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The linked article about architecture was just embarrassing. A classic case of someone desperately trying to universalize their personal taste (to assume survey

by ahoho 5y ago

The linked article about architecture was just embarrassing. A classic case of someone desperately trying to universalize their personal taste (to assume survey respondents have a consistent idea of what constitutes “classical” or “modern” is a stretch). It doesn’t engage remotely with arguments from modernists who drove this change, or the scholarship on aesthetics,… very little substance for the length. It sort of read like a sanitized version of Charles Murray’s “Human Accomplishment”, which is a “quantitative” “argument” for why Western culture is superior that commits severe epistemic mistakes [1]. Scott Alexander has some good takes, but this is not one of them. And to give a positive example: I challenge anyone to visit The Barbican estates in London on a clear summer day, to take in the hanging gardens and constructed river, and not be awed. Modern and contemporary architecture can absolutely move the spirit. [1]: https://www.currentaffairs.org/2017/07/why-is-charles-murray-odious https://www.currentaffairs.org/2017/07/why-is-charles-murray...

bendbro 5y ago
> The Barbican estates in London on a clear summer day, to take in the hanging gardens and constructed river, and not be awed Looks like a flooded commie block
- pmyteh 5y ago
  Go there on a clear sunny day, it's gorgeous. And, given the absurd prices that flats there go for, 'flooded capitalist block' would be closer to the mark...
lamacase 5y ago
If he's saying "everything is worse now that buildings don't look like the Taj Mahal, and clothes don't look like traditional Chinese ceremonial robes", how does this translate into support for Western exceptionalism? It seems to me like your postive example is a non-sequiter. I don't think Scott is arguing that it's impossible to make architecture that "moves the spirit" using modern design/construction. He's arguing that, for the vast majority of modern buildings, nobody is even trying to move the spirit. Even in cases where historically we would expect them to (major institutions, public art installations, large companies, rich people with large houses). The question is, why do people with almost unlimited resources choose to build rectangular prisms of largely unadorned glass or concrete? And your answer is (please correct me if I'm wrong), because modernists think it's better, and people generally agree even though they can't express this agreement in surveys? What is your basis for believing this? And even if you engage with the literature on aesthetics in architecture, how do you find yourself siding with the modernists instead of the critics of modernism like Christopher Alexander and Nikos Salingaros? This is a serious question, I've been trying for a while to find a defense of modernist architecture that I can actually understand.
- ahoho 5y ago
  I should have been more clear---I just meant that his argument had a similar kind of structure. I don't think he's engaging in Western exceptionalism (nor do I think he's a closet racist). To answer the question, my point is that there are countless examples of powerful, inventive, playful, varied works of modernist+contemporary architecture. I simply reject the premise. I brought up the Barbican because the core of his argument is "nobody likes these things because they're ugly," and I'm saying: I like them. They move me. Some of my most enduring early memories are of the Barcellona Pavillion and the Getty Center. And to read these architects, that was often the point. I guess I'm asking, why should I give a shit about this guy's taste? Don't yuck my yum. He's just not putting forward a very strong case, nor invoking others who have studied these questions before him. I'm not claiming that there aren't any valid critiques, just that his isn't one of them. If he's only stating that middling traditionalist buildings look worse than middling modern ones: I buy that, and I think it's probably a question of economics, as he says. But to me, when recent architects set out to create the monolithic and meaningful, it's not clear they're less successful than their predecessors. Regarding public tastes, a mea culpa: I had dismissed the survey too quickly, and on a deeper look it's reasonable (although it includes few instances of what I'd call great 20th+21st century examples). But, as the Civic Art Society says, it's hard to disentangle Americans' aesthetic preferences with their normative conception of what a federal building (or any important building) should look like. That will naturally tend toward traditional styles. I'm also not convinced that today's choice expression of populist preferences---the McMansion---is going to stand any test of time. Whereas I do think currently dispreferred styles will endure and come to signal beauty. As for writing, I guess I found Le Corbusier's treatises convincing enough? But for defenses that post-date the modernist era, I'm not sure I have an answer for you. To me, the best defense is the work itself.

by ahoho 5y ago

bendbro 5y ago

> The Barbican estates in London on a clear summer day, to take in the hanging gardens and constructed river, and not be awed Looks like a flooded commie block

pmyteh 5y ago
Go there on a clear sunny day, it's gorgeous. And, given the absurd prices that flats there go for, 'flooded capitalist block' would be closer to the mark...

lamacase 5y ago

If he's saying "everything is worse now that buildings don't look like the Taj Mahal, and clothes don't look like traditional Chinese ceremonial robes", how does this translate into support for Western exceptionalism? It seems to me like your postive example is a non-sequiter. I don't think Scott is arguing that it's impossible to make architecture that "moves the spirit" using modern design/construction. He's arguing that, for the vast majority of modern buildings, nobody is even trying to move the spirit. Even in cases where historically we would expect them to (major institutions, public art installations, large companies, rich people with large houses). The question is, why do people with almost unlimited resources choose to build rectangular prisms of largely unadorned glass or concrete? And your answer is (please correct me if I'm wrong), because modernists think it's better, and people generally agree even though they can't express this agreement in surveys? What is your basis for believing this? And even if you engage with the literature on aesthetics in architecture, how do you find yourself siding with the modernists instead of the critics of modernism like Christopher Alexander and Nikos Salingaros? This is a serious question, I've been trying for a while to find a defense of modernist architecture that I can actually understand.

ahoho 5y ago
I should have been more clear---I just meant that his argument had a similar kind of structure. I don't think he's engaging in Western exceptionalism (nor do I think he's a closet racist). To answer the question, my point is that there are countless examples of powerful, inventive, playful, varied works of modernist+contemporary architecture. I simply reject the premise. I brought up the Barbican because the core of his argument is "nobody likes these things because they're ugly," and I'm saying: I like them. They move me. Some of my most enduring early memories are of the Barcellona Pavillion and the Getty Center. And to read these architects, that was often the point. I guess I'm asking, why should I give a shit about this guy's taste? Don't yuck my yum. He's just not putting forward a very strong case, nor invoking others who have studied these questions before him. I'm not claiming that there aren't any valid critiques, just that his isn't one of them. If he's only stating that middling traditionalist buildings look worse than middling modern ones: I buy that, and I think it's probably a question of economics, as he says. But to me, when recent architects set out to create the monolithic and meaningful, it's not clear they're less successful than their predecessors. Regarding public tastes, a mea culpa: I had dismissed the survey too quickly, and on a deeper look it's reasonable (although it includes few instances of what I'd call great 20th+21st century examples). But, as the Civic Art Society says, it's hard to disentangle Americans' aesthetic preferences with their normative conception of what a federal building (or any important building) should look like. That will naturally tend toward traditional styles. I'm also not convinced that today's choice expression of populist preferences---the McMansion---is going to stand any test of time. Whereas I do think currently dispreferred styles will endure and come to signal beauty. As for writing, I guess I found Le Corbusier's treatises convincing enough? But for defenses that post-date the modernist era, I'm not sure I have an answer for you. To me, the best defense is the work itself.