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  #21  
Old Posted Dec 5, 2017, 9:14 AM
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Contemporary archtecture has no soul and no home. The same buildin built in Los Angeles could be built in Barcelona, could be built in Taiwan. Traditional architecture has character and has the ability to define a place as unique from other places.
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  #22  
Old Posted Dec 5, 2017, 2:58 PM
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Everyone needs to resubmit to the doctrine of High Modernism. The only true aesthetic of the contemporary world is one drawing from raw efficiency.

Seriously though, let's not pretend that all the funky buildings being built today aren't just a cry for help to break free of a world filled with unrelenting boxes. There is no "return to the days of craftsmen building ornate buildings" and there is no "make it look crazier" solution. Therefore, everything should be square with seams that align and lines that carry through all materials.
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  #23  
Old Posted Dec 5, 2017, 4:20 PM
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Originally Posted by M II A II R II K View Post
I think this, The Cockroach That Ate Graz, pretty much sums up why I hate contemporary architecture. Architecture should communicate something to someone, and I suppose you could say this does communicate, but only in the same sense that an autistic child is communicating when they're flinging their shit at a hospital orderly.
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  #24  
Old Posted Dec 5, 2017, 4:35 PM
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Originally Posted by LouisVanDerWright View Post
Everyone needs to resubmit to the doctrine of High Modernism. The only true aesthetic of the contemporary world is one drawing from raw efficiency.
I saw plenty raw efficiency driving through China today for three hours. And for three hours, every time I looked out the window it was exactly the same. Eventually I stopped looking. Raw efficiency is not enough.

I agree that crazy for its own sake is no solution either. But at least crazy is different. Raw efficiency converges to one global design per construction material set.

But really I have three main complaints.
- The tower on podium
- The Jenga tower that is designed to look like it’s going to fall over.
- The mirror glass building, which I call negative architecture because it doesn’t really exist in the cityscape.
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  #25  
Old Posted Dec 5, 2017, 7:47 PM
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I had to image search that ghastly haggis-like structure just to see if someone was yanking my chain.

Sorrowfully they were not.
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  #26  
Old Posted Dec 6, 2017, 1:26 PM
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Overblown piece with no deeper thought behind it(as pointed out before there's a lot of inconsistencies) but one thing is definitely true: Architects train themselves to like modern architecture. Like a young person learning to drink beer, over time our tolerance grows because we simply take in so many references and photos of modern architecture. In the end, we see beauty in buildings the majority would dismiss as "crazy" or "ugly" within seconds.

This is of course not optimal, as the wedge between average taste and architects' taste becomes wider and wider over time, and even worse, human scale is not an important element of sculpture, which a lot of the zanier contemporary architecture is. So we do some pretty terrible harm to our cities in the hunt of new and refreshing photogenic shapes...

Me personally, I'm working in China so I'm definitely getting trained to accept horribly ugly shit - always good to be reminded of that so thank you after all, article!
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  #27  
Old Posted Dec 10, 2017, 3:15 PM
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Originally Posted by HomrQT View Post
Contemporary archtecture has no soul and no home. The same buildin built in Los Angeles could be built in Barcelona, could be built in Taiwan. Traditional architecture has character and has the ability to define a place as unique from other places.


Where is this building located?

If what you say is true, you should be able to figure it out by architectural details alone.
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  #28  
Old Posted Dec 10, 2017, 6:06 PM
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neoclassicism annoys me. if you brought back an Ancient roman or Greek, they would ask, why the wholesale copying and expropriation of our architecture, can't you come up with your own style?

it's also so pervasive - europe and the US are full of 19th century greek temple style buildings designed to look 2000 years old.

they would probably be more interested in modernism and gothic architecture.
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  #29  
Old Posted Dec 10, 2017, 8:19 PM
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Originally Posted by dc_denizen View Post
neoclassicism annoys me. if you brought back an Ancient roman or Greek, they would ask, why the wholesale copying and expropriation of our architecture, can't you come up with your own style?

it's also so pervasive - europe and the US are full of 19th century greek temple style buildings designed to look 2000 years old.

they would probably be more interested in modernism and gothic architecture.
This, too. So many of our buildings have acanthus leaves on them? Have you ever seen an acanthus mollis? Probably not! The museum down the street from me has Corinthian columns on it (because, you know, Corinth is located on the north shore of Lake Superior) and they stay there in full bloom even when it's -40° with the windchill.

Quote:
Traditional architecture has character and has the ability to define a place as unique from other places.
Might as well rename the planet to "Corinth" then! Because their columns are everywhere! Or at the very least, make an attempt to plant acanthus everywhere.

What's really sad is that, we can carve any plant we want into those columns. You could carve holly and oak into them in England, except they didn't even into the building that the queen, the personification of and symbol of authority of the state, lives in. Or use the fleur-de-lis in France, except no—l'état, c'est moi. L'edifice? C'est grec !

