but the sad reality is that those buildings will not last. how can they? They have no meaning outside of the present. They have no language, no way to communicate outside of a specific context. What wasted potential, for the majority of viewers they will simply be a novelty or else just noise.
They do have a language, it is just different than the architectural language that was used 80 years ago. Our mass transportation systems have changed quite a bit over the last 80 years, should we go back to horse and buggies?
what? are you sure you're not arguing just for the sake of arguing? is this just some sort of wannabe pseudo-intellectual cry for attention? i think you should go to a mechanic website and argue with them on how to fix an engine.
Nice, they only have a wink-and-nod language shared among a specific class of people.
Architecture used to be something enjoyed by everyone, but now only by the cultural elite. Notice that its only celebrities and artists who live in modern homes.
A few people I know think you're a blowhard. Since everyone thinks you're full of it (as I have previously proven) you should probably go crawl back under your rock.
no it's not suri. i really don't think you have any clue what you're talking about.
"but the sad reality is that those buildings will not last. how can they? They have no meaning outside of the present."
that's the same for the parthenon or or the nostalgic sears homes we look back on. nothing lasts forever. nothing. the parthenon is and was a symbol of it's time. it was blown up 1687 and currently has steel lintels holding up pieces that would otherwise fall on the tourists. it's not what it used to be. some structures, like the say the pyramids, will last a lot longer than others, like the ticky tacky strip mall you seem to not like. still, some of the great stone churches that might be considered great architecture took literally generations to build, and that ticky tacky strip mall wen up in less than a month. the retail outlets in that strip mall didn't want to wait generations to have a place to sell their goods.
there is clearly a style of architecture you that you like, and a style of architecture that you don't like. you seem to think your opinion is held but a lot of other people. i don't know where you got that idea from. i think it's fairly evident that the people who are actually building your environment do not hold your opinion. that's not just us as architects, it's the people who live in buildings, the business owners who operate out of buildings, the developers who develop the land buildings go on, the bankers or investors who finance the construction, etc.
i think the previous posts asking you to draw a few "traditional" details were so you could communicate what you mean by "traditional." as it is, it seems like you don't even know what it is you don't like. you're just venting.
curtkram, my town is full of buildings that were simply factories and warehouses that have lasted 100 years and are commanding some of the highest rents in the city. City halls and high schools don't even last that long any more.
Architecture used to be something enjoyed by everyone, but now only by the cultural elite.
i still think this is a pointless conversation, since suri has already decided we’re all wrong.
but this statement shouldn’t go un-remarked. architecture was NOT always something enjoyed by everyone. church-goers, maybe, got to enjoy nice work, but generally architecture was for non-public uses for the wealthy. did the slaves enjoy monticello? did the folks displaced from their hovels in middle-manhattan love the follies designed by calvert vaux?
architecture is much MORE accessible now than at any time in history. schinkel’s altes museum was among the early non-religious public buildings ‘for the people’ in the 19thc and, since then, we’ve had more and more examples of work designed for the public at large. the public actually has input more than ever before, whether as user-groups, clients, neighborhood groups or architectural review boards, regular folks have a voice.
likely, unless you were very wealthy, held public office, or sported a fancy blueblood title, no one would have cared what you thought in the 1500s, 1740s, 1830s or 1910. but now you can hire your own architect, you can volunteer to participate on a board, or you can successfully protest the construction of a new school.
to my point: the warehouses and factories you cite weren't designed to be enjoyed by their users. they were designed to be utilitarian and modern. and maybe to present some attractive features to the important people walking by. the workers certainly wouldn't have 'enjoyed' their architectural features all that much.
Architecture used to be something enjoyed by everyone, but now only by the cultural elite. Notice that its only celebrities and artists who live in modern homes.
Architecture has always been exclusively for the rich. Style only reflects prevailing attitudes and customs. Why so much energy debating an obvious troll?
the double-T panel goes up a lot faster than brick, and it's solid concrete, so i'm sure it will have that timeless quality. it's not just a flat box like a walmart either, so i would definitely consider the facade to have ornament. these are great traditional buildings:
curtkram, how can you say that a factory worker wouldn't enjoy the architecture of the building he worked in? Certainly he would take pride in it, just as we take pride in the buildings where we work today. And the idea that pre modernist art was just for the elite and modernism changed all that, what a bad joke, that is part of the false narrative of modernism. A truer and more exclusive form of elitism has never existed than modern art.
