Why stop at the Renaissance? Surely the Modernists can go even further back to mark their watershed moment.
The reality and sad news for this amusing exercise is that a spartan palette has always existed. Not sure how anyone can seriously think of that as some genius or revolutionary idea. For probably a multitude of different reasons, ornament was sometimes incorporated and sometimes not.
Nov 23, 13 6:40 am
Don't forget Schinkle, the Crystal Palace and the early Chicago School. Who knew modernism's banishment of history had so many exceptions. I would have stuck with the original treatise where by you deny all history. The whole "invent an aesthetic lineage" to establish one's place in the flow of history is unbecoming of a revolutionary, besides being tenuous at best. I'd go old school and accuse all ornament of being criminal, who dosen't want to play the hero! Remember, 1. those are NOT beams 2. they are NOT steel. and #3, They are NOT ORNAMENTATION! That would be criminal.
a spartan palette has always existed. Not sure how anyone can seriously think of that as some genius or revolutionary idea. For probably a multitude of different reasons, ornament was sometimes incorporated and sometimes not.
That's too obvious, we all need Genesis narrative. Even traditionalist Frank Lloyd Wright tried to sell people on the Forbell Block story. I see you peeking at those portfolios Frank. Make sure your 'leibermaster" is off to the saloon before you check out the Japanese Pavilion at the Exposition. He's still pissed everyone's doing classicism. Why did Root have to give that lady an escort to her carriage!
Was it that hard to grant someone the right to design a neo-classical revival house?
i've been saying that for over 30 pages. i'm not the 'modern' enemy you created. there is no enemy. the 'traditional v. modern' debate framed by you and suri is nothing but a fantasy, a make-believe story where you get to cry for attention as the underdog protecting something you can't even define. i repeat myself over and over, and you still think i'm the 'modernist' out to get you. that's why i think you're kind of an idiot.
Who knew modernism's banishment of history had so many exceptions.
everybody with an education in architecture history. i'm pretty sure we all know that, especially since 'modernism' has been defined as 'anything not traditional' and 'anything thayer doesn't like.' the 'banishment of history' that did happen in a small piece of everything you consider 'modern' probably doesn't even mean what you think it means.
Surely the Modernists can go even further back to mark their watershed moment.
maybe there is not a definitive line? maybe there is no "traditional v. modern' at all? it's just a continuing narrative that has developed from one style to the next over centuries. architecture evolves as society evolves.
having said that, you can't really take a moment from the past, whether that's 80 years ago or a building you like that palladio designed, as say 'i'm starting over from this point. we're going to undo all of history from this point on and do it over.' a building inspired by palladio that's built in 2013 is still built in 2013, with all the influences of history that has happened since.
the 'traditional' architect that wants to pretend they can ignore the influence of gropius, mies, rem, and everyone else in the last 100 years or so is just as ignorant as their fictional enemy who they pretend is ignoring the influence of vitruvius and whoever else. the obvious difference is that the 'modern' architect that ignores history might not actually exist.
a good architect will go out of their way to learn about architectural history, including that which happened in recent history. they'll try to learn what other architects are doing in the present too. and they will continue this centuries old narrative of design, in the time and place they live. the good architect doesn't wine about how mean the 'modernists' are. they just do the best they can to design the best buildings they're able.
A mullion is a vertical element that forms a division between units of a window, door, or screen, or is used decoratively.
A beam is a structural element that is capable of withstanding load primarily by resisting bending.
There is no ideology here, just terminology. These definitions are not all over the map, and I repeat, if you can't be bothered to know the difference, your opinions on architecture mean squat. Thayer-D don't put words in my mouth. I have no idea why you think I'm trying to say the Seagram mullions are not ornamental. They are ornamental. But they also do work in giving the curtain wall more shear strength to resist wind-loads. It's how Mies justified this device in Lake Shore Drive apartments, where the way the tower was assembled actually did call for the facade panels to be stiffened beyond the strength allowed by an all-glass system.
Just because something is ornamental or decorative doesn't mean it isn't also functional. Didn't Farshid Moussavi say something to this extent a few years back?
also, gotta auto-correct on the Vidler book. Vidler examines how Emil Kaufman posited modernism in the Enlightment via Ledoux' work. Can't believe I confused Kaufman with Wittkower - it's almost as bad a slip up as confusing beams for mullions 0_o
ps. don't worry, when life slows down I'll walk you through how the rational codification of representational systems (what's the difference between Euclidian and Cartesian geometry? and how does this relate to perspectival construction?), the establishment of rational humanism and empiricism, and the systematic study of select precedents valued for ideological reasons (creation of a canon) combines to give us the germ of modernism..
