5 ms·

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

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...

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...