actually it answered the inevitable point you were going to make after I answered. Which is 'why do you use a modern design of a phone and car instead of a traditional one?' So I answered it in advance.
curtkram, we don't need wikipedia to look at the images of the nazi buildings and see that they are modern architecture. Sure you can call them neoclassicism executed as modern architecture, but the fact that they are modern trumps the fact that they have columns, entabletures, and classical ratios. I guess it was post modern before you all picked it up, so when you stick traditional elements into your modern designs you are basically copying the nazis. (to use your own argument against you)
if you want better design, hire an architect. duh.
you're defining "modern architecture" as stuff you don't like, and "traditional design" as stuff you do like. since you're not supposed to like nazi's, you decided to lump them in with the first category.
anyway, godwin's law has been invoked. the best course of action would be for you to either learn, or leave, but i think we all know you're incapable of the former and won't choose the latter.
The best one non sequitur, the one etched across the face of the world, in every city older than 100 years. Its more of a popup book, in 1:1 scale. But to really answer your question, yes I often read books on architecture, but ones on google books found with these search parameters https://www.google.com/search?q=architecture&tbm=bks&tbs=cdr:1,cd_min:0,cd_max:1920 (that weeds out what i'm not interested in).
I think a wood and brass phone is too modern, I am sure people lost their minds when that leftist devil's box made its entrance in an otherwise, perfect society. I think our good friend Suri still relies on a well crafted quilt and smoky camp fire to communicate his excellent opinions. How those smoke signals transfer to barely intelligent internet posts... well, that's a mystery.
Suri, let's pretend you actually understand something for a second. That wiki quote earlier came from this book: Hitler's State Architecture: The Impact of Classical Antiquity
Seeing as your quote was but an exurpt from the book, here is another... it is from the same book's abstract.
"We see that "neoclassical" state architecture in Nazi Germany was intended to signify more than stability and the persistence of tradition. It was only one aspect of the Nazi attempt to re-create a "pagan" totalitarian state based on clearly defined forms of hierarchy that divided society into slaves and slave-owners, those with and those without human rights."
I already addressed that non sequitur, that I do not consider neoclassicism executed as modern architecture to be the neoclassicism that I am talking about. Sorry if that wasn't clear, that I am completely not interested in sticking columns and cornice onto modern designs, that is not want I want to happen.
they didn't often build with reinforced concrete or concrete block in the 1880s. also, most architecture in the 1880's wasn't designed with the intent of surviving being bombed by the british. i would think that the capitals and bases on the columns would suggest neoclassicism rather than modernism.
i'm pretty sure that's not an expensive civic structure. the lack of applied ornament you seem to like so much was probably omitted due to time and budget constraints.
Anyways, thanks for the conversation folks, I'm sure we are none the better for it, but it was fun. At least now you know that I (and most people I have talked to about architecture) feel this way and I have confirmed my suspicions on how you feel.
I do not consider neoclassicism executed as modern architecture to be the neoclassicism that I am talking about.
Of course you don't. Because that would require re-thinking the conclusion you've already drawn despite loads of evidence to the contrary, offered by people who actually know about the topic.
I've enjoyed hearing us architects talk about all this stuff, so suxi has given us a nice diversion. It's just sad that he's such a crystallized example of all that's wrong in public discourse about any topic these days. Facts are facts, despite how much people want to ignore them.
Well looking at photos of Third Reich architecture that actually got built it seems to me to be much more of the International Style than anythng else. I am sure modernists do not want to be involved with a style favored by the Third Reich but I really don't see how you can deny it.
It appears that surixurient either ran out of crack, passed out from sheer exhaustion or had to go back to work creating some traditional software architecture.
The answer to your original question "Why won't you design what we (the public) want?" is actually quite simple: You "the public" aren't paying for it. If you want the built environment to reflect your personal aesthetic, quit bitching and get in the game. Otherwise, the quirks of your personal opinion don't matter to me in the slightest.
Not having read through this entire thread - I'll attempted to answer the original question. People generally like buildings and, more importantly, urban form that was built before auto-centric infrastructure was codified by law. What you (and everyone else) dislikes is the resultant built environment that favors throw-away iconographic architecture meant to be experienced while moving at highway speeds or in marketing brochures for tourists or potential clients/tenants/etc. It's all very 2-dimensional - even the stuff that looks vaguely "traditional." What you like are buildings that were built when the fastest thing on the road was a horse or a bicycle.
On which sidewalk would you rather walk to work and under which building would you rather stop to enjoy your lunch? It makes you wonder whom the architects who designed that museum had in mind, the people in the neighborhood or someone looking at it in a pamphlet for their fundraising drive.
Its not off 94, 94 is tunneled underneath down town. Those modern buildings are not designed to be enjoyed from along side them, all you see from that perspective is an amorphous plane rising up beside you, there is nothing to catch your eye, nothing to see. While modern buildings partition the environment with their cold sterile surfaces, traditional buildings are part of the environment, their sidewalk-visible lines, patterns, details and decorations are weighing on the viewers psyche and contributing to the essence of the place. Is it any wonder the public prefers detail and ornament to minimalism? A 'busy' or 'fusy' building (terms you architects love to denigrate traditional facades with) are not so busy from 6 feet away.
