3 ms·

I think decoration was largely removed or left out because it costs much to maintain, not so much for the extra cost at the time you put up the building.

smitty1e 7y ago
That's an excellent point. I suppose even if duplicating a block is easy, there is still the effort of placing it.
TheOtherHobbes 7y ago
Decoration was removed because modernism was explicitly about rationalisation and abstraction. You have to understand the movement in context. The preceding decades were dominated by the faux-organic elements in Art Nouveau - which wasn't any less stylised or artificial. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_Nouveau#/media/File:The_Peacock_Room.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_Nouveau#/media/File:The_Pe... Meanwhile the working poor were living in slums. https://i2-prod.birminghammail.co.uk/incoming/article10857395.ece/ALTERNATES/s810/slum.jpg https://i2-prod.birminghammail.co.uk/incoming/article1085739... So one of the motivations for the Bauhaus was affordable humane mass housing. It wasn't entirely successful - a lot of blocks/projects turned into concrete slums themselves - but it was still better in practical ways than existing slum architecture, which didn't even have indoor bathrooms. It's easy to point out the mistakes and get lost in nostalgia for some kind of architectural golden age. But that age never existed. For all its many faults, the Bauhaus succeeded in raising the quality of basic housing, and in pioneering mass market affordable industrial furniture manufacture. It also had a lingering influence on industrial consumer design of other goods - including computers. At the corporate scale, critics tend to like this kind of thing: https://www.somersethouse.org.uk/sites/default/files/styles/header_desktop/public/The%20Edmond%20J.%20Safra%20Fountain%20Court%2C%20Somerset%20House%2C%20Image%20by%20Kevin%20Meredith%20361_1.jpg https://www.somersethouse.org.uk/sites/default/files/styles/... It certainly has its charms compared to a glass wall skyscraper. But copying an 18th century style today would be strange. And it's also a very expensive way to build. In fact, when modern architects try to aim for that style they get it hopelessly wrong. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poundbury#/media/File:Queen_Mother_SQUARE,_Poundbury,_Dorset.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poundbury#/media/File:Queen_Mo... One answer is to move on from 20th century modernism with new techniques, including computer-assisted generative and parametric design to create new ideas about form and decoration. https://media.wired.com/photos/5927176ff3e2356fd800b6f4/master/w_2264,c_limit/01.-Heydar-Aliyev-Center-Baku_photo-by-Hufton-Crow.jpg https://media.wired.com/photos/5927176ff3e2356fd800b6f4/mast... It's still recognisably rooted in the Bauhaus aesthetic, but it's not slavishly copying the rectangles-and-glass-everywhere look.

smitty1e 7y ago

That's an excellent point. I suppose even if duplicating a block is easy, there is still the effort of placing it.

TheOtherHobbes 7y ago

Decoration was removed because modernism was explicitly about rationalisation and abstraction. You have to understand the movement in context. The preceding decades were dominated by the faux-organic elements in Art Nouveau - which wasn't any less stylised or artificial. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_Nouveau#/media/File:The_Peacock_Room.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_Nouveau#/media/File:The_Pe... Meanwhile the working poor were living in slums. https://i2-prod.birminghammail.co.uk/incoming/article10857395.ece/ALTERNATES/s810/slum.jpg https://i2-prod.birminghammail.co.uk/incoming/article1085739... So one of the motivations for the Bauhaus was affordable humane mass housing. It wasn't entirely successful - a lot of blocks/projects turned into concrete slums themselves - but it was still better in practical ways than existing slum architecture, which didn't even have indoor bathrooms. It's easy to point out the mistakes and get lost in nostalgia for some kind of architectural golden age. But that age never existed. For all its many faults, the Bauhaus succeeded in raising the quality of basic housing, and in pioneering mass market affordable industrial furniture manufacture. It also had a lingering influence on industrial consumer design of other goods - including computers. At the corporate scale, critics tend to like this kind of thing: https://www.somersethouse.org.uk/sites/default/files/styles/header_desktop/public/The%20Edmond%20J.%20Safra%20Fountain%20Court%2C%20Somerset%20House%2C%20Image%20by%20Kevin%20Meredith%20361_1.jpg https://www.somersethouse.org.uk/sites/default/files/styles/... It certainly has its charms compared to a glass wall skyscraper. But copying an 18th century style today would be strange. And it's also a very expensive way to build. In fact, when modern architects try to aim for that style they get it hopelessly wrong. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poundbury#/media/File:Queen_Mother_SQUARE,_Poundbury,_Dorset.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poundbury#/media/File:Queen_Mo... One answer is to move on from 20th century modernism with new techniques, including computer-assisted generative and parametric design to create new ideas about form and decoration. https://media.wired.com/photos/5927176ff3e2356fd800b6f4/master/w_2264,c_limit/01.-Heydar-Aliyev-Center-Baku_photo-by-Hufton-Crow.jpg https://media.wired.com/photos/5927176ff3e2356fd800b6f4/mast... It's still recognisably rooted in the Bauhaus aesthetic, but it's not slavishly copying the rectangles-and-glass-everywhere look.