> WE LIVE IN UNDENIABLY UGLY TIMES. Architecture, industrial design, cinematography, probiotic soda branding — many of the defining features of the visual field aren’t sending their best.
One of these things is not like the others
Why is everything so ugly?
221–230 of 328 posts
Re: Why is everything so ugly?
#222I blame the preset hustle.
Re: Why is everything so ugly?
#223I just wanted to echo the gray frustration here. I went to buy vinyl flooring (I can't afford hardwood) and the sheer amount of inexplicably "grey wood" planks was staggering. Why! Like, it's as if some alien only saw wood in an episode of I Love Lucy and wanted to replicate it.
That’s surprising. From the interior design content I watch, the white and grey aesthetic is very much considered outdated and a mistake. Warm wood tones are much higher regarded.
Re: Why is everything so ugly?
#224My crackpot theory: This is in part due to CAD: * Colors other than gray don't look nice in CAD and aren't the default. * It's super easy to just stack a bunch of rectangles (looking at you, architects...) * You can chamfer and fillet but that's the end of what most people do. More complex shapes are hard to due due to the clunky spline tools. Hence elaborate ornaments are left out.
that makes sense
in the era of blueprints, where you had to draw literally everything from scratch every time, human pride would necessitate taking the time to add flourishes or small details to every page, just to keep the talent who is producing them from losing their minds
look at old bibles, full of small details that are ultimately useless for the message being conveyed, but still announce the presence of a poor soul doomed to reproduce these glyphs for eternity
nowadays... you can just open an old drawing, hit copy-paste, and be down by the pub at 11am.... not a bad deal for the drawer, but for the people looking up on the sidewalk...
Re: Why is everything so ugly?
#225Well, I for one don't think everything is ugly. Apple devices and stores look clean and elegant to me. Tesla vehicles feel and look simple and beautiful to me. If given a choice, I'd rather live in new buildings with bright, light-filled interiors than in old buildings with darker, mustier interiors. I could provide more examples of things I don't think are ugly. The main point is this: Beauty is in the eye of the be…
> Tesla vehicles look beautiful to me. As you say, beauty is in the eye of the beholder—but, seriously, the Cybertruck as a thing of beauty? (This is from someone who actually liked the boxy car designs of old.)
I like the look of the cybertruck. I also like the look of my Thinkpad 420. GIVE ME BIG ANGULAR THINGS.
I for sure find the cybertruck prettier than 99% of cars on the roads anyway. The SUVs are especially ugly imo.
Re: Why is everything so ugly?
#226Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is the only real takeaway of the article. “I don’t like this because it’s new to me, therefore it’s universally bad.” I live in Boston and there was a similar freakout about the gas lamps in Beacon Hill being replaced by LEDs. Not a single person I talked to about it knew that the gas lamps were only added to the neighborhood in the late 70s to make it look more quaint and historic.
In SF, the most recent two controversies were over historic seating being removed from a Castro theatre and historic rusted iron protective chains being replaced by the waterfront. Age of said seating? 20 y. Age of chains? 30 y. It's not that I have a problem with this. It's just that I personally don't want to be considered historic in my mid 30s.
How are things ever supposed to become historic if people aren't allowed to fight to keep them around when they are only 20 or 30 years old?
Re: Why is everything so ugly?
#227> After New York replaced the sodium-vapor lights in the city’s 250,000 streetlamps with shiny new LEDs in 2017, the experience of walking through the city at night transformed, almost . . . overnight. Forgiving, romantic, shadowy orange gave way to cold, all-seeing bluish white. Before the late 1970s, NYC was illuminated at night by pinkish-white incandescent bulbs. When the yellow monstrosities were rolled out peop…
> Now this dude is nostalgic for them? No, they really were better for sleep. With the orange-ish sodium lights, I could go to sleep with their light still coming through the bedroom window. The amber glow was reminiscent of the glow of fire. The harsh blue light now tells my brain it's daytime. I had to buy blackout curtains to be able to fall asleep. It's the same principle as using the amber-hued Night Mode on you…
By the way, if you or others have issues with the cool-white LED street lights, you can fix that with a color filter, duct tape, and a ladder. I fixed all the street lights on my street and my neighbors thank me every time they see me. They have been holding strong for a few years now.
Try the "LEE Filters 206R: Converts 6500K Daylight Sources to 4600K"
Re: Why is everything so ugly?
#228> After New York replaced the sodium-vapor lights in the city’s 250,000 streetlamps with shiny new LEDs in 2017, the experience of walking through the city at night transformed, almost . . . overnight. Forgiving, romantic, shadowy orange gave way to cold, all-seeing bluish white. Before the late 1970s, NYC was illuminated at night by pinkish-white incandescent bulbs. When the yellow monstrosities were rolled out peop…
Most of these aesthetic criticism people are just conservative people. They don't like change. The world was best when they arrived somewhere. That's pretty much it. SF is full of a similar kind.
Do you really prefer hospital lighting over yellow lighting?
Re: Why is everything so ugly?
#229Why do communists build brutalist buildings? I don’t think the recent trend in abandoning aesthetics is accidental.
Because there's overlap between what brutalism is about and what communism is about, an exposure of the material and structure to the outside, a rejection of nostalgia and traditionalism, etc. Of course this isn't exclusive to Communism but also quite popular in the US, as the other big cultural center of modernization in the 20th century.
This has nothing to do with abandonment of aesthetics though, as Brutalism is a very explicit aesthetic and architectural movement. We did indeed abandon aesthetics but the product of this is the non-offensive, utilitarian, convenient Starbucks store, the Ikea furniture and so on, not Brutalism.
Re: Why is everything so ugly?
#230Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Have you seen it in person? I have not. I can't imagine it improving that much in person, but who knows? Anyway, whether I think it's ugly, in person or from afar, is not the issue; I was surprised that someone found it beautiful (which is different from just not being ugly), but I certainly don't mean to argue the point.
I find it beautiful as well, but beauty for me transcends the visual and into the conceptual / historical. It’s interesting, unique, strange and therefore beautiful.
As a comparison data point, have you also studied Esperanto?