Good stuff. Neotraditionalists are some of my least favourite people for many reasons but not least of which because they are somehow able to both astutely observe that the modern world is shit, but completely miss the mark on articulating why that is, or what should be done about it. This (the article) is a solid take. Wish it was longer though. This is a really important topic.
Donna Sink
Mar 10, 24 10:36 pm
Agreed. It's way deeper than appearance!
natematt
Mar 11, 24 5:59 pm
Yeah, for the first couple paragraphs I expected this to descend into Justin Shubow territory, and it really didn't. Can't say I have any real thing to disagree with him on, it feels like a solid take
. I am curious if he wrote a longer article where it would have gone though.
TIQM
Mar 13, 24 11:50 pm
It seems that a lot of us, from a spectrum of philosophical points of view, acknowledge that there’s something wrong with how we have been creating our built environment. Time for genuine curiosity into why we all rightly sense this to be true.
archanonymous
Mar 11, 24 7:19 am
Fighting this as an architect (even if only on your own, individual projects) feels like a truly Sisyphean task.
TIQM
Mar 13, 24 11:51 pm
Check your premises. Ask yourself what is wrong, and seek alternate perspectives.
Volunteer
Mar 11, 24 7:34 am
The Theater des Champs-Elysees borrows quite a bit from Baron Hausmann's reconstruction of Paris which was completed about fifty years earlier. It would have been even better had it borrowed more. The Benaroya Hall in Seattle is unfortunate.
gwharton
Mar 11, 24 1:29 pm
The number one reason why all of the things the author of the original piece hates have happened is credit inflation. There are certainly other reasons too, but that's by far the main one. You can't create or save value if credit finance is constantly strip-mining all of that value away into ever-expanding debt structures.
x-jla
Mar 11, 24 3:33 pm
Like in politics, “the machine” controls through an illusion of choice. The built environment and our economic system in general is not that different. At every rung of the ladder, from the developer to the architect to the consumer, a narrow set of choices render an outcome that is always favorable to “the machine”. If large stone monuments were favorable to the machine, as they were to the Roman machine, we would get them. We can’t affect deep material change within the machine, and we always materially exist in one machine or another, so the only gate to true freedom is through the immaterial aspects of our existence. The hippies tapped into this, which is why they were considered such a major threat. Taking that as an example, SF in the late 60’s wasn’t materially transformed in a brick and mortar way, but it was transformed. I believe what our culture currently lacks is that ability to seek immaterial solutions.
x-jla
Mar 11, 24 4:15 pm
In other words, you can transform a prison by changing the layout and materials,
x-jla
Mar 11, 24 4:21 pm
*but it’s still a prison. The only way to change the experience of a prison, which is all that really matters, is to change the mindset and perspective of the inhabitants. So point is, getting hung up on materialistic solutions is not going to solve any of the deeper dissatisfactions our culture is experiencing. There are no material solutions to immaterial deficiencies.
I.M. Krazy
Mar 17, 24 9:28 pm
This is some next-level stuff ... hard to believe any modern architect of today would have thought to think this way. Most are just corporate mindless mules, the kind of dreck I'm glad I never worked for except a couple years and avoid at all costs still until this day.
Non Sequitur
Mar 11, 24 4:13 pm
I can't wait for a subscription premium in order to use the settings 2 through 5 on my toaster. Sure... 1 and 6 are free but the others are an extra, monthly, charge.
Donna Sink
Mar 11, 24 7:39 pm
This is the direction everything is going, isn’t it? We’re all renters.
bowling_ball
Mar 11, 24 8:10 pm
I just read that Chuck E. Cheese is rolling out a subscription model. I wish I was making that up.
Almosthip
Mar 12, 24 1:43 pm
Wendy's is starting dynamic pricing, or surge pricing. WTF
archanonymous
Mar 12, 24 3:01 pm
They are now shipping bicycles with pre-installed components you need to pay to unlock. It's a fucking bicycle.
midlander
Mar 12, 24 6:09 pm
you could always get the ad based version and sit through 90 seconds of brain depleting promotions before the toasting starts.
Chad Miller
Mar 12, 24 6:27 pm
Got a link for that bicycle archanonymous? I'm curious.
archanonymous
Mar 13, 24 6:22 am
I'm not seeing it since I'm searching from outside the US. But Cannondale was selling some road bikes with the Power2Max power meter pre-installed but non-functional until you paid a $500 "unlock" fee.
JLC-1
Mar 12, 24 4:38 pm
there's been 2 worldwide wars and several armed conflicts in the last 100 years that have altered the course of all the economies and their purpose, priorities have shifted towards a feudal model pre-1800 with robber barons, bureaucrats and peasants all working to fulfill whatever life the market tells them to. and then there's the outsiders, all of those who want to be there and belong.
