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what is our current architectural style called

RValu100

Is it postmodernism? Avant-gardeism? Currugated metal cladding and randomly located windowism?

 
Jan 24, 11 6:08 pm
elinor

recessionist?

Jan 24, 11 7:09 pm  · 
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headyshreddy

there is no such thing as style, just production. the question should read "what does your architecture reflect?". that being said this is a good question. post-industrial humanist. haha

Jan 24, 11 7:30 pm  · 
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beekay31

Over-consciously-subvert-a-grid-or-don't-be-cool-ism

Jan 24, 11 8:02 pm  · 
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St. George's Fields

Kwinter-Duanyist

Jan 24, 11 8:20 pm  · 
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won and done williams

contractor traditional

Jan 24, 11 8:25 pm  · 
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olaf design ninja

The i-Style


Like Duh.

Pretty soon crits will amount to " I got 82 likes on facebook so fuck you and your 33 likes bullshit"

Jan 24, 11 8:37 pm  · 
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mespellrong

that depends on what is is.

Jan 24, 11 10:35 pm  · 
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SDR

Not having a name is the goal -- meaning we're finally there ?

Jan 25, 11 12:54 am  · 
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mdler

bastardized modern

Dwellist

Jan 25, 11 2:52 am  · 
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i'd like it OK if that were true, mdler. unfortunately, dwellist is way too bold for most people!

exit wound's answer is closest to what i hear from clients, sad to say. the design goal for a project i have under construction right now was that it had to blend in with the nineteenth century storefronts that used to make up the neighborhood, i.e., it stands alone pretending it's part of something that no longer exists.

Jan 25, 11 7:51 am  · 
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mespellrong

"it stands alone pretending it's part of something that no longer exists."

You ought to publish it just so you can use that line.

Jan 25, 11 8:55 am  · 
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metal

i think we are about to leave postmodernism, or maybe have just left it.

Jan 25, 11 9:24 am  · 
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won and done williams

cool collages, wound. great point!

Jan 25, 11 1:10 pm  · 
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won and done williams

i like the juxtaposition of images. we're used to thinking of style as being teleological or at least linear (modernism begets postmodernism) when in fact the evolution is far more complex and simultaneous. i go to church in a huge english gothic pile of rocks that opened the same year the dessau bauhaus was completed the same year gaudi died. it's a nice way of looking at history that tends to work better in images than words. i think it turns the notion of zeitgeist on its ear.

i basically just said the same thing you did, so yes, i agree!

Jan 25, 11 4:57 pm  · 
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St. George's Fields

If Zeitgeist is a collage... then Landscape Urbanism is the pink-and-teal glitter glue that holds it together!

Jan 25, 11 5:10 pm  · 
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Ms Beary

postneorealcrapism (there was an archinector with that name, s/he hasn't been around in a while though)

Jan 25, 11 5:23 pm  · 
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rickyshub

i think today is all about the architecture of have's and have-not's...

have's get starchitecture.... and everyone's gotta look at its context-less egocentric creations .

and then theres the have-not's.... which is just budget architecture.... working on a serious budget and never achieving anything spectacular because of the reality of today.

and then theres everything in between.... but really, lets try to design and build some totally smart new things....

Jan 25, 11 5:41 pm  · 
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go do it

inane

Jan 25, 11 11:48 pm  · 
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citizen

Thank you, EE Wound, for posting those fantastic collages/grouped images!

Everyone, go look at them... they're very enlightening (with some gorgeous buildings to boot!) and show that the idea of historical periodization is a tough sell.

Jan 26, 11 12:08 am  · 
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plate36

just remembered a wonderful clip in "radiant city":

"hybrid neoclassical , french mansardic with all of the details wrong so it ends up looking as if it was half submerged in a hurricane starting from the second floor."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCeWCVWZbdo

Jan 26, 11 5:32 am  · 
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crave

what do you call a composition of box-like forms with each box having a different material on it?

Jan 31, 11 12:26 pm  · 
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tduds

Christmas presents.

Apr 19, 18 4:57 pm  · 
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beekay31

Hey, I've been in the Winton Guest House. Our final undergrad studio at U of M was based on this Wayzata site before it was subdivided and the guest house moved to St. Thomas. I would much rather live in the same site's Philip Johnson Davis house. And I don't even like Johnson or that example of international style, if that says anything.

http://archrecord.construction.com/news/daily/archives/080221gehry.asp

And if you're wondering what my project was, it was a replacement guest house! Hahaha! (Though we weren't allowed to demolish Gehry's.) Yay for follies!