I am asking you as the experts of the field, why won't you build what we want, traditional architecture, and build it excellently.
You're asking in the wrong forum. You need to go over to the client forum and ask over there why no one wants to pay for traditional architecture anymore.
Remember architecture is a service profession, put your money where your mouth is and hire someone to do good historicist architecture.
The National Cathedral in Washington DC was done this way. Some folks liked the idea of that style and ponied up the cash. And it only took 80 yrs to build...
The recently completed Whitman College at Princeton is an example of Collegiate Gothic architecture. Oddly enough neo-Gothic made a strong comeback during the Victorian era which is why so many of the Oxford and Cambridge buildings look like they do.
I like some kinds of trad architecture but the Whitman looks like a Victorian-era prison to me.
people in these whitewashed cities are fundamentally displeased (nowadays or always (haven't existed since then)) and architecture is only part of it. that miserable protestant ethic. we will look at classical architecture and feel miserable and lacking, deracinated...derooted. we look at at contemporary architecture and feel miserable and lacking in our resistance against deracination. in reality, for people in your situation, neither "traditional" architecture nor "modern" architecture exist...but rather the unending virtual angst of not being rooted in a past and lacking a compass for the future. your heritage is povetry and your future is null, your only richesse is in the virtual (all that this solid and so on). what was that fukayama book? End of history and the last man? Yes, north america,the shores on the the final reach of history break. you are at the end of history; your puritan proginators have cleansed your psyche from a european past as they have purged the land from the amerindian rooting. seriously, what is traditional architecture for you?? it is nothing. it means nothing. it means nothing more than a scribble taught to a schoolkid, gables, a pitched roof...etc. it is the language of transferability of sameness, and not a growing enriching sense of belonging. intellectual colonialism. it means nothing. it means as much as a flyer advertising cheaper GMO tomatos and parts of cooped up chicken that spend their lives urinating on themselves. and...what is your modernism for your lot? a chance to escape...from your puritan escape. escape your escape from history. to branch off individually, it is individualism that is the dead of history after all. the individualism of these pretty but petty projects that allude to nothing but themselves. there is no more project of modernism as there is no project of neoclassicism. for the former, you need ideology. in the neoliberal world, this is dead (or dormant until such a time...). for the latter, you need consensus, even if the modes are of irony and mockery...but you need consensus. in a word of individualism, this is not possible. neither modernity you have nor tradition. what you are speaking of is what you are speaking of, its a dissociated language that hovers above...sort of like political speech but poorer yet, there is absolutely no reading between the lines.
do you know how shocking it is for a person of older islamico-christian culture (which is to say byzantio farisee) to watch anglosaxonic protestant bible reading groups making their own interpretations as they go along? jesus christ has become their harry potter andthan the other way around. suddenly, they read the bible literally. a most primitive and fundamental way of reading. in one instances, they marry the least civilized and most primitive of features ie literalism with the most ridiculous and tenuous strategies applied to the real world (for example, the christian Adventsts and their ilk with the return of jews to israel).
eh, so please don't ask why they arent following a tradition. there is none. they use tradition like they use drugs, to escape from their historical escape from tradition. they are exactly the opposite of traditional (which is not to say that they are modernist...modernism is tradition/s).
that sounds depressing tammuz. the only thing depressing about where i am right now is other people. specifically, the politicians that can't do their job, the cop that gave me a ticket for expired tags, the people in fukishima that messed up their power plant so now there is a potential to kill a billion people for no good reason, etc. there are, of course, good people too.
modernism is simple. it's freedom from sticking junk over lintels when you don't need junk over lintels. perhaps the past is rooted in nothing, perhaps it's rooted in povertey. don't care. be here now. it's a beautiful place, and there isn't anything to escape from.
suri - it's context. that crumply facade would look very interesting sandwiched between two "traditional" buildings in a high pedestrian zone with narrow streets, or maybe in a rural or semi-rural setting. in this case it's not much different from a best buy or a target (and I'm also lumping in Best Products), with the exception of some mildly interesting landscaping.
even curtkram's street view example makes the project seem not so great (long lawn in weird suburbialand?). without good landscape/urban environments, there's only so much architecture can do.
it's cars, super wide streets, and overly generous setbacks with no vegetation aside from grass that you dislike, not the architecture. We're still doing the same things architects have been doing for centuries, it's the infrastructure that has changed.
Wow. I go away to New York for a conference on classical architecture and look what bubbles out.
I think that the OP is wrong on a lot of things, most recently that Nazi classicism was actually modernism. Couldn't disagree more. Albert Speer was a very skilled classical architect, in my opinion. A monstrous human being, but a great classical architect nonetheless. This is of course the point of Krier's recently republished book - that it is very possible that great art and be appropriated in the service of evil. That Berlin and most of Europe threw the baby out with the bath water, and build acres and acres of horrible, sterile modernist concrete housing blocks to replace the bombed out classical buildings is one of the great tragedies of the post war.
