4 ms·

This was a great article for learning some of the details of the architecture and its designer. I have no idea why it got so anti-architecture / anti-40s, just

This was a great article for learning some of the details of the architecture and its designer. I have no idea why it got so anti-architecture / anti-40s, just because Seer employed similar techniques. It tried to _implicate_ the architecture as a tool of facism, which is a bananas theory to me. > "Even more problematically, the techniques of fascist architecture (or music or film or graphic design) may in fact be so powerful that they transcend history and even geo-politics: this is not just a “Nazi problem” we can relegate to the past. These tools work for fascists, but non-fascists are tempted to use them as well." But it was a style of the times that a facist adopted. That, oh god, may have come from america! > "Further complicating the story, the influence actually runs in multiple directions: in addition to admiring Haussmann’s Paris and classical Rome, Speer was a big fan of L’Enfant’s monumental plan for Washington, DC — so where are the roots of the problem?." > "As Dietmar Schirmer has noted, much of the best architecture from the period — whether in Berlin, Paris, or Washington, DC — employs the “Stripped Classicism” favored by Speer." > "But perhaps we need to feel the shock and try to push back on the awe: even if these structures are glorious, do we endorse the beliefs they embody?" Well thanks for trying to cancel 1940s architecture, and warn me away from admiring the very art you brought to me in this article.

whakim 6y ago
To me, the author's point seems more complicated than that. No, fascists didn't come up with certain techniques, like military parades. But those same techniques seem to be particularly effective when employed as tools of the fascist state in service of the fascist agenda. Can you separate the cultural relevance those techniques have for us from the work they have done in a fascist context? I don't know, but I don't think anyone is trying to "cancel" anything.
- throwaway316943 6y ago
  > Can you separate the cultural relevance those techniques have for us from the work they have done in a fascist context? I think you must be aware of them and learn from history but we shouldn’t abandon everything that was misused for evil purposes or we’d have nothing left. Worse than that we’d inevitably forget it and reinvent it and make the same mistakes being ignorant of the past. The wisest thing to do is to take those things and correct their flaws and turn them into something that can benefits everyone.
  - whakim 6y ago
    The author's claim isn't simply that they were "used for evil". The claim was that they are much more effectively employed in the service of evil than otherwise. I'm not positing a solution here, simply pointing out the extra degree of nuance.
BitwiseFool 6y ago
"As a wise friend once quipped, “There are two kinds of people: those who feel that all parades are a little bit fascist, and fascists.”" What's with this kind of all-or-nothing thinking about what's fascist and what isn't? Am I the only person who finds the irony in this?
- JohnBooty 6y ago
  Am I the only person who finds the irony in this? Fascism "exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition." In that spirit, jingoism and displays of national pride/allegiance such as parades are indeed slightly fascist. In reality of course, all things exist on a continuum. I have been in Independence Day parades myself here in the U.S. here in my small town! Was it a little bit fascist? Yes, very slightly, but obviously I judged it to be overwhelmingly on the harmless side of things. Still, it's instructive to look at parades in Nazi Germany and so forth. Lots of friendly, smiling faces waving flags, not so different from the ones I wave to each July 4th. Societies can go down dark roads much more easily than we'd like to think.
  - watwut 6y ago
    > Lots of friendly, smiling faces waving flags, not so different from the ones I wave to each July 4th. Societies can go down dark roads much more easily than we'd like to think. The difference is in level of violence that went on openly on the streets at exact same time. That propagandist camera did not caught that does not change it. At the time people smoke and wave flags, considerable oppression is going on.
    - guiriduro 6y ago
      <cough> George Floyd <cough>
      - watwut 6y ago
UweSchmidt 6y ago
I think we tend to underestimate the effect of environment and organization on the individual. A city (or office...) can be 'democratic' if it has a variety of places to meet with different degrees of formality or organization, be it in a park, a public place or a side street. Or it could be 'authoritarian' if it's centered around institutions, makes the public easy to surveil and discourages deviation from the task at hand. It's easy to see how through a systematic understanding of these factors (or by instinct) leadership would want to build a city (or design an office) a certain way and it's worth paying close attention to what's going on in this regard.
TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
US architecture - in fact the more corporate end of modernist architecture in general - has very literal and obvious links to fascism. https://architecturehereandthere.com/2016/04/21/fascism-modernism-philip-johnson-mies-corbusier/ https://architecturehereandthere.com/2016/04/21/fascism-mode... The monumentalism of city centres in the US - especially DC - is not an accident. This is obvious when you consider what non-fascist architecture would look like: human scale, communitarian, diverse, accessible, quirky and humorous, colourful, ecologically integrated. Generally the opposite of massive concrete statement buildings and monuments which intimidate, bully, and exclude.

