311–320 of 341 posts
It's amazing if you haven't gone, especially when sunlight streams in through the windows. I saw a quote while I was there that was something along the lines of, "Gaudí is not an artist with whom posthumous collaboration is possible." A couple minutes walking around the church is all that's needed to confirm that notion.
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One of the only things the Soviets did right was building a shit load of dense, boring housing at huge scales. They eliminated homelessness, which jumped substantially when they became the Russian federation and privitized everything.
2 problems: - That housing costed more average Ivan wages than the same after the collapse of USSR. - Most of it wasn't actually sold hence the fun for inhabitants [sic] to prove their right to own it.
Looking at the surrounding building of the Sagrada, just makes me wonder again, what the hell happened to modern architecture. Modern architecture has destroyed our cities. It's hard to find a building build after WO2 that's actually pretty, let alone an entire neighborhood. Nothing compared the historic cities of Europe. In a time when it's cheaper then ever to build, they've not been able to build anything even clo…
Be careful to avoid survivorship bias here. Only the "best" buildings from Medieval and Renaissance times (or even later into the 1800s) are still around. Many of the buildings we constructed in the second half of the 20th century will be gone in 100 years or so. Also, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I know there was a lot of criticism when the Louvre built the pyramid, but I quite like the contrast of traditio…
If anything, we should be emulating the things that survived because on some level we all collectively thought they were worth keeping.
>Many of the buildings we constructed in the second half of the 20th century will be gone in 100 years or so.
It's actually much less than 100 years - more like 30 - but this is actually the problem, the whole "intentionally build things that don't last" thing.
Regarding the Louvre, I think that pyramid looks like a fractal cancer, growing out of what is an otherwise stunning and breathtaking scene. If it were destroyed somehow (perhaps the anti-oil protestors can train their gaze on something other than actual art), no one would care except those who wish to look sophisticated by cheering "modern" "art".
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Agreed, went last summer and have told at least a dozen people how it’s the most impressive interior I’ve been inside in my 48 years. Stayed for 3 hours just to observe the shifting light. I’ll be in Barcelona again on Thurs, can’t wait to go back.
I hope you have a great trip! If you find yourself with a window of free time, there is a bakery called Pastisseria Hofmann that makes a sweet cream filled croissant that is dangerously good. We got one in ~2018 and have wanted another one since haha
I feel like the only person in the world who was thoroughly underwhelmed by it and really don’t see how its future space requirements for a staircase can be justified. This isn’t me trying to be edgy, I like cathedrals, this one (and his general style) just left me cold. Duomo in Milan was far better imo.
The true beauty is in the inside.
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2 problems: - That housing costed more average Ivan wages than the same after the collapse of USSR. - Most of it wasn't actually sold hence the fun for inhabitants [sic] to prove their right to own it.
Yeah man you'll note I explicitly mentioned how things went to shit after the collapse.
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Yeah modern in the historic classification of the term, not in the way of speaking. Most people normally consider modern housing last decades. Lots of building up untill the second world ware are gorgous, but not considered modern by most people. For instance Berlage in Amsterdam is modern in your classifcation. And his buildings grace Amsterdam, but most people would consider them "older", he was living around the s…
>Lots of building up untill the second world ware are gorgous I think you may have severely underestimated the population growth and need for housing after WWII. The world had not seen population growth like that before. The US and Europe cast away their ornate designs and focused on a burgeoning population in the US and rebuilding quickly in Europe.
Probably has to do with utilitarian and post-modernism; and a general deconstructionism of beauty; which is nice as a philosophy but just not inline with the general experience of a human. On top of that, architectural ego's make it worse.
Let alone Canada & Northern US, they combine it with a terrible city planning strategy, moving most utitilities such as shopping, entertainment & parcs, to a mall only reachable with car. Calgary must the most depressive unlivable city I've ever visited.
Everything produced last decade is either boring and uninspiring for instance:https://c8.alamy.com/comp/2GMG3GJ/new-modern-apartment-block..., or has to be weird and original in the "brand" of the Architect (for instance Rem Koolhaas).
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Try going to Palma, Salk institute looks like a depressive lifeless concrete mess OCD creation. https://www.spain.info/en/destination/palma/
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salk_Institute_for_Biologica... is a picture of the named building. Your link, for me, puts up a beautiful (sandstone?) cathedral.
I have a hard time believing most people will express the same kind of feeling of inspiration they have walking on the old cobblestone streets of for instance France or Italy.
Or take a random Amsterdam outskirt, not famous at all, but lovely: https://www.ehr.nl/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/71011393_5.jpg
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I saw it 20 years ago and it was impressive, but it's hard to take in fully with the crowds.
I was there around 20 years ago as well, and I remember it was mostly empty, which added to the feeling of grandeur. But I was there in winter, of course.
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We don't have to go that far back in time, European cities have loads of beautiful buildings still from early 1900s. For example whole neighborhoods of Jugendstil apartment buildings that mainly housed working class people moving to cities. New construction in these same neighborhoods simply do not match the beauty of the existing housing stock. And early 1900s housing is usually quite nice if it's been at least slig…
The schism was modernism, a mental breakdown in the west after the world wars. What was easy, convenient, efficient from a machine perspective, therefore was wholesome, aspirational, valuable from a human perspective. Other explanations, survivor bias, population boom, ... are fundamentally wrong because even though they may have ab after the fact rationalization, they were not the instincts that animated this revolu…
But I have no expertise in construction nor history so can't say if that's true.
