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If you walk around Gamla Stan (old town) in Stockholm, you can almost pretend you've gone back in time. Every building is hundreds of years old or made to look
by beloch 3y ago
If you walk around Gamla Stan (old town) in Stockholm, you can almost pretend you've gone back in time. Every building is hundreds of years old or made to look so, and all in a unified style.
If you walk around Kyoto's Gion district, there are a few streets that give you this feel, but if you stray but a little from the tourist paths it becomes a mish-mash of architectural styles, everything is encrusted in AC units, exposed pipes are everywhere, and a dense web of electrical wiring looms over everything.
If you walk around Gamla Stan at 5 am in the summer, it's a beautiful, relaxing experience. You can go in almost any direction and there's more of it. If you walk around Gion at 5 am, it feels like you're in a theme-park built on the edge of a razor. Fall off the razor's edge and you're in an urban hellscape.
If you built in this nordic neo-traditional style in Kyoto it would just add more chaos to the hellscape. If you build in this style in the appropriate place, however, it blends in. The right style is contextual. The greatest sins of 'ugly' modern architecture happen when it pays no heed to context.
Sometimes buildings should stand out but, most of the time, they should blend in. It's good that architects are starting to become more aware of this.
- renewiltord 3y agoUnified style is overrated. London is gorgeous and it's because of its mixing of modernity with the ancient. It feels fluid and alive. Same with Tokyo. Feels magical. By comparison, old European cities feel like tombs.
- resolutebat 3y agoTokyo is "gorgeous"? Really? There's a reason publicity photos are always either neon-drenched alleys (hiding the buildings) or aerial photos zoomed out so far the city becomes grey paste with Mt Fuji in the background.
- renewiltord 3y agoAbsolutely stunning in person. One of my favourite places. Though I can see that a worldview made from publicity photos would form a different image.
- Retric 3y agoI really don’t see the appeal outside of a small selection of more interesting areas. It’s got a surprising amount of above ground cables if you’re interested in infrastructure and quite a few trees. But in general most of the city comes off as a forgivable random jumble of mid rise buildings IMO. No reason to look at publicly photos when street view shows what the city actually looks like.
- pie420 3y agoAs someone who just lived in tokyo and loved it, you have to admit that Tokyo, and most of Japan is an absolute hellscape of architectural laziness and function over form to a fault. There are so few "beautiful" areas, outside major boulevards and government buildings. Every street is stuffed with exposed electrical wiring, whirring AC units, generic vending machines, mini parking lots, etc. It's really interesting how anti-Zen it all is, and how the disharmony of Japanese cities contrasts with the harmony, balance, and simplicity of Japanese parks and temples. Again, as an urbanist, I ADORE Japan; the public transportation, the convenience, the dense urban fabric, but you cannot deny how ugly it all is haha
- pezezin 3y ago> Again, as an urbanist, I ADORE Japan; the public transportation, the convenience, the dense urban fabric, but you cannot deny how ugly it all is haha You obviously only lived in Tokyo. I live in the inaka, and it is horrible urban sprawl: a million little houses scattered everywhere, and the random big supermarket or shop here and there. There is no public transportation, and you need the car for everything. I absolutely hate it.
- resolutebat 3y agoI lived in Tokyo for years, which is why I'm pointing out that the publicity photos do not match the reality.
- tikhonj 3y agoI was going to make the same comment. London's buildings vary in age and style even in the most historic districts—thanks to German influence—and it still looks and feels great. I loved walking around and exploring central London the few times that I've visited; it managed to be simultaneously venerable and fresh.
- kredd 3y agoDefinitely agreed! I think there's a difference between "living" and "visiting" when it comes to enjoying city architectures. Unified style gets very boring very fast if you live in the neighbourhood. Seeing different architecture styles of different periods of time somehow creating a cohesion is a wonderful experience, but I think it only works if the city is big enough (I have a blast in Tokyo just for that reason!). Toronto is trying out quite a lot of "save facade, build a glass house on top of it", which I'm kind of enjoying when I visit the city. Wondering how it'll look 5-6 years later.
- dkarl 3y ago> everything is encrusted in AC units, exposed pipes are everywhere, and a dense web of electrical wiring looms over everything This is more about being cheap and lazy than about architectural style. > It's good that architects are starting to become more aware of this. This is like talking about software developers "becoming aware" of application performance. Architects have been aware of these concerns for as long as anybody else, and the language for critiquing buildings that don't fit their context comes straight from the profession. Professional awareness has not and will never stop bad architecture and tasteless development, any more than software developers being aware of performance will prevent companies releasing bloated, sluggish apps. People in it for the money will not give a shit, and they will find professionals to do their bidding. And professionals at companies like Spotify will not always be in a position to simply resign and go elsewhere if they disagree with the design priorities of the people paying for development. That's why pushback against bad architecture happens via local politics and grass-roots organizations.
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- hammock 3y agoIt seems to me that Stockholm, culturally and ethnically, was very homogeneous hundreds of years ago. That homogeneity was reflected in the architecture of the time as well. And now they are preserving that, at least architecturally. Many seem to think that’s good (at least in context). But what about diversity of food? Industry? Is homogeneity of architecture really something we want? Isn’t it backwards when many say it “feels good” when all the buildings look the same?
- dEnigma 3y agoI'd say it means nothing for diversity in general, and especially when it comes to people. People aren't buildings. edit: Okay now that you've edited your comment this doesn't make much sense anymore.
- rrrrrrrrrrrryan 3y agoMinimalist, modern jarring cube buildings have been out of style for a long time now. developers keep building them because they're cheap. It's artless commerce. Self-awareness and contextuality are arguably the key differences between modern and postmodern works. We've been living in postmodernity for over a half century now, but architecture moves a little more slowly than other things because the creatives are at the mercy of financiers who are much more risk-averse. Any decent architecture from the past few decades pays attention to the surrounding context, and often incorporates local cultural, historical, and environmental elements.