It certainly is available, and being employed on thoughtful traditional buildings around the country. Elaborate hand cut stone on large, expensive buildings with large budgets, and wood and plaster details on more humble, vernacular buildings. Just as it has always been. The goal is to select materials that are honest, weather well and last a long time. Often this means using traditional materials and details, but sometimes, this can mean using a new material that is superior to the old.
The thoughtful classicist doesn't "mimic" the past. They use a traditional language to create buildings that have relevance to people and places now.
"the problem of fake nostalgia manifested in mcmansions today is not necessarily due to post WWII automobile dominance. Americans have a love affair with re-creating physical symbols of bygone eras. There's a long tradition of borrowing and bastardizing to express some semblance of wealth and/or power. it's the whole reason why sullivan and wright were disgusted with the greek revival at the 1893 columbian exposition"
My point about auto dependence post WWII has nothing to do with style. I was simply saying that city planning post WWII produced the urban sprawl that is populate by the "McMansions" you so despise.. You mention Wright. Modern urban sprawl is his "Broadacre City" come to it's inevitable conclusion. As much a genius as he was, just because Wright thought something was a good idea don't make it so.
Let me ask you and others a question: Do you believe that it is possible to create buildings in any style other than post-1920s "Modern" styles that are anything other than "fake" or "pastiche" or "bastardized"?
I wouldn't consider modernism a style as much as a movement of thought. gropius (and others) proposed expressing current building technology of the time and removing architectural falsehoods. there's nothing wrong with doing a load bearing masonry building with masonry lintels so long as you aren't covering anything up with cliches as trace mentioned above.
wrecking - of course there's a modernism 'style'. style is simply the ability to codify a set of traits into a coherent, internally logical set of rules when applied to a design. dieter rams is a 'style' as well as a movement of thought - johnnie ivie has certainly proven that theorm.
and 'covering up' - seriously? you've never looked at the column details to the barcelona pavilion? or the actual structural diagrams? that thing is as 'cliche' as anything else. same for a ton of other modern work. the misnomer that there was a greater 'truth' in architecture of that stripe vs. more classical work is as much a fallacy as any out there. loos wasn't interested in 'honesty', just a different way to express spatial and experiential tropes than he felt was available via most traditional work of the period.
it's all pastiche in the end - just pick your poison with conviction, drink a long drink, and get on with it.
trace - in the end, i think you, eke, and i would agree on one thing: there's quality work, no matter what language or expression is chosen as the starting point and there's a ton of crap surrounding it on all sides. it's so rare to find and see truly great work out in the world - lots of pretenders to the throne on all sides. yes, mcmansions are a result of widespread, skilled labor being in short supply, but it's also equally symptomatic of a financing system for homes that values quantity over quality on all fronts (still, even after the meltdown).
fade - some more traditional practices i would check out if you're thinking about going that way (all are in the south - it's just what i know):
merrill pastor colgan - www.merrillpastor.com - one of the more interesting practices, imho. beginning to move away from their strictly traditional roots into a very abstract zone (and with some very overtly contemporary projects thrown in the mix the past couple of years).
eric watson - www.ericwatson.com - worked for scott merrill, but does traditional very well.
steve mouzon - www.originalgreen.com - i like his ideas more than his actual projects, but he's on the rise. also, very interesting in terms of his ability to cross over into other areas besides raw architecture.
khoury vogt - they're the town architects at a place called alys beach and have done some fantastic public buildings there - www.alysbeach.com
those all tend to be a bit beach oriented (hey, florida was booming for a long time), but the work is pretty solid.
and thus reminds me of the first line on this book i read on architecture
"Nothing seems stranger to the layman than the contempt with which certain architects hold other architects. It is ever thus with tribal warfare. How would it otherwise be possible that an architect could dislike another having never met, but simply on the basis of a building seen? How is it possible that a style of architecture should be considered to be the only appropriate one 'for our time'? How is this possible in an ear when we are meant to be categorically open to diversity?"
i would say the mcmansion is contemporary vernacular not traditional.
doing good traditional architecture is probably the same as doing good avant-garde architecture. both have a very narrow client base, and getting access to them is not easy. style in that sense is not an issue.
Steve Mouzon is a really smart fellow (and an incredibly nice guy, besides). Nobody I know has done more sensible thinking about cities and sustainability than he has. The Original Green is an eye-opener, and has really changed the lens through which I view green issues.
I keep trying to cross-pollinate the forums. I like the format on Land8 because there is actually less anonymity so people are less likely to be stupid. You have to be farily calculating with your remarks.
For those that haven't checked the link...Steve Mouzon is there along with several other notable designers, writers, and thinkers. We need more architects over there.
i agree that there are various forms of aesthetics and styles that have emerged within the modern movement. i was more speaking to the use of nostalgia and the production of fake buildings (stone veneer covering steel for example) not equating structural expressionism with modernism.
if you are going to build traditionally i think you should honor the construction techniques used to execute that type of architecture. clearly this is increasingly difficult to do because of the expense, resulting in fake columns and cornices made of stucco and fypon. that's not a style, that's disneyland.
On my desk is sitting a copy of the new "Architect" magazine, and on the cover is a beautiful photo of Norman Foster's beautiful pavilion at SC Johnson headquarters in Wisconsin. It has slender columns around the perimeter, which I'm guessing are steel pipe columns wrapped in an aluminum sheathing. The steel is completely hidden, and the aluminum could never support the weight of the hovering roof by itself.
again, this is not about structural expressionism. i don't think anyone believes the aluminum is supporting the building, it's a cladding material. if you don't understand the difference btw the foster building and a mcmansion then there's not a lot of point to this discussion.
I understand perfectly well the difference between a "mcmansion" and the Foster building.
Since the time of ancient Greece, almost all columns and cornices in classical architecture are "fake" by your standards. Most of the Roman buildings were concrete clad in stone. The vast majority of the vernacular buildings in great European cities were brick shells covered in stone or plaster.
My point is that you criticize contemporary "traditional" building for this, but you don't hold "modern" buildings to the same standard.
I think we can probably agree that buildings should be well detailed and built of durable, sustainable materials. If that is your point, I agree 100%. I would also add that there are far to many examples of building that don't live up to that goal, both "traditional" and "modern".
Actually since about the 11-12th century to the 19th century, many buildings that we believe to be stone are actually made out of synthetic stone!
Look:
It's one of the first McMansions (the walled city of Carcassonne, France-- built in 1883).
Oh, look! Another fake cast stone house (coade stone)--Belmont House, Built circa 1820s-1840s.
As to this "vast majority of the vernacular buildings in great European cities..."
Technically, the vast majority of European venacular buildings are post-and-beam half-timbered houses filled in with rubble and lime plaster.
Like my post above, you really have to separate urban Europe from non-urban Europe. And by urban Europe, I mean any place where the real (or hypothetical-- that is the actual density multiplied to fille a square mile) is 6-8,000 people per square mile plus.
