11 ms·
Presumably, he means a single window we see is made up of 4-6 panes and those panes are bigger than a single story I am having trouble seeing the 4-6 windows
by ThinkBeat 4y ago
Presumably, he means a single window we see is made up of 4-6 panes and
those panes are bigger than a single story
I am having trouble seeing the 4-6 windows combined from the photos of the Bellagio. The close up does not help.
The first mentioned buildings seem brutalist esp. the second one.
It is a form of utilitarian architecture that has great appeal to me.
I think in part because it is rare now.
I find them far more pleasing to the eye than the giant glass clad high rises
that was the fashion for a long time.
I have read that it is now going out of fashion, but I have not yet seen any
examples locally.
Wanting to give my dogs new and exciting places to sniff and pee
I try to walk around in different neighborhoods in the area.
As have been doing this for many years now and the unexplored
neighborhoods are getting farther and farther out.
About two years ago, at random, I found a brutalist single
family dwelling. It is a big house for a single family but
it is the smallest such building I have ever seen, it is beautiful.
(to me)
I truly stands out from all the other nearby houses.
I have visited that area often to take pictures and just look at it.
I would love a chance to see the inside.
If I had the money and I most certainly do not, id love to live
in a house like that.
It would make giving directions a lot easier as well.
I wonder if there exists brutalist "tiny homes".
That would be something to behold
For an explanation of the term brutalist see:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%C3%A9ton_brut https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%C3%A9ton_brut
- pimlottc 4y ago> I am having trouble seeing the 4-6 windows combined from the photos of the Bellagio. The close up does not help. You can see it better in this high-res photo from Wikimedia Commons [0]. Each of the square windows appears to span four rooms on two floors, while the lower floor rectangular windows appear to span three floors, making it six rooms. 0: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bellagio_hotel.jpg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bellagio_hotel.jpg
- treis 4y agoDo the windows span multiple floors?
- bonsaibilly 4y agoYeah. What looks like 1 window from the outside is actually 4 windows for four rooms, two below and two above. The scale is hard to get a sense of but those subwindows are quite wide floor-to-ceiling windows in each of those rooms (at least in Treasure Island’s case; I’d assume others are similar). That’s why it shrinks the apparent visual scale of the hotel, which has twice as many floors and twice as many rooms per floor as it seems from the “window” frames outside.
- ghaff 4y agoA lot of things about the Strip in Vegas, deliberately or not, really throw your sense of scale off. "Oh it's just the next hotel over, how far can it be?" A ways it turns out.
- adamm255 4y agoTotally. “Ah just over there no problem”. 30 minutes later…
- mynameisvlad 4y agoThat is the absolute worst. You walk halfway there and it looks exactly as far away as when you started. We watched Penn and Teller at the Rio. You look at a map, see its a block over from the strip, no problem. You walk out your hotel room and see the giant Rio sign, totally fine look how close it is! 20 minutes later you stare in horror at the same sign wondering how it hasn't gotten an inch closer to you.
- ehnto 4y agoI had the exact opposite experience in really dense cities funnily, you look at a map and see dozens of streets between you and where you're going, and it seems like it's half a city away. In reality it's just a 15 minute walk.
- O__________O 4y agoHere’s site showing closeup of the four pane panel window: http://www.vegastodayandtomorrow.com/windows.htm http://www.vegastodayandtomorrow.com/windows.htm
- yencabulator 4y agoThe site linked therein shows this even better. In the third photo, compare the building on the foreground vs background. http://www.vegastodayandtomorrow.com/dunes_bellagio.htm http://www.vegastodayandtomorrow.com/dunes_bellagio.htm
- paulkrush 4y agoWow, that is money pic, showing was looks to be two different scale buildings.
- EricE 4y agoThe most controversial part of the transition from the Dunes to the Bellagio was that stupid golf course! Wynn bought the property because it had an artesian well and accompanying water rights. They should have listened to him and did canals in downtown/old Vegas - that overhead screen is just meh. I remember eating at the Top of the Dunes restaurant as a kid - we would sometimes go there for Sunday brunch. Right before they demolished the Dunes to build the Bellagio they had a property-wide auction and the entire property was open during the process. I went through it with a couple of friends and we went up to the top of the Dunes - and I was shocked at how small it was vs. what I remembered from being a kid. I think the dining room was maybe 4 tables wide and 10 or so long - the space was TINY. But I guess being a kid and surrounded by windows on three sides made it feel much larger back in the day.
- listenallyall 4y agoIt would appear the linked article plagiarized from this site (vegastodayandtomorrow). I mean, the concept of "window trick" and every hotel used as an example, is identified first right here.
- nemo44x 4y agoWinston Churchill famously said, "We shape our buildings, and afterwards our buildings shape us." I agree with this and believe we should make beautiful structures. I’m not sure much architecture since the 1950s in the west really does this. Modernism was the last consistently great style imo. Post Modern styles just seem so temporary and self indulgent which I suppose reflects our time.