All accounts of the past show that the common man was a great lover of arts and culture, regardless of the fact that he took no part in their development.
As for the last industrial building you show....are you being serious? Has the bar really been set that low and that is what you consider ornament?
gruen, i think if you talk to more people outside of your architectural circle you might find that they do understand and have opinions on the world they inhabit, and they will tell you that they haven't seen a building built in the last 80s years that truly inspires them or that they would care if it was torn down tomorrow and replaced.
Oh Lordy. *facepalm* NOW I see where I've gone wrong. I should be talking to people instead of hiding in my room and masturbating to glossy magazines of naked architecture.
All accounts of the past show that the common man was a great lover of arts and culture, regardless of the fact that he took no part in their development.
As is common with trolls, this is a broad brush statement with no basis in any quantifiable evidence.
you live at the walker art museum! pretty nice, indeed.
if you're uncomfortable there, just venture iver to the nicollet mall, or just across to loring park. plenty of *actual* old buildings there that should suit you fine. why create NEW old buildings?
Well, some modern architecture is magnificent. Jorn Utzon's Sydney Opera House defines a continent. However much of today's architecture is rubbish. Go back and look at the fawning praise archiects lavished on Pruitt Igoe when it was first completed. Very similar to the praise heaped on Frank Gehry's MIT buildings today. One can only hope the Pruitt Igoe denoument comes sooner rather than later for the MIT structures.
Because old buildings keep disappearing Steve. Minneapolis was absolutely decimated in the 1960s, half of the city's 'gateway district' raised to the ground, including the metropolitan building that had 90% occupancy when it was condemned and destroyed for some modern b.s. to be put in its place.
Suri..have you ever experienced some of these stone and block ancient relics you profess your love for? They are dark, dank dungeons with lipstick on the outside. Yes, they have survived 600 years..but look at what you have to do to them to make them livable. Oh, and lets look at the environmental aspect of building all these new traditional houses out of these long lasting materials.
I picture you walking around every weekend at renaissance faires, gnawing on a turkey leg, drinking from a pimp goblet, draped in velvet and baggy wool tights...hopelessly dreaming of the days or yore..."Milady...show me kind gesture for jousting in thy honour.."
sometimes buildings get torn down because when they get old, they become unsafe and get condemned. the new buildings that replace them tend to reflect real life, technology, and best practices at that time. we now have steel and elevators and ADA regulations that just weren't around in the past you remember than never existed
Kevin, like I said I have nothing against modern building techniques. build with a steel frame and curtain wall, certainly. But do it like the cathedral of learning in pittsburg.
It wasn't a religious building, it was a public university. This is the quote the chancellor has regarding its design. "The building was to be more than a schoolhouse; it was to be a symbol of the life that Pittsburgh through the years had wanted to live. It was to make visible something of the spirit that was in the hearts of pioneers as, long ago, they sat in their log cabins and thought by candlelight of the great city that would sometime spread out beyond their three rivers and that even they were starting to build."
THAT'S your example? What a horrible building. There is more arrogance and lies in that building than just about anything built today. The waste of materials, the complete disregard for human scale...the list is a long one. You keep showing us huge, massive examples of wasteful displays of arrogance.
I am dissatisfied with modern design in general menona, but most so in regards to architecture, being we have so many reminders all around us of what it once was and what it could be.
So in other words Kevin, its too grand for little old us huh? We are unworthy to be witness to a structure so magnificent. How dare we build ourselves a god and idol. That's what it sounds like you are saying. The sack-cloth and ashes bit.
Ohhhh I understand now. I think he is confused because he probably calls himself a "software architect"
I just don't understand why everyone is debating this guy - stop engaging. He clearly doesn't know what he is talking about but is convinced that he knows more than all of us about the way architecture is created. It's just argument for the sake of argument. He also seems to think that we should all be living in some sort of ancient utopia made of all limestone buildings clad in gold. Maybe an architect broke his heart and he is just bitter towards the industry?