Non-urban (or rural Europe) has its own separate history with its own separate pressures where as urban Europe has its own unique features and pressures too.
The problem with McMansion's being fake is that they are terribly built and have incredibly short building lives.
We see in historic architecture that pretense and lies are abound everywhere. We also see places where cheap materials are also used tastefully or used to create elaborate architecture.
In urban Europe, the "best" architecture is the "best" because it is the architecture that doesn't burn down, resists canon fire, hasn't be bombed and its residents lived in it long enough to maintain it for any significant period of time.
So, even if Rome's buildings are 'cheap' knock offs of Greecian buildings... many that still exist have existed for 2000-2500 years. And if we really look at the cost per square feet breakdown, that kind of architecture really isn't that expensive.
"It's one of the first McMansions (the walled city of Carcassonne, France-- built in 1183)."
But, McMansion, has to do more with the realm of planning and landscape architecture.
That is the planning and lifecycles of these structures is disposable. Nearly everything about these buildings is disposable. And that's the issue here...
It's one thing to have the American Dream(tm).
It's another thing for the American Dream(tm) to be some off-the-shelf produced bullshit.
Personal bias: The American Dream is an absolute bullshit product marketing vehicle... Like living in a failing ABC family sitcom.
The basic premise of the McMansion is this: We're going to build a fantasyland for you (that physically is the equivalent of a slum where everyone except the breadwinner is physically retarded). You'll eventually die here and after 30 years... we're going to raze this all to the ground and rebuild it again in a slightly different style.
I've seen different variations of the same argument used quite often: "The reason that we shouldn't be using traditional styles today is because there are no craftspersons who can execute the workmanship required to do the styles properly, at a reasonable cost." IMO, this argument is a straw man.
In my experience, it's not true. There are plenty of craftsmen out there that have expertise in these techniques. And if the detailing and material selection is appropriate to the nature of the building and the budget, it can be done cost effectively.
traditional architecture is fine so long as it's well built and vernacular. the problem i have with traditional style is when it's borrowing and then faking something. for instance, georgian architecture was lifted from england and yet found it's way into everything from colonial williamsburg to contemporary houses. there was a time and place for georgian as with greek temples. the closet thing we have to indigenous architecture in the US is the barn/log cabin/teepee, etc.
not so ironically, when you force something that isn't vernacular on the landscape it typically isn't a sustainable practice either. and i think we agree that you can bastardize modern architecture (esp when you treat it simply as an image driven style) the same way. but gropius' point was not to constantly recreate the bauhaus but to take the principles of current technology and translate them.
ultimately i think we have a problem with both traditional and modern 'styles' being so image-driven. it results in buildings under-preforming and being disposable as UG said above.
There's a lot of emotional attachment and cynicism in this discussion, so I'm hesitant to even comment, but I find it difficult to have a discussion about the McMansion phenomenon without talking about planning and site design as was alluded to in an earlier message.
In essence, isn't a mcmansion in suburbia the vernacular? It seems like everyone loves to bitch about the suburbs and residential architecture, yet the so-called 'freshest minds' tend to gravitate toward the Frank Gehry's and Zaha Hadid's of the world. Academia is both critical and ignorant of (paraphrasing Keunsler, not that I subscribe to his methodology) perhaps the 'greatest misallocation of resources' in human history, both in terms of intellectual and geophysical resources.
To that end, in response to the OP's comment/question: I think there is an even greater potential for return in the 'trenches' of practice, whether in Landscape, planning, or Arch. Academia loves Object Architecture and Object cities. In my mind, objectification is the essence of modernism with a basis in the proliferation of economic, social, and physical sciences.
just wait a few hundred years and some of the mcmansions today will be looked on wistfully.
kunstler has a point. but mostly he just sharpens it and refuses to use his very good point to suggest anything beyond ridiculous name-calling. talk about wasting resources...
the enduring architecture is always the expensive stuff. mcmansions probably won't be that. there are well crafted buildings that are only a few hundred years old that were built cheaply for their time. not sure how much of the skills from those days remain. and in any case we don't live that way anymore so why the rush to turn back the clock?
i lived in a rather nice traditional farmhouse with a hand pump in the kitchen and an outhouse about 50 meters from the back door. we heated the house with a wood stove of the ben franklin variety and had single pane windows. it was nice. cold as only canadian winters can make it cold. and taking a bath by heating up the water over a woodstove and carrying hot water in metal bucket to a claw-toed tub was fun the first time and a chore every time after that.
it gave me a very clear vision of the past. not very romantic. but the house was built at a time when all of the above was normal and it had its place. today it is an anachronism, just as any building copying that time would be.
anyway, i am not offering the anecdote gratuitously, i do have a point. not sure how to phrase it properly but to me once such an old type of house is updated and filled with modern amenities the only things left are the superficial markers, which i guess could be put together to make some sort of "style", but that is not really what i would call the main value of architecture myself.
personally i see no inherent benefit in trying to make old building typologies work as solutions to modern urban issues. i prefer to use contemporary ideas and methods. however if anyone really wants to make a building by following some sort of old template my hat is off to them. it is not an easy job whichever way it is tackled...
"This question isnt about traditional vs. contemporary architecture. Its about selecting an audience and pandering to it."
"Pandering" is one way to put it. I'd say it's about designing buildings that people find beautiful, make people happy and make their lives better.
We've talked a lot about the "McMansion" phenomenon. We've all railed against badly designed suburban pseudo-traditional houses, bloated and covered with plastic ornament. I think that the reason these sort of houses are so badly designed is that there are few architects who are trained to do it, due to the monopoly of Modernist orthodoxy in the schools. But that is changing, thanks to schools like Miami, Notre Dame, and groups like the Institute of Classical Architecture. There is a new generation of architects and designers who take a more pluralistic view of the design spectrum. For them it's more "both/and" rather that "either/or".
This all begs the question: why do people build so many bad pseudo-traditional houses? I've noted that there are fewer good traditional architects trained to do it these days, but.... why "traditional"?
The common answer from doctrinaire modernists is that the public is unsophisticated, or lazy, or foolishly nostalgic, searching to return to a romantic past that is ultimately unattainable. "The problem is with THEM, not our buildings"
But I think that the public is actually pursuing values in the buildings they build. I think that the public sees beauty, comfort, warmth, connection with culture, in traditional work. The sad thing is that in the profession, most of the practitioners willing to provide what they are asking for are poorly suited to do it, and the avant-guarde often refuses to provide it. I think that the public builds McMansions because we won't give them better.