I know there are a few buildings that did use local plants carved into the capital instead of acanthus, but typically they don't bother. For some reason, we must cap off every column with either papyrus scrolls, acanthus leaves, or nothing. And god forbid the column isn't either a smooth or fluted cylinder! Square columns? Hideous and too modern! Two half circles with voids instead of bases and capitals? Not allowed!!!!

And the ironic thing, is that that last building; this building:



Every architectural component, from the spacing of the columns to the materials used to build it to the particular colour of the glass to the height of the building, the terraced garden between the porch and the street, the way the porch extends beyond the main building to frame a vista specific to this location, you want to make the argument that this building, designed under the guidance of one of Canada's most well known and established modern architects in his era, could be put anywhere in the world, and belong??

You couldn't even put the building on the next block over and make it work!

And yet this building:



This classical building, this building constructed in an architectural style that, and I quote:

Quote:
has character and has the ability to define a place as unique from other places.
Ontario built 3 of them in 1929.
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  #30  
Old Posted Dec 11, 2017, 3:01 AM
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Originally Posted by dc_denizen View Post
neoclassicism annoys me. if you brought back an Ancient roman or Greek, they would ask, why the wholesale copying and expropriation of our architecture, can't you come up with your own style?

it's also so pervasive - europe and the US are full of 19th century greek temple style buildings designed to look 2000 years old.

they would probably be more interested in modernism and gothic architecture.
Well no, they wouldn't; the Romans, after all, wholesale plagiarized the Greeks, who were so conservative that at the time of their subjugation to Rome, they were still building temples in the Doric and Ionic styles of the dark ages a thousand years earlier, only in limestone and marble rather than wood and thatch. This isn't a defense of classical taste, just an explanation. Coming up with new styles is a modern preoccupation; innovation to a classical architect mostly meant adopting the old formulas to resolve new problems. That said, there was far more stylistic innovation in the two centuries between Alberti and Borromini than in the millenium-and-a-half between the Homeric Age and the fall of Rome.

Those Greek temple façades reproduced ad infinitum, I admit, are embarrassing, but have to do with a rather unique confluence of historical events: political and philosophical developments in France, England and the colonies at the end of the Enlightenment, the remarkable rediscovery of ancient Greek cities by contemporary archeologists, the arrival of the Elgin Marbles in London, the Greek nationalist struggle for independence from Turkey. Anyway, the fad was pervasive but thankfully brief. The following buildings were all built in roughly the period between Napoleon's proclamation as Emperor and Byron's death in Greece.


La Madeleine, Paris

Façade of the National Assembly, Paris

St Pancras Church, London

British Museum, London

Old Royal High School, Edinburgh

Second Bank of the United States, Philadelphia

Façade of the Metropolitan Cathedral, Buenos Aires

The obsession with Greek porticos survived a bit longer in places like Munich and Berlin because, politically and aesthetically, those places were a few decades behind.


Walhalla, Bavaria


St George's Hall, Liverpool, which reminds me of something built by a Prussian or Bavarian

Last edited by Encolpius; Dec 11, 2017 at 3:31 AM.
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  #31  
Old Posted Dec 11, 2017, 4:36 PM
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Originally Posted by vid View Post

What's really sad is that, we can carve any plant we want into those columns. You could carve holly and oak into them in England, except they didn't even into the building that the queen, the personification of and symbol of authority of the state, lives in. Or use the fleur-de-lis in France, except no—l'état, c'est moi. L'edifice? C'est grec !
Nonce columns is the name for what you're describing, and were actually pretty popular if a touch faddish. Turnip and beetroot leaves and roaring lions in England, Ammonites in Brighton, Christianised palm leaves in Leipzig, tobacco leaves, magnolia buds and corn cobs in the US, roses and daisies in Barcelona, monkeys and parrots in Portugal etc. Luytens developed a style called "Delhi Order" which he used around the empire, combining a buddhist prayer wheel with bells.

However, the Corinthian works best, in my opinion.


Last edited by johnnypd; Dec 11, 2017 at 4:46 PM.
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  #32  
Old Posted Dec 12, 2017, 3:42 AM
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  #33  
Old Posted Dec 12, 2017, 5:43 AM
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Where is this building located?

If what you say is true, you should be able to figure it out by architectural details alone.
USA. Did I win?
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  #34  
Old Posted Dec 12, 2017, 2:55 PM
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While it's not my cup of tea, I have no problem with modernist and postmodernist architecture. My issue is it is so predominant, and architects often act as if something is wrong if you play with more neotraditional forms.

