Most people prefer traditional architecture • Hacker News Board

Re: Most people prefer traditional architecture

#151

Post by asdff » Tue, Sep 15, 2026, 8:23 PM UTC

tancop wrote: post #75

Now try 1970s public housing in Paris and Vienna, socialist blocks in Poland or projects in Chicago. It will be a lot more balanced because these places were designed for people to live in, not as radical statements. They are simple to save costs but there is no "artistic" movement behind them doing it on purpose. Abstract modernism with random shapes and obsessively minimalist design is only the worst case scenario…

Architecture schools don't really teach you the pragmatic side of the trade. Their projects are building those sorts of abstracted models, talking about forms and voids. It is just so far abstracted from the sort of practical architecture that leads to stuff like built in cupboards in a Sears catalog home. Something to also consider is while these young architects are getting trained they aren't really living like adults either. They are in their early 20s after all, still perhaps lashing out in reflexive opposition from their suburban upbringing, and probably don't understand why a built in cupboard would be so exciting.

Re: Most people prefer traditional architecture

#152

Post by IshKebab » Tue, Sep 15, 2026, 8:23 PM UTC

georgefrowny wrote: post #31

Joker_vD wrote: post #15

Well then. The solution is obvious: we need to educate the public so that it attains the correct tastes. It's doable: after all, the architecture students do manage to obtain the taste for the modernist architecture during their time in the college/university. Or maybe do nothing, it's not like the public opinion really matters in the technocratic settings.

My theory is they end up preferring buildings that are easy to draw in AutoCAD. Akin's Law 38: "Capabilities drive requirements, regardless of what the systems engineering textbooks say."

Nah I think modern architecture is popular among many architects and unpopular with almost all of the public for the same reason modern art is: it justifies their existence.

It gives them some clever thing to know that normal people don't know anything about. If King Charles is right about architecture (he is), then what new experimental architecture can you research? You can't, because we've basically already discovered what people like.

Re: Most people prefer traditional architecture

#153

Post by rbanffy » Tue, Sep 15, 2026, 8:23 PM UTC

mcphage wrote: post #47

It’s interesting how many studies were performed that confirmed this, and yet most (all?) of the time, the modernist building was built anyway. What was the point?

Not all decisions should be made based on popular vote.

Re: Most people prefer traditional architecture

#154

Post by giancarlostoro » Tue, Sep 15, 2026, 8:25 PM UTC

AlexandrB wrote: post #120

rbanffy wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When form doesn't follow function, usability suffers.

Or you can do like modern UI designers and throw both form and usability in the trash and optimize for novelty and "brand" instead.

My kingdom to have RAD developer tools be the norm again. I don't want yet another website as an app, or website bundled in a Chrome fork as an app. You could have built the same thing in VB6 or Delphi with less effort and used less of my resources in the 2000s...

Re: Most people prefer traditional architecture

#155

Post by rbanffy » Tue, Sep 15, 2026, 8:27 PM UTC

Zigurd wrote: post #42

bad_username wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why would someone invest in an elaborate and expensive design when they could simply throw up a slab of brutalist concrete and punch some windows into it? But why do the students of architecture prefer brutalism? I don't believe they factor the financials in when they choose which picture they like better.

Brutalism isn't cheaper. Not even in the secondary market. Brutalist masterpieces like the Barbican are highly desirable residences.

I am a fan of brutalism, but there is also some survivorship bias at work - I'm sure some brutalist hellscapes were demolished because nobody wanted to live in them.

Now, as a contrast, another masterpiece from the city where I grew up: https://www.scribd.com/document/955270807/g10-Cultural-Cente...

Re: Most people prefer traditional architecture

#156

Post by card_zero » Tue, Sep 15, 2026, 8:28 PM UTC

vintagedave wrote: post #46

Zigurd wrote: post #34

[flagged]

Something fascinating that you may not know: traditional architecture is one of those things that is simultaneously: a) Genuinely widely preferred, with many articles on this, ranging from aesthetic preferences through to scientific studies of how eyes move and what causes fatigue. There is genuine value to architecture before modern architecture -- and... b) A stalking horse for right-wing thinking. It's really inte…

I might object that being right-wing, or having fear of the effects of immigrants even, does not necessarily entail racism. But it would be more interesting to say that they are related, and that valuable ideas about nice traditional architecture and nostalgia for the good old days are also genuinely related to racism and colonialism and fascism, which means that there's something of value to extract from all that garbage before you can do a clean separation of the ideas. Mercifully I don't have time to write this comment right now, but it was probably going to include the word "culture" in several places.

Re: Most people prefer traditional architecture

#157

Post by collabs » Tue, Sep 15, 2026, 8:31 PM UTC

I DO NOT prefer traditional architecture. I prefer whatever is inexpensive and practical. Hanging brick cladding in front of a modern building is neither inexpensive nor practical. What I really care about is the savings associated with this ruthless cost cutting and brutalist simplification to be passed on to the ordinary folks instead of being hoarded by the oligarchs.

Re: Most people prefer traditional architecture

#158

Post by tengbretson » Tue, Sep 15, 2026, 8:31 PM UTC

rbanffy wrote: post #144

bad_username wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why would someone invest in an elaborate and expensive design when they could simply throw up a slab of brutalist concrete and punch some windows into it? But why do the students of architecture prefer brutalism? I don't believe they factor the financials in when they choose which picture they like better.

> But why do the students of architecture prefer brutalism? Because they study architecture. The article is profoundly anti-intellectual. This discourse, that colleges indoctrinate people and, thus, cause them to disagree with some form of "truth" that the uneducated masses know.

> Because they study architecture.

If the architecture they're studying is divorced from the preferences and needs of the uneducated masses then who cares? They may as well be studying their own butts.

Re: Most people prefer traditional architecture

#159

Post by 740273730191 » Tue, Sep 15, 2026, 8:37 PM UTC

collabs wrote: post #157

I DO NOT prefer traditional architecture. I prefer whatever is inexpensive and practical. Hanging brick cladding in front of a modern building is neither inexpensive nor practical. What I really care about is the savings associated with this ruthless cost cutting and brutalist simplification to be passed on to the ordinary folks instead of being hoarded by the oligarchs.

[dead]

Re: Most people prefer traditional architecture

#160

Post by wasabi991011 » Tue, Sep 15, 2026, 8:40 PM UTC

addaon wrote: post #38

"Traditional" isn't really defined here, but seems to mean "first half of the 20th century," which feels like a relatively narrow tradition. Not a lot of preference for teepees and yurts.

Not to mention their comparison, modernist architecture, is just mid-century. There is post-modern architecture after that and arguably also contemporary architecture further after that (however vaguely defined).