However, i think the OP's main premise is absolutely true. There is a huge demand for "traditional" architecture out in the marketplace, because there are definable qualities of this kind of architecture that resonate with people and that they love. Modern architects are untrained, or unwilling, to deliver this kind of work, because they have been taught a philosophy about design that is a polar opposite of that point of view. When architects are asked to design in traditional vernacular, they do not have the philosophical or aesthetic background to deliver quality work, and thus they deliver synthetic pastiche. This is the world that the Bauhaus education has delivered us all into.
If you think you can ignore the change of meanings and intentions over time, well that in itself is a change of meaning incurred over time and your unconscientious acts necessarily committed consciously will render your work other, always, than true classical architecture. How to be conscious -and conscientious- of this to produce something that will make its own stand as an interesting building rather than an instance of an uncritical ideological stance (apropos 'bringing back' stylistic classicism) or methodological regurgitation (replicating the clasdical design principles dogmatically)?
The problem i find is that many people who talk a lot about bringing back/ following dogmatically are after an admixture of historical styles of classicism with the perceived unconsciousness of vernacular replication.
Im sure that history holds many examples of when architecture responded to the civil context, to the intentions of city makers...and other examples when they did not, when architecture and ornament became nothing but ,vernacularly, architercture and ornament, surface speaking surface, space speaking space, historical rhetoric reflecting a mainstream lifestyle unquestioned.
I dont have the time to read all the comments, but it seems like there is some hostility here to the idea that good traditional architecture can or should be designed today. There are some architects who do make that their specialty. i do have a specialty in historic preservation and contemporary traditional design, but I will design something modern if the client wants it. But I can design something traditional as well. It may be because my first career was in architectural history and historic preservation, and I thus have the background that many architects today lack.
I do see around me every day the evidence of clients wanting traditional architecture, but their architects being unsure how to do it. From fire stations, to office buildings, government buildings, retail stores or shopping centers (and, of course, houses/apartments/etc), it is obvious the client asked for a traditional design, which the architect gave his best shot at doing. Unfortunately without any training in how to do it, we get an awful lot of weak and often ugly buildings, which, to the trained eye, have been produced by someone totally uneducated and unprepared to try to accomplish something successful in that genre. This, I believe, is what part of suri's beef is, and rightfully so. The other is that he, like a great number of people (proved in numerous surveys of the public on architectural design) just plain prefers traditional design.
To my mind there should be some instruction in architecture schools on the principals of traditional design, so that these kinds of architectural disasters (ugly, uneducated traditional design) can be avoided.
"Those modern buildings are not designed to be enjoyed from along side them, all you see from that perspective is an amorphous plane rising up beside you, there is nothing to catch your eye, nothing to see. While modern buildings partition the environment with their cold sterile surfaces, traditional buildings are part of the environment, their sidewalk-visible lines, patterns, details and decorations are weighing on the viewers psyche and contributing to the essence of the place. Is it any wonder the public prefers detail and ornament to minimalism?"
This comment by the OP taps into a really important point, in my opinion. One of the big problems with most modernist architecture is that it ignores the fine scale, the scale of a few meters, i.e. "human scale". Most modernist buildings only pay attention to the largest of scales, the scale of the overall form. They are often very successful in engaging us in the realm of the very large. But as soon as you zoom in on them, the engaging qualities wash away, since there is no fine scale detail, and the architecture becomes inexpressive, mute. This is one of the most important rationales for ornament. Traditional architectures for the most part engage us at all scales, from the very large to the very small. Good classical buildings do this almost effortlessly, since this fractal quality of detail at multiple scales, and self-similarity are encoded into the language deliberately.
In this way traditional architectures emulate the fractal geometry of nature, tapping into our innate affinity for beauty in the natural world. Most modernist architectures, particularly those that fetishize technology and ignore our need to be engaged at the fine scale, fail in this arena, in my opinion.
"Most modernist buildings only pay attention to the largest of scales, the scale of the overall form."
i really don't think that this comment is true. you don't need to glue crap to a lintel to say there is a pedestrian scale. modern architecture that doesn't have the details worked out is bad design the same as traditional architecture that doesn't have the details worked out is bad design. you're pedestrian scale in modern architecture may not have as much stuff going on as traditional architecture, or it may appear simpler, but generally speaking that's a good thing.
...tapping into our innate affinity for beauty in the natural world
OK, but I can find beauty in a delicate daffodil emerging from the snow or I can find beauty in a lava flow and the subsequent barrenness of a denuded hillside. Both are valuable.
I agree. Both are valuable. But even the barren lava flow is not barren. The stringy, directional crystalline structure of the hardening rock apparent at the meter-scale reiterates the large scale structure of the flow. Self-similar detail at various scales is the key. This is what nature does.
^ He was talking about aojwny aka suri-something-or-other, the OCD traditional architecture troll.
Your comments on detail are right on. Detail and texture are scale elements that make people comfortable. Wright and Sullivan knew this, and my father rediscovered it later in his career. Of course the best of these elements - in modern architecture - are integral to the structure and design rather than applied.
