24 ms·

Give Us Something to Look At: Why ornament matters in architecture

186 points by prismatic 3y ago

lqet 3y ago
There is an important and very profane aspect of ornament on buildings which isn't mentioned in the article: it hides dirt incredibly well. Just compare these dirty 19th century facades with a dirty facade of a house from the 70ies: https://photographierer.de/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/DSC_2356.jpg https://photographierer.de/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/DSC_23... https://schall-fassadenreinigung.de/wp-content/themes/yootheme/cache/ab/haus-dreckig-fassade-ab0d0039.jpeg https://schall-fassadenreinigung.de/wp-content/themes/yoothe... The latter looks absolutely filthy, while the former, although uncleaned for 150 years, still look nice. I do not buy the efficiency argument given by Adolf Loos at all. What you gain in labor time by removing ornamentation, you will loose in renovation work and (urban) living quality.
- stdbrouw 3y ago
  Ironically, we're also losing a lot of efficiency because cities are demanding setbacks, bumps, differences in height etc. for bigger buildings to avoid ending up with drab rectangular blocks, but that leads to more heat loss due to more surface exposed to the environment, higher use of materials and a higher risk of water ingress because there's a ton of weak points where different surfaces connect. (It also just doesn't look very good.) Ornament might be an alternative: just make massed buildings look nice instead of demanding that they are broken up into a bunch of lego blocks. A good thread by Alfred Twu here: https://twitter.com/alfred_twu/status/1715230266531475702 https://twitter.com/alfred_twu/status/1715230266531475702 I also wonder if the trend away from ornament has something to do with the trend towards fancier materials and bolder colors -- wasserstrich bricks, wood facades, decorative plasters in bathrooms, highly polished pigmented concrete floors, aluminium window frames in unusual colors, etc. People need their interestingness fix :-)
  - pif 3y ago
    > that leads to more heat loss With global warming, that is becoming more and more an advantage, rather than a defect!
    - zilti 3y ago
      Not at all. It leads to energy waste in winter.
    - engineer_22 3y ago
      No, the inverse is also true, more exposed surface leads to more heat gain in summer
    - j-bos 3y ago
      Ah, but heating a building is much more expensive than cooling
      - bluGill 3y ago
        Either way it doesn't matter: buildings are going to be either heated or cooled nearly ever day. Some seasons you heat them, some you cool them, but rarely is the ambient temperature close enough to rely on passive systems for comfort. Of course local climate matters, some places never need any heating/cooling, some need is only some days. Humans have started to demand the building be more comfortable.
  - paganel 3y ago
    > A good thread by Alfred Twu here: https://twitter.com/alfred_twu/status/1715230266531475702 https://twitter.com/alfred_twu/status/1715230266531475702 And stalinist architecture gets called all sorts of names. This buiding [1] is located very close to where I live, an excellent example of very early 1950s stalinist architecture and also eerily similar to the "good" example from your linked tweet. [1] https://www.google.com/maps/@44.4527856,26.095487,3a,48.4y,348.07h,105.77t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s6bRmwQE2hb1X70_umgC2xw!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu https://www.google.com/maps/@44.4527856,26.095487,3a,48.4y,3...
    - stdbrouw 3y ago
      Yeah, I think the building you show is a pretty good example of what Twu would like to see: one big mass, made pretty with consoles, balconies and cornices. You can do a more modern style too, though. I especially like Persian-inspired modern brickwork [1] [2]. What do you consider to be the defining features of Stalinist architecture though? The Wikipedia page portrays it as more or less "whatever happened to be built during Stalin's reign, whatever the style". [1] https://www.yankodesign.com/2021/12/28/creative-brick-design-with-a-built-in-planter-turns-the-outer-facade-of-this-house-into-a-vertical-garden/ https://www.yankodesign.com/2021/12/28/creative-brick-design... [2] https://www.dezeen.com/2016/05/10/kahrizak-residential-housing-caat-studio-tehran-iran-perforated-brick-screens/ https://www.dezeen.com/2016/05/10/kahrizak-residential-housi...
      - paganel 3y ago
        > What do you consider to be the defining features of Stalinist architecture though It's complicated because it has rarely been studied in an ideological-free manner (or not that I know of), so I'm basing my judgements mostly on what I've seen built around me from that era and by reading a couple of local architecture magazines back from those days, magazines that were actively putting forward said "stalinist" style. I'd say that this definition: "whatever happened to be built during Stalin's reign, whatever the style" is generally correct, with a small correction when it comes to the "whatever the style" part, as in it looks to me that there was some consistency in said style going from the mid-to-late 1930s to Stalin's death (in 1953), so that "whatever" part is a little forced. As per said style itself I don't know how best to define it, mostly neo-classical with intense tints of grandiloquence, for example this building from Bucharest, Casa Scânteii [1], is a very good example of that style (said building is a "scaled-down" replica of the Main building of the Moscow State University [2]). A good starting point could be this wikipedia page of a "stalinist" architect named Alexey Shchusev, the style that I'm talking about can be seen in his works going from about ~1935 to his death, so I wouldn't include the Constructivist period (which was in place throughout the '20s) as part of Stalinist architecture proper, but maybe that's just me. For those that know Romanian there's a recently published book about Shchusev called Alexey Shchusev, An Architect of the Imperial Russian Style [4], and by the same author I now see that there's a more general book on Stalinist architecture called Die Architektur Stalins [5], this one in German. Leter edit: There's also an English version of that book on Shchusev: Alexey Shchusev: Architect of Stalin's Empire Style [6] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_the_Free_Press https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_the_Free_Press [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_building_of_Moscow_State_University https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_building_of_Moscow_State_... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexey_Shchusev https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexey_Shchusev [4] https://cartier.ro/libraria/arta/alexei-sciusev-un-arhitect-al-stilului-imperial-stalinist/ https://cartier.ro/libraria/arta/alexei-sciusev-un-arhitect-... [5] https://www.amazon.de/Die-Architektur-Stalins-Bd-Bilddokumentation/dp/3898215156 https://www.amazon.de/Die-Architektur-Stalins-Bd-Bilddokumen... [6] https://ribabooks.com/Alexey-Shchusev-Architect-of-Stalins-Empire-Style_9783869224749# https://ribabooks.com/Alexey-Shchusev-Architect-of-Stalins-E...
- vallode 3y ago
  A part of me thinks that our weariness of spending "more" on architecture and beauty in cities is the same kind of weird frugality people experience with day to day goods. My grandparents will endlessly complain about the lack of good quality products on the market (knives, power tools, clothing) but at the same time refuse to engage in locally-made albeit more expensive merchants. Making buildings pretty may cost more (although, from my own understanding sourcing local tradespeople and using local materials ends up significantly cheaper over time) but the ROI is significantly better, both culturally and financially (pretty buildings age better, they become more appreciated over time in both financial and cultural value). So is it the same with house goods? Are we just unwilling to accept that knives haven't got worse, it's just that we have mass-produced medium-quality low opportunity cost products that we can keep chucking out the window and complaining about? I rambled on, I totally agree that the efficiency of good/pretty architecture is completely understated.
  - aargh_aargh 3y ago
    That's why in economy you vote with your wallet, not your mouth. AKA talk is cheap, show me the dough...
    - nativeit 3y ago
      This only works in pure free markets, which generally do not exist.
      - aargh_aargh 3y ago
        What are you arguing? What's unfree about the section of the knives market relevant to the example? The government isn't forcing/incentivizing them to buy the cheaper products. Economic considerations are.
        MatekCopatek 3y ago
        The average consumer lacks the knowledge and skill to objectively assess the quality of a knife, the seller is aware of that and manipulates them through advertising. Is a democratic election free if everyone voted freely, but was under the influence of widespread propaganda?
- rsynnott 3y ago
  Unless it was in a city with implausibly clean air, that 19th century one has probably been cleaned at least once (at great expense, probably). Otherwise, it'd be practically black. And cleaning these things is _expensive_, and takes ages. IIRC doing one smallish (but highly ornamented) 19th century building in my university took about a year. By contrast, the house could be cleaned up in a few days. Modern buildings, clad in, essentially, plastic (or just having all-glass surfaces), even easier, of course.
- __alexs 3y ago
  The 19th C one needs meticulous cleaning by professionals. The 70s one needs a coat of paint from your local DIY store.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- yterdy 3y ago
  The first style doesn't become dirtier, it just gets an ambient occlusion map applied to it.
- usrusr 3y ago
