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Crimes in Concrete
- 1024core 7y agoSan Francisco is undergoing exactly such a crime wave. The new apartment buildings are just glass and steel, with no redeeming features whatsoever. Compare these new buildings to the Flood Building or the Hobart Building, and you'll shed a tear or two.
- titanomachy 7y agoThe Hobart building is pretty to look at. But if I'm actually going to spend my time in the building, I would much rather have the floor-to-ceiling windows of a generic modern steel-and-glass tower. I wonder how much of this design trend is due to the development of better materials (e.g. more insulating glass).
- deogeo 7y agoAnd when you look out from those large floor-to-ceiling windows, you will see another steel-and-glass tower. And when you go outside, you will be surrounded by them, as will your children when they try to play. But I'm sure as long as you're bunkered in your room and ignore the outside world, steel-and-glass towers are great - location is irrelevant when it comes to real-estate.
- titanomachy 7y agoI have a pretty nice view actually. I'm sorry you are bitter.
- DHPersonal 7y agoGlass is still a terrible insulator, even if it is more efficient than what it used to be.
- bdauvergne 7y agoWhy ?
- titanomachy 7y agoNatural light. View. The illusion of space rather than confinement.
- rmason 7y agoIt's always been kind of amazing to me that people will get all upset over a building but that often changes with time. Same thing with a piece of art. Locally here there was a most controversial design for a parking garage. People just hated it but now its almost adored. https://foursquare.com/v/the-habitrail-parking-garage/4eb994f1775b7ec2973dc0c6/photos https://foursquare.com/v/the-habitrail-parking-garage/4eb994... Same thing with the new Broad Art Museum by the late architect Zaha Hadid. Totally looks out of place in a Big 10 college town. Yet inside the light is the most fantastic of any art museum I've ever visited in the world. https://www.archdaily.com/293358/eli-edythe-broad-art-museum-zaha-hadid-architects/50a2aa0ab3fc4b4ec200003d-eli-edythe-broad-art-museum-zaha-hadid-architects-photo https://www.archdaily.com/293358/eli-edythe-broad-art-museum... Course sometimes something is built with zero redeeming value. I'd wager that something built from concrete can be beautiful.
- c0vfefe 7y agoI'm familiar with both those buildings, and can attest to the fact that sometimes the boldest and inscrutable design decisions eventually become the most well-loved. High risk, high reward.
- jonhendry18 7y agoThe color on the parking garage helps. Compare this monster in New Haven. https://nrsys.com/site/wp-content/uploads/temple_street.jpg https://nrsys.com/site/wp-content/uploads/temple_street.jpg
- rdiddly 7y agoModernists and their apologists are like flat-earthers. All criticism can be chalked up to your ignorance of the secrets that only they are willing to confront.
- ppod 7y agoIt's fascinating how neatly being politically conservative or progressive lines up with the corresponding architectural view. I like brutalism, but I disagree with the removal of Scruton from that position, it seems political. What annoys me about articles like the above is that they seem to ignore the possibility that aesthetics involves a lot of subjectivity. The argument seems to boil down to, "of course it's ugly, just look at it". But you look at what young travellers and photographers actually spend time appreciating and sharing images of, the modernist parts of Chicago, London and New York seem be appreciated at least as much as other cities and districts with well-regarded pre-20thC buildings.
- deogeo 7y ago> modernist parts of Chicago, London and New York seem be appreciated at least as much as other cities and districts with well-regarded pre-20thC buildings. Not according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/America%27s_Favorite_Architecture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/America%27s_Favorite_Architect... - modernist buildings barely show up in that list. Of course you're right - beauty is subjective. So when a simple popularity poll fails to show support for their chosen style, architects resort to pseudo-intellectual justifications of why the people are wrong to dislike the featureless blocks of glass, steel and concrete built in their cities.
- jhbadger 7y agoPart of the problem is that modern buildings change their names as corporate clients change and hard to include in lists for that reason. For example, I grew up visiting Chicago and marveling at the wonderful Sears Tower and John Hancock Center. These days these are known as the Willis Tower and 875 North Michigan Avenue.
