3 ms·

We shouldn't forget aesthetic and culture. Those things 'don't compute' into our secular views of productivity and equations ... but they are essential. All t

We shouldn't forget aesthetic and culture. Those things 'don't compute' into our secular views of productivity and equations ... but they are essential. All the little mouldings, trimmings, foliage, gardens, window sills, the brick, the cobblestone, the dishes, the wine. And I would add 'local people'. Expats and immigrants are good folk, but when everyone is a transplant, there's no rooted culture, and there's something missing. Nobody can agree on what should be what, and you end up with bland everything. Take for example many European cities have strong limits on building height etc. because to the locals, it's imperative, but in the new world, it's generally the opposite. The land in Stockholm is worth a lot, economically, it would make sense to just bulldoze everything and put up skyscrapers. Thank goodness that won't happen.

beat 8y ago
I live in a 100 year old neighborhood. Over the past decade or so, there's been new construction - old houses with bad bones are torn down, and new ones built on their lots. But the new houses, try though they may, don't fit the aesthetic of the neighborhood very well. First, none of them use stucco, although stucco is by far the dominant surface material for older houses. It's too expensive for new. And while they have porches, they're made with these ridiculous oversized columns with plastic rocks and fake wood. And the windows! The side windows of our old bungalows are elegantly symmetric. The new ones have the rococo randomness of mcmansions in their windows. They just don't look right at all. Then again, in 50 more years, who knows?
- sonnyblarney 8y ago
  Not only is the utter cheapness of materials a problem, but the complete lack of architectural integrity as well. I walk around some places and they are a total mishmash. Guess what - there are no architects for most of these things, just CAD guys grabbing stuff from here and there without thinking, mishmashing it together. Our homes are like poorly cropped photoshop mishmashes of random photos from the internet. I was once visiting Tunisia, a local man was showing me around, he pointed out the fountain that his brother designed. He said he didn't like it, I didn't see why. He point out that the perimeter was Arabic, and the main fountain was colonial i.e. Italian renaissance. As soon as he pointed that out, even my untrained eye could see the issue immediately, I was like 'oh yeah' obviously. This guy was not educated, I'm not sure how literate he was, and yet even he could point out basic architectural issues. The world is such a mix we forget what the components are, and are unfortunately not able to forge our own. I feel it's not quite a 'nice mix' but 'lowest / cheapest common denominator' in most things.
  - beat 8y ago
    Yeah. Those awful porch columns are clearly a product of being able to buy cheap off-the-shelf molded plastic columns and wrap them around equally cheap metal posts. They're trying to look "impressive", but they just look unbalanced, at the scale of the house. Then again, each generation has its own problems. Housing for all but the rich is built around cheapness and available technology. Ours is a bungalow neighborhood because in the early 1900s, that was the cheap way to build houses. Balloon-frame construction with 2x4s and factory nails would have been anathema to previous generations - how could that possibly last? (Answer? About a hundred years.) My kitchen door is crooked because the door frame was crooked, built by relatively low-skilled laborers with poor measurements and tools, and the guy putting in the door just trimmed it to fit. No replacing that.
  - PhasmaFelis 8y ago
