3 ms·
prose like this always makes me wonder if i'm stupid. it seems like somebody spent a lot of time crafting it, but it just goes nowhere. so in the absence of a
by notatoad 3y ago
prose like this always makes me wonder if i'm stupid. it seems like somebody spent a lot of time crafting it, but it just goes nowhere.
so in the absence of a point in the article, here's the point i wish it made alongside those pictures: all of those buildings would surely be called "ugly" if somebody proposed building them in my city. it seems like every time a new building is proposed, the general consensus amongst the neighbours is that it's ugly, and will ruin the "character of the neighbourhood". but looking back on historical buildings, it seems like almost nothing is considered ugly. everything is a style, and a specific building might be a good or bad example of the style. but everything that gets built is worthy of appreciation (and preservation).
once a building exists and has been used, or even just experience by people passing by, people will come to love the building for what it is. there's no such thing as an ugly building.
- ebiester 3y agoExcept for Government Center in Boston. I don't remember anyone liking that.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- snapplebobapple 3y agoI'm personally in the category of wishing government just set some very basic limitations (max height, lot coverage, maybe light output at night, max noise output, basic electrical and plumbing interoperability and then stamped approved on every proposal that came in within the spec in a very short period of time while telling everyone who doesn't actually own the land to STFU. So, while I don't agree every building deserves appreciation or preservation, wishing everyone would STFU comes to the same conclusion that things should be built if someone is willing to put their own money up to do it and it doesn't violate very basic rules (what those rules should be and what should be zoned under what set of rules is a whole different discussion).
- klenwell 3y agoAsk and ye shall receive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5-over-1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5-over-1 See a lot of these in my area (Southern California). I'm ok with them. Probably need more.
- snapplebobapple 3y agoI'm a fan of those, however, I do think they are a symptom of bad overegulation of the higher density rather than the ideal. The ideal for me is much closer to what lots of Europe looks like with basically that but all next to each other filling the whole block, usually along a narrower street so you get the more ideal 3 to 2 ratio of street width to building height and on the first floor it's all small to medium shops so the street is interesting to walk on. To make that possible here would would have to get rid of minimum parking requirements and change a bunch of practices around building public roads, which would probably be for the better. I am happy to see the 5 over 1 being allowed and gaining traction though.
- rglullis 3y agoParisians will certainly disagree: https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/paris-only-skyscraper-turns-50-the-french-still-hate-it https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/paris-only-skyscra...
- snapplebobapple 3y agoI'm not sure you want to write policy off of what the worst city for NIMBYism in Europe thinks is a good idea. That policy has turned the city proper into a very difficult place for the average person to live. Allowing more skyscrapers could have alleviated a lot of that problem, especially with the changing demographics with people increasingly living alone outside of a family structure, which requires dramatically more units to support the same population density in the same area.
- rglullis 3y ago> Allowing more skyscrapers could have alleviated a lot of that problem. And it would have destroyed any character that has made the city so desirable in the first place. Paris is certainly denser than any american suburb. How about getting rid of the extreme negative cases trying to optimize what is perfectly within an acceptable range?
- snapplebobapple 3y agoThat's not accurate. The trade off is always change the character with more density or change the character by changing the economic makeup of the people that live there and it shouldn't even be a question which to choose. The choice is very obvious because the outcome of preserving character at the expense of accommodating the needs of the people living there is pretty much always having the place turn into a rich guy playground (with or without lots of homeless people depending on how authoritarian the place is) and the poors to middle classes that used to live there being displaced to much poorer commuter quality of life situations or into outright homelessness. The only people that blocking progress does anything for is the entrenched owners of the real estate, everyone else gets screwed.
- snowpid 3y agoThats wrong. Modernist buildings are seen as ugly in some cases for decades after constructing. There are some anti - modernist movements in Europe. Your sentiment is very wrong.