[LoverOfBuildings]

Originally Posted by Jasoncw

Architecture before modernism was diverse and constantly changing, just like it does today. Different groups of people had new ideas and every generation architecture would change and react and evolve.

In other words, there are no definitions of traditional architecture which both: understands and respects the architecture itself, and includes all the different architecture that you want to.

Well by "traditional" architecture, I would think of it as being all evolved from the same roots. Baroque, Gothic, Palladian, etc...all share the same roots, even though they were different movements. They were ways in which architecture was taken in new directions.

The argument about money and practicality is really silly imo. The sydney opera house is bad because it costs extra money to figure out the engineering, but those cathedrals are great because they're obviously very cost effective, and totally weren't frequently collapsing and getting rebuilt during construction as they figured out the engineering, right?

The thing though is that the great cathedrals were not being built using taxpayer money with a democratic government, the Church was building them, so the people didn't necessarilly have a say. Although great works of architecture, I would agree that if they didn't know how to engineer them at the time, it was probably not wise to construct them. I can understand an architect coming up with a design, everyone acknowledging it's experimental, and then seeing if it can be built, what I don't like is if an architect pays little to no real attention to the engineering or cost and just creates their design and then expects the engineers to figure out how to construct it and the clients how to finance it. The architect should take those things into consideration I think and tell the clients, "Just so you're aware, these aspects of the building will likely be difficult and costly to construct."

The other thing is that one of the arguments oftentimes heard for using a contemporary or modern architectural design is that it is too costly to use a classical or traditional design, precisely because so many of the classical or traditional forms of architecture were concocted under circumstances where cost wasn't really the issue whereas in modern times it is. But if the contemporary/modern design itself is also very costly, then that negates much of that argument.

And the palace of versailles totally isn't an expensive ego project.

No argument there! That was a TITANIC ego project! Built by a man who had absolute power though (and he built it so as to maintain his power, so that he could house his whole government around him so as to keep tabs on them).