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Most people prefer traditional architecture

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Re: Most people prefer traditional architecture

#261

Post by ongy »

nl wrote: post #217
kelseyfrog wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You would have to convince the design community that form can follow things other than function. Until form is no longer synonymous with function, design will eschew ornamentation.

Zaha Hadid and Frank Gehry would like a word. Taste is subjective, but is there really a more beautiful building in the world than the Heydar Aliyev Center?

From a quick look at the Wiki page

I prefer Sydney Opera's outside shape.

The wiki pictures of the inside of the Heydar Aliyev Center also look odd to horrible to me.

Re: Most people prefer traditional architecture

#263

Post by NewsaHackO »

in_absentia wrote: post #260
hardwaregeek wrote: post #96

Perhaps there’s a difference between what people prefer looking at and what’s actually nicer to inhabit? Architecture is optimizing for people inhabiting the building, not just staring at it in a photograph. It’s like if you asked someone to judge a phone based on a photo. Yes there’s some aesthetic judgement but it matters more if the phone is usable. I know that personally I find New York’s prewar buildings more be…

> Architecture is optimizing for people inhabiting the building For the most part, it's about optimizing construction cost. Everything else is secondary. The reason you don't see ornate stonework is mostly that skilled labor is a lot more expensive today than it was a century ago. Even if you want to spend 50% more to make an architectural statement, you still do it with prefabricated steel and glass.

This is still in line with his point; presumably, people who live in the building and pay rent will want construction cost to be as low as possible as it will help reduce the rent needed for a builder to break even. An ornate stonework is great for someone looking at it, but if it requires rent to be raised by 100 dollar a month for a tenant, most would rather it not be there.

Re: Most people prefer traditional architecture

#264

Post by Nursie »

nl wrote: post #217
kelseyfrog wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You would have to convince the design community that form can follow things other than function. Until form is no longer synonymous with function, design will eschew ornamentation.

Zaha Hadid and Frank Gehry would like a word. Taste is subjective, but is there really a more beautiful building in the world than the Heydar Aliyev Center?

It's certainly striking and interesting, but "more beautiful" is going to be subjective and is up against some pretty tough competition.

I don't know about you, but I'd certainly put the Taj Mahal ahead of that, as well as any number of gothic Cathedrals.

Re: Most people prefer traditional architecture

#265

Post by Nursie »

rbanffy wrote: post #128
dzonga wrote: post #86

the tragedy is that architects (experts) prefer the modernist buildings. while common people prefer the classical buildings which makes cities more livable. the other tragedy is before 'regulations' normies designed buildings - they didn't have architecture degrees. don't know if that's still possible anymore. & buildings shape lives. the only way to reverse the modernist trend is to have laws that incentivize classi…

> architects (experts) prefer the modernist buildings. while common people prefer the classical buildings which makes cities more livable. Good architects match modernism with livability. A couple months back I visited the Barbican Centre in London and it never ceases to amaze me how thoughtful is every little design item.

The Barbican is a standout exception though. It always comes up in these discussion, and I think it's because in contrast to most other buildings, it was really thought through. The fact is that like in other walks of life, when talent meets opportunity then occasionally great things can happen. But that sort of outlier talent isn't evident in most architecture.

As such the vast majority of the Barbican's disparate cohort of brutalist concrete buildings in the UK were not built for humans, they were built for middling architects who were never going to have to suffer living in them. They need to be razed to the ground and thankfully many/most are going that way.

Stark, grey-brown, crumbling, water-stained monstrosities that just add to the feeling of misery in a country which is already stark, grey-brown, crumbling and water stained in so many other ways.

Re: Most people prefer traditional architecture

#266

Post by Nursie »

hardwaregeek wrote: post #96

Perhaps there’s a difference between what people prefer looking at and what’s actually nicer to inhabit? Architecture is optimizing for people inhabiting the building, not just staring at it in a photograph. It’s like if you asked someone to judge a phone based on a photo. Yes there’s some aesthetic judgement but it matters more if the phone is usable. I know that personally I find New York’s prewar buildings more be…

Part of inhabiting somewhere is how nice it is to look at.

