Earlier quoted context omitted.
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".
Right.
The mid in fake midcentury modern
211–220 of 512 posts
Re: The mid in fake midcentury modern
#212I'm now visiting a brand new office building in London and it is stunning. Not minimalist, brutalist, ornate. And unique. And everybody who works in it seems to love it. I want to work there.
What bugs me is how most new buildings are similar all across the world. 100 years ago, each city has a character unique to it. Barcelona was uniquely Barcelona. Copenhagen was uniquely Copenhagen. Now most new buildings look like the architects have one, small template library.
Re: The mid in fake midcentury modern
#213Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
I disagree. In the post-postmodern period Architecture, as a whole, has been trying to better understand the needs of the users of the building and has been less about flashy design wins. New stadiums, for example, have been architected for flow, utility, and outdoor air conditioning, while trying to maintain a good look. New standalone business buildings are more oriented toward usefulness, accessibility, and comfor…
Yes, they've being trying, but as far as i noticed failed, cause the underlying systemic problems haven't changed. Buildings are status symbols, designed top-down. Those deeper societal issues, like classism, have gotten even worse.
"Outdoor air conditioning" sounds totally ridiculous and a quick search suggests it's just as bad as it sounds. There should be no world cup in Qatar to begin with.
Re: The mid in fake midcentury modern
#214Because we changed our view of what humans are.
We used to think of humans as something special, with a special spark. "Created in the image of God" was the culturally-dominant statement of this, but the idea was much more culturally pervasive than among people who believed the Bible literally. We believed in the soul, or something like it.
As a society, we no longer believe that. We believe that humans are purely material beings, arising purely by naturalistic means, with nothing more than very complicated natural processes. No soul, no mind that is anything separate from the brain. Bound by the laws of physics, which give rise to the laws of biochemistry, which give rise to the laws of neurology. Merely a complicated assembly of atoms, and nothing more.
And as a result, art died and was replaced by something else.
We used to think that there was such a thing as beauty, and that humans could create it. We don't think that anymore. Art now is what someone does deliberately with the intention of it being art, and nothing more.
Everything is ugly because we no longer think that real beauty is possible.
Re: The mid in fake midcentury modern
#215Reminds 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.
Wow, I'm blown away people here are confidently saying things like "most people don't think the Eiffel Tower is beautiful." Huh? Are you guys joking? Are these comments generated by GPT? It's beautiful because of its geometry. It's beautiful in the way it compliments the city. It's beautiful when it's lit up at night. What more do you want exactly? Who would have the gall to say something like "most people" don't thi…
Its a wrought steel truss in the shape of a basic geometric construction. Impressive for 19th century civil engineering. Perhaps. Perhaps not.
Compare that to Notre Dame. Also really very tall, but with no iron skeleton, no continuum mechanics. Geometry, in fact, holds it together - an architect had no other tool at the time - but the basic shapes are subtle, and don't scream at you "I am a curve on the Cartesian plane"
Re: The mid in fake midcentury modern
#216Earlier 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…
Here’s the secret to this thread.
Every “adult” generation always hates 50-100 year old architecture, because that was what was slightly old and starting to show its age when they were kids.
Gen-X/Millenials associate brutalism with non-renovated stuffy classrooms, empty downtown office buildings, and dirty public plazas.
Then a bunch get torn down (usually the lowest effort versions) and people adaptively re-use the best ones and everyone remembers the original intent of the style and falls in love with it again.
Seriously, people in the 60’s thought Victorian homes were a blight on San Francisco.
Re: The mid in fake midcentury modern
#217World 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 (…
Modernism started and co-evolved with the industrial revolution, long, long before World War 1. Esthetics is a favorite topic for far right thinkers where the demise of civilization is caused by some art that confuse them.
Of course there was a process involved, the edwardian era was stripping down classicism and art nouveau was recognizably post-classical, but WWs1&2 (and the subsequent rebuilding of europe and build out of america) is where modern architecture took over.
The earliest important modernist building from Gropius was Fagus, in 1911: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fagus_Factory
Sullivan, sometimes considered an early modernist, was building buildings like this as late at 1889:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auditorium_Building_(Chicago)
Birmingham UK is the birthplace of the industrial revolution, and as late at 1909 was building train stations that look like this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birmingham_Moor_Street_railway...
Surrendering the aesthetics that everyone save a small group of intellectuals, ideologues and capitalist sharpers likes to the right (and arrogantly dismissing us as intellectually unsophisticated) strikes me as an own-goal.
Re: The mid in fake midcentury modern
#218Earlier quoted context omitted.
Modernism started and co-evolved with the industrial revolution, long, long before World War 1. Esthetics is a favorite topic for far right thinkers where the demise of civilization is caused by some art that confuse them.
Yes, this top-comment is obviously wrong and mistaken if you know anything about aesthetics and architecture. The broken timelining of Modernist design is the most obvious error. I wouldn’t expect HN to get this right though.
No, it isn't.
It isn't what is taught in school, but it is a reasonably well-informed opinion, as my sibling comments show.
Re: The mid in fake midcentury modern
#219Earlier 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.
If you want to spread out you can do it without robbing the people who didn't to pay for your roads and utilities, and then banning them from building mid rise or transit.
Re: The mid in fake midcentury modern
#220Earlier 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…
> We have nothing old, and cannot imagine that anything might become old. Obviously wrong. America has an enormous amount of beautiful "old" architecture. Most streetcar suburbs are shockingly beautiful, from the utilitarian carriage houses all the way up to the mansions and large public buildings. It all predates WW1. The reason truly is psychological. At the elite level (public institutions, taste makers), it was a…
> Obviously wrong. America has an enormous amount of beautiful "old" architecture. [...] It all predates WW1
Your comment shows the difference between American "old" and European "old". In Europe, there are people who live in homes far older than that.