensive homes by median in the country because of a lack of additional supply.

[1]https://exploring-and-observing-cities.org/2016/01/11/amster...

Re: The mid in fake midcentury modern

#132

Post by openplatypus »

jona-f wrote: post #75
openplatypus wrote: post #44

If everything appears ugly to you, ask yourself: 1. Is it really? Or this is some weird sentiment towards things that passed? I prefer modern “ugly” architecture and “modern” medicine, then flamboyant, impractical and wasteful building accompanied by poor health; maybe we just recentred our attention? … alternatively 2. you are depressed; and I don't mean it in a snark way; futility, greyness and ever present gloom c…

I would describe your second point as gaslighting. Tastes are different and many people dislike modern (and post-modern) architecture. Talking with architects about this, they told me that building differently today is too expensive, doesn't go well with industrialized construction. I argue that architecture is an academic shitshow. It's design for competition juries and not for the people using it. Which is btw very…

Tastes are different.

The author could have written, some buildings are ugly. I don't like them.

Yet, the author wrote, “everything” is ugly.

Re: The mid in fake midcentury modern

#133

Post by [deleted] »

Ygg2 wrote: post #52
DocTomoe wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know I am in the minority here, but I actually like brutalist architecture between 1965 and 1985. Not the cookie-cutter ghettos, I mean artful architecture, like Habitat 67 or the Robarts Library, or the Wellcome headquarters.

I too like brutalist architecture for its sincerity. Big Cities are inherently ugly. Brutalist architecture just don't pretend they are pretty.

[deleted]

Re: The mid in fake midcentury modern

#134

Post by openplatypus »

beezlebroxxxxxx wrote: post #64
openplatypus wrote: post #44

If everything appears ugly to you, ask yourself: 1. Is it really? Or this is some weird sentiment towards things that passed? I prefer modern “ugly” architecture and “modern” medicine, then flamboyant, impractical and wasteful building accompanied by poor health; maybe we just recentred our attention? … alternatively 2. you are depressed; and I don't mean it in a snark way; futility, greyness and ever present gloom c…

Your binary only really allows for the author to like "modern" (which should really be called "modernism" to accentuate its aesthetic name), or be depressed. But they could a) think it's ugly and b) responsible for the sense of alienation or discontent. They might believe that the aesthetic makes life worse without their life being depressingly bad, for instance.

My binary response is to the absolutist tone of “everything” is ugly.

Not everything is ugly. Some buildings are ugly. Some are not ugly, but simply cheap.

I don't like a lot of stuff in my city. I am not calling it ugly.

Re: The mid in fake midcentury modern

#136

Post by rob74 »

trilbyglens wrote: post #92
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…

How is it that America can still be traumatised from the world wars architecturally but europe is not? I don't really buy the argument that america builds badly because of fear of destruction. It's more that we are an utterly utilitarian culture. We have nothing old, and cannot imagine that anything might become old. Our goals are to maximize profits while minimizing cost, so we end up building $10m houses out of shi…

I'm in Europe (in Germany to be more precise), but believe you me, new buildings that I would describe as "beautiful" are few and far between here too. I think most of it is due to what I would call cookie cutter mentality. For most architects, a building is just a job. They don't realize that even the most unassuming building is something that may be used for 100 years and more, that will influence the lives of thousands of people (if only because they see it and seeing it makes their day a bit better or worse), and deserves to be treated as such.

Re: The mid in fake midcentury modern

#137

Post by itsyaboi »

jmartrican wrote: post #54
DocTomoe wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know I am in the minority here, but I actually like brutalist architecture between 1965 and 1985. Not the cookie-cutter ghettos, I mean artful architecture, like Habitat 67 or the Robarts Library, or the Wellcome headquarters.

I like it too. I especially like it for big government agencies, like FBI and post-office. Gives the impression of "we are not here to f*k around".

I too enjoy the deep paternalistic emotions evoked by government buildings.

Re: The mid in fake midcentury modern

#138

Post by pixl97 »

xyzelement wrote: post #35

The article is down for me so I am guessing at it based solely on the comments, which is dangerous. Something that has become apparent to me is the connection between aesthetic expression and religious expression, which I think used to reign but now is missing from the process. To use an obvious examples, consider something "small detail" like the ornate doors of an old European cathedral, they were crafted beautiful…

Also remember that different religious agencies would decorate this way in order for you to keep giving a tenth of your earnings to the Church.

This was really no different than Apple making flashy buildings in order to attract the best workers and customers willing to pay higher prices. But as many churches that decorated, there were far, far, far more places that were boring and uninteresting in their times. There was great expense involved in creating these flashy features.

Re: The mid in fake midcentury modern

#139

Post by zip1234 »

DocTomoe wrote: post #17
jmartrican wrote: post #6

It could be the case that in 30 years, we look back at the aesthetics of our current times with fondness and nostalgia.

I know I am in the minority here, but I actually like brutalist architecture between 1965 and 1985. Not the cookie-cutter ghettos, I mean artful architecture, like Habitat 67 or the Robarts Library, or the Wellcome headquarters.

There is a definite survivorship bias in buildings. The 'good ones' tend to survive and the horrendous ones torn down. The major problem with brutalist is that it often sacrificed comfort of those using the building. Who wants a building near an outside wall but having no windows?

Re: The mid in fake midcentury modern

#140

Post by logicalmonster »

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…

> Fascism via "vokisch" movements and ideas attempted to more or less co-opt and own romanticism, classicism, and other forms of non-"modernist" aesthetics.

In my opinion, it's not so much that "fascism" (sort of a useless label in today's world) has co-opted traditional aesthetics, it's that the left has run away from the actual concept of beauty.

As an example: look at the body positivity movement. Everybody, no matter how obviously repulsive, is celebrated as beautiful no matter what. They're not just having their dignity as people recognized which is a great thing, but their actual level of beauty. How can the concept of aesthetics exist in a realm where everything is automatically labelled as beauty?

To have beauty, some must be recognized as better than others.

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