6 ms·

Such a pretty decoration. Why fast food chains do not look that nice nowadays? It is said we are so developed and wealthy and still we just build and live arou

• njharman 6y ago
  Corporations; soulless, tasteless and inhuman.
• dougmwne 6y ago
  Not as much has changed in Europe. These cultural values of beautifying your surroundings never went away. It's America that is incredibly utilitarian in contrast. It is amazing the ugliness we are used to.
  • jelliclesfarm 6y ago
    It’s because we are new. America doesn’t have any domainant original cultural memory. Our edifices are second hand European. Every other place from Rome or India or Caucasus have had invasions and migrations and intermingling of cultures etc that paint everything in vibrant shades.
    • the-dude 6y ago
      America has not been invaded?
      • NikolaeVarius 6y ago
        The war of 1812 doesn't really count.
        • ceejayoz 6y ago
          The Native Americans would likely still object to the idea that the Americas were never invaded.
          • NikolaeVarius 6y ago
            Posturing for a completely unrelated issue wins points for the woke crowd, but it has absolutely nothing to do with the issue at hand.
            • the-dude 6y ago
              You mean to get cultural meaningful intermingling, you shouldn't wipe them out?
            • AlotOfReading 6y ago
              I'm not sure I understand how native Americans are unrelated to the topic at hand. They still exist, and there are still thousand year old villages in the US and Mexico.
              • karatinversion 6y ago
                But they are not particularly relevant in the discussion of the cultural memory of the modern United States
                • the-dude 6y ago
                  The lack thereof. And in that light, it seems eerily relevant.
            • pjc50 6y ago
              A United States where a significant fraction of the Native population had survived, intermingled, and developed their own 20th-century culture and architecture on a significant scale would be very different.
      • jelliclesfarm 6y ago
        Not like ..say..the melting pot of the Caucasus, Georgia ..or ancient Rome or like..Moorish Spain/Andalusia or Moghal India. It’s not An Invasion per se...America was colonized. The impact of invasions are different in history’s timeline. Regardess, those who reached American shores were the Puritans and their ilk anyways.
        • the-dude 6y ago
          What is exactly the difference between an invasion vs a colonization? Genuinely curious.
          • cpursley 6y ago
            The time that it takes
          • jelliclesfarm 6y ago
            I would imagine colonization happened for economic gain with the colonists benefiting. The colonized population were likely still governed by the locals who were controlled by the colonizers. For example, India was a colony of Britain. All trade was diverted to Britain to benefit them. The great famine of bengal for example was because farmers had to grow and send cotton to England rather than grow food for Indians. The economic activities were controlled by the colonizers armed forces. The British colonized India. The Moghals invaded India. Alexander, The Great...for example..tried to invade India, but had to retreat. It’s usually done with armies vs colonizations that is through trade. An invasion is when a military moved in and took over the government. The invaded country became the de facto territory of the invaders. And the invaded people have to live by the rule of the invaders. Example: Georgia was invaded by mongols and the Turks and then Russia. Each time, it became part of the other’s empire.
            • the-dude 6y ago
              Like when America was part of the British empire?
  • yongjik 6y ago
    Being utilitarian is being beautiful. When I look at the Brooklyn Bridge, I feel the same sense of aesthetics I would get from Roman aqueducts. The problem of some American architecture is not that they are too utilitarian - it's that they stopped being utilitarian in search of some nebulous artistic merit.
    • quotemstr 6y ago
      The Brooklyn Bridge is utilitarian, but also constructed with an eye to aesthetics and beauty. Contrast it with your typical highway overpass. The same thing applies to the aqueducts, by the way. Sure, they were engineering projects, but they were constructed with an eye towards elegance and beauty. Want to see a purely utilitarian aqueduct? Look up the Acqua Felice, built to restore Rome's water supply in the 16th century after a thousand years of interruption. Sure, it did the job, but it's much uglier than the old Roman aqueduct right next to it. Now, modern buildings aren't just ugly because they focus entirely on function (like the Acqua Felice) -- they're intentionally and deliberately ugly and inhuman. Modern architecture is awful. https://www.romeartlover.it/Furba14.jpg https://www.romeartlover.it/Furba14.jpg
      • artursapek 6y ago
        > Modern architecture is awful I agree. There's a community of us who feel this way! https://twitter.com/Arch_Revival_ https://twitter.com/Arch_Revival_
      • rsynnott 6y ago
        > Modern architecture is awful. A bit broad, surely? It’s worth noting that when you look at 2000 year old buildings, you’re generally looking at stuff that both lasted 2000 years, so was probably of fairly high end construction, and that survived 2000 years without someone saying “we should pull that down and build an office block”. A lot of the stuff that didn’t survive mightn’t be so inspiring, and after the stuff around at the moment goes through the same filter, in the 40th century people may marvel at how amazing 20th century architecture was!
        • 6y ago
  • Mediterraneo10 6y ago
    > Not as much has changed in Europe. These cultural values of beautifying your surroundings never went away. With regard to the GP’s remark, I noticed this with fast food places in the United States. McDonalds there seem to have a much lower level of cleanliness than in parts of Europe. I assumed that running a McDonalds franchise is completely systematized: corporate gives you a series of three-ring binders that tells you exactly how clean everything must be, but if that is so, then enforcement still differs from country to country. Furthermore, US McDonalds were often staffed by unattractive people (the disturbingly obese or the merely unphotogenic), while in Eastern Europe – whether due to lax laws or the specifics of the labor market – McDonalds often hires fairly nubile young women.
    • teruakohatu 6y ago
      > McDonalds there seem to have a much lower level of cleanliness than in parts of Europe Some McDonalds I have been to in Europe were a whole dirtier than the ones I have frequented at home in New Zealand, but I put that down to frequenting the extremely high traffic tourist mcds rather than the normal traffic suburban restaurants.
    • pjc50 6y ago
      The market positioning is different; remember that the first McDonalds to open in the USSR had queues round the block. Those staff probably weren't born when the USSR existed. But the value of American coolness still remains. As does the value of "keeping up appearances" in public.
    • jldugger 6y ago
      > Furthermore, US McDonalds were often staffed by unattractive people (the disturbingly obese or the merely unphotogenic), while in Eastern Europe – whether due to lax laws or the specifics of the labor market – McDonalds often hires fairly nubile young women. Or maybe US labor law doesn't favor hiring employees based on fuckability particularly highly.
      • Der_Einzige 6y ago
        How does hooters get away with it?