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This article seems to be squarely focused on trends for showcase buildings like opera houses, which are highly visible but make up only a tiny portion of a city

This article seems to be squarely focused on trends for showcase buildings like opera houses, which are highly visible but make up only a tiny portion of a city's buildings. But all new residential buildings I see are cookie cutter boxes, and all new office buildings I see are vertically stretched-out greenhouses with acres of glass.

crabmusket 3y ago
The last three paragraphs, discussing co-operative apartments like La Borda in Barcelona, were interesting. Shame the rest of the article focused, as you say, on style over substance.
- Duanemclemore 3y ago
  I also wish he had discussed alternatives like these more. My takeaway is the argument - on which you're correct - that people have knock-down-drag-out fights about visual style. I would say that's not because it's as important but that it is what jumps out when browsing the infinite catalog of images that is the modern internet. And substance is what really matters. I think you mentioned Alexander in another comment and more of what he did is necessary - more systematic considerations of not just what something looks like, but how it works. And not just the single object or space, but enmeshed in the network of relationships that extend far beyond the formal. Edited to add: Having read so much Hatherley over the years I can almost guarantee that a name drop in the conclusion like that means he's currently developing more scholarship / criticism on the subject...
- twic 3y ago
  That felt like a bait and switch. Paragraphs of criticism of huge showpiece buildings, old and new. Then advocacy of a better way which is only used to produce small, humble buildings.
bunderbunder 3y ago
All the old residential buildings in some of the nicer cities I've visited are also cookie cutter boxes. Residential areas in the older parts of Amsterdam are indeed beautiful and pleasant, but, much like the another commenter suggested, I'm pretty sure that's almost entirely due to the rest of the environment, especially the transportation infrastructure. Sure, they're nice well-built 300 year old buildings, but I think that, if the city were more car-centric, nobody would spend as much time outside, so nobody would be as motivated to take care of the exteriors of their buildings. And then it would look a lot more like the dingy dirty grimy pile of bricks that you see in cities like Chicago that use similar (if newer) architecture but haven't made the space between the buildings nearly as hospitable to humans.

crabmusket 3y ago

The last three paragraphs, discussing co-operative apartments like La Borda in Barcelona, were interesting. Shame the rest of the article focused, as you say, on style over substance.

Duanemclemore 3y ago
I also wish he had discussed alternatives like these more. My takeaway is the argument - on which you're correct - that people have knock-down-drag-out fights about visual style. I would say that's not because it's as important but that it is what jumps out when browsing the infinite catalog of images that is the modern internet. And substance is what really matters. I think you mentioned Alexander in another comment and more of what he did is necessary - more systematic considerations of not just what something looks like, but how it works. And not just the single object or space, but enmeshed in the network of relationships that extend far beyond the formal. Edited to add: Having read so much Hatherley over the years I can almost guarantee that a name drop in the conclusion like that means he's currently developing more scholarship / criticism on the subject...
twic 3y ago
That felt like a bait and switch. Paragraphs of criticism of huge showpiece buildings, old and new. Then advocacy of a better way which is only used to produce small, humble buildings.

bunderbunder 3y ago

All the old residential buildings in some of the nicer cities I've visited are also cookie cutter boxes. Residential areas in the older parts of Amsterdam are indeed beautiful and pleasant, but, much like the another commenter suggested, I'm pretty sure that's almost entirely due to the rest of the environment, especially the transportation infrastructure. Sure, they're nice well-built 300 year old buildings, but I think that, if the city were more car-centric, nobody would spend as much time outside, so nobody would be as motivated to take care of the exteriors of their buildings. And then it would look a lot more like the dingy dirty grimy pile of bricks that you see in cities like Chicago that use similar (if newer) architecture but haven't made the space between the buildings nearly as hospitable to humans.