I think everyone will agree with the prior that architecture is an art form, yes? Well, consider how other arts have developed. In visual art, modern art did not totally displace traditional, more representational forms. In music, the advent of electronic music did not completely displace the artistry of classical, jazz, or folk music. So if building design is an art form in and of itself, it stands to reason that it can work in many different "genres" rather than having one dominant paradigm at a time.
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  #35  
Old Posted Dec 13, 2017, 2:15 AM
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USA. Did I win?
Nope. It is not in the USA. Try again!
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  #36  
Old Posted Dec 18, 2017, 1:18 AM
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Thunder Bay. It looks like a Chicago School import from the early Edwardian era that came with the Great Push West (1900-1920) in Canada, with touches of Ontarioan sensibilities. I recognise some of the features that can be found in Ontarioan heavy settlements around the prairies (Old Strathcona, for example.)
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  #37  
Old Posted Dec 18, 2017, 3:49 AM
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Thunder Bay. It looks like a Chicago School import from the early Edwardian era that came with the Great Push West (1900-1920) in Canada, with touches of Ontarioan sensibilities. I recognise some of the features that can be found in Ontarioan heavy settlements around the prairies (Old Strathcona, for example.)
This doesn't count because you're not the one who made that silly argument, but congratulations. It's our old city hall, architect Marshall Benjamin Aylesworth, who designed a considerable number of the notable public buildings across Northern Ontario, particularly at the Lakehead. He was trained in Toronto.
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  #38  
Old Posted Dec 18, 2017, 6:16 PM
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  #39  
Old Posted Dec 21, 2017, 8:20 PM
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Nope. It is not in the USA. Try again!
The thing is you aren't disproving anything I've said. Yeah sure I could guess a handful of countries until I get the right one, which was most likely USA/Canada or Northwestern Europe because like I said before traditional architecture actually has a home. It came from the culture of certain peoples and can be greatly narrowed down. Modernism could literally be from any part of the planet.

This could be from any country on the planet.

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  #40  
Old Posted Dec 22, 2017, 10:32 PM
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Some architecture styles are explicitly and objectively universal.

For neoclassical you can look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fi...f_Architecture where you'll find a rigorous proportion system for all of the elements of all of the orders. It doesn't matter whether you're in Rome or Alabama or Mars, it doesn't matter if it's a few thousand years in the past or a few thousand years in the future, those are the orders and that is what they're supposed to be.

https://www.amazon.com/Architectural...ture+wittkower This is an interesting architecture book, written by an architectural historian based on his lectures, his lectures/book was very popular during the 1940s and 1950s among modernist architects, during a time when proportional/geometric purity was appealing (Le Corbusier was doing Le Modulor during the time, Mies was doing Farnsworth House). Most of the book just discusses various buildings and architects, but the best part imo is the beginning which explains the reasoning of the architecture. Gothic buildings used geometric constructions, but in the Renaissance they switched to harmonic proportion (so instead of inscribing things in circles etc they were concerned with the ratios between dimensions being things like 1:2, 1:3, etc (the system gets complicated but that's the jist)). They did this because music (our music scales are based on the same types of ratios) and math did the same thing, and they believed that these systems of ratios were the underlying foundation of the universe, in the same way that we today might look at the periodic table or string theory.

Renaissance architecture is the way that this is so that it is in alignment with the fundamental divine order of all of creation. It's literally as universal as architecture can possibly be.


Just like "traditional" architecture encompasses a rich variety of different architectures, "modern" architecture does the same. Some of them are universal and some of them are regional.

But if I had to generalize, I'd say that modernism embraces a universalist process which results in genuinely regional results. The attitude is that you're designing for the conditions at hand, and buildings will be different from region to region to the extent that local cultural customs, weather conditions, construction and labor skills and practices, and material availability are different from region to region. But the basic fact is that humans are all pretty similar, most cultural conceptions of what shelter is are the same (usually, but not always, a few private bedrooms with a few communal rooms), most people around the world find a certain temperature and humidity range ideal (because we're all the same species), and commonplace technology can make most shelters ideal without needing a lot of dramatic architectural solutions.

There's also the issue of what "regional" really means, when the argument is that European architectural forms should be constructed in the US, even though we're different continents. Yes, European countries colonized and immigrated to us, but by that logic, all of the Americas, most of Africa and most of Asia should all have the same "regional" and "traditional" European architecture. And likewise when Europeans colonize mars, mars should also share the same "traditional" architecture, so that our martian cities are suitably regional. :p


For your specific example of that apartment building, you can certainly narrow it down based on that photo. The earlier photo that was from Canada could be figured to be from Canada because we can see the style and size of it and can think of what places have similar buildings. It's nothing to do with the intrinsic regionalism of the architecture. The modern apartment tower can't be built anywhere in the world either. It needs to be some place with a level of development that can support midrise apartment towers, has the industrial supply chains for large scale concrete construction, and met these conditions from 1950-1985. There are no neoclassical buildings in Antarctica because the people making neoclassical buildings were, by coincidences of history, not in Antarctica at the time. It doesn't mean neoclassical is regional.

Last edited by Jasoncw; Dec 22, 2017 at 10:51 PM.
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