- LeanderK 7y ago> Not according to (..) I am not sure, searching for "modern" reveals 27 hits and postmodern 14. Also, landmarks dominate the top 10 so i am not sure whether the poll more accuratly tracks the most liked building and not style. A style with more distributed votes would suffer (and, for example, there are more hits for postmodern than for art-deco).
- skybrian 7y agoNo pictures when writing about architecture?
- inflatableDodo 7y agoIs a literary review of a book about architecture, so has quotes from the book. I assume the pictures are one level down.
- theoh 7y agoI'm not sure James Stevens Curl is a good person to go to for compelling images of architecture. Check out his website: http://www.jamesstevenscurl.com/james-stevens-curl-architecture-drawings http://www.jamesstevenscurl.com/james-stevens-curl-architect... He can sort-of draw buildings and architectural details but basically he doesn't really have a great eye for architecture. If he did, he would think twice before making the tedious old right-wing arguments in the book. He's an example of someone who is conservative in way that's not grounded in practicality. Disliking the way 20th C architecture played out is one thing, trying to convince us to return to pre-modern architecture is something else. By the way, it sounds odd to describe the content of a book as "one level down" from a review of that book.
- inflatableDodo 7y agoThank you for the link, I read some more of the reviews for his book on there. A. It appears that you are talking nonsense and B. I'm probably going to buy a copy.
- theoh 7y agoI probably can't convince you of anything, but there are definitely two sides to this story. You can choose to listen to Stevens Curl if you want to. You can choose to listen to Theodore Dalrymple as well. Like Stevens Curl he is a blowhard with very iffy politics. As a trained architectural historian (who has spent years in the UK) it's very clear to me where he is coming from, and it's not a rational place. HN is a terrible venue for discussions of architecture because it's full of people who think their own blinkered opinion is the law. Stevens Curl is just like that. Edit: even the conservative Spectator has Curl's digits: https://www.spectator.co.uk/2018/08/modernist-architecture-isnt-barbarous-but-the-blinkered-rejection-of-it-is/ https://www.spectator.co.uk/2018/08/modernist-architecture-i...
- theamk 7y ago> This is so self-evidently true that I find it hard to understand how anyone could deny it, but modern architects and hangers-on such as architectural journalists do deny it, like war criminals who, for obvious reasons, continue to deny their crimes in the face of overwhelming evidence. That's a very convincing argument right in the second paragraph.
- oftenwrong 7y agoReminds me of this article, "Why you hate contemporary architecture": https://www.currentaffairs.org/2017/10/why-you-hate-contemporary-architecture https://www.currentaffairs.org/2017/10/why-you-hate-contempo...
- hairytrog 7y agoThe only pre-20thC buildings that remain are the ones that survive. The ones that survive are the ones we like and that are able to survive (not plywood and well built). Survival is the real measurement of how much we like it - it is the ultimate arbiter of aesthetics/beauty/cultural significance/engineering excellence, and it trumps all the chatter of self-appointed critics. If it's garbage, we tear it down or stop maintaining it until it comes down on its own. Darlyrimple is right, "it's ugly, just look at it." These buildings may continue to fall because people don't like to use them. I'm just worried that people will adapt to like the buildings .
- pjc50 7y agoWell, apart from the "listed building" system which freezes them on an entirely political basis.
- microtherion 7y agoYes, my worry is not so much that architects build ugly or dysfunctional buildings (that has always happened), but that today's architects, once they manage to build something, tend to have quite a bit of power to prevent tearing down or altering their oeuvres, no matter how ill conceived.
- Gibbon1 7y agoIt's telling that architects feel the need to list their beautiful creations to keep them from being torn down by the philistines.
- pjc50 7y agoIt's not usually the architects themselves, it's more an intelligentsia thing.
- Retric 7y agoComparing buildings by their external appearance is never going away, but many people just don’t care. Brutalist is thus never going away simply because at it’s core it was very utilitarian. The fad was mostly an over reaction, but sometimes you just want a large concrete box and anything else is a waste of resources.