My opinion - the modernist avant-guarde needs to think more about what it is that people want. What makes people happy. I think, in an effort to be unique and to align with the art world, the profession has become so introspective that we create buildings, not to make clients happy, but to appeal to other architects. My suggestion is that we should look to what popular taste is, and try to understand what it means, and interpret it in thoughtful, multi-layered ways, instead of calling the public lazy and foolish, and churning out buildings that confuse them. The profession used to do this.... we can do it again.
I am not sure about that. Do you think Picasso would be respected if it weren't for the critics? Most people would find his work bizarre or ugly, but with education (and sophistication) people are capable of understanding and appreciating something greater than what is at arms reach - Home Depot and 90210.
In the end, you can create 'bad' or not, that's your choice. I'd argue that most people simply have bad taste, in general, and will succumb to what is media blasted, advertised or just what they see everywhere (a la the OC, or whatever). People "like" what they are comfortable with or what they are "told" to like, generally speaking of course.
That's fine from a business stand point, and that's why we continue to see it - developers are there to make money, not make a pretty world.
On here, though, I think most of us are looking for that idealistic world. Not realistic, but I didn't become an architect to remake history or redo what has been done already.
Thankfully, we are seeing some sophistication in the consumer, largely due to the green movement. We are seeing more contemporary designs and planned communities, contemporary (note that I am not saying "Modern") multi-family designs, etc., etc.
Refreshing, imho, and I hope this continues as the McMansion continues to be demonized and fades away, just as the Hummer has.
eke, i do think you have a great point about the disparity between what is considered avant garde (magazine starchitecture) and most of the residences being built today. i personally find gehry's work experimental sculpture and quite unsuccessful. While I think avant garde has it's place, it doesn't speak for the state of the profession as whole. most good architectural schools teach students about the process of design, not an end result. i don't believe they are or should be teaching a certain style.
imo, the swiss in particular have successfully managed to create quite a few humble, contemporary buildings that nod to vernacular architecture without regurgitating it. it would be great to see that happen on a greater scale here, much like it does in the NW.
but there remains a problem on the part of the public to want to walk into a plastic, ready made builder's home and sign on the dotted line b/c it's easy and cheap(er). part of that is b/c architectural services are really still a luxury, not necessarily b/c hard-line modernists 'refuse' to produce traditional language. i think most good architects seek to please their clients...and run a business.
the mcmansion tends to be design by default, not by intention. and generally architects' involvement is minimal, even if there are architects at many large developers' offices.
the typical pseudo-traditional residence, imo, is less a result of design than it is a result of the real estate industry's practice of turning everything into a feature to list/inventory in a property description. it doesn't matter if the triple-tiered crown molding is correct or attractive for your spanish-ish villa or if a tray ceiling actually adds any quality to the space, only that it can be cited on the property listing as something which adds "value".
buyers can then walk through each house with their checklist of things that they think they're supposed to have, whether it affects how they might live in the house or not.
a correctly designed french provincial would not be likely to garner the same sale value if it didn't also have the same list of features as the crappy builder/developer bastardization/mashup of several styles. it's not the actual traditional that's important, just the symbols of traditional, no matter how irrelevant or out of place.
quality of design, appropriate accommodation, and useful amenities only matters to a small-ish segment of the housing market; the rest of the market is driven by the quantitative.
wrecking - i agree with the sentiment that the public just wants to go in and buy a house that's already done vs. going through the process of building themselves. and, really, can we blame them? i don't want to have to go through the process of custom building an i-phone - i just want the thing to work.
if more contemporary homes were available to be just 'bought', at prices which parallel their traditional neighbors, they would be. i'm convinced. however, finding developers, banks, and appraisers (in short, the rest of the financing system) who are willing to take that risk... different story than the public's willingness.
look, if 1/10th of 1% of the total speculative housing stock built in a normal year (around 5M homes, so 50,000 of those as modern), i'm convinced they would all sell, especially if they're remotely well thought out. i don't have hard numbers, but at least here in the south, the number of new modern homes is probably 1/100th of 1%. reason that matters is, what do you comp it against? how do you prove that it works? well, the money talks...
Very well articulated point and I generally agree.
EKE-
I think you echoed my point, but more eloquently. I'm not sure if you read my post and replied in response or we were just on the same page independently. Anyway, I agree.
It is certainly an 'either/or' scenario in academia. In landscape, generally speaking, if you're not on the Harvard path you do golf courses and backyards. If you're 'good' you're expected to do plazas in NYC and urban plans in Sausolito. I got stuck in a rural town when the music stopped last year and I'm finding that the McMansion/Sprawl phenomenon is due pricipally in my area to the personal philosophies and professional objectives of the developers, but most certainly perpetuated by the designers complascency and/or laziness/incompetence.
The funny thing is, in this area it seems there is greaater earning potential in this market than at the 'higher end.'
outed - "modern" detailing is more work - that's why it's not usually used in spec housing - it's faster to slap on some trim to cover up unfinished corners rather than take the time to do a proper corner bead.
the more stuff you put on a house, the easier it is to hide inexact workmanship. it's also why the cheap products have more "texture" in them.
But I think that the public is actually pursuing values in the buildings they build. I think that the public sees beauty, comfort, warmth, connection with culture, in traditional work. The sad thing is that in the profession, most of the practitioners willing to provide what they are asking for are poorly suited to do it, and the avant-guarde often refuses to provide it. I think that the public builds McMansions because we won't give them better.
people respond viscerally positive to human proportioned textures, elements, and spaces at a range of scales, good lighting, and comfortable climates, etc... - not necessarily whatever "values" are inherent in "traditional" design (I'm not exactly sure what you mean by "traditional" or "values," btw). people like buildings and spaces that psychologically "feel good" and this is what most practitioners at least try to provide for their clients. it has nothing to do with a particular style.
it's a little easier to do this with historic styles because we already have a set of aesthetic rules at a range of scales that we know will look ok with minimal effort - with contemporary design there are no highly specific aesthetic rules, so we, the design professionals, have to either invent them or borrow them from somewhere else - and it's difficult to do well unless you really understand materials, proportion, and composition.
as for mcmansions, the general public (including contractors) are not trained as designers, so the best they can do is to randomly combine the overwhelmingly huge variety of ready-made components (that they can identify as parts of a building) that are strewn across home depot and hope that it looks halfway decent. people have been building houses on their own for generations, but the trouble with a ton of choice is that most people make decisions based on what is either cheapest or has the best marketing or their best guess as to what goes together - and you end up with schizophrenic-looking houses. in the past there weren't as many materials to choose from, and not as much crap to organize and fit in our houses, so it was easier for the builder to be creative and make something that looked good.
