4 ms·

Most of these aesthetic criticism people are just conservative people. They don't like change. The world was best when they arrived somewhere. That's pretty mu

Most of these aesthetic criticism people are just conservative people. They don't like change. The world was best when they arrived somewhere. That's pretty much it. SF is full of a similar kind.

achileas 3y ago
This is the only real takeaway of the article. “I don’t like this because it’s new to me, therefore it’s universally bad.” I live in Boston and there was a similar freakout about the gas lamps in Beacon Hill being replaced by LEDs. Not a single person I talked to about it knew that the gas lamps were only added to the neighborhood in the late 70s to make it look more quaint and historic.
- esafak 3y ago
  So they were added to suit the character of the neighborhood? That is a great selection criterion.
- renewiltord 3y ago
  In SF, the most recent two controversies were over historic seating being removed from a Castro theatre and historic rusted iron protective chains being replaced by the waterfront. Age of said seating? 20 y. Age of chains? 30 y. It's not that I have a problem with this. It's just that I personally don't want to be considered historic in my mid 30s.
  - elevatedastalt 3y ago
    How are things ever supposed to become historic if people aren't allowed to fight to keep them around when they are only 20 or 30 years old?
    - renewiltord 3y ago
      To be honest, I don't think seats and rusted iron railings should be things we strive to just retain so that they can be considered historic. Though I do like the idea of forcing everyone to keep their iPhone 13 for the next 20 years so that it can become old enough to be historic.
- lttlrck 3y ago
  On the other hand, that they didn't know they were added "just" 40 years ago suggests that the decision to install them was a very good one? Not that I support gas street lighting, but there is a distinct lack of genuinely quaint and historic districts in US cities.
inglor_cz 3y ago
Are you sure? Many more people admire Taj Mahal or Ancient Greek/Roman buildings than, say, brutalist architecture. Heck, even Art Deco, while distinctly modern, seems to be likeable. I am fairly conservative myself, but I like some new Czech buildings, such as the Masaryčka project by Zaha Hadid. It has a soaring soul that is hard to describe, but nevertheless you can feel the positive vibe of the structure when you walk underneath it. https://www.masarycka.com/cs/o-projektu/ https://www.masarycka.com/cs/o-projektu/ On the other hand, Le Corbusier architecture (mostly older than me, so I should have been used to it) looks like deliberate insult to anything human: look at this concrete prison I made for you and weep and gnash your teeth because there is no escape from its rotting ugliness, you worm.
- renewiltord 3y ago
  I can't speak to the culture in Eastern Europe. I meant in the US where I'm quite sure considering old beloved artifacts of today are all the nightmarish monsters of yesteryear that people protested. Fortunately, the American version of this view will be smashed in the next two decades and we will enter an era of creation once again.
- lannisterstark 3y ago
  Yellow street lamps are not Taj mahal
- rayiner 3y ago
  > hand, Le Corbusier architecture (mostly older than me, so I should have been used to it) looks like deliberate insult to anything human: look at this concrete prison I made for you and weep and gnash your teeth because there is no escape from its rotting ugliness, you worm. This is how I feel about the watergate, in which I work.
bufio 3y ago
Do you really prefer hospital lighting over yellow lighting?
- nradov 3y ago
  I really prefer full spectrum lighting over yellow lighting in all circumstances. Bring on the white LEDs.
  - jokethrowaway 3y ago
    You should talk with architects and interior designers. Lights can transform the feel of a place and they have their purpose.
- yencabulator 3y ago
  Are we calling full spectrum daylight "hospital lighting" now?
Tanoc 3y ago
When you're an artist who tries to recreate things from the past you learn very quickly the limitations of what we use nowadays. Tradeoffs in efficiency are often paid for with quality of life. For example many of the older high pressure sodium lamps were better for human eyesight because of their colour spectrum being a segment of daylight allowing better contrast perception and not straining the upper limits of the cones in your eyes for night vision. Their falloff was also much better, preventing harsh shadows inherent to fluorescent and LED lights that hide things all too easily and create unwelcoming chiseled depth on architecture. Sadly adding in those little quality of life benefits costs more fractions of a cent per unit, so the modern LED bulbs capable of recreating them go without. The other thing, about the "McCentury Modern" architecture, has been proven time and again over the last decade. Flat shapes without detail with random splashes of colour cause anxiety because the human mind needs visual definition and coherency. There are ongoing studies about whether or not modern architecture causes depression because so many people have noticed. At least in the past the cheapest stuff used bricks for facades, but developers think even those are too expensive now. That and the proliferation of grey is entirely about money, because it's easier to sell the lowest common denominator without a hint of individuality. This is especially true when it comes to market instability, because when tenant turnover is in the range of months grabbing the cheapest thing and throwing together the least personable environment to rope in anybody at all will keep you from having a vacancy of longer than a few weeks. The films thing is just... Nobody actually looks at physical examples anymore, so they have no idea how things should look. With practical effects you were manipulating and testing what already existed instead of trying to recreate it as an approximation. There's a surrealist level of detail in almost anything created via CG, only worsened by the lighting needing to be flattened to cover up the unfinished work done because of an impossible schedule and masked with digital colour correcting. Real waves don't have that much foam, real diamond weave cloth doesn't have that specular profile, real explosions don't have such low luminosity and so many particles, so on and so forth. A lot of people realize things are very wrong with the world, they just don't have the expertise or the vocabulary to explain it. So they point at things they know other people will innately understand as examples. Don't say they hate change because of that limitation.