  My personal "founder fantasy" (not a founder type at all) for the last ten years or so has been a renderer/plugin for architecture visualisation that simulates weathering. For exactly the reasons you state. If you want a building to still look good after the honeymoon phase is over, you have to consider how it will look after a few years of realistic maintenance. If an architect talks about sustainability (and they all seem to do, these days), unless they can show evidence of having considered aesthetics after two decades of minimum maintenance it's all just babble.
stuaxo 3y ago
Interesting how few windows there are on the bottom of this building, I wonder if it's related to how pedestrian unfriendly streets in the US are?
- probably_wrong 3y ago
  Are you, like me, confusing the main picture illustrating the article (which is the Harold Washington Library in Chicago) with the building the author talks about (which is the Board of Education Building in Philadelphia)? Because the Board of Education Building seems to have an adequate number of windows [1]. The Chicago Library does have few windows, but I'd attribute that to its purpose (the lower floor contains an auditorium, multi-purpose room, and exhibit hall) [2]. [1] https://www.philadelphiabuildings.org/pab/app/im_display.cfm/505411?ProjectId=NR-83002266 https://www.philadelphiabuildings.org/pab/app/im_display.cfm... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Washington_Library https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Washington_Library
878654Tom 3y ago
The current trend in Belgium is to build houses like cubes and drap a variation of white plaster on it [1]. While this looks great the first couple of years, the outside gets dirty and not a lot of people pay for it to get cleaned/repainted. The houses are also always... the same. The variations in it are where the rectangle windows are and the length / width / height. But that is it. I predict that in 20-30 years these houses will be seen as one of the ugly architectural trends of my time. While houses that were built a century or even more ago (and that still stand) are lush with these ornaments and still retain a sort of beauty. [2] I've lived in one of these type of houses and while they have some impracticalities because they have been built in a different century the outside stays a thing of beauty and you could guide people to your house purely because of how it looks. Currently my wife and I are looking to build a new house and one of the requirements that we have for our architect is to build it with small details on the outside and a bit more classical than the current trend is. [1] https://sibomat.be/media/f0xf52fy/moderne-bouwstijl-realisatie_7.jpg?width=1920 https://sibomat.be/media/f0xf52fy/moderne-bouwstijl-realisat... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oude_Markt#/media/File:Old_market_Leuven_-_panoramio.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oude_Markt#/media/File:Old_mar...
- stdbrouw 3y ago
  I feel we should bring back Georgian architecture [1]: on the one hand it is quite plain and so it fits well with modern sensibilities (and modern budgets that don't allow for a lot of faff, and the lack of skilled labor), but because of its strong emphasis on symmetry and a modest amount of ornament on doors, windows and railings, it looks vastly better than the lime rendered boxes of today. It also looks great with flat roofs, and flat roofs are here to stay -- why bother with nice roof tiles when you have to cover them with solar panels anyway. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgian_architecture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgian_architecture
  - rsynnott 3y ago
    I live in a city that has a bunch of it; in practice, it's incredibly impractical, and the few modern attempts to imitate it while providing an actually usable building tend to end up looking absurd. Examples: https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/homes-and-property/new-to-market/georgian-inspired-grandeur-in-donnybrook-with-stellar-views-for-3-5m-1.4729241 https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/homes-and-property... - Fake Georgian townhouses. You're still left with a four storey house, which isn't super-practical, and they look ridiculous. https://www.pjhegarty.ie/projects/esb-head-office/ https://www.pjhegarty.ie/projects/esb-head-office/ - Replacing a distinctly un-Georgian Brutalist thing which itself replaced a row of Georgian houses back in the day. Again, looks silly, but if they'd played it completely straight they'd be left with a pretty impractical office building.
JR1427 3y ago
The examples of unornamented buildings in the article are actually highly ornamented, but just more subtly. In the UK at least, many buildings have zero ornamentation, and are just plain brickwork, without even window ledges etc, and these look terrible to me.
- JR1427 3y ago
  Here is an example of the style I'm talking about https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Low-rise_flats,_Turves_Green_-_geograph.org.uk_-_1139855.jpg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Low-rise_flats,_Turv...
  - quickthrower2 3y ago
    After Glenfell I am happy to see a council house/tower whose facade hasn’t been fucked with. In reckon a better solution is trees around it.
    - JR1427 3y ago
      I lived near Grenfell, and tragically watched it burn from my flat. The facelift they gave it was awful, and I would personally not call it ornamentation. Lots of modern architecture seems to try and create the illusion/impression of ornamentation, without going to the trouble of actually ornamenting.
rsynnott 3y ago
Personally, not a huge fan of the overly-ornamented stuff, but I do think that the current architectural trends are overly... generic. Case in point; Fitzwilton House, in Dublin, a Brutalist office block recently demolished and replaced with a modern one. The original was, well, a lot of people didn't like it, but it was utterly unique. The replacement is a completely generic glass thing, almost indistinguishable from the next one down the canal, or literally thousands of others worldwide. Before and after shots: https://www.archiseek.com/2016/permission-demolish-fitzwilton-house-granted/ https://www.archiseek.com/2016/permission-demolish-fitzwilto... Pictures don't really do justice to just how startling the thing looked; it was completely unignoreable. Now, from a practical point of view, it probably needed replacing; it was a pretty inefficient use of land, if nothing else. But they could at least have replaced it with something interesting. (Fun fact: it used to contain the Australian embassy, amongst other things, which always felt vaguely inappropriate; Australia just doesn't have the appropriate sinister vibes for such a building.)
- tpm 3y ago
  Yeah looking at the pictures I am slightly dissapointed. For comparison, I am looking from my window at this (Slovak National Archive): https://www.flickr.com/photos/80942841@N08/8352212537/in/photostream/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/80942841@N08/8352212537/in/pho...
- troupo 3y ago
  The main problem I see is that modern architecture robs cities and countries of their character. Yet another soulless amalgamation of concrete and glass (that invariably wins prestigious awards and is praised for its uniqueness or something) can be plopped anywhere, Dubai, Stockholm, New York, or Cape Town, and it wouldn't make a shred of difference.
  - pocketarc 3y ago
    You are absolutely right there. But personally, instead of lamenting it, I see it as a sign of our march towards the “Earth” culture. We are watching the development of the first global civilisation unfold. It’s exciting, even if it has none of the charm of older architectural styles.
Tanoc 3y ago
One thing I've noticed by people watching, both in real life and digitally, is that even if there's a lot of things to do, people won't stick around if the buildings around them are blah and flat. You could have an amazing square with all sorts of little fried food carts and comfortable benches or a digital square with lots of minigames and events, but people won't go there if they're surrounded by modernist and post-modernist architecture comprised of flat glass and concrete surfaces, no matter how planar or curved the overall forms actually are. Such buildings have a "This is a place of function, not humanity" aura that people unconsciously pick up on.
- trimistermota 3y ago
  But this aura is also a lot of social conditioning. People pick up on this aura because people have been taught that ornament is art based architecture and modern designs are function based architecture.
  - DrScientist 3y ago
    I think you are wrong - I think it's much more fundamental than that - boring environments stress and depress people [1][2]. The flip side of why people find a walk in nature lifts their mood. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2023/oct/19/demand-interestingness-thomas-heatherwick-rails-against-boring-buildings https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2023/oct/19/demand-... [2] https://www.thecut.com/2016/04/the-psychological-cost-of-boring-buildings.html https://www.thecut.com/2016/04/the-psychological-cost-of-bor...
- hospitalJail 3y ago
  [flagged]
- PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
  According to Christopher Alexander et al. in A Pattern Language, it's about edges: you want buildings to have a non-zero-width "edge" to them that creates an additional zone that is (a) not the building (b) not the open space beyond it. APL has several nice examples of this.
sidcool 3y ago
What do building architects think of Ayn Rand's treatise on architecture in the FountainHead?
- badcppdev 3y ago
  Curious about the size of the segment on the Venn diagram ... HN commenter, Architect, FountainHead reader
vmfunction 3y ago
> Harold Washington Library in Chicago Hmm, that looks quite like a ripe off of the Central Post & Telegraph Head Office in Denmark. https://media.homeanddecor.com.sg/public/2020/11/0-VillaCph_Exterior_%C2%A9AndyLiffner.jpg https://media.homeanddecor.com.sg/public/2020/11/0-VillaCph_...
- Mtinie 3y ago