@toasteroven, there was a lot of choice, even a hunderd years ago. that was what the modernists and the art nouveau and the arts and crafts crowd were all up in arms about really - the plethora of choice and the pastiche-ituity with which it was applied. all willy-nilly gothic and jacobian, and georgian and victorian and with all those other wacky styles ending in "-ian".
mcmansions are cheap and they make money. it is a good way to earn cash when the market is right. much better than high end housing.
i guess we could all go back to the days of catherine beecher. certainly it was an interesting time to be a designer. and we would all be arguing about the merits of prefab housing from sears-roebuck and the horrible-ness of the star-architects like HH Richardson who clearly didn't know how to make anything but grossly massive rip-offs of romanesque pallazos, and how suburbia was disgusting and really what the profession needed was to go back to the classics and stop with all the new-fangled crap that was floating about....
it is amazing that we are still re-hashing arguments that are well over a hundred years old, INCLUDING the role of suburbia in our cities....and still mostly we are saying that everyone is wrong but me ;-)
it's a little easier to do this with historic styles because we already have a set of aesthetic rules at a range of scales that we know will look ok with minimal effort - with contemporary design there are no highly specific aesthetic rules, so we, the design professionals, have to either invent them or borrow them from somewhere else - and it's difficult to do well unless you really understand materials, proportion, and composition.
I generally agree with this, although doing thoughtful and innovative work in traditional styles is anything but easy.
As I've said before, I view architectural styles as languages, and in that light I don't see how a language needs to be stuck in a particular time. I think that the great architectural traditions are usually living traditions, and when one uses that language one isn't "going back" or "borrowing" from a dead past, bu tare simply employing an evocative language that is appropriate for a particular architectural story.
If I were to write a novel, I suppose I could sit down and invent an entire new language to write it in...some authors have tried to do that...William Burroughs comes to mind. But you run the risk of writing something that communicates to only a few, and frustrates many. Although I'm a fan of Burroughs, I would never argue that all serious literature attempt the reconceive the English language. Wolfe can write a great novel using the same English that Dickens did.
it's a little easier to do this with historic styles because we already have a set of aesthetic rules at a range of scales that we know will look ok with minimal effort - with contemporary design there are no highly specific aesthetic rules, so we, the design professionals, have to either invent them or borrow them from somewhere else - and it's difficult to do well unless you really understand materials, proportion, and composition.
I generally agree with this, although doing thoughtful and innovative work in traditional styles is anything but easy.
As I've said before, I view architectural styles as languages, and in that light I don't see how a language needs to be stuck in a particular time. I think that the great architectural traditions are usually living traditions, and when one uses that language one isn't "going back" or "borrowing" from a dead past, bu tare simply employing an evocative language that is appropriate for a particular architectural story.
If I were to write a novel, I suppose I could sit down and invent an entire new language to write it in...some authors have tried to do that...William Burroughs comes to mind. But you run the risk of writing something that communicates to only a few, and frustrates many. Although I'm a fan of Burroughs, I would never argue that all serious literature attempt the reconceive the English language. Wolfe can write a great novel using the same English that Dickens did.
Here's how I look at "traditional" design (not all, but most): I look at it and say "why"? Why do you have small windows, technology has advanced long ago, why do you have "fake" mullions sandwiched between two pieces of glass to "look" old, but be more functional? Why?
Now I am not advocating that every project look like a Gehry clone, that would be equally awful.
I do enjoy some of the modern vernacular we are seeing more of. I'd suggest that would be a contemporary interpretation of "traditional" and a nice bridge between two extremes.
Show me a plastic Doric column, though, and I get a little nauseous. Or that fake 'sticky stone' that is slapped onto the McMansions all over the place (just went through some suburbs yesterday, just amazing how shallow most home buyers are - gotta have 5000 sf, 10 ft. between me and my neighbor, and have it all for $250k! No wonder we have such crap everywhere!!)
To your analogy, English is not written or spoken as it was 200 years ago, and shouldn't be (it would seem pretentious and superficial). In another few hundred years I hope things continue to evolve.
We don't dress like we did centuries ago, either, even though we still wear pants and shirts. I would also feel nauseous if I saw someone walking around dressed in a Victorian outfit everyday.
To each there own, there is obviously a market for the rehashed traditional, but I see no originality in it and honestly don't consider it much of 'architecture'. I can take it in small doses, like a horse and carriage ride through the city. Nice once every few years, but would be horrible if we had that everywhere.
But I respect business for business sake, greatly, and can see how this direction would be a sound choice with that consideration.
"To your analogy, English is not written or spoken as it was 200 years ago, and shouldn't be (it would seem pretentious and superficial). In another few hundred years I hope things continue to evolve."
Actually, American English pretty much is. The Queen's English on the other hand has changed pretty dramatically since the 18th century.
But that's semantics. And that's what these conversations really are: semantics.
Why do you have small windows, technology has advanced long ago, why do you have "fake" mullions sandwiched between two pieces of glass to "look" old, but be more functional? Why?
There are actually some very good reasons why, on a particular project, one might prefer the traditional configurations. Your comment suggests that huge sheets of uninterrupted glass is an almost Platonic ideal, to be pursued on every project. I don't think that it is, personally.
-Traditional buildings with thick walls and smaller windows are naturally more energy efficient, all else being equal.
Smaller windows are less expensive.
-Smaller windows allow the designer to frame certain views and exclude others.
-Smaller windows allow us to use cost effective shading and security devices like awnings, rolling security shutters, or hinged shutters. There are very practical, good, enduring reasons why nearly every building in Venice, for example, has hinged shutters.
-Although we always want to avoid simulated sticking in windows, true divided light windows have an important advantage. If you break one, you can simply replace the one light, and not the whole window.
Trace - I know I'm not going to convince you to become a fan of traditional architectural languages, but I wanted to simply make the point that modern tech doesn't have all the answers, what we do today isn't necessarily better, and that often traditions come about in architecture for very good reasons.
UG - right, just as buildings are generally the same too, with minor changes to aesthetics and experience, but no quantum leaps. It is the 'design' and details that are different, not that we do/do not have doors/windows.
EKE - right, to each there own. Obviously economics play a factor, it is when I see a mega mansion with no budget and see these types of details, or a great view that is obstructed by a billion small and unnecessary frames.
But everyone is entitled to their opinions. Like I mentioned, there are some great examples of architects trying to take the better pieces from different styles and combine them successfully.
There is a reason Architecture Digest is successful (and I do have a subscription to that, but for different reasons than I do Arch Rec, Arch, Res Arch, etc.). They actually do a half decent ("half" being the key word) job of showing diversity. I've seen some pretty amazing projects in there that span all styles and some contemporary takes on tradition.
You know guys and gals,
How is this philosophical debate going to help all the unemployed architects?