    > I was once visiting Tunisia, a local man was showing me around, he pointed out the fountain that his brother designed. He said he didn't like it, I didn't see why. He point out that the perimeter was Arabic, and the main fountain was colonial i.e. Italian renaissance. As soon as he pointed that out, even my untrained eye could see the issue immediately, I was like 'oh yeah' obviously. This is an interesting subject to me. There's value in preserving traditional styles. When I look at one of those bad-architecture blogs, certainly there are things that are obviously tasteless or mismatched to me. But there's also a lot of things where I can't see the problem until it's explained, and even then it just sounds like an arbitrary list of rules that you're supposed to follow because the cool people do it. The architectural equivalent of not wearing white after Labor Day. If it performs the functions of a home and makes the people who live in it happy, how much does architectural integrity really matter?
    - spc476 8y ago
      On McMansion Hell [1] one of the common criticisms is the mismatched windows. Aesthetic considerations aside, having mismatched windows can be a maintenance issue. One example might be hurricane shutters for homes along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts---if all the windows are of the same style, it's cheaper (or easier) to obtain the proper shutters (you don't have to obtain six different sizes) and eases installation when required. Complex roof lines (another symptom of McMansion Hell) leads to leaky roofs [2] and expensive repairs. [1] http://mcmansionhell.com/ http://mcmansionhell.com/ [2] Frank Lloyd Wright's houses notoriously leaked along the roofs. When called upon it, he is recorded as having remarked, "That's how you tell it's a roof!"
pavon 8y ago
In my experience places in the US that have strict aesthetic zoning rules end up with bland cookie-cutter buildings that look like a disneyfied facsimile of the aesthetic they are are trying to enforce. I don't know if the problem is in the details of their regulations or if the entire idea fundamentally failed, but I'll take unregulated variety over forced aesthetics anyday.
- sonnyblarney 8y ago
  "but I'll take unregulated variety over forced aesthetics anyday" I doubt it really. The 'enforced aesthetic' in North American regions generally are very poorly conceived in the first place and are usually utilitarian, not actually aesthetic. Typically 'forced aesthetic' only happens in places wherein there is a strong and obvious history in the area. Vienna, Stockholm, Zurich as easy and obvious examples. This 'forced aesthetic' is also culturally impinged, meaning that it's kind of what people would do anyhow. Would you seriously consider knocking down and old building in Zurich and putting up a McMansion? I doubt it. It might be an impossible thing to do from scratch, wherein there are no obvious references either. A 'new development' in Switzerland could easily have it. A suburb of Chicago ... probably not. It would take an enormous degree of thoughtfulness and careful consideration to do in most places in North America, but it might be possible, particularly in places like New England. I could see a village in Maine saying 'no new development within the township unless it meets colonial era criteria' or something like that. Without it, you get a deluge a true kind of blandness of hyper mediocrity. A lack of critical mass around cultural ideals, meaning corporate developments rule: a shopping mall on every corner. Every city council and local government official wants to 'increase the GDP', and a few new Wallmarts and a 'Starbucks on Every Corner of our Community' would do just that - so it takes quite a lot of cultural momentum to keep those things in check. And I'm just scratching the surface: how we design our living spaces goes a long way to defining who we are as a people as well.
- pds74 8y ago
  I think partly zoning especially the way it is implemented in US is something that is pushed by bigger businesses to suppress the competition from mom-and-pop stores. Look at Japan where zoning seem to be quite lax, you see huge number of tiny groceries, coffee shops etc. in the most amusing but very convenient places. Here is states it is mostly big and medium grocery chains with ultimately less choices that could otherwise be available.