  I agree they share elements, and that’s totally expected given their architectural style lineage. Central Post & Telegraph building is classified as Neo-Baroque[1], while the Harold Washington Library (of significantly later construction) reflects many of the Beaux-Arts[2] forms and ornamentation. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baroque_Revival https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baroque_Revival [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beaux-Arts_architecture https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beaux-Arts_architecture
  - vmfunction 3y ago
    wow thanks for the architectural info. This is what I like about HN.
svckr 3y ago
To me, Loos' argument comes across as some grand rationalisation for a simple difference in taste. I.e. "I don't like it, but to state my opinion as a fact, I came up with this story about efficiency" "Why do you waste all that effort (on something that I, personally, don't enjoy or benefit from)?" is an argument I read between the lines all to often …
- incrudible 3y ago
  Not just efficiency, but degeneracy and criminality. The article fails to mention his own degenerate sex crimes, however. Much of his own work is not devoid of ornament, and ironically these works stood the test of time, in my opinion. His oversimplified work may have been startling in its day, today it looks bland next to the many many utilitarian buildings that followed this trend. Reduction inevitably leads to conformity. A cube looks like a cube, no matter who specified its dimensions.
- kelseyfrog 3y ago
  The article gives too much credit to Loos. > Loos made ornamentation sound like something practiced only by primitive peoples or criminal deviants. Loos didn't make ornamentation "sound like" something practiced only by primitive peoples or criminal deviants. That was his main point. His argument is 1. We're more evolved than primitive people. 2. Primitive people, degenerates, and criminals ornament themselves and their environments. 3. Therefore we've evolved beyond the need to ornament our selves and environment. A simple difference in taste doesn't quite capture Loos' racism. Loos attempts to build a reality where he and un-ornamentalists are more civilized, cultured, and morally superior to others and ornamentation is evidence of such. He uses ornamentation to construct a difference and then uses that difference to validate his superiority. Loos' argument rests on othering "primitive people" and makes makes six total references toward the Papuans to accomplish this. It's short so I'll list each one. 1. Comparing them to children - "At the age of two he[the child] looks like a Papuan" 2. Describing them again as immoral children - "The child is amoral. So is the Papuan, to us." 3. As cannibals - "The Papuan kills his enemies and eats them." 4. As a reckless ornamenter - "The Papuan tattoos his skin, his boat, his rudder, his oars; in short, everything he can get his hands on." 5. Again compares them to children, and implies they are degenerates - "But what is natural for, a Papuan and a child, is degenerate for modern man." 6. That "we" are more progressed than primitive people. - "People progressed far enough for ornament to give them pleasure no longer, indeed so far that a tattooed face no longer heightened their aesthetic sensibility, as it did with the Papuans, but diminished it." I can't stress enough how childish Loos himself comes across in the piece. It's a temper tantrum of an article and I'm honestly surprised it's taken seriously, or at least was. I'd encourage folks to read the original[1]. It's a five to ten minute read. 1. https://www.archdaily.com/798529/the-longish-read-ornament-and-crime-adolf-loos https://www.archdaily.com/798529/the-longish-read-ornament-a...
somewhereoutth 3y ago
The headline image (Harold Washington Library, Chicago, 1987) is a good example of how Post Modernism got things badly wrong - with its haphazard ornamentation grabbing styles from all over the time/place and tastelessly agglomerating them together without coherent thesis. Sadly there are many more such examples, architecture was in a dark place in the 80s.
- coldtea 3y ago
  Still way better looking than 99% of "modernist" architecture... At least here it's just tastelessness at fault, as opposed to a concrete (pun intended) hatred of beauty...
- _dark_matter_ 3y ago
  I like the look of that building. I don't care at all that it may be haphazard in architecture history.
- Kon-Peki 3y ago
  The original downtown library in Chicago closed in the late 1970s and moved to temporary space; they spent a full decade arguing about a permanent replacement before finally agreeing to issue a bond and to hold a design competition. This design was a collaboration among many groups, and had a long list of "as a homage to XXXX, we've included this design element." It almost certainly wasn't a serious entry, but that list of design elements apparently kept getting it enough votes to stay in the competition as they did each round of elimination. At the end of the competition, they looked at the remaining entries and realized that this was the only one that could be built for the amount of money in the bond issue. So it won. It's pretty strange as the "cheap" option, because everything you touch is made of marble, brass or solid wood, the doors are huge and very heavy, every light fixture looks custom made, it's filled with artwork and sculptures, etc.
- btbuildem 3y ago
  I couldn't disagree more - it's a beautiful building with a strong presence. The only thing I can see being a "bit much" are the adornments on the roof.
- 3y ago
airstrike 3y ago
This reminds me of "Why Beauty Matters", a documentary by Roger Scruton, which fundamentally transformed my views on architecture and beauty in general https://vimeo.com/549715999 https://vimeo.com/549715999
- blueridge 3y ago
  Came here to mention Scruton. Would recommend the documentary mentioned above, plus Scruton's book: The Aesthetics of Architecture. https://www.scruton.org/building-beautiful https://www.scruton.org/building-beautiful I am also obsessed with traditional Japanese architecture. Lots of simple ornament, warm colors and materials, deliberate use of shadows and light. https://eastwindinc.com/ https://eastwindinc.com/ Books: Japanese Homes and their Surroundings Japanese Architecture: An Exploration of Elements & Forms
  - airstrike 3y ago
    Thank you for these resources!
cocostation 3y ago
"The latter presumably referred to the current fashion for tattoos among European royals, including Edward VII, Kaiser Wilhelm II, and Tsar Nicholas II." Wait...what?!
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
jrochkind1 3y ago
But even the Looshaus, the example of an at the time scandalously unornamented building -- on first glance at the picture, seemed to me more comfortable, asthetically pleasing, human-centered, and spirit-raising than most contemporary new construction. So what's that about? Is the Looshaus, even though unornamented for the time, still more ornamented than contemporary standard? Or is it about something other than ornamentation? Or is it just my own personal judgement which is unusual or wrong (based only a picture, not being there in person) -- what do people generally think of the Looshaus today?
throwawaaarrgh 3y ago
I've been lucky enough to go to a few folk art museums around the world. Buildings made by peasants can be richly ornamented, a stark contrast to the landscape, or fitting in with it. The designs showcase their craftsmanship, their relationship to their faith, their connection to their culture, and to the natural world. It reminds one of what it means to be a human who cares about more than function. Art and culture may not be the sole domain of humans, but it's one we've mastered. The spaces we live in and around should be filled with it.
AnimalMuppet 3y ago
We moved recently. Our previous house served us well, with adequate space for all the kids. My wife never complained. But this time, as we were getting ready to hunt for a house, she said, "Can our next house be pretty?" Beauty matters. We can have different definitions of what beauty is, and tastes change. But we still need beauty. We are not just purely functional organisms, whether or not our philosophy admits it. We have a sense of the aesthetic. We don't like ugly, and we don't like boring, and we don't want to be surrounded by either of them.
holy_duck 3y ago
Howard Roark rolling in his grave
btbuildem 3y ago
Christopher Alexander (the architect and design theorist mentioned in the beginning of the article) wrote at length (and depth!) on the concepts underlying the sense of "liveliness" or "life" in spaces, and "quality" in general. He was pretty successful at capturing it too; his "Pattern Language" describes well a lot of the aspects that make spaces and structures coherent vs not. Whenever I see this stuff discussed, the conversation rarely plumbs the depths. But even in this article -- just look at the photos. The buildings accused of being ornamented -- they're elaborate in a specific way; the complications aren't there just for the sake of adding something, they reiterate certain structural themes, create depth, a sense of connection at variety of scales. Compare to the "unadorned" buildings -- dead, flat, boring, generic, your attention slips off them like water off an oiled pan. What I often muse about as someone who builds software, are the parallels between the concerns of the architect and those of a UX designer. We've all seen styles and themes come and go, and some comparisons beg to be drawn. The flat design trends of recent years match the anonymous glass facades housing the FAANGs. Skeuomorphic interfaces as degenerate and overburdened as baroque twirls at their peak. Etc etc. But underlying these comparisons is always the qualification of purpose. The flat and skeuo interfaces fall short precisely because they're decorated (or, undecorated) for style's sake, there's a disconnect from function - even if the function (especially if!) is to make the person faced with them feel a certain way. Over the many years, the only interfaces I've seen fulfill their mission of connecting with the user, creating a unique space that immerses and engages, are those in games. Finely crafted one-offs, thematic, memorable, full of intricate detail, intimately connected to the subjects of the interaction, the mission, the overall story of the game. They're coherent, involved, and what communicates that connection are the many details, specific and deliberate. Yes at first glance they're ornamental, but reveal themselves to be deeply functional after a longer look.