We are worthy something much better than that. Something appropriate to time and place, something integral, not an over the top, bloated monument looking backwards.
You mean like the Shard (or shart as most people like to call it) in london? Big, over the top, in your face, dominates the landscape, and ugly as sin to boot.
If architects are willing to go over the top to create those carnival show buildings that no one wants, then why wont they go over the top for something magnificent, something that the public would truly love?
no, we are saying it is irrelevant to today's society, and you're the only one in society who is telling us otherwise. at some point it may dawn on you that you happen to have bad taste.
there is hope though. citizen kane didn't build xanadu because that's what society wanted. he built it because he was crazy rich. go get crazy rich, then you get to tell other people what to do. telling well educated people who studied architectural history that their opinions on architecture history are dumb is not the right way to go about that.
Your example is just as much of a folly as the contemporary ones you offer. You assume I love everything new. I don't. I am not into the parametric stuff designed for forms sake, and little else, and it trying to be identified as organic, ... for example.
Why won't you design what we (the public) want?
but the sad reality is that those buildings will not last. how can they? They have no meaning outside of the present. They have no language, no way to communicate outside of a specific context. What wasted potential, for the majority of viewers they will simply be a novelty or else just noise.
They do have a language, it is just different than the architectural language that was used 80 years ago. Our mass transportation systems have changed quite a bit over the last 80 years, should we go back to horse and buggies?
what? are you sure you're not arguing just for the sake of arguing? is this just some sort of wannabe pseudo-intellectual cry for attention? i think you should go to a mechanic website and argue with them on how to fix an engine.
Nice, they only have a wink-and-nod language shared among a specific class of people.
Architecture used to be something enjoyed by everyone, but now only by the cultural elite. Notice that its only celebrities and artists who live in modern homes.
It is a legitimate frustration shared by many people cutkram, don't act like you weren't unaware of it until now.
At least you offer concrete evidence to back up your argument....
A few people I know think you're a blowhard. Since everyone thinks you're full of it (as I have previously proven) you should probably go crawl back under your rock.
no it's not suri. i really don't think you have any clue what you're talking about.
"but the sad reality is that those buildings will not last. how can they? They have no meaning outside of the present."
that's the same for the parthenon or or the nostalgic sears homes we look back on. nothing lasts forever. nothing. the parthenon is and was a symbol of it's time. it was blown up 1687 and currently has steel lintels holding up pieces that would otherwise fall on the tourists. it's not what it used to be. some structures, like the say the pyramids, will last a lot longer than others, like the ticky tacky strip mall you seem to not like. still, some of the great stone churches that might be considered great architecture took literally generations to build, and that ticky tacky strip mall wen up in less than a month. the retail outlets in that strip mall didn't want to wait generations to have a place to sell their goods.
there is clearly a style of architecture you that you like, and a style of architecture that you don't like. you seem to think your opinion is held but a lot of other people. i don't know where you got that idea from. i think it's fairly evident that the people who are actually building your environment do not hold your opinion. that's not just us as architects, it's the people who live in buildings, the business owners who operate out of buildings, the developers who develop the land buildings go on, the bankers or investors who finance the construction, etc.
i think the previous posts asking you to draw a few "traditional" details were so you could communicate what you mean by "traditional." as it is, it seems like you don't even know what it is you don't like. you're just venting.
curtkram, my town is full of buildings that were simply factories and warehouses that have lasted 100 years and are commanding some of the highest rents in the city. City halls and high schools don't even last that long any more.
I havent read all the posts above.... but this book is both entertaining and relevant:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_Bauhaus_to_Our_House
so developers should pay for more warehouses and architects should design more warehouses?