Consider for a moment that Sir Thomas Moore published the first treatise on Utopia in 1516, and that people like Patrick Shumacher (and even Kanye West) are still trying to work that project out right now.
my takeway for today is threadkilla's kanye-sized ego. They are I-beams. A mullion is what something becomes in the context of a building design. an I-beam is an I-beam whether its installed as structural, installed as pretend structural (like in the case of the seagram building), or lying on the floor in a warehouse.
an i-beam refers to only a certain set of common 'I' shape steel sections. what you see more often is a "W" shape beam. the 'I' is of course the shape of the beam. an "I" beam has a much longer web than a "W" beam. the "W" stands for 'wide flange,' since it has a wider flange than the 'W.' i don't know if those common steel sections are even made in the same material as used for the seagrams building, so it's likely he used a custom shape that isn't either, but if it is an "I" beam or a "W" beam, it's much more likely to be a "W" shape.
beams tend to be horizontal load bearing members that transfer load to columns. they are also typically structural members, rather than applied ornament. you can call those things on the seagram mullions or ornamental or whatever you want, but if you want to use accurate terms, they aren't even a little bit similar to beams if they're applied vertically.
Curtkram, we are finally on the same page. Fake column or lintel, it's just ornament, which you seem cool with. I'm not saying you like it or even want to see it, but conceptually, you seem to finally accept the obvious, that it's all decoration of some kind. As for the definition of modernism vs. traditionalism you keep assigning me, since my actual definition seems to be too broad for your tastes...
'modernism' has been defined as 'anything not traditional' and 'anything thayer doesn't like.'
This brought up an article in Archtiecture magazine wrote about Poundbury where they are describing the architecture thusly...
But the impression of a small market town is maintained in the higgledy-piggley street layout and in the resolutely traditional - that is to say, not-modernist - architecture.
Seems like this subject is alive and well in even the modernist leaning press. And even this person who seems to be no cheese eating ornamentalist has divided architecture i the starc way you'd like me to, since my actual view seem to frustrate the hell out of you. (Hint, it's meant to avoid thise stupid discussions about what ornament is allowed.) This is part of the change in additude that's been pointed to earlier, that these stupid deliniations that the modernists first made simply don't hold up to their rhetoric, and as such put all work on an equal footing, at least conceptually. A modernist would look at Poundbury as a fake village while a less ideological person might notice that the layout makes the pedestrian king and put's the automobile in a secondary and safer position. A modernist will look at the revival styles as, well, revival styles, while an average person would see an architecture nicely detailed to be appreciated while walking. These are the things you too will be able to enjoy once you throw away the last vestiges of ideology and simply look at things the way the people you are designing for might. Assuming you are designing for others and not just for yourself. BTW, no one actually ignores history, that wouldn be metaphysically impossible. I think that's why the bredth of my definition seems to be troubling you. One's perspective tends to increase without blinders.
While we debate trational vs modern, the rest of the world is in post-post-modernism. This is what 2nd graders are watching. What does the fox say? Wa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pow! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jofNR_WkoCE
Curt, what does one do when one inherits a bunch of really high quality antique furniture from their grandma as I did? It is very ornamental, beautiful and was expensive. The houses I choose to live in are for its compatibility with this furniture. I don't dislike modernism, but people that don't choose modernism (and by this I mean the clean aesthetic) sometimes do it for highly selfish reasons such as the fact that they inherited antique furniture that will need to go in the house.
thayer, you're blaming the modernists for creating the divide between traditionalists and modernists. you still have an enemy where there is no fight. to you, it's still 'thayer v. the modernists,' but really it's 'thayer v. thayer.'
if we were on the same page, you'd understand 'modernists' didn't create a divide between 'traditionalists' and 'modernists' because there is no divide, and when the 'modernist' press decides to use these divisive terms, it's probably to elicit emotional reactions from people that don't understand how architectural styles have evolved through time, and continue to evolve even today. i'm sure that sells magazines by pissing people off, the same way fox news attracts viewers and tea party rallies attract crowds. a lot of people like being told they should be pissed off at something, even when the thing they're pissed off at doesn't exist.
if i saw a revival style while walking down the street, i would see it as a revival style, because it's a revival style. that has no bearing on how the public wants to view it or whether they like it or not. opinions are just opinions, which is why i don't care for your definition of 'traditional.' your definition is not a category where another person could apply your definition to know whether a building fits or not. your definition is nothing more than one person's opinion. there is nothing wrong with your opinion, but when you say schools need to change so students are designing "traditional" architecture in studios, and "traditional" can't be clarified any better than 'what thayer likes,' then that doesn't provide any useful direction as to what students should be doing.
tint, i'm not sure why your asking me about matching a house to your furniture. i'm glad you have the opportunity to pick housing based on furniture. my housing decisions were dictated almost entirely by what i could afford, and i prioritized finding a safe environment over which historic style i prefer. if i had the luxury of designing and building my own house wherever i want, it would be different than where i am. so do you actually have to find a house designed and built in the same period and style as your furniture? don't you have to prioritize the size of the rooms so the furniture fits in a reasonably functional way? i bet that would be quite difficult. or are you willing to put your antique furniture in a house with a very different style, just so long as it doesn't have the sort of 'clean' aesthetic a modern styled house might have? is it ok to combine historic styles, as is common with mcmansions or the victorian/neoclassical house suri posted earlier?
i don't think i would have a problem with antique furniture in a modern house. i bet it could laid out in a way that works.
