281–290 of 512 posts
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My European house is older.
Indeed. There are many houses in Europe that survived 3-4 different states claiming the land on which they stand.
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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.
My European house is older.
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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…
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…
I never bought into the "eye of the beholder" on aesthetics. I might not understand a particular aesthetic. It might be impossible to formulate logical rules to decide what is beautiful. But beauty is objective, nonetheless. Be it an exquisite Japanese drawing of a bird with ink and rice paper, or Caravaggio, anyone with a soul can see that talent, effort, and a sense of "wholeness" went into creating both. I, person…
Plenty of brutalist buildings are not ugly.
https://preview.redd.it/1w5r7lmno0491.jpg?width=4032&format=...
Interesting uses of lines and perspective, a willingness to have large sweeping architectural shapes that were not possible before, huge stairwells, open air walkways, plenty of windows for natural light.
Yes the concrete is ugly as sin, and it turns out it weathers and falls apart way sooner than anyone expected, but the shapes concrete was able to create are impressive.
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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…
It seems more likely that brutalist architecture is uniquely terrible, and the ascendant architects of the 1960s simply had horrific taste. If anything, architecture seems to have been almost entirely captured by the avant-garde; people more interested in “new and different” than “classic and beautiful”. I don’t think modern audiences are suddenly falling in love with brutalist architecture; even the best examples lo…
Interesting, it seems to me that brutalist architecture is actually pretty appealing aesthetically.
I might go so far as to say that objective beauty and taste simply does not exist and anyone claiming that it does hasn't thought about it very hard yet.
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> 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.
Sure it unified again only in the 19th century, but it has had a great degree of cultural union throughout its entire history. It is actually one of the most homogeneous countries in terms of language, religion and culture. Italians like to think otherwise for some reason. Sorry for the digression!
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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…
Are you sure that was the opinion of the average person or was it the opinion of someone writing a column on architecture in a magazine?
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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…
I can't speak about Austin, TX, but here in NYC a number of aesthetically pleasing buildings have been built in last, say, 30 years. Even asymmetric ones, like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8_Spruce_Street >, look great; I'm saying so as someone who used to see downtown Manhattan every day during commute. (One thing I miss after switching to WFH.)
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You're right, thanks for the correction. Without a formal training in the arts I don't know my terminology, I just have an amateur feel for what I hate and know some vaguely related terms. In that case I'm against both modernist and postmodern styles and prefer the Baroque? Darn I don't know, I just feel much more at home walking down the street in Warsaw than in NYC or Chicago.
A lot of Postmodern architecture is pretty ugly too, and it is typical for people much prefer the older architectural styles found in Europe. Part of it is the fault of 20th and 21st century architecture, but also big changes in urban design and property development economics happened throughout the 20th century. I'm pretty on board with the idea that North American urban design and architecture is an abject failure,…
Postmodern architecture can sometimes be an eyesore, but that’s kind of the point. If you attempt to never offend anyone’s sensibilities you get modern architecture and nothingness. Even if you changed modern architecture to mean art deco or neoclassical you’d get tired of it.
So yeah, you might get things most consider eyesores
https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/f.BSw.Y41JI35DZDLjslHg--/Y...
But if you ask a little kid whether they like that building, they might say yes. So you’ve created something at least someone likes.
I’ll take seeing 10 eyesores and one extraordinary building any day over blandness.
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More down-to-earth and simplistic answer: the classless society (Socialism and derivates like Social democracy) with the need to provide reasonable housing for the masses and the spread of industrial concrete[0] took us to the optimal solution: the concrete box. Once Alvaro Siza (Pritzker prize) was asked if his architecture was minimalist. He answered (paraphrasing): "No, it's just a minimalism of costs". From wikip…
Architecture has almost nothing to do with it... Hipodromo in Mexico City is one of the most beautiful neighborhoods in the world. Architecturally, it's a bunch of hideously ugly buildings. But there's trees and plants everywhere, and they're beautiful, and that's all you see. The reason everything is ugly is because we don't have trees and nature anymore - we just have roads and parking instead. There's tons of beau…
I'd agree that that is the most important part, the city must be a ballroom, and that architecture proper comes second. Thing is, we lost both though. No more beautiful architecture, but also a complete misunderstanding of how to build a harmonious public realm. We can only think cars. Parking lot for cars. Streets for cars. Buffer zones for the exhaust, noise, and danger of cars. It destroys all cohesion.