- apocalypstyx 4y ago"On similar ground it may be proved that no society can make a perpetual constitution, or even a perpetual law. The earth belongs always to the living generation. They may manage it then, and what proceeds from it, as they please, during their usufruct. They are masters too of their own persons, and consequently may govern them as they please." --Thomas Jefferson
- makeitdouble 4y agoChurchill in that quote was making an argument to rebuild the House of Commons exactly as it was before getting destructed, rejecting new ideas. If anything, I think the 50s architecture opened the door to new ideas, helped us see what works and what doesn’t. Villa Savoye is a bit from before the 50s, but it basically feels like it could be built today it wouldn’t be out of place in any bit. TBH I’m glad the 50s architects opened the future instead of clinging to the past.
- nemo44x 4y agoKind of weird you make a statement that values post modernist/international architecture while using modernist architecture as an example of why it’s good. Even still I’d say that was getting to the beginning of the end in many ways. Glass houses are stupid for numerous reasons. Even your extremely arrogant musing on “clinging to the past” sums up the problem with post modernist ideas. You think we suddenly know better than thousands of years of experience. That much of what was done in architecture (and everything else) wasn’t just old ideas that were stubbornly held onto but rather the result of thousands of years of refinement about what works and has meaning.
- 2h 4y agoFYI dont need to escape, you can use IRI: https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Béton_brut https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Béton_brut
- hasbot 4y agoWould you share a picture of this brutalist house?
- rmnwski 4y agoIt's not that small but Brandlhuber built a single family brutalist building fairly recently called Anitvilla: https://www.archdaily.com/627801/antivilla-brandlhuber-emde-schneider https://www.archdaily.com/627801/antivilla-brandlhuber-emde-...
- number6 4y agoI love it, my wife would hate it
- kevinmchugh 4y agoI had the same reaction. They staged it to increase the starkness. If they'd used bright, natural fibers in the interior it would go a long ways towards making it feel more livable.
- rwmj 4y agoIt looks like a building site.
- doublesocket 4y agoI struggle to imagine someone actually living there. To me it looks like an art piece, and perhaps it is only intended as such. The PVC curtains seem particularly icky to me, reminding me of naff shower curtains and hospitals.
- lukas099 4y agoJust looking at it made me feel cold, physically and spiritually. Also the acoustics are probably terrible.
- throwaway290 4y agoThis is awesome, I didn't know what this style is called. I love these environments though, they can be paradoxically cozy. Strategic lighting, right furniture, maybe wooden elements and it's a dream.
- 4y ago
- gadders 4y agoYou'd love walking round the South Bank of the Thames or the Barbican in London.
- TheOtherHobbes 4y agoThe most successful Brutalist designs always seem to be softened with trees, curves, and water - which are the opposite of bare concrete. The South Bank Centre is on the Thames and is decorated with trees, and the Barbican has a central water feature and garden. They're also fairly opulent on the inside. https://www.thetimes.co.uk/imageserver/image/%2Fmethode%2Ftimes%2Fprod%2Fweb%2Fbin%2F5d1b1d76-70fa-11eb-bd2f-f33f509764cd.jpg?crop=3600%2C2400%2C0%2C0 https://www.thetimes.co.uk/imageserver/image/%2Fmethode%2Fti... Trellick and Balfron Towers have some trees now, but didn't have much greenery when they originally opened. https://designanthologyuk.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/web01-Balfron-Tower-Rowlett-Street-Poplar-London-%C2%A9-RIBA-Collections.jpg https://designanthologyuk.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/web... The order/variety observation is absolutely right, and a core feature of practical aesthetics across all domains. Successful aesthetics are a fine balance between surprise and predictability. Even something as basic as proportion is based on comprehensible non-random relationships. The Wundt Curve describes how too much order and too much chaos are both unsettling/boring. https://researchportal.port.ac.uk/files/8060373/COXj_2017_cright_MDE_Variety_in_the_video_game_industry.pdf https://researchportal.port.ac.uk/files/8060373/COXj_2017_cr...
- ehnto 4y agoIt's a great point. Singapore and Japanese cities can be built quite raw and oppressive because of the wild density, but in both nature is snuck into every nook and cranny. In Singapore it has been a strong architectural design choice, and in Japan it's the cumulative actions of everyone putting pot plants all over the place and leaving "weeds" and moss to grow through on fences and walls.
- msrenee 4y agoSo I know that pot plants is the term outside of the US for potted plants. Pot plant here means marijuana and I'm dying at the idea of Japanese apartments being covered, inside and out, with various strains of cannabis. I'd like to imagine there's dwarf varieties, lovingly shaped and maintained in the corners of the living space.
- ec109685 4y agoI am surprised brutalist became popular. Concrete ends up really weathered over time and to me you end up with drab and dingy looking buildings after a while: “oh that building is from the 70s”. I guess there were practical reasons in the beginning to not focus on adding additional finishes?
- beardyw 4y agoIt was a design choice to celebrate the material being used - concrete. I think only architects ever really loved them.