- pmontra 3y ago
  Skeuomorphic interfaces educated people to click for the first time on buttons which resembled buttons in real life. Having to click on unadorned words would have been too difficult. Which words are to click, which words are only to read? It still is difficult at times but 30+ years of collective education makes it possible.
- 3y ago
martythemaniak 3y ago
People are looking for objectivity in vain. Beyond basic structure, there is no objectivity in art, music, architecture, fashion, etc. That is, you can make the argument that a discordant piano piece is objectively worse than one that follows well-worn progressions, and that would be pretty believable, but saying that a piece with more tremolos than one with no tremolos is objectively better just doesn't work. Ornamentation is taste, and taste is very cyclical. If you grew up in an over-the-top ornamented place, it's very understandable that you'd view the simple clean lines of modernist architecture as a revelation. OTOH, if you grew up in bland generic International Style places, it's perfectly understandable why you'd yearn for something beyond basic shapes. You can't separate taste from the environment you grew up in, your predisposition for novelty-seeking etc. FWIW, I think we're near the end of the modernist cycle. A lot of us grew up in very bland environments and now we want something more. But 100 years ago, the same thing we're now decrying was a breath of fresh, calming air in a suffocating environment.
usrusr 3y ago
I've been preaching this myself for quite a while: the way the aesthetics of minimalistically clean surfaces work is by emphasizing new-ness while they are in fact new. That does look awesome, I'm guilty of enjoying that look myself, but when that new-ness disappears, the same design emphasizes its absence. Ornaments are the the key to graceful aging in architecture. When you have a clean white wall, with three square windows decisively set in one part, yeah, it looks bold and fresh. But after a few years you get a wall with those rainwater "tear paths" that just look sad because there's nothing else to catch the eye. If instead there were some sills, ledges or maybe just some brick surface patterns, those same water traces would be patina that's perceived as part of the ornament.
- c22 3y ago
  The key is maintenance. If you wash that wall every day it will never develop water stains, and a flat unadorned wall is easier to wash than one with a lot of nooks and crannies. A lot of walls don't get washed every day though, even the flat minimalist ones. What makes sense for a school or a hospital or a courthouse might not make sense for a home or a condo.
  - hinkley 3y ago
    Because washing it every day would drastically raise the lifetime cost of the building. We spend millions in the year before a building opens, then millions every decade it exists on maintenance and repairs. Having a full time washer would raise that quite a bit. Window washers make hazard pay and have higher insurance costs than janitors because of the physical danger, do they not?
- MichaelZuo 3y ago
  I agree, minimalism hides the complexity, it doesn't make it go away.
anon291 3y ago
My wife and I purchased a 1920s home for exactly this reason. It's not a magnificent home by any means, but at that time, they seemed to pay more attention to small details. Simple things like the kinds of molding used. The kinds of window frames on the outside. The attention paid to the facade rather than just the function of the home on the inside. The leading on the glass of the builtins (which conveniently also makes it very easy to replace broken pieces). The art deco themes on the door. The stair railings which are both functional, yet artistic at the same time. Not to mention the lighting, which is so far removed from 'Restoration Hardware generic chic' that it almost makes you want to cry to think about the kind of thing we find acceptable today. Everything is subtle but it makes life better to live in something pretty rather than meh.
Duanemclemore 3y ago
Hi, architect here. I'll completely sidestep specific arguments or a criticism of the critic, except one thing. The idea that there's some kind of competition of ideologies inside the entire discipline of architecture is dated. It would be impossible to summarize the entire "architectural dialog" as one thing, but let's be general. Inside these discussions, a lot of us laugh a people like Patrik Schumacher for constantly trying to make some battle of the -isms happen. Rybczynski has had a long and prolific career, and can be forgiven for being of an older generation who were taught that there was some ideological battle for what was "right" or good or beautiful in "architecture." But today your typical architect is going to have their own design "style" or method, but also a pluralistic view that it's the diversity of approaches that makes architecture richer. Most architects I know could expound on their love for say Olson Kundig, David Chipperfield, Freddie Mamani, and Kengo Kuma in a single sitting. I couldn't tell you a single architect who doesn't actively want to make beautiful buildings that elevate the human spirit. Rybczynski only uses the word "developer" once in the entire piece (even then it's just to mention that Wagner was one). In reality, it's the economic logic of modern development that has driven the enshittification of architecture hated by everyone - architects most of all.
- anon291 3y ago
  Let's suppose this is true. If it were true, I'd expect there to be at least some architects producing renderings of the sort of architecture they would like to build, if even just for design exploration. However, when I do see these sorts of experimental architecture designs online (granted, I'm not really 'in on' the right spaces), they typically are all the same style of 'modern bland'. Where're the architects showing us what they would like to build that's actually interesting, and pretty? I've seen a few architects reviving classical styles, but they seem to be the minority. And interestingly enough, those architects seem to be finding some success getting projects funded. So I guess, can you point me to some examples of modern architects showcasing the sorts of things they'd rather build?
  - Duanemclemore 3y ago
    Thanks for the reply. I'd start by googling the four architects with extremely diverse aesthetic sensibilities I mentioned.
angarg12 3y ago
I used to love ultra modern white-box architecture, but recently I gained a new appreciation for the buildings of my home city in Europe that were built in the late 19th and early 20th century. These buildings are very ornate and I find them beautiful to look at. For example [1] is our old post office. When I look at that I can't help but think, are modern architects even trying? Ultra modern architecture is still interesting but I like it when it goes beyond a white box and does something unique and striking. [1] https://offloadmedia.feverup.com/valenciasecreta.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/26063816/edificio-correos-1024x512.jpg https://offloadmedia.feverup.com/valenciasecreta.com/wp-cont...
- extractionmech 3y ago
  Those buildings were covered in sooth and ugly to look at when Modernism was being born. Have you seen photos of London before the great cleaning? It looks like a dark pit. 21st century arm chair design crit needs to ‘contextualize’* its criticism.. ex: *they were not easy to clean. Modern was easy to clean.
bitwize 3y ago
Whenever I found myself having to engage with administrative arms of the Massachusetts government, I found myself in Boston's government district with its distinctive brutalist architecture: https://2.bp.blogspot.com/_nbq2z7LV5VM/Sw71CQ9s1dI/AAAAAAAABNM/nqM90lE0lHw/w1200-h630-p-k-no-nu/F-New+Boston+City+Hall-Government+Center-Boston,+Mass.jpg https://2.bp.blogspot.com/_nbq2z7LV5VM/Sw71CQ9s1dI/AAAAAAAAB... Which only added to my depression, as I felt like I was on Vogsphere. And then imagine a New England winter wind whipping through those rectilinear slabs. By all means, ornament your buildings. Make your structure an aesthetic.
motohagiography 3y ago
Ornaments are symbols that encode values. I was surprised they didn't include Venturi's "ducks vs. decorated sheds," assessment of ornamentation. (https://99percentinvisible.org/article/lessons-sin-city-architecture-ducks-versus-decorated-sheds/ https://99percentinvisible.org/article/lessons-sin-city-arch...) The idea is that an unornamented building is just a single (arguably vulgar) symbol intended to represent something else. The example is a building shaped like a rubber duck. A decorated shed is a building with a purpose and then ornamented symbols attached to it to integrate it into its environment.
telotortium 3y ago
HN would probably be interested in another book by the author, Witold Rybczynski: One Good Turn: A Natural History of the Screwdriver and the Screw (https://www.amazon.com/dp/0684867303 https://www.amazon.com/dp/0684867303). It's born out of a writing prompt for a newspaper article - what is the most important tool (for construction specifically) of the past millennium? Prof. Rybczynski decided on this answer, and gives a history of the screw, both as a fastener and as a way to regulate motion in a machine. It's short but still quite comprehensive, even involving looking for screws in medieval drawings.
oatmeal1 3y ago
Wouldn't be nearly as much of a problem if we designed our living spaces with some nature in mind. We plant non-native plants that don't support any bees, butterflies or birds. We don't get to smell the bloom of wildflowers in spring. We don't feel a breeze of cool air as we walk by a forest. Streams are safely redirected under roads so we no longer hear the trickle of water. Our lawns are crafted to be as uniform as possible. We go from one lifeless place to another every day. Of course we are bored!