Architecture used to be something enjoyed by everyone, but now only by the cultural elite.
i still think this is a pointless conversation, since suri has already decided we’re all wrong.
but this statement shouldn’t go un-remarked. architecture was NOT always something enjoyed by everyone. church-goers, maybe, got to enjoy nice work, but generally architecture was for non-public uses for the wealthy. did the slaves enjoy monticello? did the folks displaced from their hovels in middle-manhattan love the follies designed by calvert vaux?
architecture is much MORE accessible now than at any time in history. schinkel’s altes museum was among the early non-religious public buildings ‘for the people’ in the 19thc and, since then, we’ve had more and more examples of work designed for the public at large. the public actually has input more than ever before, whether as user-groups, clients, neighborhood groups or architectural review boards, regular folks have a voice.
likely, unless you were very wealthy, held public office, or sported a fancy blueblood title, no one would have cared what you thought in the 1500s, 1740s, 1830s or 1910. but now you can hire your own architect, you can volunteer to participate on a board, or you can successfully protest the construction of a new school.
to my point: the warehouses and factories you cite weren't designed to be enjoyed by their users. they were designed to be utilitarian and modern. and maybe to present some attractive features to the important people walking by. the workers certainly wouldn't have 'enjoyed' their architectural features all that much.
Architecture used to be something enjoyed by everyone, but now only by the cultural elite. Notice that its only celebrities and artists who live in modern homes.
Architecture has always been exclusively for the rich. Style only reflects prevailing attitudes and customs. Why so much energy debating an obvious troll?
the double-T panel goes up a lot faster than brick, and it's solid concrete, so i'm sure it will have that timeless quality. it's not just a flat box like a walmart either, so i would definitely consider the facade to have ornament. these are great traditional buildings:
Thanks shuellmi, that sounds like a great book, ill definitely look for a copy.
curtkram, how can you say that a factory worker wouldn't enjoy the architecture of the building he worked in? Certainly he would take pride in it, just as we take pride in the buildings where we work today. And the idea that pre modernist art was just for the elite and modernism changed all that, what a bad joke, that is part of the false narrative of modernism. A truer and more exclusive form of elitism has never existed than modern art.
All accounts of the past show that the common man was a great lover of arts and culture, regardless of the fact that he took no part in their development.
As for the last industrial building you show....are you being serious? Has the bar really been set that low and that is what you consider ornament?
gruen, i think if you talk to more people outside of your architectural circle you might find that they do understand and have opinions on the world they inhabit, and they will tell you that they haven't seen a building built in the last 80s years that truly inspires them or that they would care if it was torn down tomorrow and replaced.
What do you do for a living surixurient?
He charges unwary goats a nominal fee for crossing his bridge.
I write software, feel free to offer criticism.
thats a first good step gruen
you're romanticizing a past that never existed. the world you live in today isn't all that bad.
It's pretty bad curtkram http://bossypally.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/big-giant-spoon.jpg
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/24/arts/design/amsterdams-new-stedelijk-museum.html?_r=0
These are the kind of gifts so graciously bestowed on us humble common folk by the gracious benefactors of art and culture.
LOL, Sneaky Pete!!
All accounts of the past show that the common man was a great lover of arts and culture, regardless of the fact that he took no part in their development.
As is common with trolls, this is a broad brush statement with no basis in any quantifiable evidence.
you live at the walker art museum! pretty nice, indeed.
if you're uncomfortable there, just venture iver to the nicollet mall, or just across to loring park. plenty of *actual* old buildings there that should suit you fine. why create NEW old buildings?
As evidenced by the popularity of Shakespeare, and other playwrights throughout history.
Well, some modern architecture is magnificent. Jorn Utzon's Sydney Opera House defines a continent. However much of today's architecture is rubbish. Go back and look at the fawning praise archiects lavished on Pruitt Igoe when it was first completed. Very similar to the praise heaped on Frank Gehry's MIT buildings today. One can only hope the Pruitt Igoe denoument comes sooner rather than later for the MIT structures.
Because old buildings keep disappearing Steve. Minneapolis was absolutely decimated in the 1960s, half of the city's 'gateway district' raised to the ground, including the metropolitan building that had 90% occupancy when it was condemned and destroyed for some modern b.s. to be put in its place.
http://images.quickblogcast.com/7/9/8/0/8/191600-180897/2008Metropolitan.jpg?a=87
Here's hoping volunteer. Frank Gehry is a fine example of the emperor's new clothes parable.
