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Cathedrals? Bah, nonsense. Go into google street view and slap down a marker in any random town with buildings built a few decades ago on in the American east

Cathedrals? Bah, nonsense. Go into google street view and slap down a marker in any random town with buildings built a few decades ago on in the American east coast. Downtown in a random town, not in a modern suburb or commercial park. You'll see humble regular buildings, built for regular people to live or work in, with decorative trims and fancy brickwork. Here's one I found in seconds: https://www.google.com/maps/@42.2537582,-73.7922474,3a,30.7y,48.04h,93.04t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sbcnoefJraXoHt97I6rDhZg!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu https://www.google.com/maps/@42.2537582,-73.7922474,3a,30.7y... Look at the brickwork around the windows on the house with the blue door. It's no cathedral, just some random building in a random small town nobody has ever heard of. The builders obviously cared to make it look nice anyway. If you go down the street you'll see many other buildings like that. Not all of them by any means, many of the others are plainer, more utilitarian, and many of those are obviously newer. But to say that "Regular living/working places are produced as cheaply as possible to meet the requirements. Both then and now." obviously isn't true. Some were built as cheap as possible then. Many are now. But many then were deliberately built to be nicer than was required.

krisoft 3y ago
> Cathedrals? Bah, nonsense. The comment I responded to said this: "sculpted statues and gargoyles and domes and columns and flying buttresses and trusses and everything inside and out was covered in intricate carvings and gilding and mosaic and fresco and ornament." That's a cathedral. You won't find that in a "humble regular building". It does not fit the image you linked. > But many then were deliberately built to be nicer than was required. Sure. Same as many are deliberately built nicer today. In the city centre where I live they built a new hotel, and they have amazing Ionic order columns on the facade. And they look freshly carved and beautiful. There is just little point in comparing prestige architecture (the one with the gargoyles, and domes and flying buttresses and carvings and mosaic and fresco and ornament) with regular buildings. Instead we should do exactly what you did in your comment. Compare a regular building from then, with a regular building now.
- century19 3y ago
  Checkout this map of outdoor art in Amsterdam. https://amsterdam.kunstwacht.nl/plattegrond https://amsterdam.kunstwacht.nl/plattegrond A lot of them are small adornments to housing, one large area of which (Apollobuurt) was built as social housing 100 years ago.

krisoft 3y ago

> Cathedrals? Bah, nonsense. The comment I responded to said this: "sculpted statues and gargoyles and domes and columns and flying buttresses and trusses and everything inside and out was covered in intricate carvings and gilding and mosaic and fresco and ornament." That's a cathedral. You won't find that in a "humble regular building". It does not fit the image you linked. > But many then were deliberately built to be nicer than was required. Sure. Same as many are deliberately built nicer today. In the city centre where I live they built a new hotel, and they have amazing Ionic order columns on the facade. And they look freshly carved and beautiful. There is just little point in comparing prestige architecture (the one with the gargoyles, and domes and flying buttresses and carvings and mosaic and fresco and ornament) with regular buildings. Instead we should do exactly what you did in your comment. Compare a regular building from then, with a regular building now.

century19 3y ago
Checkout this map of outdoor art in Amsterdam. https://amsterdam.kunstwacht.nl/plattegrond https://amsterdam.kunstwacht.nl/plattegrond A lot of them are small adornments to housing, one large area of which (Apollobuurt) was built as social housing 100 years ago.