186 points by prismatic 3y ago

lqet 3y ago

There is an important and very profane aspect of ornament on buildings which isn't mentioned in the article: it hides dirt incredibly well. Just compare these dirty 19th century facades with a dirty facade of a house from the 70ies: https://photographierer.de/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/DSC_2356.jpg https://photographierer.de/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/DSC_23... https://schall-fassadenreinigung.de/wp-content/themes/yootheme/cache/ab/haus-dreckig-fassade-ab0d0039.jpeg https://schall-fassadenreinigung.de/wp-content/themes/yoothe... The latter looks absolutely filthy, while the former, although uncleaned for 150 years, still look nice. I do not buy the efficiency argument given by Adolf Loos at all. What you gain in labor time by removing ornamentation, you will loose in renovation work and (urban) living quality.

stdbrouw 3y ago
Ironically, we're also losing a lot of efficiency because cities are demanding setbacks, bumps, differences in height etc. for bigger buildings to avoid ending up with drab rectangular blocks, but that leads to more heat loss due to more surface exposed to the environment, higher use of materials and a higher risk of water ingress because there's a ton of weak points where different surfaces connect. (It also just doesn't look very good.) Ornament might be an alternative: just make massed buildings look nice instead of demanding that they are broken up into a bunch of lego blocks. A good thread by Alfred Twu here: https://twitter.com/alfred_twu/status/1715230266531475702 https://twitter.com/alfred_twu/status/1715230266531475702 I also wonder if the trend away from ornament has something to do with the trend towards fancier materials and bolder colors -- wasserstrich bricks, wood facades, decorative plasters in bathrooms, highly polished pigmented concrete floors, aluminium window frames in unusual colors, etc. People need their interestingness fix :-)
- pif 3y ago
  > that leads to more heat loss With global warming, that is becoming more and more an advantage, rather than a defect!
  - zilti 3y ago
    Not at all. It leads to energy waste in winter.
  - engineer_22 3y ago
    No, the inverse is also true, more exposed surface leads to more heat gain in summer
  - j-bos 3y ago
    Ah, but heating a building is much more expensive than cooling
    - bluGill 3y ago
      Either way it doesn't matter: buildings are going to be either heated or cooled nearly ever day. Some seasons you heat them, some you cool them, but rarely is the ambient temperature close enough to rely on passive systems for comfort. Of course local climate matters, some places never need any heating/cooling, some need is only some days. Humans have started to demand the building be more comfortable.
- paganel 3y ago
  > A good thread by Alfred Twu here: https://twitter.com/alfred_twu/status/1715230266531475702 https://twitter.com/alfred_twu/status/1715230266531475702 And stalinist architecture gets called all sorts of names. This buiding [1] is located very close to where I live, an excellent example of very early 1950s stalinist architecture and also eerily similar to the "good" example from your linked tweet. [1] https://www.google.com/maps/@44.4527856,26.095487,3a,48.4y,348.07h,105.77t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s6bRmwQE2hb1X70_umgC2xw!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu https://www.google.com/maps/@44.4527856,26.095487,3a,48.4y,3...
  - stdbrouw 3y ago
    Yeah, I think the building you show is a pretty good example of what Twu would like to see: one big mass, made pretty with consoles, balconies and cornices. You can do a more modern style too, though. I especially like Persian-inspired modern brickwork [1] [2]. What do you consider to be the defining features of Stalinist architecture though? The Wikipedia page portrays it as more or less "whatever happened to be built during Stalin's reign, whatever the style". [1] https://www.yankodesign.com/2021/12/28/creative-brick-design-with-a-built-in-planter-turns-the-outer-facade-of-this-house-into-a-vertical-garden/ https://www.yankodesign.com/2021/12/28/creative-brick-design... [2] https://www.dezeen.com/2016/05/10/kahrizak-residential-housing-caat-studio-tehran-iran-perforated-brick-screens/ https://www.dezeen.com/2016/05/10/kahrizak-residential-housi...
    - paganel 3y ago
      > What do you consider to be the defining features of Stalinist architecture though It's complicated because it has rarely been studied in an ideological-free manner (or not that I know of), so I'm basing my judgements mostly on what I've seen built around me from that era and by reading a couple of local architecture magazines back from those days, magazines that were actively putting forward said "stalinist" style. I'd say that this definition: "whatever happened to be built during Stalin's reign, whatever the style" is generally correct, with a small correction when it comes to the "whatever the style" part, as in it looks to me that there was some consistency in said style going from the mid-to-late 1930s to Stalin's death (in 1953), so that "whatever" part is a little forced. As per said style itself I don't know how best to define it, mostly neo-classical with intense tints of grandiloquence, for example this building from Bucharest, Casa Scânteii [1], is a very good example of that style (said building is a "scaled-down" replica of the Main building of the Moscow State University [2]). A good starting point could be this wikipedia page of a "stalinist" architect named Alexey Shchusev, the style that I'm talking about can be seen in his works going from about ~1935 to his death, so I wouldn't include the Constructivist period (which was in place throughout the '20s) as part of Stalinist architecture proper, but maybe that's just me. For those that know Romanian there's a recently published book about Shchusev called Alexey Shchusev, An Architect of the Imperial Russian Style [4], and by the same author I now see that there's a more general book on Stalinist architecture called Die Architektur Stalins [5], this one in German. Leter edit: There's also an English version of that book on Shchusev: Alexey Shchusev: Architect of Stalin's Empire Style [6] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_the_Free_Press https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_the_Free_Press [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_building_of_Moscow_State_University https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_building_of_Moscow_State_... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexey_Shchusev https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexey_Shchusev [4] https://cartier.ro/libraria/arta/alexei-sciusev-un-arhitect-al-stilului-imperial-stalinist/ https://cartier.ro/libraria/arta/alexei-sciusev-un-arhitect-... [5] https://www.amazon.de/Die-Architektur-Stalins-Bd-Bilddokumentation/dp/3898215156 https://www.amazon.de/Die-Architektur-Stalins-Bd-Bilddokumen... [6] https://ribabooks.com/Alexey-Shchusev-Architect-of-Stalins-Empire-Style_9783869224749# https://ribabooks.com/Alexey-Shchusev-Architect-of-Stalins-E...
vallode 3y ago
A part of me thinks that our weariness of spending "more" on architecture and beauty in cities is the same kind of weird frugality people experience with day to day goods. My grandparents will endlessly complain about the lack of good quality products on the market (knives, power tools, clothing) but at the same time refuse to engage in locally-made albeit more expensive merchants. Making buildings pretty may cost more (although, from my own understanding sourcing local tradespeople and using local materials ends up significantly cheaper over time) but the ROI is significantly better, both culturally and financially (pretty buildings age better, they become more appreciated over time in both financial and cultural value). So is it the same with house goods? Are we just unwilling to accept that knives haven't got worse, it's just that we have mass-produced medium-quality low opportunity cost products that we can keep chucking out the window and complaining about? I rambled on, I totally agree that the efficiency of good/pretty architecture is completely understated.
- aargh_aargh 3y ago
  That's why in economy you vote with your wallet, not your mouth. AKA talk is cheap, show me the dough...
  - nativeit 3y ago
    This only works in pure free markets, which generally do not exist.
    - aargh_aargh 3y ago
      What are you arguing? What's unfree about the section of the knives market relevant to the example? The government isn't forcing/incentivizing them to buy the cheaper products. Economic considerations are.
      - MatekCopatek 3y ago
        The average consumer lacks the knowledge and skill to objectively assess the quality of a knife, the seller is aware of that and manipulates them through advertising. Is a democratic election free if everyone voted freely, but was under the influence of widespread propaganda?
rsynnott 3y ago
Unless it was in a city with implausibly clean air, that 19th century one has probably been cleaned at least once (at great expense, probably). Otherwise, it'd be practically black. And cleaning these things is _expensive_, and takes ages. IIRC doing one smallish (but highly ornamented) 19th century building in my university took about a year. By contrast, the house could be cleaned up in a few days. Modern buildings, clad in, essentially, plastic (or just having all-glass surfaces), even easier, of course.
__alexs 3y ago
The 19th C one needs meticulous cleaning by professionals. The 70s one needs a coat of paint from your local DIY store.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
yterdy 3y ago
The first style doesn't become dirtier, it just gets an ambient occlusion map applied to it.
usrusr 3y ago
My personal "founder fantasy" (not a founder type at all) for the last ten years or so has been a renderer/plugin for architecture visualisation that simulates weathering. For exactly the reasons you state. If you want a building to still look good after the honeymoon phase is over, you have to consider how it will look after a few years of realistic maintenance. If an architect talks about sustainability (and they all seem to do, these days), unless they can show evidence of having considered aesthetics after two decades of minimum maintenance it's all just babble.