Wright is actually a great example of a 20th century modern architect who understood this intuitively. Wrights work always exhibited detail at a variety of scales, and that detail was usually self-similar (i.e. the shape of the decorative patterns in the individual concrete blocks reiterates the pattern of the muntins of the windows, which reiterates the shape of the floor plan, which reiterates the site planning geometries, etc.)
Even the most minimalist of things can be human scale...the Vietnam memorial is a good example of that. Much more engaging and human scale than the ww2 memorial which is of a "traditional" language. Its not about the genre or the type of instruments, its about the music.
There is quite a large community of architects who produce quality buildings in a traditional aesthetic. Many are members of this organization: http://www.classicist.org/
While some firms aspire to a certain rigor or cannon of the classical language, there are others that study and emulate the past in a more meaningful way, learning from and building upon ways of organizing space and detailing material assemblies that have been perfected over many years. Very often these styles are quite lean in their ornament.
"Traditional" architectural languages might not be appropriate in all settings or for all tastes. A modern approach is better suited in certain instances. However, great "traditional" buildings have a tremendous amount to teach all architects (regardless of "style") about spatial organization, sequencing, general proportions, balance and attention to craft.
It's interesting to see the amount of comments this has generated. Clearly, this is still the most controversial issue out there even after 80 years. What stands out is the way modernism's most ideological defenders constantly say people are idiots who don't know what they want. Then how do they explain all those rich liberals who pay an arm and a leg for traditional architecture in our re-vitalizing cities? Another canard is that traditional architecture is reliant on expensive detailing. Maybe they should train their eyes to look at proportions and volumes rather than ornament. For example:
"It takes perhaps a more open minded person to understand and appreciate the beauty and thought behind of austerity." And classical music is for rednecks?
"It costs a lot to do it right because the world has moved on and skilled workers are less plentiful." But Frank Gehry and Zaha buildings are cheap?
There is a change happening, and it's not coincidental that it's happening on the heels of the urban revitalization. EKE nails it with the following post he previously said.
"This comment by the OP taps into a really important point, in my opinion. One of the big problems with most modernist architecture is that it ignores the fine scale, the scale of a few meters, i.e. "human scale". Most modernist buildings only pay attention to the largest of scales, the scale of the overall form. They are often very successful in engaging us in the realm of the very large. But as soon as you zoom in on them, the engaging qualities wash away, since there is no fine scale detail, and the architecture becomes inexpressive, mute. This is one of the most important rationales for ornament. Traditional architectures for the most part engage us at all scales, from the very large to the very small. Good classical buildings do this almost effortlessly, since this fractal quality of detail at multiple scales, and self-similarity are encoded into the language deliberately.
In this way traditional architectures emulate the fractal geometry of nature, tapping into our innate affinity for beauty in the natural world. Most modernist architectures, particularly those that fetishize technology and ignore our need to be engaged at the fine scale, fail in this arena, in my opinion."
In my opinion also, and in many other people's opinion. Imagine if traditional archtiecture was taught on the same footing as modernism in schools, with out any of the prejudice so evident on these pages. Imagine how many students would jump into architecture with open arms if the world they understood intuitivley actually corresponded with the one being taught at school. Why are all the constant gyrations of contemporary modernism all over the map? Becasue it's the last throes of modernism stryving for relevance. One year it's deconstructivism, then blob architecture, then parametrics. What's the next we all have to go all in on?
This change is happening, just not with some bullshit manifesto and some adolescent revolt against everything that came before. It will be a slow evolution, but it's happening.
Why won't you design what we (the public) want?
YES BUT WHAT KIND OF PHONE DO YOU HAVE???
Is it the wooden box with the bells on the front and the long, flared ear piece dangling on the side.
Clip Clop Clip Clop - toot around town in a carriage tugged along by a Horsie?
Gotta love them horsies.
I am dissatisfied with design in general, but architecture most of all being we are constantly seeing what it once was and what it could have been.
That doesn't answer the question. It's a nice deflection. But it's not an answer.
actually it answered the inevitable point you were going to make after I answered. Which is 'why do you use a modern design of a phone and car instead of a traditional one?' So I answered it in advance.
curtkram, we don't need wikipedia to look at the images of the nazi buildings and see that they are modern architecture. Sure you can call them neoclassicism executed as modern architecture, but the fact that they are modern trumps the fact that they have columns, entabletures, and classical ratios. I guess it was post modern before you all picked it up, so when you stick traditional elements into your modern designs you are basically copying the nazis. (to use your own argument against you)
if you want better design, hire an architect. duh.
you're defining "modern architecture" as stuff you don't like, and "traditional design" as stuff you do like. since you're not supposed to like nazi's, you decided to lump them in with the first category.
anyway, godwin's law has been invoked. the best course of action would be for you to either learn, or leave, but i think we all know you're incapable of the former and won't choose the latter.
The best one non sequitur, the one etched across the face of the world, in every city older than 100 years. Its more of a popup book, in 1:1 scale. But to really answer your question, yes I often read books on architecture, but ones on google books found with these search parameters https://www.google.com/search?q=architecture&tbm=bks&tbs=cdr:1,cd_min:0,cd_max:1920 (that weeds out what i'm not interested in).
