Why You Hate Contemporary Architecture And If You Don’t Why You Should
Why You Hate Contemporary Architecture
OCTOBER 31, 2017 By BRIANNA RENNIX & NATHAN J. ROBINSON Read More: https://www.currentaffairs.org/2017/...y-architecture Quote:
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There's nothing "contemporary" about the Montparnasse tower. It was completed in 1973, which is called late modernism, but certainly not contemporary.
It's so old that it's about to get some new makeup already, but the problem is not the tower itself, it's the mediocre modern bars that were built around in the 14th arrondissement, probably the most forgotten arrondissement of the inner city currently. I think the 19th for sure, and even the 20th are getting more attention. I don't care what the Brits say anyway. They've always been cynical and unfaithful to us. They're building tons of wealthier contemporary architecture over their cities, and they think (or hope) we'd be too royalist or retarded to do the same? :koko: In their wet dreams only. We're going to push the right thing forward. |
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They like nasty things anyway... Hmhmhmmm |
^^I'm with you (in spite of being usually an Anglophile). Not at all a fan of the Gherkin or the Shard (especially the Gherkin).
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For whatever reason, humanity largely stopped caring after WW2 about architecture, if you can even call 99 percent of buildings today architectural. Even cheap houses and buildings back before WW2 for the most part had some character or architectural merit.
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I think it has a lot to do with corporations and mass production pretty much taking over the world after the 2nd world war.
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I think the idea that "form follows function" took over and it became all about serving the function desired while form became irrelevant. It it did the job, what it looked like didn't matter.
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Registered to post this:
https://vimeo.com/128428182 |
Part of the change to modernism after WWI was an idea that, through architecture, we could create an entirely new world free of conflict. By removing ornamentation that looked toward the past and instead designing buildings that only incorporate contemporary materials and features, maybe we could move humanity away from conflict. Obviously that didn't actually work. Then World War II happened and people realized this no-more-ornamentation thing was a pretty cheap way to replace the lost buildings or build more new buildings.
Great modernist architects (like Ludwig Mies and Frank Lloyd Wright) maintained classical proportions and high levels of detail (especially in the interiors they designed, which included matching furniture and signage; Mies even went as far as creating fonts for his buildings' signage). Those are great pieces of architecture, they avoid the bulk of the problems that many poorly designed modern buildings have. Another aspect to modernism that was obvious in the past but has been lost today is the contrast it presented to historic architecture. Seagram Building in 1950s New York surrounded by gothic, deco and wedding cake architecture? The fact that it wasn't covered in ornamentation was it's ornamentation. Throw in 1,500 shitty imitations 20 years later? All of that gets lost. Tour Montparnasse still benefits from this aspect. It's so wildly different from everything around it that no only can you appreciate the shape and form of modern architecture, but you also get a better appreciation of the texture and colour of the older architecture around it. They're complementary. If it were half the size or if there were more buildings like it nearby, it would completely lose that and be less exciting. Another thing we've lost with modernism is the ability to see faults in historic architecture. Some of those buildings are also badly designed with unusual proportions and impractical interior layouts or not enough windows or doors but when it's a classical or revival building, people seem more willing to overlook that simply because it has ornamentation. As for nature: the most recent modern architecture we're seeing makes extensive use of local materials (like wood, glass and stone, which are found everywhere but also local at the same time in a way that manufactured aluminium panels aren't) and much more greenspace. And another thing that gets lost on people like the author of that article (which I honestly thought was James Kunstler because he's also a fanatical anti-modern architecture/anti-skyscrapers person) is the cost of building today. In the past, you didn't need large bathrooms on every floor (we just shit into pots and dumped them out windows until, like, the 1800s), there was no extensive electrical and communications cabelling, heating was more rudimentary insulation was poor or absent. They could put a lot of money into having stone facades carved because the rest of the building was so simple to construct they didn't have to spend so much on that part of it. Today, the parts of a building we can't see are always far more complex than what the facade is showing us, and that really cuts into the budget for decorative facades. It's easier to just make a glass box, which are at least unoffensive in their simplicity. |
The Kunsthaus Graz is just bad architecture. It looks like it was designed by a cardiologist and has zero cohesion with its surroundings...like a lot of modern and contemporary architecture. Let's shove a squid looking thing amongst 19th and 18th century buildings and pretend it works. Just no. At least the Shard and Swiss Re are with other modern buildings.
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It looks like a giant baby left a toy there. Stop leaving your toys around baby!
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Cars and suburbs sure didn’t help either.
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The problem with these types of articles/arguments is that they are objectively not true.
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Anyone who has taken any class in architectural history knows that for most of those old famous buildings, the stories go "so and so was hired to design it, then 30 years later he died and then so and so took over and redesigned the unbuilt parts, and then 200 years later they renovated it and changed styles and then 100 years after that it got changed again". If the original styles were so wonderful and popular and timeless they wouldn't have spent giant piles of money to change the styles. There were also regional/political/identity related angles to it. In Europe nationalistic identity politics caused gothic to be preferred in some places and neoclassical to be preferred in others. And during these times, the "wrong" styles were sometimes demolished or renovated or replaced. And then not to mention all of the wonderful amazing old buildings that were disassembled and used for construction materials for new buildings in more popular styles. Quote:
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Also in the article he complains about why we can't make buildings like Sullivan anymore, even though Sullivan was 100% a modern architect. We can't build buildings like Sullivan anymore because after neo-traditional architecture destroyed the chicago school he spent the rest of his life barely employed and in poverty. He also mentions the Guardian Building in Detroit, which is art deco, which is... also modernism!! (or at least a populist form of it). I have to admit I didn't read the entire article but just about every line there's something objectively false. The article is long and going line by line showing the problems in his arguments would make an even longer forum post. If you think modern buildings are ugly and how ugly something is is all you really care about then just say so and be honest about it. If you want to make a theory of how architecture ought to be, and you're going to judge buildings based on that, then you need to take your own theory seriously and approve of modern buildings which fit your criteria and disapprove of non-modern ones that don't fit the criteria. And absolutely most of all, if you're going to advocate for historical architecture you need to actually learn about historical architecture. If there's one thing that's consistent between neo-traditionalists it's that they're all staggeringly ignorant of architectural history. |
What's considered "Contemporary" Architecture literally changes by the decade, even by the year. It's like fashion. Many of the examples and articles posted here are already out of date. You need to judge them for the time they were built in. If you don't like actual current styles of architecture (not stuff that was considered contemporary 20-40 years ago) stop complaining and just wait a few years.
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It's not super subtle, to say the least, but the Gherkin materials nonetheless look nice. Paris's D2 tower is actually better. Obviously partly inspired by the Agbar and the Gherkin, its shape is more subtle and its design does compliment the boulevard it sits on, and the surroundings as a whole. I think that's due to the inherent constraints of the urban lot it was erected on. Sometimes, even often, constraints of a built-up environment help architects do better. Except for the top that's a little messy, D2's a smart building as an actual enhancement of its surroundings. |
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100x this. For every well-designed and proportioned Victorian (for instance) building there's a gaudy knock-off combining multiple architectural styles and covered in way too much ornamentation. They just tend to be overlooked because, old. |
Imo architecture is bad when it doesn't engage the human scale. With public buildings, that's when there is bad interaction with the street and pedestrians. Contemporary buildings can be great at this. I think the really bad car-focused mega developments of the 70s made people associate modernist styles with bad architecture. Nowadays things are getting much better.
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