Hello people no one is hiring any of us whether you are a crazy zaha hadid fan or even if you are a person that knows how to build something meaningful.
you all might as well become architecture critics.
it could help, if you go back to the original premise/question of the thread. the question was how to generate a more 'steady' stream of work in residential, the premise being that focusing on one variation over the other would be better.
my own take (and the general consensus) is that, yes, in residential, there is much more opportunity to generate work vis a vis a traditional leaning portfolio.
if you're thinking - as an out of work architect or someone looking to get started on their own soon regardless - of what you can do to create your own security and future, then the debate has some merit.
traditional vs contemporary in practice
It certainly is available, and being employed on thoughtful traditional buildings around the country. Elaborate hand cut stone on large, expensive buildings with large budgets, and wood and plaster details on more humble, vernacular buildings. Just as it has always been. The goal is to select materials that are honest, weather well and last a long time. Often this means using traditional materials and details, but sometimes, this can mean using a new material that is superior to the old.
The thoughtful classicist doesn't "mimic" the past. They use a traditional language to create buildings that have relevance to people and places now.
"the problem of fake nostalgia manifested in mcmansions today is not necessarily due to post WWII automobile dominance. Americans have a love affair with re-creating physical symbols of bygone eras. There's a long tradition of borrowing and bastardizing to express some semblance of wealth and/or power. it's the whole reason why sullivan and wright were disgusted with the greek revival at the 1893 columbian exposition"
My point about auto dependence post WWII has nothing to do with style. I was simply saying that city planning post WWII produced the urban sprawl that is populate by the "McMansions" you so despise.. You mention Wright. Modern urban sprawl is his "Broadacre City" come to it's inevitable conclusion. As much a genius as he was, just because Wright thought something was a good idea don't make it so.
Let me ask you and others a question: Do you believe that it is possible to create buildings in any style other than post-1920s "Modern" styles that are anything other than "fake" or "pastiche" or "bastardized"?
I wouldn't consider modernism a style as much as a movement of thought. gropius (and others) proposed expressing current building technology of the time and removing architectural falsehoods. there's nothing wrong with doing a load bearing masonry building with masonry lintels so long as you aren't covering anything up with cliches as trace mentioned above.
wrecking - of course there's a modernism 'style'. style is simply the ability to codify a set of traits into a coherent, internally logical set of rules when applied to a design. dieter rams is a 'style' as well as a movement of thought - johnnie ivie has certainly proven that theorm.
and 'covering up' - seriously? you've never looked at the column details to the barcelona pavilion? or the actual structural diagrams? that thing is as 'cliche' as anything else. same for a ton of other modern work. the misnomer that there was a greater 'truth' in architecture of that stripe vs. more classical work is as much a fallacy as any out there. loos wasn't interested in 'honesty', just a different way to express spatial and experiential tropes than he felt was available via most traditional work of the period.
it's all pastiche in the end - just pick your poison with conviction, drink a long drink, and get on with it.
trace - in the end, i think you, eke, and i would agree on one thing: there's quality work, no matter what language or expression is chosen as the starting point and there's a ton of crap surrounding it on all sides. it's so rare to find and see truly great work out in the world - lots of pretenders to the throne on all sides. yes, mcmansions are a result of widespread, skilled labor being in short supply, but it's also equally symptomatic of a financing system for homes that values quantity over quality on all fronts (still, even after the meltdown).
fade - some more traditional practices i would check out if you're thinking about going that way (all are in the south - it's just what i know):
merrill pastor colgan - www.merrillpastor.com - one of the more interesting practices, imho. beginning to move away from their strictly traditional roots into a very abstract zone (and with some very overtly contemporary projects thrown in the mix the past couple of years).
eric watson - www.ericwatson.com - worked for scott merrill, but does traditional very well.
steve mouzon - www.originalgreen.com - i like his ideas more than his actual projects, but he's on the rise. also, very interesting in terms of his ability to cross over into other areas besides raw architecture.
khoury vogt - they're the town architects at a place called alys beach and have done some fantastic public buildings there - www.alysbeach.com
those all tend to be a bit beach oriented (hey, florida was booming for a long time), but the work is pretty solid.
and thus reminds me of the first line on this book i read on architecture
"Nothing seems stranger to the layman than the contempt with which certain architects hold other architects. It is ever thus with tribal warfare. How would it otherwise be possible that an architect could dislike another having never met, but simply on the basis of a building seen? How is it possible that a style of architecture should be considered to be the only appropriate one 'for our time'? How is this possible in an ear when we are meant to be categorically open to diversity?"
i would say the mcmansion is contemporary vernacular not traditional.
doing good traditional architecture is probably the same as doing good avant-garde architecture. both have a very narrow client base, and getting access to them is not easy. style in that sense is not an issue.
Regarding the comments on Planning/smart growth/sprawl and Steve Mouzon--
We've got some good discussions incubating here (link) from the landscape side.
Steve Mouzon is a really smart fellow (and an incredibly nice guy, besides). Nobody I know has done more sensible thinking about cities and sustainability than he has. The Original Green is an eye-opener, and has really changed the lens through which I view green issues.
Thanks for the link, Larchinect!
Sure.
I keep trying to cross-pollinate the forums. I like the format on Land8 because there is actually less anonymity so people are less likely to be stupid. You have to be farily calculating with your remarks.
For those that haven't checked the link...Steve Mouzon is there along with several other notable designers, writers, and thinkers. We need more architects over there.
i agree that there are various forms of aesthetics and styles that have emerged within the modern movement. i was more speaking to the use of nostalgia and the production of fake buildings (stone veneer covering steel for example) not equating structural expressionism with modernism.
if you are going to build traditionally i think you should honor the construction techniques used to execute that type of architecture. clearly this is increasingly difficult to do because of the expense, resulting in fake columns and cornices made of stucco and fypon. that's not a style, that's disneyland.
On my desk is sitting a copy of the new "Architect" magazine, and on the cover is a beautiful photo of Norman Foster's beautiful pavilion at SC Johnson headquarters in Wisconsin. It has slender columns around the perimeter, which I'm guessing are steel pipe columns wrapped in an aluminum sheathing. The steel is completely hidden, and the aluminum could never support the weight of the hovering roof by itself.
Disneyland?
again, this is not about structural expressionism. i don't think anyone believes the aluminum is supporting the building, it's a cladding material. if you don't understand the difference btw the foster building and a mcmansion then there's not a lot of point to this discussion.
I understand perfectly well the difference between a "mcmansion" and the Foster building.
Since the time of ancient Greece, almost all columns and cornices in classical architecture are "fake" by your standards. Most of the Roman buildings were concrete clad in stone. The vast majority of the vernacular buildings in great European cities were brick shells covered in stone or plaster.
My point is that you criticize contemporary "traditional" building for this, but you don't hold "modern" buildings to the same standard.
I think we can probably agree that buildings should be well detailed and built of durable, sustainable materials. If that is your point, I agree 100%. I would also add that there are far to many examples of building that don't live up to that goal, both "traditional" and "modern".
Actually since about the 11-12th century to the 19th century, many buildings that we believe to be stone are actually made out of synthetic stone!
Look:
It's one of the first McMansions (the walled city of Carcassonne, France-- built in 1883).
