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I'd say they are actually timeless, it isn't just emotional attachment. They're both beautiful and functional. Some of those old buildings are less functional t
by trgn 9y ago
I'd say they are actually timeless, it isn't just emotional attachment. They're both beautiful and functional. Some of those old buildings are less functional than they used to, like a lot of churches in Europe, but they are redeemed because they are beautiful.
> Is beauty a requirement for a institution?
It certainly is if those institutions recognize their responsibility when building large projects. Good architecture should be beautiful, robust, and useful. That's a rule of thumb dating back to antiquity. Modernist ideology started to subvert two of those, and really only focused on use. It bastardized beauty into branding, the idea that a building is a sculpture that needs to project the brand of the institution. That's why so called "forward thinking" institutions build buildings that look futuristic. But they only look futuristic in the present-day, that kick wears off really quick. What remains is often objectively horrible and unpleasant. That new Yale building will not suffer that fate, because Yale didn't fall in that trap of using architecture as branding.
- mirceal 9y agoI have a problem with the redeeming qualities of a old building. Sure, it's pleasant to look at, it may even improve your mood, but is this why you're there? Example: you need to study in the library and the library is really small because it was super expensive to build and noone thought we would have so many students. And by the way, the heating does not work or it's expensive as fuck. Now what?
- hindsightbias 9y agoFor all those tuition costs, would I rather study here: https://connectrac.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/PCLupdate020.jpg https://connectrac.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/PCLupdate0... (New and improved!) Or here? https://jenpearl.files.wordpress.com/2008/08/web-stanford-library-reading-room.jpg https://jenpearl.files.wordpress.com/2008/08/web-stanford-li... (er, edited non-rotating link) I've been in a lot of garish, modern/brutal and cold libraries. Some with A/C that actually worked but was always out of control - for whatever reason, a lot of very "modern" buildings have crazy bad HVAC. Either too much or too litle. Of course that can be fixed, but why not something like an updated version of the latter library?