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The filter thing seems obviously true, but it doesn't rule out whole styles being better than others, even if the mediocre and pedestrian efforts from those sty
by rm445 6y ago
The filter thing seems obviously true, but it doesn't rule out whole styles being better than others, even if the mediocre and pedestrian efforts from those styles were eventually winnowed out. Besides, each day people, somewhere, are making decisions about the next awful building. It doesn't seem enough to loftily let our descendents decide whether to pull down a building after we're all dead, before a single stone has been laid.
Consider this view as a thought experiment: say every Norman cathedral was beautiful. Maybe some were inspired and some were pedestrian, some were less beautiful because of the locally-available stone, some had long delays in construction and ended up with a mishmash of styles. Or whatever. You could filter them by appeal, or randomly, or any other method, and still end up with a bunch of beautiful buildings. Whereas it's not clear that any brutalist concrete cube will withstand the test of time. GIGO.
- oldgradstudent 6y ago> Whereas it's not clear that any brutalist concrete cube will withstand the test of time. Some brutalist buildings must be left standing as a warning for future generations.
- rm445 6y agoThis place is not a place of honor... no highly esteemed deed is commemorated here... nothing valued is here. What is here was dangerous and repulsive to us. This message is a warning about danger. The danger is in a particular location... it increases towards a center... the center of danger is here... of a particular size and shape, and below us. The danger is still present, in your time, as it was in ours.
- marcosdumay 6y agoMaybe a few blocks of brutalist buildings would work better than the spikes.
- DonHopkins 6y agoJust fill their insides up with solid concrete, to prevent people from entering them and having their souls sucked out.
- WalterBright 6y agoI don't want to live in a building that looks like a bunker. At least put some arrow slits in and add a portcullis if you're going to do that.
- currymj 6y agoHabitat 67 in Montreal is a Brutalist concrete building (many cubes) that is generally well-liked and has been a desirable place to live for 50 years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habitat_67#/media/File:Habitat_panorama.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habitat_67#/media/File:Habitat...
- amiga_500 6y agoThe guided tour is excellent. This architect had a real vision around usage and bought one apartment to stop it being refurbished.
- thisiszilff 6y agoI love brutalism when it includes plantlife. Another example is the Barbican Estate in London. Without plant life though, I agree with the article, brutalism looks too bleak.
- dafoex 6y agoIt does look fairly discordant and messy, and I'm not sure if I'd like to try navigating the structure, but there is a symmetry and level of detail that goes above and beyond the typical vision of a concrete cube that the word "brutalism" conjurs. From the top it looks really nice with the floor detail and the incorporated plantlife and greenery. Its perhaps too large of a building for my liking, and it feels a little bit "minecraft" with seemingly unsupported cubic shapes, but it also has a nice focus on human scale details that make it actually interesting to be in and around.
- 0_gravitas 6y agoI adore concrete cubes, and they often look so similar, what luck!