Oh, look! Another fake cast stone house (coade stone)--Belmont House, Built circa 1820s-1840s.
As to this "vast majority of the vernacular buildings in great European cities..."
Technically, the vast majority of European venacular buildings are post-and-beam half-timbered houses filled in with rubble and lime plaster.
Like my post above, you really have to separate urban Europe from non-urban Europe. And by urban Europe, I mean any place where the real (or hypothetical-- that is the actual density multiplied to fille a square mile) is 6-8,000 people per square mile plus.
Non-urban (or rural Europe) has its own separate history with its own separate pressures where as urban Europe has its own unique features and pressures too.
The problem with McMansion's being fake is that they are terribly built and have incredibly short building lives.
We see in historic architecture that pretense and lies are abound everywhere. We also see places where cheap materials are also used tastefully or used to create elaborate architecture.
In urban Europe, the "best" architecture is the "best" because it is the architecture that doesn't burn down, resists canon fire, hasn't be bombed and its residents lived in it long enough to maintain it for any significant period of time.
So, even if Rome's buildings are 'cheap' knock offs of Greecian buildings... many that still exist have existed for 2000-2500 years. And if we really look at the cost per square feet breakdown, that kind of architecture really isn't that expensive.
"It's one of the first McMansions (the walled city of Carcassonne, France-- built in 1183)."
But, McMansion, has to do more with the realm of planning and landscape architecture.
That is the planning and lifecycles of these structures is disposable. Nearly everything about these buildings is disposable. And that's the issue here...
It's one thing to have the American Dream(tm).
It's another thing for the American Dream(tm) to be some off-the-shelf produced bullshit.
Personal bias: The American Dream is an absolute bullshit product marketing vehicle... Like living in a failing ABC family sitcom.
The basic premise of the McMansion is this: We're going to build a fantasyland for you (that physically is the equivalent of a slum where everyone except the breadwinner is physically retarded). You'll eventually die here and after 30 years... we're going to raze this all to the ground and rebuild it again in a slightly different style.
I've seen different variations of the same argument used quite often: "The reason that we shouldn't be using traditional styles today is because there are no craftspersons who can execute the workmanship required to do the styles properly, at a reasonable cost." IMO, this argument is a straw man.
In my experience, it's not true. There are plenty of craftsmen out there that have expertise in these techniques. And if the detailing and material selection is appropriate to the nature of the building and the budget, it can be done cost effectively.
traditional architecture is fine so long as it's well built and vernacular. the problem i have with traditional style is when it's borrowing and then faking something. for instance, georgian architecture was lifted from england and yet found it's way into everything from colonial williamsburg to contemporary houses. there was a time and place for georgian as with greek temples. the closet thing we have to indigenous architecture in the US is the barn/log cabin/teepee, etc.
not so ironically, when you force something that isn't vernacular on the landscape it typically isn't a sustainable practice either. and i think we agree that you can bastardize modern architecture (esp when you treat it simply as an image driven style) the same way. but gropius' point was not to constantly recreate the bauhaus but to take the principles of current technology and translate them.
ultimately i think we have a problem with both traditional and modern 'styles' being so image-driven. it results in buildings under-preforming and being disposable as UG said above.
This question isnt about traditional vs. contemporary architecture. Its about selecting an audience and pandering to it.
There's a lot of emotional attachment and cynicism in this discussion, so I'm hesitant to even comment, but I find it difficult to have a discussion about the McMansion phenomenon without talking about planning and site design as was alluded to in an earlier message.
In essence, isn't a mcmansion in suburbia the vernacular? It seems like everyone loves to bitch about the suburbs and residential architecture, yet the so-called 'freshest minds' tend to gravitate toward the Frank Gehry's and Zaha Hadid's of the world. Academia is both critical and ignorant of (paraphrasing Keunsler, not that I subscribe to his methodology) perhaps the 'greatest misallocation of resources' in human history, both in terms of intellectual and geophysical resources.
To that end, in response to the OP's comment/question: I think there is an even greater potential for return in the 'trenches' of practice, whether in Landscape, planning, or Arch. Academia loves Object Architecture and Object cities. In my mind, objectification is the essence of modernism with a basis in the proliferation of economic, social, and physical sciences.
just wait a few hundred years and some of the mcmansions today will be looked on wistfully.
kunstler has a point. but mostly he just sharpens it and refuses to use his very good point to suggest anything beyond ridiculous name-calling. talk about wasting resources...
the enduring architecture is always the expensive stuff. mcmansions probably won't be that. there are well crafted buildings that are only a few hundred years old that were built cheaply for their time. not sure how much of the skills from those days remain. and in any case we don't live that way anymore so why the rush to turn back the clock?
i lived in a rather nice traditional farmhouse with a hand pump in the kitchen and an outhouse about 50 meters from the back door. we heated the house with a wood stove of the ben franklin variety and had single pane windows. it was nice. cold as only canadian winters can make it cold. and taking a bath by heating up the water over a woodstove and carrying hot water in metal bucket to a claw-toed tub was fun the first time and a chore every time after that.
it gave me a very clear vision of the past. not very romantic. but the house was built at a time when all of the above was normal and it had its place. today it is an anachronism, just as any building copying that time would be.
anyway, i am not offering the anecdote gratuitously, i do have a point. not sure how to phrase it properly but to me once such an old type of house is updated and filled with modern amenities the only things left are the superficial markers, which i guess could be put together to make some sort of "style", but that is not really what i would call the main value of architecture myself.
personally i see no inherent benefit in trying to make old building typologies work as solutions to modern urban issues. i prefer to use contemporary ideas and methods. however if anyone really wants to make a building by following some sort of old template my hat is off to them. it is not an easy job whichever way it is tackled...
"This question isnt about traditional vs. contemporary architecture. Its about selecting an audience and pandering to it."
"Pandering" is one way to put it. I'd say it's about designing buildings that people find beautiful, make people happy and make their lives better.
We've talked a lot about the "McMansion" phenomenon. We've all railed against badly designed suburban pseudo-traditional houses, bloated and covered with plastic ornament. I think that the reason these sort of houses are so badly designed is that there are few architects who are trained to do it, due to the monopoly of Modernist orthodoxy in the schools. But that is changing, thanks to schools like Miami, Notre Dame, and groups like the Institute of Classical Architecture. There is a new generation of architects and designers who take a more pluralistic view of the design spectrum. For them it's more "both/and" rather that "either/or".
This all begs the question: why do people build so many bad pseudo-traditional houses? I've noted that there are fewer good traditional architects trained to do it these days, but.... why "traditional"?
