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The mid in fake midcentury modern

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Re: The mid in fake midcentury modern

#191

Post by PartiallyTyped »

blue039 wrote: post #106
sph wrote: post #10

There are two schools of thought: those that think that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and those that think, like Steve Jobs famously quipped, that some people just have no good taste. After fighting with this concept for years, I decided to embrace the superiority and smugness that comes with the latter: the vast majority of people have no understanding of beauty and aesthetic. The only thing that stops the w…

There is nothing objectively beautiful about modern architecture. Brutalism, for example, is talentless nonsense. Before the advent of "everyone gets sued", the ADA, nuclear war, etc there was actual creative freedom. Now, everything is just one size fits all. Just in case you happen to attract the wrong attention. Architecture really is a reflection on how mind numbingly dull modern life actually is.

> Brutalism, for example, is talentless nonsense.

I find eco-brutalism to be interesting and eerily captivating, but I think it relates to your last sentence:

> Architecture really is a reflection on how mind numbingly dull modern life actually is.

Eco-brutalism reminds me of depictions of the remnants of long lost civilisations adopted by privitive species*.

* This is likely a consequence of growing up playing Halo CE.

Re: The mid in fake midcentury modern

#192

Post by keiferski »

cryptonector wrote: post #151
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.

"Leave opinion on aesthetics to the experts"?

That's what functionally happens, yes. If most people revert to an opinion of "well that's just your opinion, it's all entirely subjective," then the people driving what actually gets valued are the ones that bother to educate themselves and be deemed as experts.

To use an example: if a person in New York City said that "all the restaurants taste the same and it's all just subjective," would you buy a dining tour guide book from them? Or would you buy a book from someone that has made an effort to understand what makes a restaurant good or not?

Re: The mid in fake midcentury modern

#193

Post by DrBazza »

ericmay wrote: post #23
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 (…

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…

> 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.

No, we're in a capitalist mental model. It's the same in the UK.

It's build cheap, maximise profit, and a race to the bottom.

Want that bas-relief from a master stonemason? No chance. Two reasons - profit. Second reason, so few master stonemasons because... the chase for profit and cheap buildings has removed any superfluous detailing, and hence destroyed a profession.

I can't envisage a new Chrysler building being built in the US (or UK) in the near future, or any of the 20-30s skyscrapers with ornate detailing up on the 40+ floor. Yes, I know we're all about steel and glass, but that doesn't stop elegant design and innovation.

It's the same on residential housing in the UK. You can just see it evolve over the last century from well built bricks and mortar with detailing, to modern (often grey) boxes, using the cheapest materials erected in the fastest time.

Re: The mid in fake midcentury modern

#194

Post by sph »

orange_joe wrote: post #77
sph wrote: post #10

There are two schools of thought: those that think that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and those that think, like Steve Jobs famously quipped, that some people just have no good taste. After fighting with this concept for years, I decided to embrace the superiority and smugness that comes with the latter: the vast majority of people have no understanding of beauty and aesthetic. The only thing that stops the w…

can you help me make sense of your argument? If most people have bad taste, how can peer pressure prevent ugliness? Peer pressure almost by definition demands conformity.

If one isn't born with taste, peer pressure and conformity is what stops them from going full ugly.

But of course, the artistic ideal is someone that understands taste and beauty, so they can shed norms and just do whatever they want. This is why Michael Jackson could pull off wearing white socks with dark leather shoes, but we collectively know they do not pair well.

Re: The mid in fake midcentury modern

#195

Post by papichulo4 »

pdntspa wrote: post #40

This article calls everything ugly without even defining what it thinks it -- or beauty -- are. (And if they did past the first paragraph or two of what looks to be an incoherent rant, they did so way too late)

The chosen font, spacing, paragraph size... I can't tell if it's supposed to be ironic.

Re: The mid in fake midcentury modern

#196

Post by unethical_ban »

ericmay wrote: post #23
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 (…

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…

One of the very few things the Trump admin did that I kind of liked was requiring new federal buildings to have neoclassical/gothic/beaux arts styles. I wish we could look at more federal buildings and say "wow, that's beautiful, that's cultural". That in contrast to brutalism, for which I have a slight soft spot due to growing up with it but damn it's ugly.

Re: The mid in fake midcentury modern

#197

Post by soco »

rahen wrote: post #164
ericmay wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> 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. Western Europe had the wealth to, it just refused, sometimes with mass protests. A good example is Amsterdam Jokinen Plan. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jokinen_Plan

And Western Europe had that guy called Le Corbusier with his ideas about ideal cities where utilitarian and ugliness was the entire strategy - just because. As ridiculous it might sound, just go to Zurich and you'll see his hideous legacy everywhere: no new building is anything else than a gray rectangle, even the brand new building of the art museum. It might be garbage but it's our garbage (Swiss motto)

Re: The mid in fake midcentury modern

#198

Post by actionablefiber »

kodyo wrote: post #149
actionablefiber wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've got to think a utilitarian culture would say something like "huh, maybe we should build homes that are easily served by transit." But American culture is much more strongly opposed to this than most those in most other countries.

One thing you notice if you've been in an airplane is that there's a lot of room to spread out if people want to.

And then those people will want things like “electricity” and “a network of wide paved roads” and “Internet” and “drinking water” and “sewage” and “timely package delivery to their front door” and “big box stores with parking lots the size of two city blocks” - and those things at that density have absolutely terrible unit economics and environmental externalities.

I frequently see people complain about how traffic is so bad, gas prices are so high, their local drivers are insane, and how dare they have to pay tolls and parking fees. Wow, I wish there were some form of spatial displacement that didn’t involve any of that!

Re: The mid in fake midcentury modern

#199

Post by nine_k »

carapace wrote: post #150
trilbyglens wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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? America is young, Europe is old.

USA is nearly 250 years old. Most European states are younger, even though European peoples and cultures are indeed old. Italy is young, Rome is old.

Re: The mid in fake midcentury modern

#200

Post by dmitriid »

crazygringo wrote: post #175
krona wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This made me weep. Pythagorean ideals of proportion have existed for a millenia. See Ancient Greek/Roman architecture, gothic architecture (e.g. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00004-022-00591-2 ) and then go to visit an average modern city development and look at what modern architects consider to be, I don't know, the 'ideal' diameter of a non-supporting (almost entirely aesthetic) column, or the incongr…

Yes, Pythagorean ideals of proportion have been around for a long time, but they've also been essentially "debunked" in terms of aesthetic beauty. Kind of the same way that precious little of the music we listen to today follows Bach's prescriptions for counterpoint. They were a historical starting point that we've long since evolved away from, in favor of greater freedom and sophistication. Which isn't to say that t…

> Modern architects are just as aware of proportion as they've ever been. But thankfully they're freed from archaic notions such as e.g. exact golden ratios.

It's strange then that these freed minds produce the ugliest buildings imaginable, en masse. And then pat each other on the backs and give each other awards for being beautiful.

See, for example, this beautiful multiple-award winning waterfront in Copenhagen https://goo.gl/maps/RGpDAsREQhnsvdJu5 only matched by this beautiful Copenhagen Opera designed by award-winning architects https://goo.gl/maps/krhiU9Poh4Ahqu9v6

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