Just about everyone here has described this schism as experienced in school, even you. Yet we are simply to imagine that it has no bearing on our education? You have a very strange sense of what's real or not. Did anyone walk into school with this modernist traditionalist bifurcation in mind? As much as I've tried to find common ground with you, this seems like a bridge to far.
if we were on the same page, you'd understand 'modernists' didn't create a divide between 'traditionalists' and 'modernists' because there is no divide,
Modernists didn't create a divide in architecture? Many people have attempted to create a divide in architecture. It's called divide and conquer, an old and very traditional game. You should try something new and be a traditionalist for a while, it's fun.
opinions are just opinions, which is why i don't care for your definition of 'traditional.'
This is the strangest argument I've heard from you yet. I wonder how many discussions you've actually participated in, ones where it's ok to question assumptions.
don't you have to prioritize the size of the rooms so the furniture fits in a reasonably functional way?
is it ok to combine historic styles, as is common with mcmansions or the victorian/neoclassical house suri posted earlier?
These are great questions. I'd give you my opinion but they'd simply be mine and as such, not really relevant to the discussion. Plus, I wouldn't want you to think I was any more stupid actually am. Can I still be a super-hero? I love Nietzsche.
Dude, you could take off half that carving off and it would still look awsome! It actually reminds me of some buildings I saw in Amsterdam, or was it Brussels?
This should show pretty well that the 'ornamental' extrusions are as intergal to a Mies mullion as fluting is to a 'classical' column.
http://www.aadip9.net/kim/2010/11/mies-highrise-catalogue.html
If you haven't caught on yet, Mies is short-circuiting this whole 'trad vs mod' thing by doing both. Still doing more with less, too. And how about exhibiting that belief 'structure is spiritual'? So either side trying to use his work as a proof of their superiority is simply parading their own willful blindness
Fluting isn't integral to a classical column. There is the Lee Mansion at Arlington (Doric), the Jefferson Memorial in DC (Ionic), and the Rotunda at the University of Virginia (Corinthian) - just to recall one of each classical example.
Vitruvius explicitly states that the Doric order requires 20 flutes on a column, whereas the Ionic and Corinthian orders require 24 flutes. The only deviation is permitted with 28 and 32 flutes per column in special cases arising from using columns of differing radii in the same facade, and with the purpose of optically equating the different columns. (book III chapter 5, and book IV chapters 3 and 4)
The only 'unadorned' order identified by Vitruvius is Tuscan, and he considered it positively primitive. I'm saying Vitruvius thought the Tuscan order was too 'traditional' for his contemporaries to bother with it
Sorry, but what is, is. James Madison, author of the Bill of Rights, built Montpelier with unfluted Doric columns also. Vitruvius will get over it.
As far as Mies, it seems that rather than returning to Europe after WW II to help Europeans who were determinedly rebuilding their bombed-out cities down to the last stone cherub, he stayed in the US and made a career of gluing I-beams to the mullions in his ugly buildings?
so, you're saying james madison was one of the early modernists, stripping unnecessary ornament from his buildings? wouldn't that almost imply that "the public" might not actually like "traditional" buildings as some people on here think they do, but the public might actually prefer the radical departures from traditional ornamentation, as we've seen with the montpelier example?
let's also remember the postmodernists, who's movement is largely focused on ornament, are still in this group of "modernists" you people are referring to. if we're still talking about 'traditional v. modern' architecture, and think 'stripping ornament' is part of that, it will require a lot of shifting categories to suit the new tangent.
curt, I think the chief pomo concern is communication, not ornament. Ornament is simply one way to get the communication part to work.
Also, I am very uncomfortable with the conflation of ornament and decoration in this thread. Ornament is a type of decoration, and so it cosmetics - but they are very different from each other. It should be clear by now that decoration alone doesn't determine whether something is modern or traditional. But if it isn't, and you insist on debating the merits of architecture based on whether its decorated, and if that decor is applied or integral - we should not be erasing these differences with our cavalier use of vocabulary.
"The only 'unadorned' order identified by Vitruvius is Tuscan, and he considered it positively primitive. I'm saying Vitruvius thought the Tuscan order was too 'traditional' for his contemporaries to bother with it"
I'm not sure I agree with this. Nothing in Vitruvius that I've read says that he felt the Tuscan was passé. On the contrary, he canonized it in his treatise. What he did say was that the Tuscan was appropriate for humble, brusque structures, such as farm buildings and other rural structures, and military buildings, like barracks, etc. Serlio and Palladio both describe the Tuscan in the same general way. Each order has its appropriate use.
The canon of the classical orders is simply an archetype. They are idealized, perfected representations of an idea. They can be learned, studied and copied, but they are not meant to be endlessly reproduced in their canonical form. They are meant to be modified, once their meaning and rationale is firmly understood.
Curt,
I don't think using unfluted columns is a "radical departure"; it is a modest tweak at best. Perhaps Jefferson and Madison just liked the way the smooth columns looked?
