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The mid in fake midcentury modern

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Re: The mid in fake midcentury modern

#391

Post by chis »

helen___keller wrote: post #14

It's worth mentioning that a lot of modern architecture (in single family & small-to-mid multifamily developments) is essentially dictated by money: what sells the best (typically the design that maximizes square footage), what is cheapest to build, and what is capable of passing for a given state and municipalities zoning and building code. People shop by location, price, and square footage as their primary search c…

I think it's up to local governments to require buildings to have some semblance of aesthetics taken into consideration. In the olden times a lot of buildings were built BY the future residents who had a stake in making it look nice. But modern buildings are just built to spec by the cheapest bidder and target renters who, like you said, are basically just sorting apartments.com by price/sf.

It's arguably a tragedy of the commons. The people who live there get maximum value for the money while everyone else has to look at a bland monstrosity every day.

Re: The mid in fake midcentury modern

#392

Post by ag8 »

Regardless of my thoughts on the content, this article is very beautifully written. The word choice is impeccable, and reads like a thoughtfully shot short film of the author's day.

Re: The mid in fake midcentury modern

#393

Post by conductr »

chasd00 wrote: post #346
conductr wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since we're talking about ugly city hall buildings... > When you do a city hall, it has to convey an image of the people, and this had to represent the people of Dallas ... The people I met – rich and poor, powerful and not so powerful – were all very proud of their city. They felt that Dallas was the greatest city there was, and I could not disappoint them. – I.M. Pei (architect) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dallas…

the inside is even more ridiculous. It would be easier and faster to get in, do what you need to do, and get out if it was just an office building. No one physically goes to City Hall unless there's absolutely no other option.

> unless there's absolutely no other option

I hit that scenario a couple times a year. Basic stuff that a city should do online, Dallas does not.

Re: The mid in fake midcentury modern

#394

Post by SoftTalker »

gfxgirl wrote: post #267

This is the equivalent to "why does modern music suck" (said by every generation of the next generation's music) Scott Alexander posted something similar https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/whither-tartaria And the response he got was arguably predictable..., others didn't agree that modern architecture is ugly. Sure there are some ugly buildings. But, for example, for me. I went to some 1929 building that I'm sure…

Modern (popular) music sucks because it's not human. It's produced by software, quantized, gridded, autotuned, copy/pasted, and though the result is technically perfect, it isn't human.

Modern architecture is the same. It's copy/paste design, assembled by software, the human element is gone. When buildings were designed by artists on paper there was no avoiding the designer's humanity and creativity being infused into the design. Today it's just lego blocks. You see the same buildings in every city you visit.

Re: The mid in fake midcentury modern

#395

Post by booleandilemma »

pizzalife wrote: post #387
booleandilemma wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the equivalent to "why does modern music suck" (said by every generation of the next generation's music) At first I agreed with you but then I clicked the submission article and saw those ugly mouse statue things.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaws Lots of people seem to enjoy those "ugly mouse statue things".

Lots of people enjoy those ugly monkey NFTs too, I don't know what to tell you

Re: The mid in fake midcentury modern

#396

Post by tablespoon »

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…

> I'm not religious at all but right now we face a crisis of what we are building for (as opposed to constructing buildings and temples to the glory of some god or gods).

We are building for the shareholders and the market. They are our new gods.

Re: The mid in fake midcentury modern

#398

Post by cryptonector »

keiferski wrote: post #229
pixl97 wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good is multi-axis measure. I have been to 'good' restaurants. Excellent food, immaculate plating, perfect service. Immense cost . This is why I'm heavily discounting your opinion here, because there seems to be a massive amount of axises that are being neglected that make these products 'good'. Energy use per product, general product acceptance to the massive to lower per unit cost, product fungibility are all metri…

Of course good is a multi-axis measure. This is obvious. Do you really expect someone to write a full theory of aesthetics in a HN comment?

Maybe not a full theory, but why not flesh things out a bit here, or else link to your papers or blog posts on the matter? Or if you're not an expert on aesthetics, maybe link to the work of someone who is.

Re: The mid in fake midcentury modern

#399

Post by species9606 »

crazygringo wrote: post #8

There's so much in this essay to unpack, it's all over the place -- more of an extended rant than any particularly cohesive argument. But one of the early points is "why is everything so gray instead of colorful?" Which is easy to answer -- when all your cars and buildings are super-colorful, they clash. They become garish and ugly and screaming for attention. Thank god we've moved to more neutral tones that actually…

You should watch “The Unbrellas of Cherbourg” to experience a world absolutely full of color, color everywhere, and more beautiful because of it. Not every city has to have the same chromatic sensibility as men’s business wear.

Re: The mid in fake midcentury modern

#400

Post by pixl97 »

yunwal wrote: post #226
pixl97 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with the word ugly is its completely an opinion. There is no right or wrong ugly. The author would have done much better to forego the word ugly and replace it with hyper conformity.

I disagree. I think within a given context like “architecture in the neighborhood I live in”, there’s an objective component to beauty/ugliness. There are universal human needs and desires that are being deprived by bad modern architecture (being in touch with nature, feeling comfortable, human communication and expression).

Again, 'modern architecture' is the failure point of your argument, as in "This has changed and is only a modern problem" being the primary failing.

In the past most architecture sucked, it has since been bulldozed and replaced by architecture that sucked. Why? Because architecture that sucks is generally cheap. I would say the past I would say architecture sucked even worse most of the time.

I'm sure 40 years from now someone will say "Do you remember when we built everything like the Apple campus", and the answer to that should be "No, not at all, it was an extraordinary building at the time, but it was rare", and that is the same comparison to today.

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