In times when the rest of the city is rapidly becoming extremely expensive, Amsterdam’s ugly light gray and pink-yellow housing blocks are staying affordable, with rents contingent on income. Their continued presence in the city is becoming a memorial for a once-existing Amsterdam, in which almost all space in the city was equally distributed. — failedarchitecture.com
131 Comments
that doesn't make any sense to me thayer, but life might be a lot different wherever you are.
i've never seen any sort of restriction that says an architect, developer, contractor, etc., was not allowed to include rich geometries if it had any discernible historic references.
also, i don't understand what sort of dogmatism is being imposed on you. where are these impositions coming from? your clients? planning commission? neighborhood review board? i would like to know more about the regulations you're facing and where they're coming from. it's not something i've seen, but if this sort of thing really is being imposed on you, it would start to make more sense why you get so upset.
seems to me it's more common for you to tell people they must design in historic manners.
i'm not as interested in your choice of music, food, or literature, though there is a 'what are you listening to now' thread you might be interested in where people are talking about the music they're listening to.
Sorry curtkram, I should have been clearer. The dogmatism exists in academia, not in the countless traditional developments and buildings going up all around the country. And that closed minded dogmatism continues to frame the context through which most architectural media discusses contemporary work.
But, make no mistake, traditional architecture is flourishing for the very reason this article makes clear, something your constant whining indicates you are aware of. Like I've said many times before, but you steadfastly refuse to acknowledge, I have no problem designing modernist stuff any more than doing a tudor addition to a 1920's house. I love design of all kind, but that's not the way it was at Pratt years ago and things sure haven't changed much from my experience both as a crit and reading blogs such as this one.
The train has left the station on whether traditionalist architecture will take a back seat to modernism like it did from the 1950's to the 1980's. While post modernism cracked the door open, many flew through to realize the sky wouldn't fall if they should indulge their preference for cozy and nostalgic pastiche. Just like I suspect many on this blog enjoy the comforts of traditional loft buildings, bungalows, or whatever they like. That's a reality academia (not the building industry) has yet to come to terms with. Donna and I have made progress on this front, as I don't believe it needs to be an either or situation as you'd like to frame it, but please try to keep up.
On a related note, I went to see a lecture on Julia Morgan at the National Building Museum the other day. The Morgan who was posthumously presented with the AIA Gold Medal. Did you know she refused to design in the International Style? I asked the lecturer why, and she said because she thought it was ugly. Go figure, this from the pioneering woman who built some of the most eclectic and technologically advanced reinforced concrete structures of her time. Contemporary with Auguste Perret's much and rightly heralded concrete structures. Any idea why she was thrown in the dust bin of history but we all (I assume) know about Monsieur Perret? I'm sure being a woman and her dislike of self promotion had something to do with it, but I'd venture to guess her unabashed eclecticism and avowed dislike of modernism was more relevant.
Thankfully our society is evolving to see that someone from any background and any persuasion has the ability to excel, given the right circumstances. She had an amazingly supportive family and was blessed with a family fortune allowing her to be one of the first Beaux Arts educated architects in America. Hopefully, in time, we will see the study of architecture also evolve to be admired for it's architectonic aspects rather for it's stylistic purity and ideological affiliations.
jla-x got to the heart of the matter with
"The styles of modernism and postmodernism have been reduced to nothing more than PR. They are used to either express corporation via modern aesthetics, or to hide it via traditional/post modern style."
Public relations is at the heart of pretty much every architectural controversy that spreads across the blogs and twitter these days. From the Eisenhower Memorial to the Folk Art Museum to pretty much whatever Frank Gehry is doing at any given moment. The controversy is usually about us, the commenting public. We see a picture of a building and we decide if it offends our aesthetic sensibility. Very rarely is an architectural controversy about the failure of a building to meet the expectations of a client or to fail structurally or programmatically.
Even while people are living in these modern buildings in Amsterdam and demonstrating the architecture's legitimacy, others are telling them how wrong and ugly their lifestyle is based on a few haphazard photos of the a few building facades.
Thayer-D,
I find it very hard to believe that you are intimately aware of what goes on in academia.
Dogma isn't confined to academia and is pretty well defined by starchitects.
Davvid, replace controversy with attention. On major buildings PR is often the primary programmatic requirement.
so thayer, i think we're on the same page and we can agree that great architecture is great architecture without regard to style, thus anyone who frames architecture in terms of 'traditional' and "alien architecture of nihilism and death" (or 'modern' if you're still hung up on that obsolete term) is either a click-bait journalist and/or someone who doesn't know anything about architecture?
if julia morgan wanted to excel as an architect that includes, in part, statuary in her deigns then good for her. if she wanted to excel as an international modernist, or art deco, or victorian revival, or richardsonian romanesque, or deconstructivist, would you think less of her? she certainly meets mile's expectation that architecture is economic, having come from wealth and having an incredibly wealthy patron, neither of which apply to me.
i'm prettty sure the dogmatism is all in your head. however, most all of us have had a bad studio professor at some point. there's a thread going on with bad crits. perhaps you can share some of your stories of your abusive academic past there.
"Davvid, replace controversy with attention. On major buildings PR is often the primary programmatic requirement."