I think a wood and brass phone is too modern, I am sure people lost their minds when that leftist devil's box made its entrance in an otherwise, perfect society. I think our good friend Suri still relies on a well crafted quilt and smoky camp fire to communicate his excellent opinions. How those smoke signals transfer to barely intelligent internet posts... well, that's a mystery.
curtkram, how can you not see this as modern?? http://www.cambridge2000.com/gallery/images/PA2929261e.jpg
if an architect proposed that in 1880 he would been escorted to the local luney bin!
Or at the very least asked, "what, are you building a prison, dungeon, torture chamber perhaps?"
Suri, let's pretend you actually understand something for a second. That wiki quote earlier came from this book: Hitler's State Architecture: The Impact of Classical Antiquity
Seeing as your quote was but an exurpt from the book, here is another... it is from the same book's abstract.
"We see that "neoclassical" state architecture in Nazi Germany was intended to signify more than stability and the persistence of tradition. It was only one aspect of the Nazi attempt to re-create a "pagan" totalitarian state based on clearly defined forms of hierarchy that divided society into slaves and slave-owners, those with and those without human rights."
QED
I already addressed that non sequitur, that I do not consider neoclassicism executed as modern architecture to be the neoclassicism that I am talking about. Sorry if that wasn't clear, that I am completely not interested in sticking columns and cornice onto modern designs, that is not want I want to happen.
they didn't often build with reinforced concrete or concrete block in the 1880s. also, most architecture in the 1880's wasn't designed with the intent of surviving being bombed by the british. i would think that the capitals and bases on the columns would suggest neoclassicism rather than modernism.
i'm pretty sure that's not an expensive civic structure. the lack of applied ornament you seem to like so much was probably omitted due to time and budget constraints.
is it modern design because it has corners? your differentiation between "modern" and "traditional" is really growing thin.
Anyways, thanks for the conversation folks, I'm sure we are none the better for it, but it was fun. At least now you know that I (and most people I have talked to about architecture) feel this way and I have confirmed my suspicions on how you feel.
(and most people I have talked to about architecture)
^--- they're only in your head
thank you for demonstrating how entitled some people feel when their thin belief frameworks interfere with reality.
Let us know when you reach the age when you can apply for college. You'll need help in building your portfolio, that's for sure.
Go confirm your suspicions that a lion doesn't like to be kicked. Please.
-
I do not consider neoclassicism executed as modern architecture to be the neoclassicism that I am talking about.
Of course you don't. Because that would require re-thinking the conclusion you've already drawn despite loads of evidence to the contrary, offered by people who actually know about the topic.
I've enjoyed hearing us architects talk about all this stuff, so suxi has given us a nice diversion. It's just sad that he's such a crystallized example of all that's wrong in public discourse about any topic these days. Facts are facts, despite how much people want to ignore them.
You can't argue with stupidity.
Well looking at photos of Third Reich architecture that actually got built it seems to me to be much more of the International Style than anythng else. I am sure modernists do not want to be involved with a style favored by the Third Reich but I really don't see how you can deny it.
It appears that surixurient either ran out of crack, passed out from sheer exhaustion or had to go back to work creating some traditional software architecture.
The answer to your original question "Why won't you design what we (the public) want?" is actually quite simple: You "the public" aren't paying for it. If you want the built environment to reflect your personal aesthetic, quit bitching and get in the game. Otherwise, the quirks of your personal opinion don't matter to me in the slightest.
Not having read through this entire thread - I'll attempted to answer the original question. People generally like buildings and, more importantly, urban form that was built before auto-centric infrastructure was codified by law. What you (and everyone else) dislikes is the resultant built environment that favors throw-away iconographic architecture meant to be experienced while moving at highway speeds or in marketing brochures for tourists or potential clients/tenants/etc. It's all very 2-dimensional - even the stuff that looks vaguely "traditional." What you like are buildings that were built when the fastest thing on the road was a horse or a bicycle.
Your point is well made kerfuffle, you drew me back.
https://maps.google.com/maps?q=minneapolis&hl=en&ll=44.967628,-93.288219&spn=0.006505,0.009677&sll=46.44186,-93.36129&sspn=12.917218,19.819336&t=h&hnear=Minneapolis,+Hennepin+County,+Minnesota&z=17&layer=c&cbll=44.967628,-93.288219&panoid=09wBwYBPMhvLaV6q5sIUTg&cbp=12,302.41,,1,-12.48
https://maps.google.com/maps?q=city+of+minneapolis&ll=44.979194,-93.274284&spn=0.000572,0.000605&hnear=Minneapolis,+Hennepin+County,+Minnesota&gl=us&t=h&layer=c&cbll=44.979222,-93.274324&panoid=e4Dcv2V_wr0FYcxFsDDCsg&cbp=12,46.4,,1,-9.19&z=21
On which sidewalk would you rather walk to work and under which building would you rather stop to enjoy your lunch? It makes you wonder whom the architects who designed that museum had in mind, the people in the neighborhood or someone looking at it in a pamphlet for their fundraising drive.
