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It should probably be pointed out that Paris has a history of "knocking it all down" to make space for the New. Haussman did that. Notre Dame de Paris Cathedral

It should probably be pointed out that Paris has a history of "knocking it all down" to make space for the New. Haussman did that. Notre Dame de Paris Cathedral, one of the most iconic sacral buildings of the world (?) sits on the rubble of its Christian predecessors (as well as an ancient pagan temple, oh well, zeitgeist). The difference was that Le Corbusier's stuff is, as most of this thread attests, ghastly, maybe except some Platonic space. The earlier rebuilds worked out, mostly because the esthetics stood the test of time, which Le Corbusier's ideas didn't. By contrast, after the Great Fire of London in 1666, it was proposed to rebuild the city on a grand, modern design, but in the end that was turned out, and the city was rebuilt much as it was before (except with greater fire safety regulation). This explains why even to this day, City of London, now the main business/finance district, has such a weird layout, with tiny backstreets and anachronistic street names.

cm2187 5y ago
I think the cutoff is the invention of photography. The only way painters could remain relevant is by doing something original rather than beautiful. Then the other arts followed. Modern classical music is impossible to listen to most ears. And architects followed too, more interested in creating an original shape of glass or concrete rather than building anything beautiful and pleasing. There is hardly any piece of modern architecture that will resist the test of time (and the materials used won’t anyway). For a long list of examples, I defer to the twitter account architects against humanity.
- febeling 5y ago
  One problem was that people started believing that there's no such thing as beauty. How do you build a beautiful building, if you think beauty is an illusion anyway? I have the idea that it's related to atheism. Once you believe all of life and all of nature is ultimately some brute atoms buzzing back and forth anyway, then what your imagination creates is likely to look pretty brutalist. If you believe it's angels and God's creation all the way down you will place meaning and symbols into the large elements and every tiny bit. Anyone else can see this connection?
  - Zababa 5y ago
    I'm not sure about that, I'm an atheist myself and I still find religious building beautiful. Even if there is no god there, and even if the buildings were ugly, they are filled with the feelings of lots of people. That is beautiful in itself. Just like I'm not really into sports, but the energy of a stadium is something beautiful to see, and very real. There's something special happening in those places. Same thing with an old house. Many people lived there. That's powerful.
  - davidivadavid 5y ago
    Nah. First, I don't think any major aesthetic theory claims there's no such thing as beauty. At best, they question the definition of beauty and the classical canons of beauty. Second, you can put meaning and symbols into atoms buzzing back and forth (atoms buzzing back and forth are more or less a symbol, anyway).
    - AnimalMuppet 5y ago
      From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fountain_(Duchamp) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fountain_(Duchamp): > Fountain is a readymade sculpture by Marcel Duchamp in 1917, consisting of a porcelain urinal signed "R. Mutt". In April 1917, an ordinary piece of plumbing chosen by Duchamp was submitted for an exhibition of the Society of Independent Artists, the inaugural exhibition by the Society to be staged at The Grand Central Palace in New York. When explaining the purpose of his Readymade sculpture, Duchamp stated they are "everyday objects raised to the dignity of a work of art by the artist's act of choice."... > The work is regarded by art historians and theorists of the avant-garde as a major landmark in 20th-century art. So here's a major artist, saying that a urinal can be a work of art, needing only the artist's choice to make them so. And here's a major art movement agreeing that that "art" piece is a major landmark. That doesn't quite claim "there's no such thing as beauty", but it pretty much says there's no such thing as art, other than an artist saying so. But then, who is an artist? Whoever says they are? And if all it takes is the artist saying so, then a urinal is just as much art as the Mona Lisa. But I think this does somewhat trace back to febeling's point. If nature is all there is, and nature is deterministic, then art is just what deterministic people do. It's not intrinsically different from non-art. And when people believe that, they act like what they do is just the same as the Mona Lisa, when we can look at it and tell that no, it's not.