The common answer from doctrinaire modernists is that the public is unsophisticated, or lazy, or foolishly nostalgic, searching to return to a romantic past that is ultimately unattainable. "The problem is with THEM, not our buildings"
But I think that the public is actually pursuing values in the buildings they build. I think that the public sees beauty, comfort, warmth, connection with culture, in traditional work. The sad thing is that in the profession, most of the practitioners willing to provide what they are asking for are poorly suited to do it, and the avant-guarde often refuses to provide it. I think that the public builds McMansions because we won't give them better.
My opinion - the modernist avant-guarde needs to think more about what it is that people want. What makes people happy. I think, in an effort to be unique and to align with the art world, the profession has become so introspective that we create buildings, not to make clients happy, but to appeal to other architects. My suggestion is that we should look to what popular taste is, and try to understand what it means, and interpret it in thoughtful, multi-layered ways, instead of calling the public lazy and foolish, and churning out buildings that confuse them. The profession used to do this.... we can do it again.
I am not sure about that. Do you think Picasso would be respected if it weren't for the critics? Most people would find his work bizarre or ugly, but with education (and sophistication) people are capable of understanding and appreciating something greater than what is at arms reach - Home Depot and 90210.
In the end, you can create 'bad' or not, that's your choice. I'd argue that most people simply have bad taste, in general, and will succumb to what is media blasted, advertised or just what they see everywhere (a la the OC, or whatever). People "like" what they are comfortable with or what they are "told" to like, generally speaking of course.
That's fine from a business stand point, and that's why we continue to see it - developers are there to make money, not make a pretty world.
On here, though, I think most of us are looking for that idealistic world. Not realistic, but I didn't become an architect to remake history or redo what has been done already.
Thankfully, we are seeing some sophistication in the consumer, largely due to the green movement. We are seeing more contemporary designs and planned communities, contemporary (note that I am not saying "Modern") multi-family designs, etc., etc.
Refreshing, imho, and I hope this continues as the McMansion continues to be demonized and fades away, just as the Hummer has.
eke, i do think you have a great point about the disparity between what is considered avant garde (magazine starchitecture) and most of the residences being built today. i personally find gehry's work experimental sculpture and quite unsuccessful. While I think avant garde has it's place, it doesn't speak for the state of the profession as whole. most good architectural schools teach students about the process of design, not an end result. i don't believe they are or should be teaching a certain style.
imo, the swiss in particular have successfully managed to create quite a few humble, contemporary buildings that nod to vernacular architecture without regurgitating it. it would be great to see that happen on a greater scale here, much like it does in the NW.
but there remains a problem on the part of the public to want to walk into a plastic, ready made builder's home and sign on the dotted line b/c it's easy and cheap(er). part of that is b/c architectural services are really still a luxury, not necessarily b/c hard-line modernists 'refuse' to produce traditional language. i think most good architects seek to please their clients...and run a business.
the mcmansion tends to be design by default, not by intention. and generally architects' involvement is minimal, even if there are architects at many large developers' offices.
the typical pseudo-traditional residence, imo, is less a result of design than it is a result of the real estate industry's practice of turning everything into a feature to list/inventory in a property description. it doesn't matter if the triple-tiered crown molding is correct or attractive for your spanish-ish villa or if a tray ceiling actually adds any quality to the space, only that it can be cited on the property listing as something which adds "value".
buyers can then walk through each house with their checklist of things that they think they're supposed to have, whether it affects how they might live in the house or not.
a correctly designed french provincial would not be likely to garner the same sale value if it didn't also have the same list of features as the crappy builder/developer bastardization/mashup of several styles. it's not the actual traditional that's important, just the symbols of traditional, no matter how irrelevant or out of place.
quality of design, appropriate accommodation, and useful amenities only matters to a small-ish segment of the housing market; the rest of the market is driven by the quantitative.
wrecking - i agree with the sentiment that the public just wants to go in and buy a house that's already done vs. going through the process of building themselves. and, really, can we blame them? i don't want to have to go through the process of custom building an i-phone - i just want the thing to work.
if more contemporary homes were available to be just 'bought', at prices which parallel their traditional neighbors, they would be. i'm convinced. however, finding developers, banks, and appraisers (in short, the rest of the financing system) who are willing to take that risk... different story than the public's willingness.
look, if 1/10th of 1% of the total speculative housing stock built in a normal year (around 5M homes, so 50,000 of those as modern), i'm convinced they would all sell, especially if they're remotely well thought out. i don't have hard numbers, but at least here in the south, the number of new modern homes is probably 1/100th of 1%. reason that matters is, what do you comp it against? how do you prove that it works? well, the money talks...
Jump-
Very well articulated point and I generally agree.
EKE-
I think you echoed my point, but more eloquently. I'm not sure if you read my post and replied in response or we were just on the same page independently. Anyway, I agree.
It is certainly an 'either/or' scenario in academia. In landscape, generally speaking, if you're not on the Harvard path you do golf courses and backyards. If you're 'good' you're expected to do plazas in NYC and urban plans in Sausolito. I got stuck in a rural town when the music stopped last year and I'm finding that the McMansion/Sprawl phenomenon is due pricipally in my area to the personal philosophies and professional objectives of the developers, but most certainly perpetuated by the designers complascency and/or laziness/incompetence.
The funny thing is, in this area it seems there is greaater earning potential in this market than at the 'higher end.'
outed - "modern" detailing is more work - that's why it's not usually used in spec housing - it's faster to slap on some trim to cover up unfinished corners rather than take the time to do a proper corner bead.
the more stuff you put on a house, the easier it is to hide inexact workmanship. it's also why the cheap products have more "texture" in them.
people respond viscerally positive to human proportioned textures, elements, and spaces at a range of scales, good lighting, and comfortable climates, etc... - not necessarily whatever "values" are inherent in "traditional" design (I'm not exactly sure what you mean by "traditional" or "values," btw). people like buildings and spaces that psychologically "feel good" and this is what most practitioners at least try to provide for their clients. it has nothing to do with a particular style.
it's a little easier to do this with historic styles because we already have a set of aesthetic rules at a range of scales that we know will look ok with minimal effort - with contemporary design there are no highly specific aesthetic rules, so we, the design professionals, have to either invent them or borrow them from somewhere else - and it's difficult to do well unless you really understand materials, proportion, and composition.
as for mcmansions, the general public (including contractors) are not trained as designers, so the best they can do is to randomly combine the overwhelmingly huge variety of ready-made components (that they can identify as parts of a building) that are strewn across home depot and hope that it looks halfway decent. people have been building houses on their own for generations, but the trouble with a ton of choice is that most people make decisions based on what is either cheapest or has the best marketing or their best guess as to what goes together - and you end up with schizophrenic-looking houses. in the past there weren't as many materials to choose from, and not as much crap to organize and fit in our houses, so it was easier for the builder to be creative and make something that looked good.
