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With regards to Sturgeon's law unfortunately lots of completely non-functional Brutalist buildings are held up as beautiful marvels. Buildings with flat roofs

With regards to Sturgeon's law unfortunately lots of completely non-functional Brutalist buildings are held up as beautiful marvels. Buildings with flat roofs and piss poor drainage in the West of Scotland (rains a bit) are held up as timeless paragons of the style. This tells me there is a massive disconnect between architects and normal people. (EDIT: There is quite a lot of Brutalist stuff I like but there is a lot of shit decaying ruins that I'm repeatedly told are brilliant that are most certainly not)

deleted 9y ago
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vanderZwan 9y ago
> This tells me there is a massive disconnect between architects and normal people. Well, on the other end of the scale we have McMansions[0] - although part of the critiques[1] also feel like architect snobbery to me at times. [0] http://mcmansionhell.com/ http://mcmansionhell.com/ [1] http://mcmansionhell.com/101 http://mcmansionhell.com/101
- msla 9y ago
  McMansion means two things at the same time. Be wary of terms like those: 1. Badly-designed and badly-built (as in, objectively not up to some verifiable standard) homes built with the look of better-built homes but none of the construction quality those homes have. 2. Houses built by the newly-rich on small lots, in contrast with the houses inherited by the old money on larger tracts of land. The inevitable and, perhaps, deliberate conflation between the two senses is pure class warfare, of the "Established upper class striking against the newly arrived" sense.
- Marazan 9y ago
  McMansions are also non-functional buildings. It would be possible to ape the 'incremental build' style of a building that's been around for 100s of years without the aesthetic dissonance and massive space wastage of the average McManison. If you have a different style of window in every fitting without a strong aesthetic tie then you've just raised the build and maintenance cost of the property for no reason except cargo cultism.
Bartweiss 9y ago
This is my objection also. Sturgeon's Law says that most things are bad; it doesn't obligate anyone to celebrate those failures. Having spent time in quite a few 'iconic' Brutalist building, my experience is that they're frequently terrible. Impressive looking, but deeply unfriendly to their inhabitants. There's one where it sometimes rains indoors because the venting and vault-ceilings are so poorly executed. It's still lauded as great architecture.

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vanderZwan 9y ago

> This tells me there is a massive disconnect between architects and normal people. Well, on the other end of the scale we have McMansions[0] - although part of the critiques[1] also feel like architect snobbery to me at times. [0] http://mcmansionhell.com/ http://mcmansionhell.com/ [1] http://mcmansionhell.com/101 http://mcmansionhell.com/101

msla 9y ago
McMansion means two things at the same time. Be wary of terms like those: 1. Badly-designed and badly-built (as in, objectively not up to some verifiable standard) homes built with the look of better-built homes but none of the construction quality those homes have. 2. Houses built by the newly-rich on small lots, in contrast with the houses inherited by the old money on larger tracts of land. The inevitable and, perhaps, deliberate conflation between the two senses is pure class warfare, of the "Established upper class striking against the newly arrived" sense.
Marazan 9y ago
McMansions are also non-functional buildings. It would be possible to ape the 'incremental build' style of a building that's been around for 100s of years without the aesthetic dissonance and massive space wastage of the average McManison. If you have a different style of window in every fitting without a strong aesthetic tie then you've just raised the build and maintenance cost of the property for no reason except cargo cultism.

Bartweiss 9y ago

This is my objection also. Sturgeon's Law says that most things are bad; it doesn't obligate anyone to celebrate those failures. Having spent time in quite a few 'iconic' Brutalist building, my experience is that they're frequently terrible. Impressive looking, but deeply unfriendly to their inhabitants. There's one where it sometimes rains indoors because the venting and vault-ceilings are so poorly executed. It's still lauded as great architecture.