- Zigurd 7y agoWas just at Umass Amherst for my son's graduation. It's an open air museum of brutalism. Breuer's student center building: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murray_D._Lincoln_Campus_Center https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murray_D._Lincoln_Campus_Cente... The nearby parking garage is better, actually. The Fine Arts Center: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fine_Arts_Center_(Amherst,_Massachusetts) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fine_Arts_Center_(Amherst,_Mas...
- LeanderK 7y ago> It's an open air museum of brutalism. I am not sure how to interpret your comment. Was this meant to be in a negative sense or in a positive sense? Or without any judgement?
- cftorres 7y agoMedellín (Colombia) is a city wich tends to modernism and is a great example of a place with no architectural value. I think the problem has a cultural dimension as citizens praise "Coltejer building" (2nd in the image) as the icon of the city even when it replaced a much pretty theather. Maybe humans get eclipsed with novelty and can't notice the impact of their creations on early stages. https://www.elcolombiano.com/documents/10157/0/620x410/20c0/580d410/none/11101/SBKW/fotos-medellin-1302042014_(6).jpg https://www.elcolombiano.com/documents/10157/0/620x410/20c0/...
- LordHumungous 7y agoIt would be helpful if the author provided examples of modern buildings that he considers beautiful, or modern architects who he thinks are doing it right.
- yellowapple 7y agoThere's also (on desktop at least) a lot of open space on the sides of the article that would've been a great place for, you know, some pictures of "good" v. "bad" architecture.
- DenisM 7y agoThe article is promoting a book, which upon cursory examination seems to have a lot of illustrations.
- magwa101 7y agoHonestly, puke. I've been watching "Grand Designs", great show about people building their own places in Britain. Many shows feature local "councils" who mandate all sorts of restrictions to "maintain the beauty and aesthetics of the town". Honestly they're protecting "old crap", that's an eyesore, eco disaster, ugly and it should be torn down. These people are doing everyone a favor. Very irritating to see the hoops the builders have to jump through.
- chrisseaton 7y agoWhy have you put council in scare quotes?
- jupp0r 7y agoI'm no architect, but I feel it's absolutely crazy to throw completely different styles of buildings into the same box, label them modernist and blanket reject them. I absolutely love some [1], but hate others [2]. I'm sure most people feel the same. [1] https://www.elledecor.com/design-decorate/g8674077/modern-houses/?slide=1 https://www.elledecor.com/design-decorate/g8674077/modern-ho... [2] https://www.elledecor.com/design-decorate/g8674077/modern-houses/?slide=3 https://www.elledecor.com/design-decorate/g8674077/modern-ho...
- bdauvergne 7y agoGlass houses are a thermal crime. I'm from south of France, suck kind of houses are stupid here, but I think also anywhere. There is a typical architecture here, for countryside houses, that of the "Bastide", which is adapted to the climate. In hot climate, it's too much opening during summer, in cold climate it's too much opening during winter. Maghreb, spain and all countries around the Mediterranean have their own architecture adapter to hot climate with nearly passive cooling during summer (with an adapted way of life, i.e. work early and do nothing in the middle of the day during summer). We don't need styles, movement or whatever, we need forms evolved for a long time by normal humans (on this point I'm a fan of Christopher Alexander position on architecture, see A Pattern Language or The Timeless Way of Building). Modern architecture is just a fraud based on nothing. Look at those : * http://www.hugues-bosc.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Mas-et-Bastide-en-Provence-Architecte-01.jpg http://www.hugues-bosc.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/M... * https://sunnyspainholidays.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/sunnyspainholidays.com-top-12-bech-holiday-destinations-in-southern-spain-720x380.jpg https://sunnyspainholidays.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/su...
- jupp0r 7y ago> Glass houses are a thermal crime. I don't think this is true. Some of the most energy efficient houses are passive solar houses that use large glass surfaces for heating that are covered using shades in the heat, but also use high thermal mass materials for heat/cold storage. From an aesthetics perspective, many people like natural light, I wouldn't want to live in the houses you provided as examples for that reason.