stuaxo 3y ago

Interesting how few windows there are on the bottom of this building, I wonder if it's related to how pedestrian unfriendly streets in the US are?

probably_wrong 3y ago
Are you, like me, confusing the main picture illustrating the article (which is the Harold Washington Library in Chicago) with the building the author talks about (which is the Board of Education Building in Philadelphia)? Because the Board of Education Building seems to have an adequate number of windows [1]. The Chicago Library does have few windows, but I'd attribute that to its purpose (the lower floor contains an auditorium, multi-purpose room, and exhibit hall) [2]. [1] https://www.philadelphiabuildings.org/pab/app/im_display.cfm/505411?ProjectId=NR-83002266 https://www.philadelphiabuildings.org/pab/app/im_display.cfm... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Washington_Library https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Washington_Library

878654Tom 3y ago

The current trend in Belgium is to build houses like cubes and drap a variation of white plaster on it [1]. While this looks great the first couple of years, the outside gets dirty and not a lot of people pay for it to get cleaned/repainted. The houses are also always... the same. The variations in it are where the rectangle windows are and the length / width / height. But that is it. I predict that in 20-30 years these houses will be seen as one of the ugly architectural trends of my time. While houses that were built a century or even more ago (and that still stand) are lush with these ornaments and still retain a sort of beauty. [2] I've lived in one of these type of houses and while they have some impracticalities because they have been built in a different century the outside stays a thing of beauty and you could guide people to your house purely because of how it looks. Currently my wife and I are looking to build a new house and one of the requirements that we have for our architect is to build it with small details on the outside and a bit more classical than the current trend is. [1] https://sibomat.be/media/f0xf52fy/moderne-bouwstijl-realisatie_7.jpg?width=1920 https://sibomat.be/media/f0xf52fy/moderne-bouwstijl-realisat... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oude_Markt#/media/File:Old_market_Leuven_-_panoramio.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oude_Markt#/media/File:Old_mar...

stdbrouw 3y ago
I feel we should bring back Georgian architecture [1]: on the one hand it is quite plain and so it fits well with modern sensibilities (and modern budgets that don't allow for a lot of faff, and the lack of skilled labor), but because of its strong emphasis on symmetry and a modest amount of ornament on doors, windows and railings, it looks vastly better than the lime rendered boxes of today. It also looks great with flat roofs, and flat roofs are here to stay -- why bother with nice roof tiles when you have to cover them with solar panels anyway. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgian_architecture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgian_architecture
- rsynnott 3y ago
  I live in a city that has a bunch of it; in practice, it's incredibly impractical, and the few modern attempts to imitate it while providing an actually usable building tend to end up looking absurd. Examples: https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/homes-and-property/new-to-market/georgian-inspired-grandeur-in-donnybrook-with-stellar-views-for-3-5m-1.4729241 https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/homes-and-property... - Fake Georgian townhouses. You're still left with a four storey house, which isn't super-practical, and they look ridiculous. https://www.pjhegarty.ie/projects/esb-head-office/ https://www.pjhegarty.ie/projects/esb-head-office/ - Replacing a distinctly un-Georgian Brutalist thing which itself replaced a row of Georgian houses back in the day. Again, looks silly, but if they'd played it completely straight they'd be left with a pretty impractical office building.

JR1427 3y ago

The examples of unornamented buildings in the article are actually highly ornamented, but just more subtly. In the UK at least, many buildings have zero ornamentation, and are just plain brickwork, without even window ledges etc, and these look terrible to me.

JR1427 3y ago
Here is an example of the style I'm talking about https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Low-rise_flats,_Turves_Green_-_geograph.org.uk_-_1139855.jpg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Low-rise_flats,_Turv...
- quickthrower2 3y ago
  After Glenfell I am happy to see a council house/tower whose facade hasn’t been fucked with. In reckon a better solution is trees around it.
  - JR1427 3y ago
    I lived near Grenfell, and tragically watched it burn from my flat. The facelift they gave it was awful, and I would personally not call it ornamentation. Lots of modern architecture seems to try and create the illusion/impression of ornamentation, without going to the trouble of actually ornamenting.

rsynnott 3y ago

Personally, not a huge fan of the overly-ornamented stuff, but I do think that the current architectural trends are overly... generic. Case in point; Fitzwilton House, in Dublin, a Brutalist office block recently demolished and replaced with a modern one. The original was, well, a lot of people didn't like it, but it was utterly unique. The replacement is a completely generic glass thing, almost indistinguishable from the next one down the canal, or literally thousands of others worldwide. Before and after shots: https://www.archiseek.com/2016/permission-demolish-fitzwilton-house-granted/ https://www.archiseek.com/2016/permission-demolish-fitzwilto... Pictures don't really do justice to just how startling the thing looked; it was completely unignoreable. Now, from a practical point of view, it probably needed replacing; it was a pretty inefficient use of land, if nothing else. But they could at least have replaced it with something interesting. (Fun fact: it used to contain the Australian embassy, amongst other things, which always felt vaguely inappropriate; Australia just doesn't have the appropriate sinister vibes for such a building.)

tpm 3y ago
Yeah looking at the pictures I am slightly dissapointed. For comparison, I am looking from my window at this (Slovak National Archive): https://www.flickr.com/photos/80942841@N08/8352212537/in/photostream/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/80942841@N08/8352212537/in/pho...
troupo 3y ago
The main problem I see is that modern architecture robs cities and countries of their character. Yet another soulless amalgamation of concrete and glass (that invariably wins prestigious awards and is praised for its uniqueness or something) can be plopped anywhere, Dubai, Stockholm, New York, or Cape Town, and it wouldn't make a shred of difference.
- pocketarc 3y ago
  You are absolutely right there. But personally, instead of lamenting it, I see it as a sign of our march towards the “Earth” culture. We are watching the development of the first global civilisation unfold. It’s exciting, even if it has none of the charm of older architectural styles.

Tanoc 3y ago

One thing I've noticed by people watching, both in real life and digitally, is that even if there's a lot of things to do, people won't stick around if the buildings around them are blah and flat. You could have an amazing square with all sorts of little fried food carts and comfortable benches or a digital square with lots of minigames and events, but people won't go there if they're surrounded by modernist and post-modernist architecture comprised of flat glass and concrete surfaces, no matter how planar or curved the overall forms actually are. Such buildings have a "This is a place of function, not humanity" aura that people unconsciously pick up on.

trimistermota 3y ago
But this aura is also a lot of social conditioning. People pick up on this aura because people have been taught that ornament is art based architecture and modern designs are function based architecture.
- DrScientist 3y ago
  I think you are wrong - I think it's much more fundamental than that - boring environments stress and depress people [1][2]. The flip side of why people find a walk in nature lifts their mood. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2023/oct/19/demand-interestingness-thomas-heatherwick-rails-against-boring-buildings https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2023/oct/19/demand-... [2] https://www.thecut.com/2016/04/the-psychological-cost-of-boring-buildings.html https://www.thecut.com/2016/04/the-psychological-cost-of-bor...
hospitalJail 3y ago
[flagged]
PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
According to Christopher Alexander et al. in A Pattern Language, it's about edges: you want buildings to have a non-zero-width "edge" to them that creates an additional zone that is (a) not the building (b) not the open space beyond it. APL has several nice examples of this.

sidcool 3y ago

What do building architects think of Ayn Rand's treatise on architecture in the FountainHead?

badcppdev 3y ago
Curious about the size of the segment on the Venn diagram ... HN commenter, Architect, FountainHead reader

vmfunction 3y ago

> Harold Washington Library in Chicago Hmm, that looks quite like a ripe off of the Central Post & Telegraph Head Office in Denmark. https://media.homeanddecor.com.sg/public/2020/11/0-VillaCph_Exterior_%C2%A9AndyLiffner.jpg https://media.homeanddecor.com.sg/public/2020/11/0-VillaCph_...