beat 8y ago

I live in a 100 year old neighborhood. Over the past decade or so, there's been new construction - old houses with bad bones are torn down, and new ones built on their lots. But the new houses, try though they may, don't fit the aesthetic of the neighborhood very well. First, none of them use stucco, although stucco is by far the dominant surface material for older houses. It's too expensive for new. And while they have porches, they're made with these ridiculous oversized columns with plastic rocks and fake wood. And the windows! The side windows of our old bungalows are elegantly symmetric. The new ones have the rococo randomness of mcmansions in their windows. They just don't look right at all. Then again, in 50 more years, who knows?

sonnyblarney 8y ago
Not only is the utter cheapness of materials a problem, but the complete lack of architectural integrity as well. I walk around some places and they are a total mishmash. Guess what - there are no architects for most of these things, just CAD guys grabbing stuff from here and there without thinking, mishmashing it together. Our homes are like poorly cropped photoshop mishmashes of random photos from the internet. I was once visiting Tunisia, a local man was showing me around, he pointed out the fountain that his brother designed. He said he didn't like it, I didn't see why. He point out that the perimeter was Arabic, and the main fountain was colonial i.e. Italian renaissance. As soon as he pointed that out, even my untrained eye could see the issue immediately, I was like 'oh yeah' obviously. This guy was not educated, I'm not sure how literate he was, and yet even he could point out basic architectural issues. The world is such a mix we forget what the components are, and are unfortunately not able to forge our own. I feel it's not quite a 'nice mix' but 'lowest / cheapest common denominator' in most things.
- beat 8y ago
  Yeah. Those awful porch columns are clearly a product of being able to buy cheap off-the-shelf molded plastic columns and wrap them around equally cheap metal posts. They're trying to look "impressive", but they just look unbalanced, at the scale of the house. Then again, each generation has its own problems. Housing for all but the rich is built around cheapness and available technology. Ours is a bungalow neighborhood because in the early 1900s, that was the cheap way to build houses. Balloon-frame construction with 2x4s and factory nails would have been anathema to previous generations - how could that possibly last? (Answer? About a hundred years.) My kitchen door is crooked because the door frame was crooked, built by relatively low-skilled laborers with poor measurements and tools, and the guy putting in the door just trimmed it to fit. No replacing that.
- PhasmaFelis 8y ago
  > I was once visiting Tunisia, a local man was showing me around, he pointed out the fountain that his brother designed. He said he didn't like it, I didn't see why. He point out that the perimeter was Arabic, and the main fountain was colonial i.e. Italian renaissance. As soon as he pointed that out, even my untrained eye could see the issue immediately, I was like 'oh yeah' obviously. This is an interesting subject to me. There's value in preserving traditional styles. When I look at one of those bad-architecture blogs, certainly there are things that are obviously tasteless or mismatched to me. But there's also a lot of things where I can't see the problem until it's explained, and even then it just sounds like an arbitrary list of rules that you're supposed to follow because the cool people do it. The architectural equivalent of not wearing white after Labor Day. If it performs the functions of a home and makes the people who live in it happy, how much does architectural integrity really matter?
  - spc476 8y ago
    On McMansion Hell [1] one of the common criticisms is the mismatched windows. Aesthetic considerations aside, having mismatched windows can be a maintenance issue. One example might be hurricane shutters for homes along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts---if all the windows are of the same style, it's cheaper (or easier) to obtain the proper shutters (you don't have to obtain six different sizes) and eases installation when required. Complex roof lines (another symptom of McMansion Hell) leads to leaky roofs [2] and expensive repairs. [1] http://mcmansionhell.com/ http://mcmansionhell.com/ [2] Frank Lloyd Wright's houses notoriously leaked along the roofs. When called upon it, he is recorded as having remarked, "That's how you tell it's a roof!"

pavon 8y ago

In my experience places in the US that have strict aesthetic zoning rules end up with bland cookie-cutter buildings that look like a disneyfied facsimile of the aesthetic they are are trying to enforce. I don't know if the problem is in the details of their regulations or if the entire idea fundamentally failed, but I'll take unregulated variety over forced aesthetics anyday.

sonnyblarney 8y ago
"but I'll take unregulated variety over forced aesthetics anyday" I doubt it really. The 'enforced aesthetic' in North American regions generally are very poorly conceived in the first place and are usually utilitarian, not actually aesthetic. Typically 'forced aesthetic' only happens in places wherein there is a strong and obvious history in the area. Vienna, Stockholm, Zurich as easy and obvious examples. This 'forced aesthetic' is also culturally impinged, meaning that it's kind of what people would do anyhow. Would you seriously consider knocking down and old building in Zurich and putting up a McMansion? I doubt it. It might be an impossible thing to do from scratch, wherein there are no obvious references either. A 'new development' in Switzerland could easily have it. A suburb of Chicago ... probably not. It would take an enormous degree of thoughtfulness and careful consideration to do in most places in North America, but it might be possible, particularly in places like New England. I could see a village in Maine saying 'no new development within the township unless it meets colonial era criteria' or something like that. Without it, you get a deluge a true kind of blandness of hyper mediocrity. A lack of critical mass around cultural ideals, meaning corporate developments rule: a shopping mall on every corner. Every city council and local government official wants to 'increase the GDP', and a few new Wallmarts and a 'Starbucks on Every Corner of our Community' would do just that - so it takes quite a lot of cultural momentum to keep those things in check. And I'm just scratching the surface: how we design our living spaces goes a long way to defining who we are as a people as well.
pds74 8y ago
I think partly zoning especially the way it is implemented in US is something that is pushed by bigger businesses to suppress the competition from mom-and-pop stores. Look at Japan where zoning seem to be quite lax, you see huge number of tiny groceries, coffee shops etc. in the most amusing but very convenient places. Here is states it is mostly big and medium grocery chains with ultimately less choices that could otherwise be available.