Most of these aesthetic criticism people are just conservative people. They don't like change. The world was best when they arrived somewhere. That's pretty much it. SF is full of a similar kind.

achileas 3y ago

This is the only real takeaway of the article. “I don’t like this because it’s new to me, therefore it’s universally bad.” I live in Boston and there was a similar freakout about the gas lamps in Beacon Hill being replaced by LEDs. Not a single person I talked to about it knew that the gas lamps were only added to the neighborhood in the late 70s to make it look more quaint and historic.

esafak 3y ago
So they were added to suit the character of the neighborhood? That is a great selection criterion.
renewiltord 3y ago
In SF, the most recent two controversies were over historic seating being removed from a Castro theatre and historic rusted iron protective chains being replaced by the waterfront. Age of said seating? 20 y. Age of chains? 30 y. It's not that I have a problem with this. It's just that I personally don't want to be considered historic in my mid 30s.
- elevatedastalt 3y ago
  How are things ever supposed to become historic if people aren't allowed to fight to keep them around when they are only 20 or 30 years old?
  - renewiltord 3y ago
    To be honest, I don't think seats and rusted iron railings should be things we strive to just retain so that they can be considered historic. Though I do like the idea of forcing everyone to keep their iPhone 13 for the next 20 years so that it can become old enough to be historic.
lttlrck 3y ago
On the other hand, that they didn't know they were added "just" 40 years ago suggests that the decision to install them was a very good one? Not that I support gas street lighting, but there is a distinct lack of genuinely quaint and historic districts in US cities.

inglor_cz 3y ago

Are you sure? Many more people admire Taj Mahal or Ancient Greek/Roman buildings than, say, brutalist architecture. Heck, even Art Deco, while distinctly modern, seems to be likeable. I am fairly conservative myself, but I like some new Czech buildings, such as the Masaryčka project by Zaha Hadid. It has a soaring soul that is hard to describe, but nevertheless you can feel the positive vibe of the structure when you walk underneath it. https://www.masarycka.com/cs/o-projektu/ https://www.masarycka.com/cs/o-projektu/ On the other hand, Le Corbusier architecture (mostly older than me, so I should have been used to it) looks like deliberate insult to anything human: look at this concrete prison I made for you and weep and gnash your teeth because there is no escape from its rotting ugliness, you worm.

renewiltord 3y ago
I can't speak to the culture in Eastern Europe. I meant in the US where I'm quite sure considering old beloved artifacts of today are all the nightmarish monsters of yesteryear that people protested. Fortunately, the American version of this view will be smashed in the next two decades and we will enter an era of creation once again.
lannisterstark 3y ago
Yellow street lamps are not Taj mahal
rayiner 3y ago
> hand, Le Corbusier architecture (mostly older than me, so I should have been used to it) looks like deliberate insult to anything human: look at this concrete prison I made for you and weep and gnash your teeth because there is no escape from its rotting ugliness, you worm. This is how I feel about the watergate, in which I work.

bufio 3y ago

Do you really prefer hospital lighting over yellow lighting?

nradov 3y ago
I really prefer full spectrum lighting over yellow lighting in all circumstances. Bring on the white LEDs.
- jokethrowaway 3y ago
  You should talk with architects and interior designers. Lights can transform the feel of a place and they have their purpose.
yencabulator 3y ago
Are we calling full spectrum daylight "hospital lighting" now?

Tanoc 3y ago

When you're an artist who tries to recreate things from the past you learn very quickly the limitations of what we use nowadays. Tradeoffs in efficiency are often paid for with quality of life. For example many of the older high pressure sodium lamps were better for human eyesight because of their colour spectrum being a segment of daylight allowing better contrast perception and not straining the upper limits of the cones in your eyes for night vision. Their falloff was also much better, preventing harsh shadows inherent to fluorescent and LED lights that hide things all too easily and create unwelcoming chiseled depth on architecture. Sadly adding in those little quality of life benefits costs more fractions of a cent per unit, so the modern LED bulbs capable of recreating them go without. The other thing, about the "McCentury Modern" architecture, has been proven time and again over the last decade. Flat shapes without detail with random splashes of colour cause anxiety because the human mind needs visual definition and coherency. There are ongoing studies about whether or not modern architecture causes depression because so many people have noticed. At least in the past the cheapest stuff used bricks for facades, but developers think even those are too expensive now. That and the proliferation of grey is entirely about money, because it's easier to sell the lowest common denominator without a hint of individuality. This is especially true when it comes to market instability, because when tenant turnover is in the range of months grabbing the cheapest thing and throwing together the least personable environment to rope in anybody at all will keep you from having a vacancy of longer than a few weeks. The films thing is just... Nobody actually looks at physical examples anymore, so they have no idea how things should look. With practical effects you were manipulating and testing what already existed instead of trying to recreate it as an approximation. There's a surrealist level of detail in almost anything created via CG, only worsened by the lighting needing to be flattened to cover up the unfinished work done because of an impossible schedule and masked with digital colour correcting. Real waves don't have that much foam, real diamond weave cloth doesn't have that specular profile, real explosions don't have such low luminosity and so many particles, so on and so forth. A lot of people realize things are very wrong with the world, they just don't have the expertise or the vocabulary to explain it. So they point at things they know other people will innately understand as examples. Don't say they hate change because of that limitation.