whakim 6y ago

To me, the author's point seems more complicated than that. No, fascists didn't come up with certain techniques, like military parades. But those same techniques seem to be particularly effective when employed as tools of the fascist state in service of the fascist agenda. Can you separate the cultural relevance those techniques have for us from the work they have done in a fascist context? I don't know, but I don't think anyone is trying to "cancel" anything.

throwaway316943 6y ago
> Can you separate the cultural relevance those techniques have for us from the work they have done in a fascist context? I think you must be aware of them and learn from history but we shouldn’t abandon everything that was misused for evil purposes or we’d have nothing left. Worse than that we’d inevitably forget it and reinvent it and make the same mistakes being ignorant of the past. The wisest thing to do is to take those things and correct their flaws and turn them into something that can benefits everyone.
- whakim 6y ago
  The author's claim isn't simply that they were "used for evil". The claim was that they are much more effectively employed in the service of evil than otherwise. I'm not positing a solution here, simply pointing out the extra degree of nuance.

BitwiseFool 6y ago

"As a wise friend once quipped, “There are two kinds of people: those who feel that all parades are a little bit fascist, and fascists.”" What's with this kind of all-or-nothing thinking about what's fascist and what isn't? Am I the only person who finds the irony in this?

JohnBooty 6y ago
Am I the only person who finds the irony in this? Fascism "exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition." In that spirit, jingoism and displays of national pride/allegiance such as parades are indeed slightly fascist. In reality of course, all things exist on a continuum. I have been in Independence Day parades myself here in the U.S. here in my small town! Was it a little bit fascist? Yes, very slightly, but obviously I judged it to be overwhelmingly on the harmless side of things. Still, it's instructive to look at parades in Nazi Germany and so forth. Lots of friendly, smiling faces waving flags, not so different from the ones I wave to each July 4th. Societies can go down dark roads much more easily than we'd like to think.
- watwut 6y ago
  > Lots of friendly, smiling faces waving flags, not so different from the ones I wave to each July 4th. Societies can go down dark roads much more easily than we'd like to think. The difference is in level of violence that went on openly on the streets at exact same time. That propagandist camera did not caught that does not change it. At the time people smoke and wave flags, considerable oppression is going on.
  - guiriduro 6y ago
    <cough> George Floyd <cough>
    - watwut 6y ago

UweSchmidt 6y ago

I think we tend to underestimate the effect of environment and organization on the individual. A city (or office...) can be 'democratic' if it has a variety of places to meet with different degrees of formality or organization, be it in a park, a public place or a side street. Or it could be 'authoritarian' if it's centered around institutions, makes the public easy to surveil and discourages deviation from the task at hand. It's easy to see how through a systematic understanding of these factors (or by instinct) leadership would want to build a city (or design an office) a certain way and it's worth paying close attention to what's going on in this regard.

TheOtherHobbes 6y ago

US architecture - in fact the more corporate end of modernist architecture in general - has very literal and obvious links to fascism. https://architecturehereandthere.com/2016/04/21/fascism-modernism-philip-johnson-mies-corbusier/ https://architecturehereandthere.com/2016/04/21/fascism-mode... The monumentalism of city centres in the US - especially DC - is not an accident. This is obvious when you consider what non-fascist architecture would look like: human scale, communitarian, diverse, accessible, quirky and humorous, colourful, ecologically integrated. Generally the opposite of massive concrete statement buildings and monuments which intimidate, bully, and exclude.