Mtinie 3y ago
I agree they share elements, and that’s totally expected given their architectural style lineage. Central Post & Telegraph building is classified as Neo-Baroque[1], while the Harold Washington Library (of significantly later construction) reflects many of the Beaux-Arts[2] forms and ornamentation. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baroque_Revival https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baroque_Revival [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beaux-Arts_architecture https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beaux-Arts_architecture
- vmfunction 3y ago
  wow thanks for the architectural info. This is what I like about HN.

svckr 3y ago

To me, Loos' argument comes across as some grand rationalisation for a simple difference in taste. I.e. "I don't like it, but to state my opinion as a fact, I came up with this story about efficiency" "Why do you waste all that effort (on something that I, personally, don't enjoy or benefit from)?" is an argument I read between the lines all to often …

incrudible 3y ago
Not just efficiency, but degeneracy and criminality. The article fails to mention his own degenerate sex crimes, however. Much of his own work is not devoid of ornament, and ironically these works stood the test of time, in my opinion. His oversimplified work may have been startling in its day, today it looks bland next to the many many utilitarian buildings that followed this trend. Reduction inevitably leads to conformity. A cube looks like a cube, no matter who specified its dimensions.
kelseyfrog 3y ago
The article gives too much credit to Loos. > Loos made ornamentation sound like something practiced only by primitive peoples or criminal deviants. Loos didn't make ornamentation "sound like" something practiced only by primitive peoples or criminal deviants. That was his main point. His argument is 1. We're more evolved than primitive people. 2. Primitive people, degenerates, and criminals ornament themselves and their environments. 3. Therefore we've evolved beyond the need to ornament our selves and environment. A simple difference in taste doesn't quite capture Loos' racism. Loos attempts to build a reality where he and un-ornamentalists are more civilized, cultured, and morally superior to others and ornamentation is evidence of such. He uses ornamentation to construct a difference and then uses that difference to validate his superiority. Loos' argument rests on othering "primitive people" and makes makes six total references toward the Papuans to accomplish this. It's short so I'll list each one. 1. Comparing them to children - "At the age of two he[the child] looks like a Papuan" 2. Describing them again as immoral children - "The child is amoral. So is the Papuan, to us." 3. As cannibals - "The Papuan kills his enemies and eats them." 4. As a reckless ornamenter - "The Papuan tattoos his skin, his boat, his rudder, his oars; in short, everything he can get his hands on." 5. Again compares them to children, and implies they are degenerates - "But what is natural for, a Papuan and a child, is degenerate for modern man." 6. That "we" are more progressed than primitive people. - "People progressed far enough for ornament to give them pleasure no longer, indeed so far that a tattooed face no longer heightened their aesthetic sensibility, as it did with the Papuans, but diminished it." I can't stress enough how childish Loos himself comes across in the piece. It's a temper tantrum of an article and I'm honestly surprised it's taken seriously, or at least was. I'd encourage folks to read the original[1]. It's a five to ten minute read. 1. https://www.archdaily.com/798529/the-longish-read-ornament-and-crime-adolf-loos https://www.archdaily.com/798529/the-longish-read-ornament-a...

somewhereoutth 3y ago

The headline image (Harold Washington Library, Chicago, 1987) is a good example of how Post Modernism got things badly wrong - with its haphazard ornamentation grabbing styles from all over the time/place and tastelessly agglomerating them together without coherent thesis. Sadly there are many more such examples, architecture was in a dark place in the 80s.

coldtea 3y ago
Still way better looking than 99% of "modernist" architecture... At least here it's just tastelessness at fault, as opposed to a concrete (pun intended) hatred of beauty...
_dark_matter_ 3y ago
I like the look of that building. I don't care at all that it may be haphazard in architecture history.
Kon-Peki 3y ago
The original downtown library in Chicago closed in the late 1970s and moved to temporary space; they spent a full decade arguing about a permanent replacement before finally agreeing to issue a bond and to hold a design competition. This design was a collaboration among many groups, and had a long list of "as a homage to XXXX, we've included this design element." It almost certainly wasn't a serious entry, but that list of design elements apparently kept getting it enough votes to stay in the competition as they did each round of elimination. At the end of the competition, they looked at the remaining entries and realized that this was the only one that could be built for the amount of money in the bond issue. So it won. It's pretty strange as the "cheap" option, because everything you touch is made of marble, brass or solid wood, the doors are huge and very heavy, every light fixture looks custom made, it's filled with artwork and sculptures, etc.
btbuildem 3y ago
I couldn't disagree more - it's a beautiful building with a strong presence. The only thing I can see being a "bit much" are the adornments on the roof.
3y ago

airstrike 3y ago

This reminds me of "Why Beauty Matters", a documentary by Roger Scruton, which fundamentally transformed my views on architecture and beauty in general https://vimeo.com/549715999 https://vimeo.com/549715999

blueridge 3y ago
Came here to mention Scruton. Would recommend the documentary mentioned above, plus Scruton's book: The Aesthetics of Architecture. https://www.scruton.org/building-beautiful https://www.scruton.org/building-beautiful I am also obsessed with traditional Japanese architecture. Lots of simple ornament, warm colors and materials, deliberate use of shadows and light. https://eastwindinc.com/ https://eastwindinc.com/ Books: Japanese Homes and their Surroundings Japanese Architecture: An Exploration of Elements & Forms
- airstrike 3y ago
  Thank you for these resources!

cocostation 3y ago

"The latter presumably referred to the current fashion for tattoos among European royals, including Edward VII, Kaiser Wilhelm II, and Tsar Nicholas II." Wait...what?!

deleted 3y ago
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jrochkind1 3y ago

But even the Looshaus, the example of an at the time scandalously unornamented building -- on first glance at the picture, seemed to me more comfortable, asthetically pleasing, human-centered, and spirit-raising than most contemporary new construction. So what's that about? Is the Looshaus, even though unornamented for the time, still more ornamented than contemporary standard? Or is it about something other than ornamentation? Or is it just my own personal judgement which is unusual or wrong (based only a picture, not being there in person) -- what do people generally think of the Looshaus today?

throwawaaarrgh 3y ago

I've been lucky enough to go to a few folk art museums around the world. Buildings made by peasants can be richly ornamented, a stark contrast to the landscape, or fitting in with it. The designs showcase their craftsmanship, their relationship to their faith, their connection to their culture, and to the natural world. It reminds one of what it means to be a human who cares about more than function. Art and culture may not be the sole domain of humans, but it's one we've mastered. The spaces we live in and around should be filled with it.

AnimalMuppet 3y ago

We moved recently. Our previous house served us well, with adequate space for all the kids. My wife never complained. But this time, as we were getting ready to hunt for a house, she said, "Can our next house be pretty?" Beauty matters. We can have different definitions of what beauty is, and tastes change. But we still need beauty. We are not just purely functional organisms, whether or not our philosophy admits it. We have a sense of the aesthetic. We don't like ugly, and we don't like boring, and we don't want to be surrounded by either of them.

holy_duck 3y ago

Howard Roark rolling in his grave

btbuildem 3y ago

Christopher Alexander (the architect and design theorist mentioned in the beginning of the article) wrote at length (and depth!) on the concepts underlying the sense of "liveliness" or "life" in spaces, and "quality" in general. He was pretty successful at capturing it too; his "Pattern Language" describes well a lot of the aspects that make spaces and structures coherent vs not. Whenever I see this stuff discussed, the conversation rarely plumbs the depths. But even in this article -- just look at the photos. The buildings accused of being ornamented -- they're elaborate in a specific way; the complications aren't there just for the sake of adding something, they reiterate certain structural themes, create depth, a sense of connection at variety of scales. Compare to the "unadorned" buildings -- dead, flat, boring, generic, your attention slips off them like water off an oiled pan. What I often muse about as someone who builds software, are the parallels between the concerns of the architect and those of a UX designer. We've all seen styles and themes come and go, and some comparisons beg to be drawn. The flat design trends of recent years match the anonymous glass facades housing the FAANGs. Skeuomorphic interfaces as degenerate and overburdened as baroque twirls at their peak. Etc etc. But underlying these comparisons is always the qualification of purpose. The flat and skeuo interfaces fall short precisely because they're decorated (or, undecorated) for style's sake, there's a disconnect from function - even if the function (especially if!) is to make the person faced with them feel a certain way. Over the many years, the only interfaces I've seen fulfill their mission of connecting with the user, creating a unique space that immerses and engages, are those in games. Finely crafted one-offs, thematic, memorable, full of intricate detail, intimately connected to the subjects of the interaction, the mission, the overall story of the game. They're coherent, involved, and what communicates that connection are the many details, specific and deliberate. Yes at first glance they're ornamental, but reveal themselves to be deeply functional after a longer look.