- car_analogy 5y ago
  > I think the cutoff is the invention of photography. The only way painters could remain relevant is by doing something original rather than beautiful. You are letting them off too easy. Have you ever seen a photograph that looks like https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ICilJlD5nhA/ThQQ_v2LKzI/AAAAAAAAAeM/9fYC580Og5E/s1600/beksinski_artof_03.jpg https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ICilJlD5nhA/ThQQ_v2LKzI/AAAAAAAAA... ? Or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Abbey_in_the_Oakwood#/media/File:Caspar_David_Friedrich_-_Abtei_im_Eichwald_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Abbey_in_the_Oakwood#/medi... ? Or https://i.pinimg.com/originals/11/9f/2a/119f2ac0958cb42610152017d94da8b0.jpg https://i.pinimg.com/originals/11/9f/2a/119f2ac0958cb4261015... ? The modern styles void of any aesthetic appeal are by far not the only ones photography has not supplanted. The layperson may be excused for thinking art's only goal was photorealism, but when coming from experts, that is a deliberate lie, used to ridicule anyone that dares complain how beauty was excised from the modern art world.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- inglor_cz 5y ago
  It does not seem to be the case to me. At least I cannot see the correlation. Art Deco buildings are very beautiful, and that happened a long time after photography was invented. In fact, the soulless style of architecture only started to visibly dominate after WWII.
- bsedlm 5y ago
  I don't think that the musicians have responded yet to the reccording technology in a comparable way to painters responding to photographic technology with impressionism and other non-realistic painting techniques (which do seem to have sprung up when photography became widespread)
pembrook 5y ago
While everybody loves Haussman's Paris today, at the time, it was extremely controversial and he was eventually ousted. Paris used to be like the cramped medieval old towns you see throughout the rest of Europe. Here's a classic quote from one of Haussman's most powerful critics: "We weep with our eyes full of tears for the old Paris, the Paris of Voltaire, of Desmoulins, the Paris of 1830 and 1848, when we see the grand and intolerable new buildings, the costly confusion, the triumphant vulgarity, the awful materialism, that we are going to pass on to our descendants." Fast forward 100+ years and suddenly that quote sounds hilariously wrong. Makes you wonder what possibilities we're missing out on today by clinging to an aesthetic past. Just because Corbusier's dystopian prison ideas missed the mark, doesn't mean there isn't a better vision out there for a livable city just waiting to be implemented.
- ambrozk 5y ago
  I don't like Paris' broad boulevards. In my opinion they're the least interesting part of the city. The best places to congregate are always off the main line of commerce, away from cars and trucks. Obviously, proper waste disposal and lamps are good, but I don't know why we're taking it for granted that criticism of Hausmann's aesthetics is "hilariously wrong."
  - dopidopHN 5y ago
    Those grand boulevards also had a security / social goal : to make sure police keep access and make it hard to barricade entire blocks. ( as opposed to narrow street that are easier to close down)
- rst 5y ago
  Le Corbusier-style tower blocks never happened in Paris, but they were built all over the US as part of "urban renewal" projects, and there have since been multiple generations growing up in those structures, to become nostalgic for them if it were ever going to happen. It hasn't happened yet.
- eadmund 5y ago
  > Fast forward 100+ years and suddenly that quote sounds hilariously wrong. Does it? I prefer those 'cramped mediæval old towns' to Paris.