- kasey_junk 4y agoI’m a huge fan of brutalist architecture and am not ann architect. I live in a brutalist townhome and it exemplifies the things I love about the style, lack of ornamentation, function over form, yet scaled and appropriate to its location. The simplicity and usefulness of the house lends it as much elegance as it needs.
- hgsgm 4y agoIt's the appearance of function over form. That's why USSR used it as propaganda. Concrete is terrible surface material because it is impossible to maintain and repair.
- pbhjpbhj 4y agoNo. The concretes function may not be optimal, but it is there to hold the building up, to form the walls, to provide conduits for people and services, etc. It is not a facade, it is not cladding, it is the functional building its-very-self. Brutalist buildings celebrate their exoskeletons.
- vidarh 4y agoThe USSR used it as a cheap means of trying to meet a massive housing shortage first and foremost. It abandoned the far more ornamental Stalinist style for brutalism as part of Khrushchev's push for that. Note the far more ostentatious buildings under Stalin and Stalin's rejection of Le Corbusiers extremely radical proposals for redevelopment of Moscow in favour of far more traditional designs. To the extent it was later used as propaganda, that was a follow on effect once stagnation forced doubling down on construction that had initially been intended as relatively short term cheap housing.
- rmk 4y agoYou may like this brutalist church in Palo Alto. https://sika.scene7.com/is/image/sika/usa-first-methodist-church-01?fit=crop%2C1&wid=2048&hei=1223&fmt=webp-alpha https://sika.scene7.com/is/image/sika/usa-first-methodist-ch...
- cassepipe 4y agoI see how brutalist architecture may be endearing because it looks so dated, like retrofuturistic imagery usually does. But take a a moment at imagining a city where most buildings are really high slabs of grey concrete darkened by damp and pollution and try not to feel depressed. That kind of architecture was born from the need to build fast and cheap in order to avoid slums. Architects who embraced those projects invented it a style and aura.
- kevinmchugh 4y agoAny city with a single aesthetic feels oppressive to me. Design needs to serve people, not vice versa.
- screye 4y agoThere is just something oppressive about them. It makes you feel insignificant and the whole thing feels inhospitable. The concrete also gets too hot when sunny & too windy due to the long-flat alleyways it creates. UMass Amherst's campus is famously too-brutalist [1] for the university's 21st century tastes. From my years there, the embarrassment was for good reason. The buildings make you feel all of the things I mentioned above. Brutalism works when it either contrasts contrasts with its surroundings. Implant concrete-laden sharp-shapes into nature and the contrasting outcome[2] is beautiful. Even America's most famous house : Fallingwater [3], uses huge concrete slabs exclusively while looking absolutely stunning. Another form of contrast is the Velasca Tower [4] which standout out like a sore thumb when set against its very Italian surroundings. Brutalism wears on you the second it is used as a template for huge repeating projects. It has good shock value. But, do it enough times, and it is exhausting. [1] https://www.darrenbradleyphotography.com/post/umass-amherst-the-reluctant-modernists https://www.darrenbradleyphotography.com/post/umass-amherst-... [2] https://archive.is/P30RD https://archive.is/P30RD [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallingwater https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallingwater [4] https://goo.gl/maps/qo3XGFoabPj1VJa59 https://goo.gl/maps/qo3XGFoabPj1VJa59
- epolanski 4y agoYou described most eastern European cities built under the Warsaw pact. Albeit, as a Pole myself I think soviets created the best and most livable and efficient neighborhoods I've ever seen in the world. There was no shortage of green spaces, parks, benches, people spent a lot everything was close on foot, public transport was efficient. American style suburbs where development is horizontal rather than vertical are miles and miles of nothing where everything is far and requires a car. Post 1990 economic gains killed soviet style neighborhoods as they were not designed for so many cars, people don't have as much space to socialize, kids have to go more far to play because parkings are put in those spaces. I kinda hate cars for that.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- tschumacher 4y agoYou might enjoy the movie Columbus (2017). It's a drama about two people connecting through their passion for architecture with gorgeous shots of the modernist/brutalist buildings in Columbus, Indiana.
- anothernewdude 4y agoI love how people claim brutalist buildings are egalitarian, when it's the wealthy that have the money to never have to see the ugly things.
- scrozier 4y agoThe Brutalist house is very interesting! Do you have a photo to share?
- password11 4y ago> utilitarian [brutalist] architecture that has great appeal to me. I think in part because it is rare now. I find them far more pleasing to the eye than the giant glass clad high rises that was the fashion for a long time. Reminds me of https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2014-11-16 https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2014-11-16. "Giant glass clad high rises" are not a fashion -- they're popular because most people in the U.S. and Europe like the way they look. In some sense these pretty glass buildings are a symbol of American ideology. Free markets tipped the balance from the art elite, who wanted people to live in brutalist slaughterhouses, toward the common people, who like their optimistic, futurist buildings and are willing to pay for them.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]