- pkamb 7y agolots of good Brutalism / Modernism accounts on Instagram if you're into that: https://www.instagram.com/thisbrutalhouse/ https://www.instagram.com/thisbrutalhouse/ https://www.instagram.com/themodernhouse/ https://www.instagram.com/themodernhouse/
- JohnFen 7y agoIn the past 5 years or so, there has been a bit of a building boom in my city. The dominant architectural style reminds me a lot of the style discussed in this article. None of it has a concrete facade, but otherwise it would fall right in line. It's ugly, depressing, and distressing.
- mywittyname 7y agoAre you talking about the colored concrete fiber side? https://www.allurausa.com/blog/17-fiber-cement-siding-color-ideas https://www.allurausa.com/blog/17-fiber-cement-siding-color-...
- JohnFen 7y agoThat's the look, yes, but I'm not sure (as in I don't know) if that's the actual construction method.
- skookumchuck 7y agoThen there are the bunkers at the University of Washington. The rest of the campus has all these beautiful buildings, one wonders how the bunkers ever got approved.
- SilasX 7y agoI couldn't find a reference in the text -- is the title a riff on "Sermons in Stone", a fictional book written by the antagonist of The Fountainhead?[1] (Yes, I read it, go easy on me.) [1] Link has SPOILERS, so you were warned: https://www.shmoop.com/the-fountainhead/ellsworth-toohey-timeline.html https://www.shmoop.com/the-fountainhead/ellsworth-toohey-tim...
- theklub 7y agoI thought this was going to be about poor concrete construction.. For example ... https://portal.ct.gov/DOH/DOH/Programs/Crumbling-Foundations https://portal.ct.gov/DOH/DOH/Programs/Crumbling-Foundations
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- burlesona 7y agoAs a former architect I agree with most of this. For those not familiar, this quote is the gist: > Making Dystopia is much more than a very detailed critique of a building or two here or there. It is an angry criticism of an entire worldview—the worldview of the type of person who much prefers his worldview to the world, and in so doing causes untold ruination. Specifically the modernists ala Le Corbusier, Robert Moses etc. were prone to a view that everything that had come before was garbage and that we needed to tear it all down and start over. > While claiming to be continuators, the modernists also claimed to be revolutionary, wanting to rebuild the world from a blank slate. Considering what they actually achieved, this was a more accurate representation of their activities; and Le Corbusier hardly saw a city that he did not want to knock down and build again, as if no one had ever thought of anything before him. So the book (and this review) aren't talking so much about a particular style of building (and hence the lack of photos) but rather the cultural phenomenon of the modernist movement in architecture and how remarkably well they stamped their oppressive worldview on the world. It's a long read, but worthwhile.
- cgrealy 7y agoI am impressed by how much literary wank the author managed to fit into this article while at the same time providing zero arguments other than "waaahhh, I don't like it, therefore everyone else must feel the same".
- dang 7y agoMaybe so, but Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- cgrealy 7y agoFair enough, my comment was a bit snarky, but I feel that pointing out the author failed to back up his arguments is a legitimate criticism.
- DenisM 7y agoPretty much spot on - the "architects" of the world colluded in driving humanity to misery and despair by encasing people in hollow concrete spaces. What I don't understand is how this came to be? In the Soviet Union, for example, all resources come from the single source, so the distribution of funds becomes politicized and all kinds of crazy shit can fester simply because the group promulgating said shit was better at politicking (see: Lysenko). All universities then have to teach the same stuff. Groupthink. Monoculture. I get it. But how did the western world succumb to this? Surely there are different architectural schools? Different funding sources? What is going on the minds of the people who are writing checks for all these modern Paris buildings [1]? [1] By the way, the author forgot to include the Mitterrand library in his list of peace crimes in Paris: https://www.20minutes.fr/societe/diaporama-7866-bnf-20-ans https://www.20minutes.fr/societe/diaporama-7866-bnf-20-ans
- kevin_thibedeau 7y agoIt's cheaper to build undecorated boxes. Calling it high art is just a cover. There is also a skill shortage since nobody has paid for quality in generations. The craftsmen that meticulously laid intricate art deco brickwork don't exist anymore and no modern mason can seem to do as good a job. Instead we get uninspired generic concrete and glass prisms designed to maximize square footage for the landlords.
