Quote:
Originally Posted by eschaton
I'm married to an architect, and talk with various ones quite often. I've concluded that the vast majority of architecture schools basically indoctrinate students so they think designing anything but modernist style is bad. I've heard numerous people tell me that while they like historic styles, it's just wrong in the modern era to make a building with detailed ornament. Which I've never understood - if architecture is an art form, than it's equally valid to work in traditional and modern styles - the same way that folk and electronic music are both equally valid.
Much of the blame, however, does not fall on architects, but on building engineers and general contractors more broadly. Architects often have rather high design ideas which they are promptly told are too expensive for a given project. This usually results in the original massing of a building remaining similar to when it was designed, but the various finishes being progressively cheapened. Thus you end up with cheap metal paneling on everything, crappy lighting fixtures, windows subtly altered, etc.
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There are some bad architects out there, but many of them are very good. Architects try very hard to make great buildings, but the reality is that the aesthetic side of things is only like 5% of the profession. 95% of it is meeting various codes and standards, working with clients, ensuring enough space around desks and in bathrooms, planning parking spaces, etc., as well as generally managing the construction project, since architects are the ones ultimately responsible for the building standing up and being functional. While the design is important, developers generally aren't willing to pay for good (or even decent) design, so architects work within the constraints they have and use the highest-quality materials they can afford. And as mentioned above, the budget often gets decreased or consumed by functional requirements (or inflation) as a project moves forward, so the nicer "unnecessary" stuff gets value-engineered out and in the end only a few, or none, of the nice finishes get built. Another reality of the profession is that architects are not well-paid. They often get about 5% of the construction cost to design a building and manage its construction, which is about the same as what a realtor gets paid for selling a building. As a result, there often just isn't time available in the fee to work out the nitty-gritty details of something very unique and complex and still make a profit. Certainly not tons of unique details per building.
As for historical ornament, it's true that many architecture schools tend to indoctrinate their students to modernism. Notre Dame is a notable exception. However, even if you want to make something classical or ornamental, the reality is that it is impossibly expensive to do with modern materials and labor costs. A hundred years ago, ornamental stone and brick and terra cotta pieces were made by hand by Polish or Irish laborers paid pennies and erected by low-paid laborers as well. Nowadays, workers in the construction trades are paid quite well and there are only a handful of companies in the United States that still make ornament. For example, there are only two terra cotta factories in the whole country. In 1900, every city had several. Robert AM Stern does classical buildings. Many people think he is very good at it, though I don't agree. Anyway, in 2008 he completed a new classical high-rise called 15 Central Park West in NYC meant to emulate pre-war highrises in materials and aesthetic. It cost over $1000/SF to build. In contrast, your typical mid-rise apartment building not in NYC has a budget of about $150-250/SF. The result, for the few projects that try to emulate classicism is precast concrete in the place of limestone, with very simplified details that look really corny, and bland modern brick. Chicago had an architect that tried to do classicism during the last condo boom, Lucien Lagrange, but it always came out looking like bad Post-modernism, not actual classicism. Rich people gobbled it up anyway, but for people with actual style sense, it was pretty hideous. That said, I have high hopes that with the rise of 3D-printing and cheap laser cutting, making sheets of cheap ornamental material may be possible again soon, either for use with classicism or perhaps completely new ornamental styles of architecture.
As for lack of contextualness, that is a valid criticism of architects. Most are really bad at it. Architecture schools teach their students that each building is a unique work of art by its designer, and I think a lot of architects never get out of that mindset, even when they are creating a background building. Why be contextual with what's already there? I'm creating something COMPLETELY NEW!! That said, contextual design has nothing to do with style. Historical styles can be badly out-of-scale just as much as modernism can. There are subtle things architects can do like lining up floors and taking color cues from surrounding buildings that do a lot to subtly show context and often don't even cost more, but many architects don't do it.
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