My Egyptian friend would say that the ancient Egyptians were the only builders that were truly in tune with the proper arrangements of space and material. Her ancestors (perhaps they are my and your ancestors too) were far advanced with tools of math, astrology and communication far beyond what we have now.
so, you're saying james madison was one of the early modernists, stripping unnecessary ornament from his buildings?
Sure, if you're implying that there is necessary ornament.
wouldn't that almost imply that "the public" might not actually like "traditional" buildings as some people on here think they do, but the public might actually prefer the radical departures from traditional ornamentation, as we've seen with the montpelier example?
One, that you still questioning traditional architecture's popularity is awsome, your stamina is amazing, but then again I'm suffering from low-T. But that you think Montpellier is a radical departure from traditional ornamentation is a whole nother level.
I sense this thread is gasping it's last breaths. When I joined around 200 comments, I thought I was way late to the party. 1600 comments later and a new archinect record, I think we've aquitted our selves quite well. Curtkram, I'm going to miss your observations, they remind me of my school days, and as you know, I'm very nostalgic. In the mean time, have a nice Thanksgiving and beware of unnessesary ornaments.
And Curt, really? parametricism doesn't fit commonly accepted ideas of modernism? I disagree. In fact, it is just the latest, and perhaps inevitable, step in the line of thinking that everything must be new. Can't be like the old modernism, that's passé, it needs to be the new modernism, and so the shape must be new, but it will be passé soon enough, too.
curtkram, I love what you said on the parametcisicm thread, so we have more in common than you might think. As for what is traditional vs. modernist, it's a conceptual framework that separates the two. Aesthetically, modernism can be rendered traditionally, but that tends to be called moderne art deco, or very, very stripped down classicism. Traditional work can be rendered like a modernist would, but that tends to be called "picturesque". But intellectually, the concpetual framework that parametricism relies on is similar to modernism's reliance on a conceptual framework. In other words, it's legibility is almost entirely predecated on familiarity with certain tconcepts rather than what can be understood through the senses.
You either "get it" or you don't, and like the "complexity barriers" that patrikschumacher puts up, they are both unnecessary and at times, counter-productive. Especially if in the end you are designing slick shopping malls.
Since some parametric buildings look like the paramecium we all studied in high school could we rename the new fad the "paramecium manifesto"? Gotta improve the visuals here.
Super-expensive to build, impossible to maintain, and a jarring juxtaposition to anything previously built in the vicinity. Just what we need in an era of impending societal collapse. I like it! Where's my Pritzker?
The list does not surprise me. I do not see it as modern vs classical but as a reflection of the diversity of a nation of immigrants. A lot of different buildings in a lot of styles is perfectly appropriate.
Mar 19, 15 12:29 am ·
·
curtkram,
It isn't that simple. Lets thing of these issues as a push/pull like a tuggle war of tastes throughout generations as cultural-generational trends in any given time and place.
It really comes to a taste like some people like more salt and others less and varying degrees in between. It comes down to taste and that is more important that we work towards with residential clients where that is even more so because clients are often more involved and they are the ones living in it.
Sometimes, what you can get away with in a commercial building isn't going to be accepted in a person's home.
EDIT: Sh-t!... response to an old post. What happens when people resurrect an old thread.
The list is called “America’s favorite architecture” and not “what style of buildings does the American public like” for a reason. Filtered data can’t typically be used for more than one argument.
That list doesn’t make any significant argument for what people want, or what the public likes. Just by looking at the buildings included you can start to see how the list was generated. When you actually look at the methodology you realize that there is a very specific kind of building that is likely to appear and that it makes no substantial argument for or against any specific style.
The method with which they filtered the results from the architects will always have an extremely high concentration of historically significant or famous contemporary buildings. The raw data probably makes a contradictory point that most architects prefer newer styles, but that’s not what we see because the information is not meant for that purpose.
All this makes the public survey meaningless for the topic of style.
Donna, standing up for myself against a number of vitriolic attackers is nasty? Sorry, in hindsight maybe I should have just offered a couple of fuck you's and other disparaging personal comments instead as that seems to be pretty much the norm around here.
Back to our regularly scheduled programming, the article that got so many panties in a twist cited an AIA survey that is entirely appropriate to this thread, so I posted a link to it here. If that challenges your world view, maybe that's a good thing.
Why won't you design what we (the public) want?
Another bronze mullion example?
Why stop at the Renaissance? Surely the Modernists can go even further back to mark their watershed moment.
The reality and sad news for this amusing exercise is that a spartan palette has always existed. Not sure how anyone can seriously think of that as some genius or revolutionary idea. For probably a multitude of different reasons, ornament was sometimes incorporated and sometimes not.
Thayer-D (History|Contact)
Nov 23, 13 6:40 am
Don't forget Schinkle, the Crystal Palace and the early Chicago School. Who knew modernism's banishment of history had so many exceptions. I would have stuck with the original treatise where by you deny all history. The whole "invent an aesthetic lineage" to establish one's place in the flow of history is unbecoming of a revolutionary, besides being tenuous at best. I'd go old school and accuse all ornament of being criminal, who dosen't want to play the hero! Remember, 1. those are NOT beams 2. they are NOT steel. and #3, They are NOT ORNAMENTATION! That would be criminal.
