4 ms·

Basically modern architects are taught in school that any form of symmetry or traditional decoration is un-authentic and un-aceptable. This is why you can't fin

Basically modern architects are taught in school that any form of symmetry or traditional decoration is un-authentic and un-aceptable. This is why you can't find two aligned windows in a modern "signature" building. > This paranoid revulsion against classical aesthetics was not so much a school of thought as a command: from now on, the architect had to be concerned solely with the large-scale form of the structure, not with silly trivialities such as gargoyles and grillwork, no matter how much pleasure such things may have given viewers. It’s somewhat stunning just how uniform the rejection of “ornament” became. Since the eclipse of Art Deco at the end of the 1930s, the intricate designs that characterized centuries of building, across civilizations, from India to Persia to the Mayans, have vanished from architecture. > Life was violent, discordant, and uninterpretable. Art should not aspire to futile goals like transcendence, but should try to express the often ugly, brutal, and difficult facts of human beings’ material existence. To call a building “ugly” was therefore no longer an insult: for one thing, the concept of ugliness had no meaning. But to the extent that it did, art could and should be ugly, because life is ugly, and the highest duty of art is to be honest about who we are rather than deluding us with comforting fables. Quotes from a long really good (long) article on the issue: https://www.currentaffairs.org/2017/10/why-you-hate-contemporary-architecture https://www.currentaffairs.org/2017/10/why-you-hate-contempo...

JohnFen 7y ago
Thank you for this. I'll read the article more carefully tonight. > But to the extent that it did, art could and should be ugly, because life is ugly, and the highest duty of art is to be honest about who we are rather than deluding us with comforting fables. I don't disagree with this if we're talking about fine art. Architecture, however, isn't a fine art. It's designing buildings that people have to live in and with. As such, I think that the highest duty (once we get past the practical needs a building must address) of architecture is to acknowledge that design has power over people and to use design to improve people's lives. It shouldn't honestly reflect the undesirable aspects of existence, it should seek to elevate people and improve their experiences.
- lkhliutier34 7y ago
  Article makes your point too: > But architecture is very different from other forms of art: people who hate Beethoven aren’t obligated to listen to it from 9-5 every weekday, and people who hate the Transformers series aren’t obligated to watch it every night before bed. The physical environment in which we live and work, however, is ubiquitous and inescapable; when it comes to architecture, it is nigh-impossible for people to simply avoid the things they hate and seek out the things they like.
friendlybus 7y ago
Nathan j Robinson misrepresents ideas and people in his articles, his name is a net negative on a piece.

JohnFen 7y ago

Thank you for this. I'll read the article more carefully tonight. > But to the extent that it did, art could and should be ugly, because life is ugly, and the highest duty of art is to be honest about who we are rather than deluding us with comforting fables. I don't disagree with this if we're talking about fine art. Architecture, however, isn't a fine art. It's designing buildings that people have to live in and with. As such, I think that the highest duty (once we get past the practical needs a building must address) of architecture is to acknowledge that design has power over people and to use design to improve people's lives. It shouldn't honestly reflect the undesirable aspects of existence, it should seek to elevate people and improve their experiences.

lkhliutier34 7y ago
Article makes your point too: > But architecture is very different from other forms of art: people who hate Beethoven aren’t obligated to listen to it from 9-5 every weekday, and people who hate the Transformers series aren’t obligated to watch it every night before bed. The physical environment in which we live and work, however, is ubiquitous and inescapable; when it comes to architecture, it is nigh-impossible for people to simply avoid the things they hate and seek out the things they like.

friendlybus 7y ago

Nathan j Robinson misrepresents ideas and people in his articles, his name is a net negative on a piece.