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Cities were so beautiful before we destroyed them with all the streets for cars. Also modern buildings look really ugly. We need more ornaments in architecture.
by amai 1y ago
Cities were so beautiful before we destroyed them with all the streets for cars. Also modern buildings look really ugly. We need more ornaments in architecture.
- wffurr 1y agoRIP all those street trees too.
- MagnumOpus 1y agoHere it is more a case of “cities were so beautiful before we destroyed them with all the firebombing by the Royal Air Force”… Half of Wuppertal’s buildings were destroyed by the end of WW2. Some cities had the leeway to rebuild historical ornamented buildings, many others built as cheaply and quickly as possible because it was more important to create more shelter rather than prettier housing. Edit: Though I very much agree on the ugliness of the excessive street furniture and car parking space!
- amai 1y agoDon't forget the reason for all that firebombing: Germans voted for a guy who promised to make Germany great again. Worked out great in the end. It was the greatest end of a war ever. What a great guy he was.
- maweki 1y agoI don't think they questioned the reason for bombing civilians. They questioned the utility.
- mschuster91 1y ago> Also modern buildings look really ugly. We need more ornaments in architecture. Agree but who the fuck is gonna pay for it? Urban housing is already under massive price competition.
- codethief 1y agoThat's a common myth. Ornaments don't have to be expensive. Besides, many of the old buildings we consider beautiful today were meant for lower-income families back in the day.
- bobthepanda 1y agoornaments are expensive now (at least, the ways done historically) because modernism put a generation of artisans out of work and no one trained to be skilled in a dying industry. now it's incredibly specialized.
- mantas 1y agoHorse poop wasn't exactly great too.
- defrost 1y agoNot to step in with your good shoes, and the tonnages to remove in large urban areas like London and New York were substantial, sure. Thing is, horse poop and straw is great for gardens, weed suppression, growing food and flowers. Can't really say the same for tyre particles, fuel emissions, and while the bulk long term CO2 buildup beyond the established balance might make things "greener" it doesn't seem to advance nutritional returns of vegetation enough to offset the climate altering downsides.
- CamouflagedKiwi 1y agoDisease was a really big problem. The history suggests there was far too much of it for gardens to make much of an impact in it. There was also a lot of horse urine to deal with too. There are a bunch of problems with cars, but I'd much rather live in one of those cities as they are today than with no cars but mountains of horse manure everywhere.
- defrost 1y agoModern New York frequently has mountains of unremoved waste whenever there's a sanitation dispute .. it's a problem that hasn't been solved. New York and London of yore had logistical challenges that could have been improved, London famously rebuilt its sewers to address the the miasma, and there are many uses for urine, horse or human, if gathered. It's more an infrastructure issue, dealing with waste, than an intrinsic failing of one mode of transport over another.
- CamouflagedKiwi 1y agoIt is exactly an intrinsic failing of one mode of transport over another, that it produces unsanitary biological waste which at scale makes life pretty unpleasant in big cities. "It's an infrastructure issue" doesn't help if the infrastructure to solve the problem didn't exist and wasn't getting built (London's sewer upgrade was built some time before the horse situation was considered critical and was primarily to address problems with human effluent).
- frereubu 1y agoAgree about the destruction for cars. "Modern buildings look really ugly" is far too broad a statement though. Apart from it being entirely subjective - there are lots of modern buildings that I love - your statement just sounds like "ugly buildings are ugly" and needs unpacking because I presume you don't mean "every single building built after 19XX is ugly".
- codethief 1y ago> Apart from it being entirely subjective Maybe not entirely. Eye-tracking studies suggest that ornaments are what attracts people's attention.
- frereubu 1y agoPeople attend to detail whatever its aesthetic value. Look at an eye tracking study of people looking at faces - of course they look at eyes and lips rather than the middle of the cheeks, but if someone had a massive, suppurating boil in the middle of their cheek you can bet that's what people would look at.
- stronglikedan 1y ago[flagged]
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- locallost 1y agoYou can make them "beautiful" (as in the eye of the beholder), but it will cost you. A lot of old buildings are beautiful because the people making them beautiful were piss poor and paid accordingly.