Gothic, too! :)
a spartan palette has always existed. Not sure how anyone can seriously think of that as some genius or revolutionary idea. For probably a multitude of different reasons, ornament was sometimes incorporated and sometimes not.
That's too obvious, we all need Genesis narrative. Even traditionalist Frank Lloyd Wright tried to sell people on the Forbell Block story. I see you peeking at those portfolios Frank. Make sure your 'leibermaster" is off to the saloon before you check out the Japanese Pavilion at the Exposition. He's still pissed everyone's doing classicism. Why did Root have to give that lady an escort to her carriage!
Was it that hard to grant someone the right to design a neo-classical revival house?
i've been saying that for over 30 pages. i'm not the 'modern' enemy you created. there is no enemy. the 'traditional v. modern' debate framed by you and suri is nothing but a fantasy, a make-believe story where you get to cry for attention as the underdog protecting something you can't even define. i repeat myself over and over, and you still think i'm the 'modernist' out to get you. that's why i think you're kind of an idiot.
Who knew modernism's banishment of history had so many exceptions.
everybody with an education in architecture history. i'm pretty sure we all know that, especially since 'modernism' has been defined as 'anything not traditional' and 'anything thayer doesn't like.' the 'banishment of history' that did happen in a small piece of everything you consider 'modern' probably doesn't even mean what you think it means.
Surely the Modernists can go even further back to mark their watershed moment.
maybe there is not a definitive line? maybe there is no "traditional v. modern' at all? it's just a continuing narrative that has developed from one style to the next over centuries. architecture evolves as society evolves.
having said that, you can't really take a moment from the past, whether that's 80 years ago or a building you like that palladio designed, as say 'i'm starting over from this point. we're going to undo all of history from this point on and do it over.' a building inspired by palladio that's built in 2013 is still built in 2013, with all the influences of history that has happened since.
the 'traditional' architect that wants to pretend they can ignore the influence of gropius, mies, rem, and everyone else in the last 100 years or so is just as ignorant as their fictional enemy who they pretend is ignoring the influence of vitruvius and whoever else. the obvious difference is that the 'modern' architect that ignores history might not actually exist.
a good architect will go out of their way to learn about architectural history, including that which happened in recent history. they'll try to learn what other architects are doing in the present too. and they will continue this centuries old narrative of design, in the time and place they live. the good architect doesn't wine about how mean the 'modernists' are. they just do the best they can to design the best buildings they're able.
A mullion is a vertical element that forms a division between units of a window, door, or screen, or is used decoratively.
A beam is a structural element that is capable of withstanding load primarily by resisting bending.
There is no ideology here, just terminology. These definitions are not all over the map, and I repeat, if you can't be bothered to know the difference, your opinions on architecture mean squat. Thayer-D don't put words in my mouth. I have no idea why you think I'm trying to say the Seagram mullions are not ornamental. They are ornamental. But they also do work in giving the curtain wall more shear strength to resist wind-loads. It's how Mies justified this device in Lake Shore Drive apartments, where the way the tower was assembled actually did call for the facade panels to be stiffened beyond the strength allowed by an all-glass system.
Just because something is ornamental or decorative doesn't mean it isn't also functional. Didn't Farshid Moussavi say something to this extent a few years back?
also, gotta auto-correct on the Vidler book. Vidler examines how Emil Kaufman posited modernism in the Enlightment via Ledoux' work. Can't believe I confused Kaufman with Wittkower - it's almost as bad a slip up as confusing beams for mullions 0_o
ps. don't worry, when life slows down I'll walk you through how the rational codification of representational systems (what's the difference between Euclidian and Cartesian geometry? and how does this relate to perspectival construction?), the establishment of rational humanism and empiricism, and the systematic study of select precedents valued for ideological reasons (creation of a canon) combines to give us the germ of modernism..
Consider for a moment that Sir Thomas Moore published the first treatise on Utopia in 1516, and that people like Patrick Shumacher (and even Kanye West) are still trying to work that project out right now.
With respect to the Seagram building the decorative bronze beams are attached to the mullions. They are not the mullions. Sorry.
my takeway for today is threadkilla's kanye-sized ego. They are I-beams. A mullion is what something becomes in the context of a building design. an I-beam is an I-beam whether its installed as structural, installed as pretend structural (like in the case of the seagram building), or lying on the floor in a warehouse.
an i-beam refers to only a certain set of common 'I' shape steel sections. what you see more often is a "W" shape beam. the 'I' is of course the shape of the beam. an "I" beam has a much longer web than a "W" beam. the "W" stands for 'wide flange,' since it has a wider flange than the 'W.' i don't know if those common steel sections are even made in the same material as used for the seagrams building, so it's likely he used a custom shape that isn't either, but if it is an "I" beam or a "W" beam, it's much more likely to be a "W" shape.
beams tend to be horizontal load bearing members that transfer load to columns. they are also typically structural members, rather than applied ornament. you can call those things on the seagram mullions or ornamental or whatever you want, but if you want to use accurate terms, they aren't even a little bit similar to beams if they're applied vertically.
