6 ms·

Glad someone else caught that. Saying beauty in decoration is “needless” is like saying we should only have non fiction books. Fiction - invention - creativity

Glad someone else caught that. Saying beauty in decoration is “needless” is like saying we should only have non fiction books. Fiction - invention - creativity - fantasy - has its place both in furniture and publishing. We live in a Bauhaus world.

UweSchmidt 3y ago
Architects and product designers saw Bauhaus and thought they could skip the decorations and call it a day, leading to ugly cities and crappy products, but that ain't Bauhaus! Minimal, aesthetic and functional things remain few and far between; the old iPod was Bauhaus, but most other things? Not so much.
- detourdog 3y ago
  There are many beautiful buildings and objects. I hold the ugliness of the world on the people's behavior rather then the objects of the world.
  - jschveibinz 3y ago
    This is the most profound comment in the section, ie. to each his own to find beauty, and along the way try to treat others with respect.
detourdog 3y ago
I feel many people truly misunderstand what the Bauhaus School was about and the Great Leap Forward it brought. The problem statement that the Bauhaus school was founded under was along the lines of this. The machine age is upon us. The guilds of the craftsman is holding back the training of the workers. The machine age is providing easy access to materials that are more dynamic than wood or stone. The Arts and Crafts movement is generally given credit as the step between the old world and the machine age production. The Bauhaus was founded to train architects and designers to work with machine age production. The early days they had a hard time getting the students to understand that a machine couldn't produce a cherub. There was a deep seated belief that culture was dangerous after the Great War and peace could exist through efficient use of resources. The machine age would bring a world of abundance if resources were used efficiently. Finally my art history teachers would have a conniption if a student referred to Bauhaus style architecture. The proper term is International Style. This name is relevant becuase it was to have no cultural preconceived notions. This would promote peace through understanding. The goal was that a human could be dropped in the space from anywhere in the world and navigate their surroundings. I see it as a worthy goal. Not every building is successful and I admit to being indoctrinated in design since birth but I find this place people and the knowledge workers seem to thrive. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_Labs_Holmdel_Complex#/media/File:Bell_Labs_Holmdel.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_Labs_Holmdel_Complex#/med... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arts_and_Crafts_movement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arts_and_Crafts_movement
- ralusek 3y ago
  > The goal was that a human could be dropped in the space from anywhere in the world and navigate their surroundings. I see it as a worthy goal. It's funny, because I've often used an expression that's almost a perfect inversion of this in order to describe the world's best places. That you could be dropped into a place and know that you are in exactly that place, and not in any of the innumerable identity-less spaces on the planet. This goal is dystopian.
  - detourdog 3y ago
    I don't believe the inversion is inherent. I believe a unique identity can exist without explicit cultural references. I don't see the split or the inversion. I would recognize this place as distinct. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salk_Institute_for_Biological_Studies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salk_Institute_for_Biological_... It might be you would describe that as dystopian but I suppose dystopian is in the eye of the beholder. I guess this is a good as place as any to mention that Corbusier railed against the metric system as anti-human. The reasoning was that human spaces should be defined through human proportions not power of 10 proportioning. The lack of tolerance for other peoples preferences is considered dystopian in some circles.
    - allturtles 3y ago
      > I would recognize this place as distinct. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salk_Institute_for_Biological_ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salk_Institute_for_Biological_... It's distinctly... hideous. It looks like a prison block, not a place to encourage human happiness. > I guess this is a good as place as any to mention that Corbusier railed against the metric system as anti-human. The reasoning was that human spaces should be defined through human proportions not power of 10 proportioning. That is a silly argument, nothing about the metric system requires you to have power-of-10 proportions in your construction, any more than we have power-of-12 proportions in U.S. construction just because we use feet and inches.
      - detourdog 3y ago

UweSchmidt 3y ago

Architects and product designers saw Bauhaus and thought they could skip the decorations and call it a day, leading to ugly cities and crappy products, but that ain't Bauhaus! Minimal, aesthetic and functional things remain few and far between; the old iPod was Bauhaus, but most other things? Not so much.

detourdog 3y ago
There are many beautiful buildings and objects. I hold the ugliness of the world on the people's behavior rather then the objects of the world.
- jschveibinz 3y ago
  This is the most profound comment in the section, ie. to each his own to find beauty, and along the way try to treat others with respect.

detourdog 3y ago

I feel many people truly misunderstand what the Bauhaus School was about and the Great Leap Forward it brought. The problem statement that the Bauhaus school was founded under was along the lines of this. The machine age is upon us. The guilds of the craftsman is holding back the training of the workers. The machine age is providing easy access to materials that are more dynamic than wood or stone. The Arts and Crafts movement is generally given credit as the step between the old world and the machine age production. The Bauhaus was founded to train architects and designers to work with machine age production. The early days they had a hard time getting the students to understand that a machine couldn't produce a cherub. There was a deep seated belief that culture was dangerous after the Great War and peace could exist through efficient use of resources. The machine age would bring a world of abundance if resources were used efficiently. Finally my art history teachers would have a conniption if a student referred to Bauhaus style architecture. The proper term is International Style. This name is relevant becuase it was to have no cultural preconceived notions. This would promote peace through understanding. The goal was that a human could be dropped in the space from anywhere in the world and navigate their surroundings. I see it as a worthy goal. Not every building is successful and I admit to being indoctrinated in design since birth but I find this place people and the knowledge workers seem to thrive. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_Labs_Holmdel_Complex#/media/File:Bell_Labs_Holmdel.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_Labs_Holmdel_Complex#/med... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arts_and_Crafts_movement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arts_and_Crafts_movement

ralusek 3y ago
> The goal was that a human could be dropped in the space from anywhere in the world and navigate their surroundings. I see it as a worthy goal. It's funny, because I've often used an expression that's almost a perfect inversion of this in order to describe the world's best places. That you could be dropped into a place and know that you are in exactly that place, and not in any of the innumerable identity-less spaces on the planet. This goal is dystopian.
- detourdog 3y ago
  I don't believe the inversion is inherent. I believe a unique identity can exist without explicit cultural references. I don't see the split or the inversion. I would recognize this place as distinct. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salk_Institute_for_Biological_Studies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salk_Institute_for_Biological_... It might be you would describe that as dystopian but I suppose dystopian is in the eye of the beholder. I guess this is a good as place as any to mention that Corbusier railed against the metric system as anti-human. The reasoning was that human spaces should be defined through human proportions not power of 10 proportioning. The lack of tolerance for other peoples preferences is considered dystopian in some circles.
  - allturtles 3y ago
    > I would recognize this place as distinct. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salk_Institute_for_Biological_ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salk_Institute_for_Biological_... It's distinctly... hideous. It looks like a prison block, not a place to encourage human happiness. > I guess this is a good as place as any to mention that Corbusier railed against the metric system as anti-human. The reasoning was that human spaces should be defined through human proportions not power of 10 proportioning. That is a silly argument, nothing about the metric system requires you to have power-of-10 proportions in your construction, any more than we have power-of-12 proportions in U.S. construction just because we use feet and inches.
    - detourdog 3y ago