5 ms·

You hear a lot about the bad examples of this, but little about the good examples. I remember wandering through a working class high rise area in Southern Spain

You hear a lot about the bad examples of this, but little about the good examples. I remember wandering through a working class high rise area in Southern Spain, and being amazed by how friendly the atmosphere was, but you'd never hear that area discussed in newspapers and magazines. The fact is living in apartments is very common all across Continental Europe, and that area is not well-represented by the Banlieues, or bad council estates in London. FWIW, although I don't like Brutalist architecture, my attitude is that these mistakes are almost entirely down to social policies that came with the construction - or at least a mismatch between construction and policy. In particular, it was a mistake putting large percentages of very disadvantaged, vulnerable families together into brutalist, modernist constructions that they found ugly, where they didn't want to live, and then not putting in the money necessary to maintain them. I don't think the same problems are likely to be repeated if you're replacing low density suburbs filled with wealthy professionals, with high density flats filled with wealthy professionals, who are specifically choosing to move there.

stephengillie 11y ago
If one were to follow the highly-cynical concept that 'every article is a "submarine article" for something', then it could logically follow that many of the apartment-bashing articles are secretly advertisements for house sales. If you run a house construction general contractor, or maybe you're a lumber producer, and your sales hit a slump, how do you advertise? Everyone hates "normal" ads, but "native" ads are too new to be known. So you write up an article about the pains of apartment living, and shuttle it off to your friends at an influential newsblog.
kbenson 11y ago
> then not putting in the money necessary to maintain them. I think this is key. Brutalist architecture tends to weather well on the outside. Steel reinforced concrete needs maintenance just like everything else, but possible not on the same schedule, and not always of the same type. I think there's a reinforced loop of politicians not wanting to spend money maintaining these large, "ugly" (in appearance and purpose) structures, and getting away with that for a while, possibly for longer than their term. Then they start degrading from neglect, and now they are truly ugly,both in appearance in in what has happened to the people that live there (through more neglect).
eru 11y ago
Singapore and Hong Kong (and to some extent even New York) seem to be doing fine with wealthy people in dense housing.
- Turing_Machine 11y ago
  We only see this type of density in areas where there is no other choice. You don't find Singapores in the middle of North Dakota, or even in Ohio. Why not?
  - eru 11y ago
    Because approximately no-one wants to live there?
    - Turing_Machine 11y ago
      Ohio has a population of 11.59 million. Singapore has a population of 5.3 million.
klibertp 11y ago
> The fact is living in apartments is very common all across Continental Europe I had to google what a "Brutalist architecture" is. Turns out it's somewhat similar to how Central and Eastern Europe countries look like as a whole: socialists governments used to love this style and were building tons of these. It's now extremely common. Wikipedia says that 1/3 of Czechs live in buildings like this: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/17/Dlhe_diely_panorama_zo_starych_gruntov.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/17/Dlhe_die... Which is probably representative to the whole former Eastern Bloc. Here in Poland these building were being built from 1950-ties to early 1990-ties, non-stop, one after another, district after district, city (and, to a lesser degree, town and village too!) after city. I've lived all my life in one or another of those. They are old, very badly constructed and ugly as hell, but they are inhabitable and they provide homes for millions of people. It's somewhat gross to hear your neighbour peeing at night, but it somewhat "works" - you have a cheap shelter for really many people close to city centres. I don't really want to make any point, I just wanted to provide some context to your statement about how common living in apartments is on this side of the Berlin wall.
- Symbiote 11y ago
  Brutalist is a particular style, I think what was really meant was "prefabricated" — the buildings could be assembled on-site from parts (wall sections etc) manufactured elsewhere. A huge number of houses had been destroyed in WW2, so rebuilding them quickly and cheaply was a priority. It wasn't just socialist governments, the UK built loads of these too — though as prosperity increased, they became much less common.

stephengillie 11y ago

If one were to follow the highly-cynical concept that 'every article is a "submarine article" for something', then it could logically follow that many of the apartment-bashing articles are secretly advertisements for house sales. If you run a house construction general contractor, or maybe you're a lumber producer, and your sales hit a slump, how do you advertise? Everyone hates "normal" ads, but "native" ads are too new to be known. So you write up an article about the pains of apartment living, and shuttle it off to your friends at an influential newsblog.

kbenson 11y ago

> then not putting in the money necessary to maintain them. I think this is key. Brutalist architecture tends to weather well on the outside. Steel reinforced concrete needs maintenance just like everything else, but possible not on the same schedule, and not always of the same type. I think there's a reinforced loop of politicians not wanting to spend money maintaining these large, "ugly" (in appearance and purpose) structures, and getting away with that for a while, possibly for longer than their term. Then they start degrading from neglect, and now they are truly ugly,both in appearance in in what has happened to the people that live there (through more neglect).

eru 11y ago

Singapore and Hong Kong (and to some extent even New York) seem to be doing fine with wealthy people in dense housing.

Turing_Machine 11y ago
We only see this type of density in areas where there is no other choice. You don't find Singapores in the middle of North Dakota, or even in Ohio. Why not?
- eru 11y ago
  Because approximately no-one wants to live there?
  - Turing_Machine 11y ago
    Ohio has a population of 11.59 million. Singapore has a population of 5.3 million.

klibertp 11y ago

> The fact is living in apartments is very common all across Continental Europe I had to google what a "Brutalist architecture" is. Turns out it's somewhat similar to how Central and Eastern Europe countries look like as a whole: socialists governments used to love this style and were building tons of these. It's now extremely common. Wikipedia says that 1/3 of Czechs live in buildings like this: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/17/Dlhe_diely_panorama_zo_starych_gruntov.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/17/Dlhe_die... Which is probably representative to the whole former Eastern Bloc. Here in Poland these building were being built from 1950-ties to early 1990-ties, non-stop, one after another, district after district, city (and, to a lesser degree, town and village too!) after city. I've lived all my life in one or another of those. They are old, very badly constructed and ugly as hell, but they are inhabitable and they provide homes for millions of people. It's somewhat gross to hear your neighbour peeing at night, but it somewhat "works" - you have a cheap shelter for really many people close to city centres. I don't really want to make any point, I just wanted to provide some context to your statement about how common living in apartments is on this side of the Berlin wall.

Symbiote 11y ago
Brutalist is a particular style, I think what was really meant was "prefabricated" — the buildings could be assembled on-site from parts (wall sections etc) manufactured elsewhere. A huge number of houses had been destroyed in WW2, so rebuilding them quickly and cheaply was a priority. It wasn't just socialist governments, the UK built loads of these too — though as prosperity increased, they became much less common.