I'm just going to leave ths here http://lifewithoutbuildings.net/2008/04/otto-wagner-and-millenium-falcon.html
:)
Curtkram, we are finally on the same page. Fake column or lintel, it's just ornament, which you seem cool with. I'm not saying you like it or even want to see it, but conceptually, you seem to finally accept the obvious, that it's all decoration of some kind. As for the definition of modernism vs. traditionalism you keep assigning me, since my actual definition seems to be too broad for your tastes...
'modernism' has been defined as 'anything not traditional' and 'anything thayer doesn't like.'
This brought up an article in Archtiecture magazine wrote about Poundbury where they are describing the architecture thusly...
But the impression of a small market town is maintained in the higgledy-piggley street layout and in the resolutely traditional - that is to say, not-modernist - architecture.
Seems like this subject is alive and well in even the modernist leaning press. And even this person who seems to be no cheese eating ornamentalist has divided architecture i the starc way you'd like me to, since my actual view seem to frustrate the hell out of you. (Hint, it's meant to avoid thise stupid discussions about what ornament is allowed.) This is part of the change in additude that's been pointed to earlier, that these stupid deliniations that the modernists first made simply don't hold up to their rhetoric, and as such put all work on an equal footing, at least conceptually. A modernist would look at Poundbury as a fake village while a less ideological person might notice that the layout makes the pedestrian king and put's the automobile in a secondary and safer position. A modernist will look at the revival styles as, well, revival styles, while an average person would see an architecture nicely detailed to be appreciated while walking. These are the things you too will be able to enjoy once you throw away the last vestiges of ideology and simply look at things the way the people you are designing for might. Assuming you are designing for others and not just for yourself. BTW, no one actually ignores history, that wouldn be metaphysically impossible. I think that's why the bredth of my definition seems to be troubling you. One's perspective tends to increase without blinders.
While we debate trational vs modern, the rest of the world is in post-post-modernism. This is what 2nd graders are watching. What does the fox say? Wa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pow! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jofNR_WkoCE
Curt, what does one do when one inherits a bunch of really high quality antique furniture from their grandma as I did? It is very ornamental, beautiful and was expensive. The houses I choose to live in are for its compatibility with this furniture. I don't dislike modernism, but people that don't choose modernism (and by this I mean the clean aesthetic) sometimes do it for highly selfish reasons such as the fact that they inherited antique furniture that will need to go in the house.
If they're selling popomo to preadolescents we're doomed. Actually we're doomed anyway but that's beside the point.
Fine antique furniture complments fine modern design (white box isn't modern, it's stupid and cheap). And vice versa.
I'm going to trade my antique furniture for popomo furniture and never leave the house.
thayer, you're blaming the modernists for creating the divide between traditionalists and modernists. you still have an enemy where there is no fight. to you, it's still 'thayer v. the modernists,' but really it's 'thayer v. thayer.'
if we were on the same page, you'd understand 'modernists' didn't create a divide between 'traditionalists' and 'modernists' because there is no divide, and when the 'modernist' press decides to use these divisive terms, it's probably to elicit emotional reactions from people that don't understand how architectural styles have evolved through time, and continue to evolve even today. i'm sure that sells magazines by pissing people off, the same way fox news attracts viewers and tea party rallies attract crowds. a lot of people like being told they should be pissed off at something, even when the thing they're pissed off at doesn't exist.
if i saw a revival style while walking down the street, i would see it as a revival style, because it's a revival style. that has no bearing on how the public wants to view it or whether they like it or not. opinions are just opinions, which is why i don't care for your definition of 'traditional.' your definition is not a category where another person could apply your definition to know whether a building fits or not. your definition is nothing more than one person's opinion. there is nothing wrong with your opinion, but when you say schools need to change so students are designing "traditional" architecture in studios, and "traditional" can't be clarified any better than 'what thayer likes,' then that doesn't provide any useful direction as to what students should be doing.
tint, i'm not sure why your asking me about matching a house to your furniture. i'm glad you have the opportunity to pick housing based on furniture. my housing decisions were dictated almost entirely by what i could afford, and i prioritized finding a safe environment over which historic style i prefer. if i had the luxury of designing and building my own house wherever i want, it would be different than where i am. so do you actually have to find a house designed and built in the same period and style as your furniture? don't you have to prioritize the size of the rooms so the furniture fits in a reasonably functional way? i bet that would be quite difficult. or are you willing to put your antique furniture in a house with a very different style, just so long as it doesn't have the sort of 'clean' aesthetic a modern styled house might have? is it ok to combine historic styles, as is common with mcmansions or the victorian/neoclassical house suri posted earlier?
i don't think i would have a problem with antique furniture in a modern house. i bet it could laid out in a way that works.
What I'm saying is where I'm at, all I can afford is a 70's era white box . I don't get to choose either.