I think we all owe kerfuffle a HUGE debt of gratitude.
you're asking if we would rather eat lunch on interstate 94 or 6th street?
this is actually a pretty nice place to stop for lunch (though a bit pricey if you don't bring your own)
https://maps.google.com/maps?ll=41.898395,-87.6238&spn=0.000845,0.002064&sll=41.866237,-87.623112&sspn=0.013535,0.033023&t=h&gl=us&hq=hancock&hnear=Chicago,+Cook,+Illinois&fll=41.898573,-87.624317&fspn=0.000845,0.002064&z=20&layer=c&cbll=41.898394,-87.623911&panoid=bTX-A6RkiTQSa0ZsOqt6qw&cbp=12,24.08,,0,4.5
and this is obviously a little nicer place to go for a stroll. recognize the building?
https://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ll=44.967616,-93.289922&spn=0.002284,0.004128&sll=46.44186,-93.36129&sspn=12.917218,19.819336&t=h&hnear=Minneapolis,+Hennepin+County,+Minnesota&layer=c&cbll=44.967616,-93.289922&panoid=cnF-r-dZIrXwsCl5juMJag&cbp=12,74.66,,0,-0.18&z=19
Its not off 94, 94 is tunneled underneath down town. Those modern buildings are not designed to be enjoyed from along side them, all you see from that perspective is an amorphous plane rising up beside you, there is nothing to catch your eye, nothing to see. While modern buildings partition the environment with their cold sterile surfaces, traditional buildings are part of the environment, their sidewalk-visible lines, patterns, details and decorations are weighing on the viewers psyche and contributing to the essence of the place. Is it any wonder the public prefers detail and ornament to minimalism? A 'busy' or 'fusy' building (terms you architects love to denigrate traditional facades with) are not so busy from 6 feet away.
I am asking you as the experts of the field, why won't you build what we want, traditional architecture, and build it excellently.
You're asking in the wrong forum. You need to go over to the client forum and ask over there why no one wants to pay for traditional architecture anymore.
Remember architecture is a service profession, put your money where your mouth is and hire someone to do good historicist architecture.
The National Cathedral in Washington DC was done this way. Some folks liked the idea of that style and ponied up the cash. And it only took 80 yrs to build...
they even have period gargoyles
The recently completed Whitman College at Princeton is an example of Collegiate Gothic architecture. Oddly enough neo-Gothic made a strong comeback during the Victorian era which is why so many of the Oxford and Cambridge buildings look like they do. I like some kinds of trad architecture but the Whitman looks like a Victorian-era prison to me.
people in these whitewashed cities are fundamentally displeased (nowadays or always (haven't existed since then)) and architecture is only part of it. that miserable protestant ethic. we will look at classical architecture and feel miserable and lacking, deracinated...derooted. we look at at contemporary architecture and feel miserable and lacking in our resistance against deracination. in reality, for people in your situation, neither "traditional" architecture nor "modern" architecture exist...but rather the unending virtual angst of not being rooted in a past and lacking a compass for the future. your heritage is povetry and your future is null, your only richesse is in the virtual (all that this solid and so on). what was that fukayama book? End of history and the last man? Yes, north america,the shores on the the final reach of history break. you are at the end of history; your puritan proginators have cleansed your psyche from a european past as they have purged the land from the amerindian rooting. seriously, what is traditional architecture for you?? it is nothing. it means nothing. it means nothing more than a scribble taught to a schoolkid, gables, a pitched roof...etc. it is the language of transferability of sameness, and not a growing enriching sense of belonging. intellectual colonialism. it means nothing. it means as much as a flyer advertising cheaper GMO tomatos and parts of cooped up chicken that spend their lives urinating on themselves. and...what is your modernism for your lot? a chance to escape...from your puritan escape. escape your escape from history. to branch off individually, it is individualism that is the dead of history after all. the individualism of these pretty but petty projects that allude to nothing but themselves. there is no more project of modernism as there is no project of neoclassicism. for the former, you need ideology. in the neoliberal world, this is dead (or dormant until such a time...). for the latter, you need consensus, even if the modes are of irony and mockery...but you need consensus. in a word of individualism, this is not possible. neither modernity you have nor tradition. what you are speaking of is what you are speaking of, its a dissociated language that hovers above...sort of like political speech but poorer yet, there is absolutely no reading between the lines.
do you know how shocking it is for a person of older islamico-christian culture (which is to say byzantio farisee) to watch anglosaxonic protestant bible reading groups making their own interpretations as they go along? jesus christ has become their harry potter andthan the other way around. suddenly, they read the bible literally. a most primitive and fundamental way of reading. in one instances, they marry the least civilized and most primitive of features ie literalism with the most ridiculous and tenuous strategies applied to the real world (for example, the christian Adventsts and their ilk with the return of jews to israel).
eh, so please don't ask why they arent following a tradition. there is none. they use tradition like they use drugs, to escape from their historical escape from tradition. they are exactly the opposite of traditional (which is not to say that they are modernist...modernism is tradition/s).
that sounds depressing tammuz. the only thing depressing about where i am right now is other people. specifically, the politicians that can't do their job, the cop that gave me a ticket for expired tags, the people in fukishima that messed up their power plant so now there is a potential to kill a billion people for no good reason, etc. there are, of course, good people too.