- bdauvergne 7y agoAlso work and time was cheaper then, they could spend centuries building the same cathedral with nobody complaining about the ballooning price.
- Udik 7y agoIf it took centuries there is a reason.
- bdauvergne 7y agoMostly one: they were patient.
- stuart78 7y agoI don't fully understand why architecture is so bitterly divided between its factions. I am the son of an architect (loyal to his faction) and I like a lot of that stuff and a lot of other styles, including much made of concrete. It seems like something built into the culture at an early stage. Some of the Bauhaus practitioners saw their work as an expression of a Socialist agenda and Classicists are taught that only the traditional styles of design and building are acceptable. There is (or ought to be) a common enemy to all factions, which is cheap disposable architecture. Long-term structure that are also climate change adaptable seems a decent common purpose, for example. Somehow, however, the capital A Architect class seems to exist above the buildings designed for and by people who do not care about aesthetics, so the cheap and disposable seem to slip under the radar. Perhaps because Lennar Builders and their ilk don't care what academics think of them?
- goodmachine 7y agoIt's interesting how architectural modernism works in pop culture (Hollywood films, for example) where the buildings play the bad guy: an arrogant, oppressive or cruelly indifferent character, a stand-in for totalitarianism, for places of extreme wealth or poverty. Now we're here I can't think of many active celebrations of the form in painting, literature, comics or games either. You?
- nullc 7y agoThe author fails to acknowledge the enormous expense of building anything else. Traditional forms require a considerable amount of on-site highly skilled labor which is often just not available in sufficient quantities, on a sufficient time-table, at an acceptable price.
- bdauvergne 7y agoIt's non-sense, past has a lot of example of simple architecture done by people without many resources acommodating the mass. Rome was already 1 million people during the first millenia, there were buildings with 6 or 7 floors, they were not all covered with classical friezes and statues costing extra-labor.
- nullc 7y ago> done by people without many resources [Waits] > Rome was already 1 million people during the first millenia, there were buildings with 6 or 7 floors, Did you really choose an example of a society that used slave labor extensively? It's hard to make a comparison due to opportunity cost. Imagine you are a person with the innate competence and dedication to eventually become a master craftsman. Do you learn woodworking, stonework, etc. and labor inexpensively for years as a apprentice to eventually top out at being paid moderately well doing work that benefits a single project .... or do you learn to develop cellphone apps that get used by tens of millions or billions of people? As we create more jobs which are highly leveraged-- where one unit of work potentially produces an enormous amount of benefit all less leveraged jobs are squeezed by the competition. In cases where high skills and years of training don't matter the effect isn't so great because skilled industrial production jobs don't compete as much for that labor pool. But for these construction jobs, they do.
- bdauvergne 7y agoAre you trying to compare cellphone app development with woodworking or stonework ? It needs more time to be a good woodworker but I think more people can learn the job (you don't need to be literate). Any actual construction worker (and there are a lot more than cellphone app developers) could build with ancient building techniques like vaulted ceilings given time and instructions. It's not a problem of craftsmanship or leverage, it's more a problem of standardization without benefits (I do not think concrete flat ceiling are really less expensive than vaulted for one or two floors buildings, Christopher Alexander reports that they still build houses like this in Mexico, doing vaults with simple crossed wood splines[1]). [1]: http://www.flyingconcrete.com/vaults.html http://www.flyingconcrete.com/vaults.html
- mda 7y agoHalf of the article is how fascist nazi communist those architects were, with some sprinkling of islam references. Utterly tasteless.
- DoubleGlazing 7y agoI think the thing a lot of people overlook when critiquing any kind of architecture is that for every architectural style there are good and bad examples. Sometimes, we focus too much on the bad to the detriment of the good. I have often felt that a lot of the hate for 60s/modernist/brutalist architecture comes from the stand out bad examples. For example the works of John Poulson, an inept architect who landed loads of massive and lucrative contracts because he was really good at bribery. His practice churned out building designs at a ferocious rate and while some are considered decent (e.g. Leeds International Pool) the vast majority are just bland, soulless blocks designed and built to a price point. Many also had serious structural issues too. There is a lot of modern architecture to love and appreciate if you can filter out the bad.