This isn't my setup, I found this pic, but hopefully it will at least make you laugh.
Just about everyone here has described this schism as experienced in school, even you. Yet we are simply to imagine that it has no bearing on our education? You have a very strange sense of what's real or not. Did anyone walk into school with this modernist traditionalist bifurcation in mind? As much as I've tried to find common ground with you, this seems like a bridge to far.
if we were on the same page, you'd understand 'modernists' didn't create a divide between 'traditionalists' and 'modernists' because there is no divide,
Modernists didn't create a divide in architecture? Many people have attempted to create a divide in architecture. It's called divide and conquer, an old and very traditional game. You should try something new and be a traditionalist for a while, it's fun.
opinions are just opinions, which is why i don't care for your definition of 'traditional.'
This is the strangest argument I've heard from you yet. I wonder how many discussions you've actually participated in, ones where it's ok to question assumptions.
don't you have to prioritize the size of the rooms so the furniture fits in a reasonably functional way?
is it ok to combine historic styles, as is common with mcmansions or the victorian/neoclassical house suri posted earlier?
These are great questions. I'd give you my opinion but they'd simply be mine and as such, not really relevant to the discussion. Plus, I wouldn't want you to think I was any more stupid actually am. Can I still be a super-hero? I love Nietzsche.
Dude, you could take off half that carving off and it would still look awsome! It actually reminds me of some buildings I saw in Amsterdam, or was it Brussels?
1599...
This should show pretty well that the 'ornamental' extrusions are as intergal to a Mies mullion as fluting is to a 'classical' column.
http://www.aadip9.net/kim/2010/11/mies-highrise-catalogue.html
If you haven't caught on yet, Mies is short-circuiting this whole 'trad vs mod' thing by doing both. Still doing more with less, too. And how about exhibiting that belief 'structure is spiritual'? So either side trying to use his work as a proof of their superiority is simply parading their own willful blindness
Fluting isn't integral to a classical column. There is the Lee Mansion at Arlington (Doric), the Jefferson Memorial in DC (Ionic), and the Rotunda at the University of Virginia (Corinthian) - just to recall one of each classical example.
Vitruvius explicitly states that the Doric order requires 20 flutes on a column, whereas the Ionic and Corinthian orders require 24 flutes. The only deviation is permitted with 28 and 32 flutes per column in special cases arising from using columns of differing radii in the same facade, and with the purpose of optically equating the different columns. (book III chapter 5, and book IV chapters 3 and 4)
The only 'unadorned' order identified by Vitruvius is Tuscan, and he considered it positively primitive. I'm saying Vitruvius thought the Tuscan order was too 'traditional' for his contemporaries to bother with it
Sorry, but what is, is. James Madison, author of the Bill of Rights, built Montpelier with unfluted Doric columns also. Vitruvius will get over it. As far as Mies, it seems that rather than returning to Europe after WW II to help Europeans who were determinedly rebuilding their bombed-out cities down to the last stone cherub, he stayed in the US and made a career of gluing I-beams to the mullions in his ugly buildings?
you are missing my point:
what extrusions are to mullions for Mies = flutes are to columns for Vitruvius
so, you're saying james madison was one of the early modernists, stripping unnecessary ornament from his buildings? wouldn't that almost imply that "the public" might not actually like "traditional" buildings as some people on here think they do, but the public might actually prefer the radical departures from traditional ornamentation, as we've seen with the montpelier example?
let's also remember the postmodernists, who's movement is largely focused on ornament, are still in this group of "modernists" you people are referring to. if we're still talking about 'traditional v. modern' architecture, and think 'stripping ornament' is part of that, it will require a lot of shifting categories to suit the new tangent.
curt, I think the chief pomo concern is communication, not ornament. Ornament is simply one way to get the communication part to work.
Also, I am very uncomfortable with the conflation of ornament and decoration in this thread. Ornament is a type of decoration, and so it cosmetics - but they are very different from each other. It should be clear by now that decoration alone doesn't determine whether something is modern or traditional. But if it isn't, and you insist on debating the merits of architecture based on whether its decorated, and if that decor is applied or integral - we should not be erasing these differences with our cavalier use of vocabulary.
"The only 'unadorned' order identified by Vitruvius is Tuscan, and he considered it positively primitive. I'm saying Vitruvius thought the Tuscan order was too 'traditional' for his contemporaries to bother with it"
I'm not sure I agree with this. Nothing in Vitruvius that I've read says that he felt the Tuscan was passé. On the contrary, he canonized it in his treatise. What he did say was that the Tuscan was appropriate for humble, brusque structures, such as farm buildings and other rural structures, and military buildings, like barracks, etc. Serlio and Palladio both describe the Tuscan in the same general way. Each order has its appropriate use.
The canon of the classical orders is simply an archetype. They are idealized, perfected representations of an idea. They can be learned, studied and copied, but they are not meant to be endlessly reproduced in their canonical form. They are meant to be modified, once their meaning and rationale is firmly understood.
what extrusions are to mullions for Mies = flutes are to columns for Vitruvius
I get the feeling Mies thought a little more about his mullions than Vitruvius about fluting.