modernism is simple. it's freedom from sticking junk over lintels when you don't need junk over lintels. perhaps the past is rooted in nothing, perhaps it's rooted in povertey. don't care. be here now. it's a beautiful place, and there isn't anything to escape from.
suri - it's context. that crumply facade would look very interesting sandwiched between two "traditional" buildings in a high pedestrian zone with narrow streets, or maybe in a rural or semi-rural setting. in this case it's not much different from a best buy or a target (and I'm also lumping in Best Products), with the exception of some mildly interesting landscaping.
even curtkram's street view example makes the project seem not so great (long lawn in weird suburbialand?). without good landscape/urban environments, there's only so much architecture can do.
it's cars, super wide streets, and overly generous setbacks with no vegetation aside from grass that you dislike, not the architecture. We're still doing the same things architects have been doing for centuries, it's the infrastructure that has changed.
Wow. I go away to New York for a conference on classical architecture and look what bubbles out.
I think that the OP is wrong on a lot of things, most recently that Nazi classicism was actually modernism. Couldn't disagree more. Albert Speer was a very skilled classical architect, in my opinion. A monstrous human being, but a great classical architect nonetheless. This is of course the point of Krier's recently republished book - that it is very possible that great art and be appropriated in the service of evil. That Berlin and most of Europe threw the baby out with the bath water, and build acres and acres of horrible, sterile modernist concrete housing blocks to replace the bombed out classical buildings is one of the great tragedies of the post war.
However, i think the OP's main premise is absolutely true. There is a huge demand for "traditional" architecture out in the marketplace, because there are definable qualities of this kind of architecture that resonate with people and that they love. Modern architects are untrained, or unwilling, to deliver this kind of work, because they have been taught a philosophy about design that is a polar opposite of that point of view. When architects are asked to design in traditional vernacular, they do not have the philosophical or aesthetic background to deliver quality work, and thus they deliver synthetic pastiche. This is the world that the Bauhaus education has delivered us all into.
If you think you can ignore the change of meanings and intentions over time, well that in itself is a change of meaning incurred over time and your unconscientious acts necessarily committed consciously will render your work other, always, than true classical architecture. How to be conscious -and conscientious- of this to produce something that will make its own stand as an interesting building rather than an instance of an uncritical ideological stance (apropos 'bringing back' stylistic classicism) or methodological regurgitation (replicating the clasdical design principles dogmatically)?
The problem i find is that many people who talk a lot about bringing back/ following dogmatically are after an admixture of historical styles of classicism with the perceived unconsciousness of vernacular replication.
Im sure that history holds many examples of when architecture responded to the civil context, to the intentions of city makers...and other examples when they did not, when architecture and ornament became nothing but ,vernacularly, architercture and ornament, surface speaking surface, space speaking space, historical rhetoric reflecting a mainstream lifestyle unquestioned.
I dont have the time to read all the comments, but it seems like there is some hostility here to the idea that good traditional architecture can or should be designed today. There are some architects who do make that their specialty. i do have a specialty in historic preservation and contemporary traditional design, but I will design something modern if the client wants it. But I can design something traditional as well. It may be because my first career was in architectural history and historic preservation, and I thus have the background that many architects today lack.
I do see around me every day the evidence of clients wanting traditional architecture, but their architects being unsure how to do it. From fire stations, to office buildings, government buildings, retail stores or shopping centers (and, of course, houses/apartments/etc), it is obvious the client asked for a traditional design, which the architect gave his best shot at doing. Unfortunately without any training in how to do it, we get an awful lot of weak and often ugly buildings, which, to the trained eye, have been produced by someone totally uneducated and unprepared to try to accomplish something successful in that genre. This, I believe, is what part of suri's beef is, and rightfully so. The other is that he, like a great number of people (proved in numerous surveys of the public on architectural design) just plain prefers traditional design.
To my mind there should be some instruction in architecture schools on the principals of traditional design, so that these kinds of architectural disasters (ugly, uneducated traditional design) can be avoided.
"Those modern buildings are not designed to be enjoyed from along side them, all you see from that perspective is an amorphous plane rising up beside you, there is nothing to catch your eye, nothing to see. While modern buildings partition the environment with their cold sterile surfaces, traditional buildings are part of the environment, their sidewalk-visible lines, patterns, details and decorations are weighing on the viewers psyche and contributing to the essence of the place. Is it any wonder the public prefers detail and ornament to minimalism?"
This comment by the OP taps into a really important point, in my opinion. One of the big problems with most modernist architecture is that it ignores the fine scale, the scale of a few meters, i.e. "human scale". Most modernist buildings only pay attention to the largest of scales, the scale of the overall form. They are often very successful in engaging us in the realm of the very large. But as soon as you zoom in on them, the engaging qualities wash away, since there is no fine scale detail, and the architecture becomes inexpressive, mute. This is one of the most important rationales for ornament. Traditional architectures for the most part engage us at all scales, from the very large to the very small. Good classical buildings do this almost effortlessly, since this fractal quality of detail at multiple scales, and self-similarity are encoded into the language deliberately.