Suri..have you ever experienced some of these stone and block ancient relics you profess your love for? They are dark, dank dungeons with lipstick on the outside. Yes, they have survived 600 years..but look at what you have to do to them to make them livable. Oh, and lets look at the environmental aspect of building all these new traditional houses out of these long lasting materials.
I picture you walking around every weekend at renaissance faires, gnawing on a turkey leg, drinking from a pimp goblet, draped in velvet and baggy wool tights...hopelessly dreaming of the days or yore..."Milady...show me kind gesture for jousting in thy honour.."
you're still romanticizing a past that never existed. this might give you an idea of what that actually looked like:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2155742/Hell-lid-taken-The-pictures-bygone-Pittsburgh-residents-choking-clouds-smog.html
sometimes buildings get torn down because when they get old, they become unsafe and get condemned. the new buildings that replace them tend to reflect real life, technology, and best practices at that time. we now have steel and elevators and ADA regulations that just weren't around in the past you remember than never existed
Kevin, like I said I have nothing against modern building techniques. build with a steel frame and curtain wall, certainly. But do it like the cathedral of learning in pittsburg.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/3f/One_of_doors_of_Cathedral_of_Learning.JPG/450px-One_of_doors_of_Cathedral_of_Learning.JPG
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8b/Cathedral_of_Learning-TJG.jpg/401px-Cathedral_of_Learning-TJG.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fa/CoLCommonsRoomUPitt.jpg/800px-CoLCommonsRoomUPitt.jpg
Only God commissions buildings like that, suri.
surixurient,
What kind of phone do you own?
What kind of car do you drive?
What do they look like?
It wasn't a religious building, it was a public university. This is the quote the chancellor has regarding its design. "The building was to be more than a schoolhouse; it was to be a symbol of the life that Pittsburgh through the years had wanted to live. It was to make visible something of the spirit that was in the hearts of pioneers as, long ago, they sat in their log cabins and thought by candlelight of the great city that would sometime spread out beyond their three rivers and that even they were starting to build."
THAT'S your example? What a horrible building. There is more arrogance and lies in that building than just about anything built today. The waste of materials, the complete disregard for human scale...the list is a long one. You keep showing us huge, massive examples of wasteful displays of arrogance.
I am dissatisfied with modern design in general menona, but most so in regards to architecture, being we have so many reminders all around us of what it once was and what it could be.
So in other words Kevin, its too grand for little old us huh? We are unworthy to be witness to a structure so magnificent. How dare we build ourselves a god and idol. That's what it sounds like you are saying. The sack-cloth and ashes bit.
Ohhhh I understand now. I think he is confused because he probably calls himself a "software architect"
I just don't understand why everyone is debating this guy - stop engaging. He clearly doesn't know what he is talking about but is convinced that he knows more than all of us about the way architecture is created. It's just argument for the sake of argument. He also seems to think that we should all be living in some sort of ancient utopia made of all limestone buildings clad in gold. Maybe an architect broke his heart and he is just bitter towards the industry?
This thread is depressing. I'm moving on.
Miles, that idea you have about a ten post minimum is looking very attractive.
We are worthy something much better than that. Something appropriate to time and place, something integral, not an over the top, bloated monument looking backwards.
You mean like the Shard (or shart as most people like to call it) in london? Big, over the top, in your face, dominates the landscape, and ugly as sin to boot.
Or how about the gigantic bath tub I posted earlier?
If architects are willing to go over the top to create those carnival show buildings that no one wants, then why wont they go over the top for something magnificent, something that the public would truly love?
It sounds like most of you are rejecting traditional architecture as being relevant to today's society, and society disagrees.
no, we are saying it is irrelevant to today's society, and you're the only one in society who is telling us otherwise. at some point it may dawn on you that you happen to have bad taste.
there is hope though. citizen kane didn't build xanadu because that's what society wanted. he built it because he was crazy rich. go get crazy rich, then you get to tell other people what to do. telling well educated people who studied architectural history that their opinions on architecture history are dumb is not the right way to go about that.
Your example is just as much of a folly as the contemporary ones you offer. You assume I love everything new. I don't. I am not into the parametric stuff designed for forms sake, and little else, and it trying to be identified as organic, ... for example.
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