Curt, I don't think using unfluted columns is a "radical departure"; it is a modest tweak at best. Perhaps Jefferson and Madison just liked the way the smooth columns looked?
My Egyptian friend would say that the ancient Egyptians were the only builders that were truly in tune with the proper arrangements of space and material. Her ancestors (perhaps they are my and your ancestors too) were far advanced with tools of math, astrology and communication far beyond what we have now.
so, you're saying james madison was one of the early modernists, stripping unnecessary ornament from his buildings?
Sure, if you're implying that there is necessary ornament.
wouldn't that almost imply that "the public" might not actually like "traditional" buildings as some people on here think they do, but the public might actually prefer the radical departures from traditional ornamentation, as we've seen with the montpelier example?
One, that you still questioning traditional architecture's popularity is awsome, your stamina is amazing, but then again I'm suffering from low-T. But that you think Montpellier is a radical departure from traditional ornamentation is a whole nother level.
I sense this thread is gasping it's last breaths. When I joined around 200 comments, I thought I was way late to the party. 1600 comments later and a new archinect record, I think we've aquitted our selves quite well. Curtkram, I'm going to miss your observations, they remind me of my school days, and as you know, I'm very nostalgic. In the mean time, have a nice Thanksgiving and beware of unnessesary ornaments.
should we add parametricism?
traditional: buildings thayer and suri like
modern: buildings thayer and suri don't like
parametricism: buildings that thayer and suri don't like, but obviously don't fit into any commonly accepted form of 'modernism'
Reading this thread is almost as much fun as watching the Knicks.
http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2013/nov/17/tate-britain-reworking-staircase-architecture
And Curt, really? parametricism doesn't fit commonly accepted ideas of modernism? I disagree. In fact, it is just the latest, and perhaps inevitable, step in the line of thinking that everything must be new. Can't be like the old modernism, that's passé, it needs to be the new modernism, and so the shape must be new, but it will be passé soon enough, too.
curtkram, I love what you said on the parametcisicm thread, so we have more in common than you might think. As for what is traditional vs. modernist, it's a conceptual framework that separates the two. Aesthetically, modernism can be rendered traditionally, but that tends to be called moderne art deco, or very, very stripped down classicism. Traditional work can be rendered like a modernist would, but that tends to be called "picturesque". But intellectually, the concpetual framework that parametricism relies on is similar to modernism's reliance on a conceptual framework. In other words, it's legibility is almost entirely predecated on familiarity with certain tconcepts rather than what can be understood through the senses.
You either "get it" or you don't, and like the "complexity barriers" that patrikschumacher puts up, they are both unnecessary and at times, counter-productive. Especially if in the end you are designing slick shopping malls.
Since some parametric buildings look like the paramecium we all studied in high school could we rename the new fad the "paramecium manifesto"? Gotta improve the visuals here.
Super-expensive to build, impossible to maintain, and a jarring juxtaposition to anything previously built in the vicinity. Just what we need in an era of impending societal collapse. I like it! Where's my Pritzker?
Nice visual metaphor.
Maybe suri was right.
The list does not surprise me. I do not see it as modern vs classical but as a reflection of the diversity of a nation of immigrants. A lot of different buildings in a lot of styles is perfectly appropriate.
curtkram,
It isn't that simple. Lets thing of these issues as a push/pull like a tuggle war of tastes throughout generations as cultural-generational trends in any given time and place.
It really comes to a taste like some people like more salt and others less and varying degrees in between. It comes down to taste and that is more important that we work towards with residential clients where that is even more so because clients are often more involved and they are the ones living in it.
Sometimes, what you can get away with in a commercial building isn't going to be accepted in a person's home.
EDIT: Sh-t!... response to an old post. What happens when people resurrect an old thread.
The list is called “America’s favorite architecture” and not “what style of buildings does the American public like” for a reason. Filtered data can’t typically be used for more than one argument.
That list doesn’t make any significant argument for what people want, or what the public likes. Just by looking at the buildings included you can start to see how the list was generated. When you actually look at the methodology you realize that there is a very specific kind of building that is likely to appear and that it makes no substantial argument for or against any specific style.
The method with which they filtered the results from the architects will always have an extremely high concentration of historically significant or famous contemporary buildings. The raw data probably makes a contradictory point that most architects prefer newer styles, but that’s not what we see because the information is not meant for that purpose.
All this makes the public survey meaningless for the topic of style.
Miles is a ruiner.
Donna, standing up for myself against a number of vitriolic attackers is nasty? Sorry, in hindsight maybe I should have just offered a couple of fuck you's and other disparaging personal comments instead as that seems to be pretty much the norm around here.
Back to our regularly scheduled programming, the article that got so many panties in a twist cited an AIA survey that is entirely appropriate to this thread, so I posted a link to it here. If that challenges your world view, maybe that's a good thing.
^You're more than welcome to your opinion and I am not going to call you names, but that survey is not appropriate for this thread.
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