And it's is a false dichotomy, both can be done.

> I enjoyed living in a soulless luxury tower because it had good lighting, not terrible elevators and decent fixtures.

Now imagine if it had looked good as well! It could have really lit up the area of the city it was in.

Re: Most people prefer traditional architecture

#267

Post by chr15m »

hardwaregeek wrote: post #96

Perhaps there’s a difference between what people prefer looking at and what’s actually nicer to inhabit? Architecture is optimizing for people inhabiting the building, not just staring at it in a photograph. It’s like if you asked someone to judge a phone based on a photo. Yes there’s some aesthetic judgement but it matters more if the phone is usable. I know that personally I find New York’s prewar buildings more be…

Why not both?

Re: Most people prefer traditional architecture

#268

Post by Nursie »

mmooss wrote: post #112
boh wrote: post #61

Modernism is the act of using cheaper resources and more standardized/cheaper methods of production. The aesthetic is more of a side-effect of those limits. Ugliness has become a cultural norm in order to suit the modern economy. It may come as a surprise but it required years of cultural development and education for most people to accept the work of Dieter Rams as some aesthetic pinnacle rather than soulless mass p…

> Ugliness has become a cultural norm I love modern architecture (and art); I find many older forms to be garish, focused on pointless decoration and on wealth display, rather than on the beauty of function and form. The imagination of [some] modern architecture, starting from those fundamentals, is stunning. You don't like it, which is just as valid, but trying to turn your preference into a universal truth for huma…

> You don't like it, which is just as valid, but trying to turn your preference into a universal truth for humanity is not valid. Can't it be just your preference?

What if it's almost everyone's preference? Except for the high priests of architecture who have their own agenda. Then we end up living in a world full of buildings they design for themselves that most of us dislike.

> Why is it so important?

Because the rest of us have to live with it at street level, every day.

> A reactionary take on modernism and postmodernism, trying to make them outre, outside norms, attached to political liberalism which is often the real target.

But they are the norm and have been for some time. It's time to challenge that norm.

If we go back to (for example) Le Corbusier, we see this sort of thing thrown around in discussions all the time - you just don't accept innovation, you're hung up on traditionalism, get with the way of the future. Only it's not the future, it's one part of the past, and for all there was noble intent behind some of this stuff, we've had adequate time to judge the outcomes as lacking.

Re: Most people prefer traditional architecture

#269

Post by chr15m »

chasil wrote: post #176

While my karma might get incinerated with this quote, it is incisive on traditional architecture. The author is reviled by many. “Yes, God damn it, the Parthenon!” The ruler struck the glass over the picture. “Look,” said Roark. “The famous flutings on the famous columns—what are they there for? To hide the joints in wood—when columns were made of wood, only these aren’t, they’re marble. The triglyphs, what are they?…

Because it looks good.

Re: Most people prefer traditional architecture

#270

Post by hardbass »

boh wrote: post #61

Modernism is the act of using cheaper resources and more standardized/cheaper methods of production. The aesthetic is more of a side-effect of those limits. Ugliness has become a cultural norm in order to suit the modern economy. It may come as a surprise but it required years of cultural development and education for most people to accept the work of Dieter Rams as some aesthetic pinnacle rather than soulless mass p…

I am not sure how it is about "cheaper". Lathering on a finish with a roller is much cheaper than a carefully prepared spray system. Modern furniture and structures often use uniformly sprayed coatings. You are mistaking cleanness of look with cheapness, getting such a uniform coating is quite expensive and takes skill and discipline regarding hygiene and cleanup between abrasive grits etc as well.

And if you are against things generally in the sphere of "Bauhaus" interior design then I would say you are engaging in a cargo cult of using modern materials in unnatural ways to copy older designs without eye to how the modern material has its own natural form and manner of usage. I would say, for example if one only has hand tools and solid wood then it is reasonable to follow Colonial design school, but if one has glass, stainless steel and plywood, it is wasteful to force them into a Colonial shape rather than their natural forms. Either style respects the substances and tooling it uses.

You are free to pay four digit prices for every piece of furniture if you truly oppose designs that are aligned toward mass production.

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