In this way traditional architectures emulate the fractal geometry of nature, tapping into our innate affinity for beauty in the natural world. Most modernist architectures, particularly those that fetishize technology and ignore our need to be engaged at the fine scale, fail in this arena, in my opinion.
+++ EKE
"Most modernist buildings only pay attention to the largest of scales, the scale of the overall form."
i really don't think that this comment is true. you don't need to glue crap to a lintel to say there is a pedestrian scale. modern architecture that doesn't have the details worked out is bad design the same as traditional architecture that doesn't have the details worked out is bad design. you're pedestrian scale in modern architecture may not have as much stuff going on as traditional architecture, or it may appear simpler, but generally speaking that's a good thing.
This discussion was resurrected? Now that is a good gift to brighten up a Monday morning.
I'm spending my time coordinating sprinkler heads in a very public lobby, how do I bring in the "human scale" into this?
...tapping into our innate affinity for beauty in the natural world
OK, but I can find beauty in a delicate daffodil emerging from the snow or I can find beauty in a lava flow and the subsequent barrenness of a denuded hillside. Both are valuable.
I agree. Both are valuable. But even the barren lava flow is not barren. The stringy, directional crystalline structure of the hardening rock apparent at the meter-scale reiterates the large scale structure of the flow. Self-similar detail at various scales is the key. This is what nature does.
How am I being a troll, Gruen?
^ He was talking about aojwny aka suri-something-or-other, the OCD traditional architecture troll.
Your comments on detail are right on. Detail and texture are scale elements that make people comfortable. Wright and Sullivan knew this, and my father rediscovered it later in his career. Of course the best of these elements - in modern architecture - are integral to the structure and design rather than applied.
Wright is actually a great example of a 20th century modern architect who understood this intuitively. Wrights work always exhibited detail at a variety of scales, and that detail was usually self-similar (i.e. the shape of the decorative patterns in the individual concrete blocks reiterates the pattern of the muntins of the windows, which reiterates the shape of the floor plan, which reiterates the site planning geometries, etc.)
Even the most minimalist of things can be human scale...the Vietnam memorial is a good example of that. Much more engaging and human scale than the ww2 memorial which is of a "traditional" language. Its not about the genre or the type of instruments, its about the music.
There is quite a large community of architects who produce quality buildings in a traditional aesthetic. Many are members of this organization: http://www.classicist.org/
While some firms aspire to a certain rigor or cannon of the classical language, there are others that study and emulate the past in a more meaningful way, learning from and building upon ways of organizing space and detailing material assemblies that have been perfected over many years. Very often these styles are quite lean in their ornament.
"Traditional" architectural languages might not be appropriate in all settings or for all tastes. A modern approach is better suited in certain instances. However, great "traditional" buildings have a tremendous amount to teach all architects (regardless of "style") about spatial organization, sequencing, general proportions, balance and attention to craft.
It's interesting to see the amount of comments this has generated. Clearly, this is still the most controversial issue out there even after 80 years. What stands out is the way modernism's most ideological defenders constantly say people are idiots who don't know what they want. Then how do they explain all those rich liberals who pay an arm and a leg for traditional architecture in our re-vitalizing cities? Another canard is that traditional architecture is reliant on expensive detailing. Maybe they should train their eyes to look at proportions and volumes rather than ornament. For example:
"It takes perhaps a more open minded person to understand and appreciate the beauty and thought behind of austerity." And classical music is for rednecks?
"It costs a lot to do it right because the world has moved on and skilled workers are less plentiful." But Frank Gehry and Zaha buildings are cheap?
There is a change happening, and it's not coincidental that it's happening on the heels of the urban revitalization. EKE nails it with the following post he previously said.
"This comment by the OP taps into a really important point, in my opinion. One of the big problems with most modernist architecture is that it ignores the fine scale, the scale of a few meters, i.e. "human scale". Most modernist buildings only pay attention to the largest of scales, the scale of the overall form. They are often very successful in engaging us in the realm of the very large. But as soon as you zoom in on them, the engaging qualities wash away, since there is no fine scale detail, and the architecture becomes inexpressive, mute. This is one of the most important rationales for ornament. Traditional architectures for the most part engage us at all scales, from the very large to the very small. Good classical buildings do this almost effortlessly, since this fractal quality of detail at multiple scales, and self-similarity are encoded into the language deliberately.
In this way traditional architectures emulate the fractal geometry of nature, tapping into our innate affinity for beauty in the natural world. Most modernist architectures, particularly those that fetishize technology and ignore our need to be engaged at the fine scale, fail in this arena, in my opinion."
In my opinion also, and in many other people's opinion. Imagine if traditional archtiecture was taught on the same footing as modernism in schools, with out any of the prejudice so evident on these pages. Imagine how many students would jump into architecture with open arms if the world they understood intuitivley actually corresponded with the one being taught at school. Why are all the constant gyrations of contemporary modernism all over the map? Becasue it's the last throes of modernism stryving for relevance. One year it's deconstructivism, then blob architecture, then parametrics. What's the next we all have to go all in on?
This change is happening, just not with some bullshit manifesto and some adolescent revolt against everything that came before. It will be a slow evolution, but it's happening.
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