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The mid in fake midcentury modern

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Re: The mid in fake midcentury modern

#111

Post by thundergolfer »

_xnmw wrote: post #99

After spending some time living in Europe, I simply cannot go back to North America (except for the few areas built with Old World charm). There's something so comforting about the beauty of European and other traditional architectural styles. (Modern/Postmodern?) glass boxes feel jarringly cold, hostile, and alienating.

Those glass boxes aren’t Postmordernist. They’re mostly aligned with Modernist architecture. Postmordernist architecture is a response and rejection of Modernism, and exhibits eclectic and playful design features. Check out the Postmodernist architecture article on Wikipedia. You may be conflating the general antipathy towards a Postmodernist boogeyman with any sort of modernist, neoliberal design system.

Re: The mid in fake midcentury modern

#112

Post by yunwal »

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…

All that it takes is to travel to Mexico to understand this is wrong.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-3Y5ULj_0l3o/UrYr0ys5RTI/AAAAAAAACo...

This kind of architecture works it just requires a kind of unity and dedication to a common ideal that we no longer have.

Re: The mid in fake midcentury modern

#113

Post by nemo44x »

trilbyglens wrote: post #92
ericmay wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

How is it that America can still be traumatised from the world wars architecturally but europe is not? I don't really buy the argument that america builds badly because of fear of destruction. It's more that we are an utterly utilitarian culture. We have nothing old, and cannot imagine that anything might become old. Our goals are to maximize profits while minimizing cost, so we end up building $10m houses out of shi…

New construction in Europe is awful as well. Cheap, vinyl casement windows abound, brick veneer, pebble siding and disposable kitchens and fake flooring. They make homes that look like they could survive a bombing, but they're actually fragile and cheap buildings.

> building $10m houses out of shitty plywood and fake bricks glued on the fascade

A 10m home is probably not build of veneer. High quality construction is still available but you pay for it. Engineered wood is super high quality and expensive, plywood is a find cladding and there are higher end versions (Zip System for example) available as well. A modern, well constructed home today is unbelievable energy efficient and has an air-tight envelope by code. Yes, you can build cheaply too (essentially cardboard cladding in certain areas!) but you don't have to.

> We are simply an unsophisticated culture, with an education system that never exposes people to art or architecture. We're a nation of Nouveau riche pseudo-sophisticated country people who think that money = culture

What an unbelievably ignorant thing to say. Have you driven around a town made of mainly pre-war homes? Are you at all familiar with the various styles of different periods?

Re: The mid in fake midcentury modern

#114

Post by throwayyy479087 »

Every time a "journalist" complains about 5-over-1s an angel gets its wings.

Apartments should ONLY be Brooklyn brownstones or lofts, and the construction of anything new and vaguely similar to another building should be banned. Brutalism is the only approved architectural format.

Re: The mid in fake midcentury modern

#115

Post by oliv__ »

I think things are ugly now because they are fake: made of fake, cheap materials.

It's much harder to make an ugly cottage home with beautiful wood than it is with vinyl.

Similarly, I'd say that music has become ugly because of autotune and the like.

Re: The mid in fake midcentury modern

#116

Post by trgn »

jiveturkey42 wrote: post #30
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 (…

The Mental Disorders that Gave Us Modern Architecture https://commonedge.org/the-mental-disorders-that-gave-us-mod...

Great article, quite provocative.

Re: The mid in fake midcentury modern

#117

Post by SV_BubbleTime »

quest88 wrote: post #72
SV_BubbleTime wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Keep going though. It’s not just about “taste”. We have always needed opinionated people to be able to push their ideas. That’s what Linus is, Jobbs was, like him last year or hate him this year Musk, Eminem, Pulitzer, Jefferson, Tesla or Edison, Stuart Mill, the Wrights, and so on to any major or minor scale… The best things come from opinionated people who were told they couldn’t go against the grain like that. We’…

I'd consider Zuck opinionated compared to the other FAANG companies. I appreciate his bet on the Metaverse. I don't think it's a good idea, but I can appreciate having an opinion.

I don’t know, I guess I’ve never seen it. But I would say in addition to my argument is that I don’t think there is anything about the MBA-ification of the world that has prevented bad decisions.

It just runs them through a calculator and committee first.

Re: The mid in fake midcentury modern

#118

Post by quickthrower2 »

This made me laugh the most: To our right is a place that sells wiggly candles. Past that is a boutique liquor store whose chalkboard sign proclaims, in cheerleader handwriting, that the time is Wine O’Clock

Sort of highlights how pathetic things have become

I looked up the Blank St Coffee. What is sad is they just use automatic machines so they don’t need baristas, so you are probably going to get mediocre coffee. Can anyone in NYC attest? Also $3.5 being the cheap option sounds nuts.

Re: The mid in fake midcentury modern

#119

Post by rr888 »

Its not just architecture. People dress much more casually as well, we've all seen the pictures of the plumbers in 3 piece suits but even for office professionals jeans and tshirts are normal now. I think people stop trying to impress others? Or its elitist?

Re: The mid in fake midcentury modern

#120

Post by throwaway74829 »

sph wrote: post #10

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…

Tolerance is tiresome. Putting up with nonsense, and being impelled to consume metaphorical shit, is vulgar to the soul.

In art, the nonsense is the lack of honesty. Inauthenticity brought forth and exhibited for all of us to see. People without a shred of depth having the obnoxiousness to put something out that appears to be more than it is. The hubris.

Each passing day, I understand the wisdom of the French and their intolerance more.

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