@toasteroven, there was a lot of choice, even a hunderd years ago. that was what the modernists and the art nouveau and the arts and crafts crowd were all up in arms about really - the plethora of choice and the pastiche-ituity with which it was applied. all willy-nilly gothic and jacobian, and georgian and victorian and with all those other wacky styles ending in "-ian".
mcmansions are cheap and they make money. it is a good way to earn cash when the market is right. much better than high end housing.
i guess we could all go back to the days of catherine beecher. certainly it was an interesting time to be a designer. and we would all be arguing about the merits of prefab housing from sears-roebuck and the horrible-ness of the star-architects like HH Richardson who clearly didn't know how to make anything but grossly massive rip-offs of romanesque pallazos, and how suburbia was disgusting and really what the profession needed was to go back to the classics and stop with all the new-fangled crap that was floating about....
it is amazing that we are still re-hashing arguments that are well over a hundred years old, INCLUDING the role of suburbia in our cities....and still mostly we are saying that everyone is wrong but me ;-)
how ironic could we get?
I would never argue that we needed to "go back to the classics and stop with all the new-fangled crap that was floating about."
I'm arguing for a healthy diversity of approach.
I generally agree with this, although doing thoughtful and innovative work in traditional styles is anything but easy.
As I've said before, I view architectural styles as languages, and in that light I don't see how a language needs to be stuck in a particular time. I think that the great architectural traditions are usually living traditions, and when one uses that language one isn't "going back" or "borrowing" from a dead past, bu tare simply employing an evocative language that is appropriate for a particular architectural story.
If I were to write a novel, I suppose I could sit down and invent an entire new language to write it in...some authors have tried to do that...William Burroughs comes to mind. But you run the risk of writing something that communicates to only a few, and frustrates many. Although I'm a fan of Burroughs, I would never argue that all serious literature attempt the reconceive the English language. Wolfe can write a great novel using the same English that Dickens did.
I'm arguing for both Wolfe AND Burroughs.
I generally agree with this, although doing thoughtful and innovative work in traditional styles is anything but easy.
As I've said before, I view architectural styles as languages, and in that light I don't see how a language needs to be stuck in a particular time. I think that the great architectural traditions are usually living traditions, and when one uses that language one isn't "going back" or "borrowing" from a dead past, bu tare simply employing an evocative language that is appropriate for a particular architectural story.
If I were to write a novel, I suppose I could sit down and invent an entire new language to write it in...some authors have tried to do that...William Burroughs comes to mind. But you run the risk of writing something that communicates to only a few, and frustrates many. Although I'm a fan of Burroughs, I would never argue that all serious literature attempt the reconceive the English language. Wolfe can write a great novel using the same English that Dickens did.
I'm arguing for both Wolfe AND Burroughs.
Here's how I look at "traditional" design (not all, but most): I look at it and say "why"? Why do you have small windows, technology has advanced long ago, why do you have "fake" mullions sandwiched between two pieces of glass to "look" old, but be more functional? Why?
Now I am not advocating that every project look like a Gehry clone, that would be equally awful.
I do enjoy some of the modern vernacular we are seeing more of. I'd suggest that would be a contemporary interpretation of "traditional" and a nice bridge between two extremes.
Show me a plastic Doric column, though, and I get a little nauseous. Or that fake 'sticky stone' that is slapped onto the McMansions all over the place (just went through some suburbs yesterday, just amazing how shallow most home buyers are - gotta have 5000 sf, 10 ft. between me and my neighbor, and have it all for $250k! No wonder we have such crap everywhere!!)
To your analogy, English is not written or spoken as it was 200 years ago, and shouldn't be (it would seem pretentious and superficial). In another few hundred years I hope things continue to evolve.
We don't dress like we did centuries ago, either, even though we still wear pants and shirts. I would also feel nauseous if I saw someone walking around dressed in a Victorian outfit everyday.
To each there own, there is obviously a market for the rehashed traditional, but I see no originality in it and honestly don't consider it much of 'architecture'. I can take it in small doses, like a horse and carriage ride through the city. Nice once every few years, but would be horrible if we had that everywhere.
But I respect business for business sake, greatly, and can see how this direction would be a sound choice with that consideration.
"To your analogy, English is not written or spoken as it was 200 years ago, and shouldn't be (it would seem pretentious and superficial). In another few hundred years I hope things continue to evolve."
Actually, American English pretty much is. The Queen's English on the other hand has changed pretty dramatically since the 18th century.
But that's semantics. And that's what these conversations really are: semantics.
There are actually some very good reasons why, on a particular project, one might prefer the traditional configurations. Your comment suggests that huge sheets of uninterrupted glass is an almost Platonic ideal, to be pursued on every project. I don't think that it is, personally.
-Traditional buildings with thick walls and smaller windows are naturally more energy efficient, all else being equal.
Smaller windows are less expensive.
-Smaller windows allow the designer to frame certain views and exclude others.
-Smaller windows allow us to use cost effective shading and security devices like awnings, rolling security shutters, or hinged shutters. There are very practical, good, enduring reasons why nearly every building in Venice, for example, has hinged shutters.
-Although we always want to avoid simulated sticking in windows, true divided light windows have an important advantage. If you break one, you can simply replace the one light, and not the whole window.
Trace - I know I'm not going to convince you to become a fan of traditional architectural languages, but I wanted to simply make the point that modern tech doesn't have all the answers, what we do today isn't necessarily better, and that often traditions come about in architecture for very good reasons.
UG - right, just as buildings are generally the same too, with minor changes to aesthetics and experience, but no quantum leaps. It is the 'design' and details that are different, not that we do/do not have doors/windows.
EKE - right, to each there own. Obviously economics play a factor, it is when I see a mega mansion with no budget and see these types of details, or a great view that is obstructed by a billion small and unnecessary frames.
But everyone is entitled to their opinions. Like I mentioned, there are some great examples of architects trying to take the better pieces from different styles and combine them successfully.
There is a reason Architecture Digest is successful (and I do have a subscription to that, but for different reasons than I do Arch Rec, Arch, Res Arch, etc.). They actually do a half decent ("half" being the key word) job of showing diversity. I've seen some pretty amazing projects in there that span all styles and some contemporary takes on tradition.
You know guys and gals,
How is this philosophical debate going to help all the unemployed architects?
Hello people no one is hiring any of us whether you are a crazy zaha hadid fan or even if you are a person that knows how to build something meaningful.
you all might as well become architecture critics.
displaced-
it could help, if you go back to the original premise/question of the thread. the question was how to generate a more 'steady' stream of work in residential, the premise being that focusing on one variation over the other would be better.
my own take (and the general consensus) is that, yes, in residential, there is much more opportunity to generate work vis a vis a traditional leaning portfolio.
if you're thinking - as an out of work architect or someone looking to get started on their own soon regardless - of what you can do to create your own security and future, then the debate has some merit.
Block this user
Are you sure you want to block this user and hide all related comments throughout the site?
Archinect
This is your first comment on Archinect. Your comment will be visible once approved.