Cosmos
Mar 18, 24 8:39 pm
I do not think Architecture has always been for the “people”, but rather just buildings for people. The great cathedrals of the 13th century were by the church, which had most control of the people’s mind due to the high rate of illiteracy. In the early 20th century, with communism plaguing the minds of many, artist were exploring individualism rather than collectivism resulting to a slow departure from antiquated classicism and romanticism styles. Eventually modernism started to flourish in seek of some new style for the people. But due to the beauty of individualism, while departing from the monarchy and communist establishments, it allowed for the free-market to flourish with capitalism. With capitalism greed and power has taken control of almost everything today, resulting to the current lifestyles particularly with the buildings we live in and visit for some bourgeois event such as a symphony. Architects know good design because most of us are taught with the ideals of the Beaux-Arts (even today), but we do not know how to fit it in in today’s industry. I declare that Architects should build their own designs if we want to start making a difference in the future of the built fabric.
A World Nobody Wants
GodDAMMIT this is good!
.
Urbicide
Good stuff. Neotraditionalists are some of my least favourite people for many reasons but not least of which because they are somehow able to both astutely observe that the modern world is shit, but completely miss the mark on articulating why that is, or what should be done about it. This (the article) is a solid take. Wish it was longer though. This is a really important topic.
Agreed. It's way deeper than appearance!
Yeah, for the first couple paragraphs I expected this to descend into Justin Shubow territory, and it really didn't. Can't say I have any real thing to disagree with him on, it feels like a solid take . I am curious if he wrote a longer article where it would have gone though.
It seems that a lot of us, from a spectrum of philosophical points of view, acknowledge that there’s something wrong with how we have been creating our built environment. Time for genuine curiosity into why we all rightly sense this to be true.
Fighting this as an architect (even if only on your own, individual projects) feels like a truly Sisyphean task.
Check your premises. Ask yourself what is wrong, and seek alternate perspectives.
The Theater des Champs-Elysees borrows quite a bit from Baron Hausmann's reconstruction of Paris which was completed about fifty years earlier. It would have been even better had it borrowed more. The Benaroya Hall in Seattle is unfortunate.
The number one reason why all of the things the author of the original piece hates have happened is credit inflation. There are certainly other reasons too, but that's by far the main one. You can't create or save value if credit finance is constantly strip-mining all of that value away into ever-expanding debt structures.
Like in politics, “the machine” controls through an illusion of choice. The built environment and our economic system in general is not that different. At every rung of the ladder, from the developer to the architect to the consumer, a narrow set of choices render an outcome that is always favorable to “the machine”. If large stone monuments were favorable to the machine, as they were to the Roman machine, we would get them. We can’t affect deep material change within the machine, and we always materially exist in one machine or another, so the only gate to true freedom is through the immaterial aspects of our existence. The hippies tapped into this, which is why they were considered such a major threat. Taking that as an example, SF in the late 60’s wasn’t materially transformed in a brick and mortar way, but it was transformed. I believe what our culture currently lacks is that ability to seek immaterial solutions.
In other words, you can transform a prison by changing the layout and materials,
*but it’s still a prison. The only way to change the experience of a prison, which is all that really matters, is to change the mindset and perspective of the inhabitants. So point is, getting hung up on materialistic solutions is not going to solve any of the deeper dissatisfactions our culture is experiencing. There are no material solutions to immaterial deficiencies.
This is some next-level stuff ... hard to believe any modern architect of today would have thought to think this way. Most are just corporate mindless mules, the kind of dreck I'm glad I never worked for except a couple years and avoid at all costs still until this day.
I can't wait for a subscription premium in order to use the settings 2 through 5 on my toaster. Sure... 1 and 6 are free but the others are an extra, monthly, charge.
This is the direction everything is going, isn’t it? We’re all renters.
I just read that Chuck E. Cheese is rolling out a subscription model. I wish I was making that up.
Wendy's is starting dynamic pricing, or surge pricing. WTF
They are now shipping bicycles with pre-installed components you need to pay to unlock. It's a fucking bicycle.
you could always get the ad based version and sit through 90 seconds of brain depleting promotions before the toasting starts.
Got a link for that bicycle archanonymous? I'm curious.
I'm not seeing it since I'm searching from outside the US. But Cannondale was selling some road bikes with the Power2Max power meter pre-installed but non-functional until you paid a $500 "unlock" fee.
there's been 2 worldwide wars and several armed conflicts in the last 100 years that have altered the course of all the economies and their purpose, priorities have shifted towards a feudal model pre-1800 with robber barons, bureaucrats and peasants all working to fulfill whatever life the market tells them to. and then there's the outsiders, all of those who want to be there and belong.
I do not think Architecture has always been for the “people”, but rather just buildings for people. The great cathedrals of the 13th century were by the church, which had most control of the people’s mind due to the high rate of illiteracy. In the early 20th century, with communism plaguing the minds of many, artist were exploring individualism rather than collectivism resulting to a slow departure from antiquated classicism and romanticism styles. Eventually modernism started to flourish in seek of some new style for the people. But due to the beauty of individualism, while departing from the monarchy and communist establishments, it allowed for the free-market to flourish with capitalism. With capitalism greed and power has taken control of almost everything today, resulting to the current lifestyles particularly with the buildings we live in and visit for some bourgeois event such as a symphony. Architects know good design because most of us are taught with the ideals of the Beaux-Arts (even today), but we do not know how to fit it in in today’s industry. I declare that Architects should build their own designs if we want to start making a difference in the future of the built fabric.