pmontra 3y ago
Skeuomorphic interfaces educated people to click for the first time on buttons which resembled buttons in real life. Having to click on unadorned words would have been too difficult. Which words are to click, which words are only to read? It still is difficult at times but 30+ years of collective education makes it possible.
3y ago

martythemaniak 3y ago

People are looking for objectivity in vain. Beyond basic structure, there is no objectivity in art, music, architecture, fashion, etc. That is, you can make the argument that a discordant piano piece is objectively worse than one that follows well-worn progressions, and that would be pretty believable, but saying that a piece with more tremolos than one with no tremolos is objectively better just doesn't work. Ornamentation is taste, and taste is very cyclical. If you grew up in an over-the-top ornamented place, it's very understandable that you'd view the simple clean lines of modernist architecture as a revelation. OTOH, if you grew up in bland generic International Style places, it's perfectly understandable why you'd yearn for something beyond basic shapes. You can't separate taste from the environment you grew up in, your predisposition for novelty-seeking etc. FWIW, I think we're near the end of the modernist cycle. A lot of us grew up in very bland environments and now we want something more. But 100 years ago, the same thing we're now decrying was a breath of fresh, calming air in a suffocating environment.

usrusr 3y ago

I've been preaching this myself for quite a while: the way the aesthetics of minimalistically clean surfaces work is by emphasizing new-ness while they are in fact new. That does look awesome, I'm guilty of enjoying that look myself, but when that new-ness disappears, the same design emphasizes its absence. Ornaments are the the key to graceful aging in architecture. When you have a clean white wall, with three square windows decisively set in one part, yeah, it looks bold and fresh. But after a few years you get a wall with those rainwater "tear paths" that just look sad because there's nothing else to catch the eye. If instead there were some sills, ledges or maybe just some brick surface patterns, those same water traces would be patina that's perceived as part of the ornament.

c22 3y ago
The key is maintenance. If you wash that wall every day it will never develop water stains, and a flat unadorned wall is easier to wash than one with a lot of nooks and crannies. A lot of walls don't get washed every day though, even the flat minimalist ones. What makes sense for a school or a hospital or a courthouse might not make sense for a home or a condo.
- hinkley 3y ago
  Because washing it every day would drastically raise the lifetime cost of the building. We spend millions in the year before a building opens, then millions every decade it exists on maintenance and repairs. Having a full time washer would raise that quite a bit. Window washers make hazard pay and have higher insurance costs than janitors because of the physical danger, do they not?
MichaelZuo 3y ago
I agree, minimalism hides the complexity, it doesn't make it go away.

anon291 3y ago

My wife and I purchased a 1920s home for exactly this reason. It's not a magnificent home by any means, but at that time, they seemed to pay more attention to small details. Simple things like the kinds of molding used. The kinds of window frames on the outside. The attention paid to the facade rather than just the function of the home on the inside. The leading on the glass of the builtins (which conveniently also makes it very easy to replace broken pieces). The art deco themes on the door. The stair railings which are both functional, yet artistic at the same time. Not to mention the lighting, which is so far removed from 'Restoration Hardware generic chic' that it almost makes you want to cry to think about the kind of thing we find acceptable today. Everything is subtle but it makes life better to live in something pretty rather than meh.

Duanemclemore 3y ago

Hi, architect here. I'll completely sidestep specific arguments or a criticism of the critic, except one thing. The idea that there's some kind of competition of ideologies inside the entire discipline of architecture is dated. It would be impossible to summarize the entire "architectural dialog" as one thing, but let's be general. Inside these discussions, a lot of us laugh a people like Patrik Schumacher for constantly trying to make some battle of the -isms happen. Rybczynski has had a long and prolific career, and can be forgiven for being of an older generation who were taught that there was some ideological battle for what was "right" or good or beautiful in "architecture." But today your typical architect is going to have their own design "style" or method, but also a pluralistic view that it's the diversity of approaches that makes architecture richer. Most architects I know could expound on their love for say Olson Kundig, David Chipperfield, Freddie Mamani, and Kengo Kuma in a single sitting. I couldn't tell you a single architect who doesn't actively want to make beautiful buildings that elevate the human spirit. Rybczynski only uses the word "developer" once in the entire piece (even then it's just to mention that Wagner was one). In reality, it's the economic logic of modern development that has driven the enshittification of architecture hated by everyone - architects most of all.

anon291 3y ago
Let's suppose this is true. If it were true, I'd expect there to be at least some architects producing renderings of the sort of architecture they would like to build, if even just for design exploration. However, when I do see these sorts of experimental architecture designs online (granted, I'm not really 'in on' the right spaces), they typically are all the same style of 'modern bland'. Where're the architects showing us what they would like to build that's actually interesting, and pretty? I've seen a few architects reviving classical styles, but they seem to be the minority. And interestingly enough, those architects seem to be finding some success getting projects funded. So I guess, can you point me to some examples of modern architects showcasing the sorts of things they'd rather build?
- Duanemclemore 3y ago
  Thanks for the reply. I'd start by googling the four architects with extremely diverse aesthetic sensibilities I mentioned.

angarg12 3y ago

I used to love ultra modern white-box architecture, but recently I gained a new appreciation for the buildings of my home city in Europe that were built in the late 19th and early 20th century. These buildings are very ornate and I find them beautiful to look at. For example [1] is our old post office. When I look at that I can't help but think, are modern architects even trying? Ultra modern architecture is still interesting but I like it when it goes beyond a white box and does something unique and striking. [1] https://offloadmedia.feverup.com/valenciasecreta.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/26063816/edificio-correos-1024x512.jpg https://offloadmedia.feverup.com/valenciasecreta.com/wp-cont...

extractionmech 3y ago
Those buildings were covered in sooth and ugly to look at when Modernism was being born. Have you seen photos of London before the great cleaning? It looks like a dark pit. 21st century arm chair design crit needs to ‘contextualize’* its criticism.. ex: *they were not easy to clean. Modern was easy to clean.

bitwize 3y ago

Whenever I found myself having to engage with administrative arms of the Massachusetts government, I found myself in Boston's government district with its distinctive brutalist architecture: https://2.bp.blogspot.com/_nbq2z7LV5VM/Sw71CQ9s1dI/AAAAAAAABNM/nqM90lE0lHw/w1200-h630-p-k-no-nu/F-New+Boston+City+Hall-Government+Center-Boston,+Mass.jpg https://2.bp.blogspot.com/_nbq2z7LV5VM/Sw71CQ9s1dI/AAAAAAAAB... Which only added to my depression, as I felt like I was on Vogsphere. And then imagine a New England winter wind whipping through those rectilinear slabs. By all means, ornament your buildings. Make your structure an aesthetic.

motohagiography 3y ago

Ornaments are symbols that encode values. I was surprised they didn't include Venturi's "ducks vs. decorated sheds," assessment of ornamentation. (https://99percentinvisible.org/article/lessons-sin-city-architecture-ducks-versus-decorated-sheds/ https://99percentinvisible.org/article/lessons-sin-city-arch...) The idea is that an unornamented building is just a single (arguably vulgar) symbol intended to represent something else. The example is a building shaped like a rubber duck. A decorated shed is a building with a purpose and then ornamented symbols attached to it to integrate it into its environment.

telotortium 3y ago

HN would probably be interested in another book by the author, Witold Rybczynski: One Good Turn: A Natural History of the Screwdriver and the Screw (https://www.amazon.com/dp/0684867303 https://www.amazon.com/dp/0684867303). It's born out of a writing prompt for a newspaper article - what is the most important tool (for construction specifically) of the past millennium? Prof. Rybczynski decided on this answer, and gives a history of the screw, both as a fastener and as a way to regulate motion in a machine. It's short but still quite comprehensive, even involving looking for screws in medieval drawings.

oatmeal1 3y ago

Wouldn't be nearly as much of a problem if we designed our living spaces with some nature in mind. We plant non-native plants that don't support any bees, butterflies or birds. We don't get to smell the bloom of wildflowers in spring. We don't feel a breeze of cool air as we walk by a forest. Streams are safely redirected under roads so we no longer hear the trickle of water. Our lawns are crafted to be as uniform as possible. We go from one lifeless place to another every day. Of course we are bored!