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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

• 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.
  • Mordisquitos 3y ago
    But is it exciting? Why? Personally I find the idea of a uniform “Earth” culture with no local identities as exciting as the idea of never being able to travel away my own local culture to experience a different one, that is, not exciting at all.
    • c22 3y ago
      It might be kind of exciting if it stopped people from traveling around so damn much. But of course everyone will still take 2-4 weeks every year to fly to one of the same generic vacation destinations and double or quadruple their lifetime energy footprint.
      • ahonhn 3y ago
        I'm reminded of the last page of "Orbitsville" (Bob Shaw, 1975). "In time even the flickering ships ceased to ply the trade lanes between the entrance portals, because there can be no reward for the traveller when departure point cannot be distinguished from destination."
  • troupo 3y ago
    It's not "the development of the first global civilisation". It's the death of imagination and creativity. You'd think that for a place as varied and interesting as Earth, you'd emerge with something that is as varied and interesting.
    • kipchak 3y ago
      It also seems like you would expect the practical considerations from environment and material availability to result in different looking buildings. For example pitched roofs and large windows in climates with lots of snow, or windcatchers, flat roofs, white paint and small windows in warmer places.
      • CrimsonCape 3y ago
        Much like the original post, the construction industry has an intimate understanding of the pricing of the plain box as a 'standard' and the non-plain box as a 'premium / luxury'. The resulting environment expresses bland uniformity as a standard cost and unqiueness as high-specialty luxury.
  • rsynnott 3y ago
    We can have a global civilisation without the buildings being so bloody boring.
  • philwelch 3y ago
    The “global civilization” spent 20 years trying to assimilate Afghanistan before just giving up and allowing a rebuilt Kabul and all of its bland contemporary architecture get overrun by a gang of medieval goat herders. I suspect the world has already reached peak homogenization and will increasingly splinter on cultural lines in the future.
• notjustanymike 3y ago
  This is exactly the problem with Hudson Yards in NYC. Even now, the most likely image you'll see when searching for Hudson yards is of the rather terrible "Vessel" sculpture they plopped down in the middle. This is because all the surrounding buildings are so devoid of character that they're near impossible to photograph in an interesting manner.
  • boppo1 3y ago
    Is The Vessel still closed because too many people were committing sudoku by jumping off it?
• mkehrt 3y ago
  To be clear on terminology--this isn't "Modern" architecture; it's "contemporary". Modern refers to a very specific set of movements. The demolished brutalist building the OP mentions is an offshoot of Modern. The replacement is not.
  • deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  • troupo 3y ago
    Common definition of the term "modern" is "relating to the present or recent times as opposed to the remote past.". I'd rather call architectural styles from 100 years ago "modernist" to avoid confusion.
• Duanemclemore 3y ago
  What you, I, and everybody else here hates and is responding to here is the design choices of major corporations who are larger than many governments and have the ability and incentive to push and use an anodyne and inoffensively bland style that fits in anywhere in the world of the modern global economy. The awards are part of the same system, trying to give legitimacy to itself. That said - the International Style, which started over a hundred years ago at this point (back when style "movements" were still a thing) was actually a universalist project, trying to argue FOR the ideal architecture whose express purpose was that it COULD BE plopped down anywhere. Needless to say that approach has some... issues. But it has to be understood that the world they were reacting to was VASTLY different from today. Tenement slums without indoor plumbing were still a thing for example. These guys were massively egotistical, paternalistic, etc. So of course their approach was going to have certain flaws. But they were trying to do what -they thought- was in the universal good. More recently people like Frampton argued for "critical regionalism" that tries to reconcile local character and culture with contemporary standardized building practices. Then postmodernism happened and history and local culture were allowed back in the academy (cf: Washington Library). Since deconstructivism collapsed under the weight of self-parody it's been a kind of no limits return to regionally responsive architecture. But the awards that are being given out for that aren't the ones that get all the press. Except the Pritzker, which has really changed its tune in the past 15 years in recognizing architecture with more character and sensitivity to its culture.
• Almondsetat 3y ago
  You can find neoclassical buildings in Boston, Havana, Paris, Oslo, Moscow. They all look the same, just like skyscrapers. "soullessness" and "lack of character" go back a long way, and people only mentioning it when talking about brutalism or glass buildings is just evidence they know nothing about the history and culture they are trying to preserve
  • philwelch 3y ago
    The problem with brutalism or glass buildings isn’t that it all looks the same or lacks local character. The problem is that they are ugly. It’s only when we are asking the second “why”—“why are they ugly?”—that we find out that, at least in part, these styles are specifically designed to avoid any sort of local or cultural flavor. Neoclassical architecture doesn’t have this problem because it intentionally calls back to Greece and Rome, reflecting a cultural heritage that is, in fact, shared all the way from Moscow to Boston.