cm2187 5y ago

I think the cutoff is the invention of photography. The only way painters could remain relevant is by doing something original rather than beautiful. Then the other arts followed. Modern classical music is impossible to listen to most ears. And architects followed too, more interested in creating an original shape of glass or concrete rather than building anything beautiful and pleasing. There is hardly any piece of modern architecture that will resist the test of time (and the materials used won’t anyway). For a long list of examples, I defer to the twitter account architects against humanity.

febeling 5y ago
One problem was that people started believing that there's no such thing as beauty. How do you build a beautiful building, if you think beauty is an illusion anyway? I have the idea that it's related to atheism. Once you believe all of life and all of nature is ultimately some brute atoms buzzing back and forth anyway, then what your imagination creates is likely to look pretty brutalist. If you believe it's angels and God's creation all the way down you will place meaning and symbols into the large elements and every tiny bit. Anyone else can see this connection?
- Zababa 5y ago
  I'm not sure about that, I'm an atheist myself and I still find religious building beautiful. Even if there is no god there, and even if the buildings were ugly, they are filled with the feelings of lots of people. That is beautiful in itself. Just like I'm not really into sports, but the energy of a stadium is something beautiful to see, and very real. There's something special happening in those places. Same thing with an old house. Many people lived there. That's powerful.
- davidivadavid 5y ago
  Nah. First, I don't think any major aesthetic theory claims there's no such thing as beauty. At best, they question the definition of beauty and the classical canons of beauty. Second, you can put meaning and symbols into atoms buzzing back and forth (atoms buzzing back and forth are more or less a symbol, anyway).
  - AnimalMuppet 5y ago
    From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fountain_(Duchamp) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fountain_(Duchamp): > Fountain is a readymade sculpture by Marcel Duchamp in 1917, consisting of a porcelain urinal signed "R. Mutt". In April 1917, an ordinary piece of plumbing chosen by Duchamp was submitted for an exhibition of the Society of Independent Artists, the inaugural exhibition by the Society to be staged at The Grand Central Palace in New York. When explaining the purpose of his Readymade sculpture, Duchamp stated they are "everyday objects raised to the dignity of a work of art by the artist's act of choice."... > The work is regarded by art historians and theorists of the avant-garde as a major landmark in 20th-century art. So here's a major artist, saying that a urinal can be a work of art, needing only the artist's choice to make them so. And here's a major art movement agreeing that that "art" piece is a major landmark. That doesn't quite claim "there's no such thing as beauty", but it pretty much says there's no such thing as art, other than an artist saying so. But then, who is an artist? Whoever says they are? And if all it takes is the artist saying so, then a urinal is just as much art as the Mona Lisa. But I think this does somewhat trace back to febeling's point. If nature is all there is, and nature is deterministic, then art is just what deterministic people do. It's not intrinsically different from non-art. And when people believe that, they act like what they do is just the same as the Mona Lisa, when we can look at it and tell that no, it's not.
car_analogy 5y ago
> I think the cutoff is the invention of photography. The only way painters could remain relevant is by doing something original rather than beautiful. You are letting them off too easy. Have you ever seen a photograph that looks like https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ICilJlD5nhA/ThQQ_v2LKzI/AAAAAAAAAeM/9fYC580Og5E/s1600/beksinski_artof_03.jpg https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ICilJlD5nhA/ThQQ_v2LKzI/AAAAAAAAA... ? Or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Abbey_in_the_Oakwood#/media/File:Caspar_David_Friedrich_-_Abtei_im_Eichwald_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Abbey_in_the_Oakwood#/medi... ? Or https://i.pinimg.com/originals/11/9f/2a/119f2ac0958cb42610152017d94da8b0.jpg https://i.pinimg.com/originals/11/9f/2a/119f2ac0958cb4261015... ? The modern styles void of any aesthetic appeal are by far not the only ones photography has not supplanted. The layperson may be excused for thinking art's only goal was photorealism, but when coming from experts, that is a deliberate lie, used to ridicule anyone that dares complain how beauty was excised from the modern art world.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
inglor_cz 5y ago
It does not seem to be the case to me. At least I cannot see the correlation. Art Deco buildings are very beautiful, and that happened a long time after photography was invented. In fact, the soulless style of architecture only started to visibly dominate after WWII.
bsedlm 5y ago
I don't think that the musicians have responded yet to the reccording technology in a comparable way to painters responding to photographic technology with impressionism and other non-realistic painting techniques (which do seem to have sprung up when photography became widespread)

pembrook 5y ago

While everybody loves Haussman's Paris today, at the time, it was extremely controversial and he was eventually ousted. Paris used to be like the cramped medieval old towns you see throughout the rest of Europe. Here's a classic quote from one of Haussman's most powerful critics: "We weep with our eyes full of tears for the old Paris, the Paris of Voltaire, of Desmoulins, the Paris of 1830 and 1848, when we see the grand and intolerable new buildings, the costly confusion, the triumphant vulgarity, the awful materialism, that we are going to pass on to our descendants." Fast forward 100+ years and suddenly that quote sounds hilariously wrong. Makes you wonder what possibilities we're missing out on today by clinging to an aesthetic past. Just because Corbusier's dystopian prison ideas missed the mark, doesn't mean there isn't a better vision out there for a livable city just waiting to be implemented.

ambrozk 5y ago
I don't like Paris' broad boulevards. In my opinion they're the least interesting part of the city. The best places to congregate are always off the main line of commerce, away from cars and trucks. Obviously, proper waste disposal and lamps are good, but I don't know why we're taking it for granted that criticism of Hausmann's aesthetics is "hilariously wrong."
- dopidopHN 5y ago
  Those grand boulevards also had a security / social goal : to make sure police keep access and make it hard to barricade entire blocks. ( as opposed to narrow street that are easier to close down)
rst 5y ago
Le Corbusier-style tower blocks never happened in Paris, but they were built all over the US as part of "urban renewal" projects, and there have since been multiple generations growing up in those structures, to become nostalgic for them if it were ever going to happen. It hasn't happened yet.
eadmund 5y ago
> Fast forward 100+ years and suddenly that quote sounds hilariously wrong. Does it? I prefer those 'cramped mediæval old towns' to Paris.