Jan 31, 11 4:48 pm  · 
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mrbills78

Without a doubt the style for the current period is NIMBY! (Not in my back yard!).  I'm tired of hearing that a city, "historic" district, or a group of people that don't even live near a project, but live in the county, manage to stop progress.

Apr 19, 18 11:56 am  · 
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JLC-1

.

Apr 19, 18 12:07 pm  · 
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CandS

Where I'm living, I'd call it unnecessarywindowandshedroofism.

Apr 19, 18 12:44 pm  · 
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Gratuitous Clock Towers. Actually banned by zoning in a Chicago suburb and also a possibly decent name for an emo band.

Apr 19, 18 2:04 pm  · 
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Non Sequitur

is emo back in style?

Apr 19, 18 2:11 pm  · 
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CandS

I'm in Austin - many people are doing a bad job with at least (3) of the following:

-Fiber Cement Siding (of multiple orientations and spacings)
-Shed Roof(s) (think mcmansion with several separate panels, multiple heights)
-Window Placement
-Site design and "xeriscaping"
-Using real wood siding facing due south and west, unprotected
-Color Selection


Non Sequitur - I sure hope not.

Apr 19, 18 2:14 pm  · 
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I don't know man - lots of people using black brick and the darker gray fiber cement siding. Emo is probably back.

Apr 19, 18 2:19 pm  · 
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I think we have a lot of styles, but the distinction from one to the other is muted by the market pressures to not offend ANY potential customer, so we get a soft core version of international style that from the perspective of developers and investors seems safe, but it is boring. The parametric style seems to have crested and is slowly receding from favor there is still a northwest "style" and a Miami/Latin american "style" but few architects are building things big and small with a set language of design moves, details and (clutch your pearls) ornament that could define a style. 

Ando Ghery and Calatrava being some of the exceptions to the lack of a distinct style. 

 If clients, investors and architects were brave enough to pursue it we could have distinct styles but people in the academic and design criticism circles might hate it and bemoan it as a regression or an abomination.  If buildings with a set style get built and last a few years it might be recognized as a style that has a language that others could follow and build on. It is hard for our profession, that romanticizes the individual "genius" of the artist architect working alone, to accept a style in the form of a language or dogma as a legitimate expression of creativity.

Maybe our current architectural style, when people look back on it will be the Anonymous Style, belonging to no one and nowhere.

Over and OUT

Peter N


Apr 19, 18 2:22 pm  · 
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chigurh

style is obsolete 

each designer should be looking for internal interests and one or two essential core drivers which drive the execution of work.  All decisions and direction should be run through that as a filter and oftentimes the more limiting the more interesting the work....  Appearance which is inherent with style should be secondary to conceptual basis of work.  

Apr 19, 18 2:42 pm  · 
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chigurh

Conformist koolaid talk

Apr 19, 18 7:02 pm  · 
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STYLE IS EVERYTHING 

Haven't you learned anything yet?

Apr 19, 18 7:19 pm  · 
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chigurh

Local governments and associated boards are weak and feeble.

Apr 19, 18 10:52 pm  · 
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chigurh

It sounds like you are weak government sympathizer, pull up your big boy avant garde pants and join the revolution: styleless architecture driven by intellectual pursuit and eternal life.

Apr 20, 18 12:09 am  · 
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randomised

I'd say the current "style" is whataboutism

Apr 20, 18 3:45 am  · 
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Volunteer

Traditional transitional (or transitional traditional).

Apr 20, 18 3:51 pm  · 
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Non Sequitur

Idontgiveafuckional?

Apr 20, 18 3:52 pm  · 
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Marketecture.

Apr 20, 18 8:11 pm  · 
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OneLostArchitect

erectile dysfunctions 

Apr 21, 18 12:09 am  · 
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TIQM

style is just language.  we should be much more concerned about what we are saying than how we are saying it.

Apr 21, 18 11:52 pm  · 
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TIQM

and a corollary:  we need to make sure that we select languages that are capable of communicating what we want to say.

Apr 21, 18 11:57 pm  · 
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WhistleBlower

I thought about this when looking at the Apple Store in Chicago. It's so refined, slick, effortless (yet very strenuous) simplicity. So, I don't know what our period is...however in the future, our period will be seen as dated, old-fashioned. Thus I wonder: What will the next style be like? 

Apr 22, 18 3:23 am  · 
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