I don't think attention is entirely different from controversy. Maybe "attention" just feels better... I'm sure that a skilled Public Relations expert could explain to us exactly why you prefer "attention".
Davvid,
"Even while people are living in these modern buildings in Amsterdam and demonstrating the architecture's legitimacy, others are telling them how wrong and ugly their lifestyle is based on a few haphazard photos of the a few building facades"
For the record, EVERY kind of architecture is legitimate, modernist, Baroque, mud hut vernacular, whatever! This whole legitimate nonsense is propagated by the ideologues in all camps, who rely on dogma to make up for skill they lack or who knows what insecurity. I'm just saying let's learn from empirical evidence like a modern person should rather than relying on someone's version of a bible to separate the good from the bad. I might not prefer simple glass boxes, but that doesn't mean they are illegitimate. But when someone here professes a like or admiration of something vaguely traditional, the pack of wolves come out. That's simply not an environment conducive to open dialogue.
"so thayer, i think we're on the same page and we can agree that great architecture is great architecture without regard to style,"
YES! Curtkram, I've been trying to tell you this for a while all though maybe imperfectly. Who the fuck would I be to tell you how to design anything??? Maybe I can recommend clarifying the circulation or balancing the masses somewhat, but stylistically, no body made me emperor for a day. And if I just don't like what you've designed, so what! That doesn't make it illegitimate, as long as you let me be the woman I am (Shawn Colvin)
I would love to share some of my stories, all though they are now 20 some years old and just a bit amusing now that the bitterness has fallen away. When I went in as an idealistic student intent on making the world more beautiful, I was told I lived in Disney land, a nostalgic dope wanting to live in a by-gone era. Sure, a mixed blooded liberal, New Order loving bicycle enthusiast... dying to live in the past. What ever you say boss.
You're right though, we've all had fucked up studio experiences and no amount of ideological chair shuffeling will probably change that since assholes come in every stripe. So I will try to be more open minded in my comments and assume the philosophical context of some of the work posted here, as I do when critting a studio with a bunch of Bjarke Ingels wanna-be's. Some of the posted work isn't trying to activate the street, trying to fit in, or even be beautiful, that's obvious even if important to me. But once in while, if I see some truly egregious piece of narcissistic starchtecture, allow me a few shots. Modernism is legitimate because all of our opinions are legitimate. Legitimism?
Thayer-d. According to a radio type advertisement I have heard at Duane - Reade in NYC a few times recently (i do business calls in the pharmacy)...a Geico commercial, according to the Glass house - who is the narrator talking to you over the loudspeaker, insurance is needed for the poor choice in design and materials given the reality of hail storms.....Geico has decided the glass house is illegitimate for insurance reasons.
Thayer-D,
What empirical evidence are you referring to??
Thayer-D,
I don't see many places passing laws that restrict people from building in historical styles. I only see government restrictions forcing people to build in historical styles.
In academia and within architecture and design culture its a very different story. The reason that sincere architectural revivalism is problematic is because of NOSTALGIA. Indulging in delusions without irony or any other device to remind us that its a charade is irresponsible.
For me nostalgia has absolutely nothing to do with why I do what I do. If you think that, it's you who are indulging in delusions.
EKE,
Thats fine, for you. Not for me. I'm not sure how you get around the issue of nostalgia. The post-modernists had their approaches. I suppose it is possible that the irony of post-modernism is just getting more and more subtle. It does seem like Prince Charles is an extremely elaborate postmodern parody.
I'm just explaining why I think architectural revivalism and New Urbanism is catching on in the private market and political culture, not in academia. I think the problem is with nostalgia and ethical questions around how we deal with authenticity.
That said, I would never push for a law keeping people from building in a historical style. I'm fine with seeing the diversity of contemporary architecture in 2015 play out.
You get around the issue of nostalgia by not buying into the fiction of a zeitgeist, or the preeminence of the idea of "a style of our time". Once you get beyond that kind of historicist view, then you are free to use any architectural language that's appropriate to building type and place. I believe that there is a human nature that we all share, that has remained constant, despite our individual idiosyncracies, and the particulars of time period and associated technology. I believe that it's much more important that our architecture address that consistent and universal human nature than it is for it to express the transient ephemera of the moment. Nostalgia has absolutely nothing to do with it.
If you're working in a preexisting tradition or style you are buying into someone's zeitgeist. We're not returning to the beginning of human nature by building a colonial home. You don't escape the fiction of now by piling on more layers of fiction.
i'm pretty sure eke was just supporting or defending the new housing in amsterdam.
there is no 'style of our time' that it has to follow. it addresses the human needs it was designed to address. successful architecture by almost all accounts.
Perhaps we can get around the nostalgia problem by simply not caring, simultaneously recognizing current zeitgeist, human nature and a long tradition of humans not caring.
As I said, I don't buy into your premise. I'm not buying into someone's zeitgeist. I don't recognize it as a valid concept for architecture.
Traditions aren't capricious, and they're not personal. Traditions arise because, in some way, they reflect our human nature and values. Great traditions persist because they have evolved, by consensus, over time, in alignment with us. It's not fiction.
"... it addresses the human needs it was designed to address. successful architecture by almost all accounts."
Then why don't people like it as much as the older buildings? Clearly there must be some human needs it's not addressing as well...right?
EKE, do you live in a very big city?
I do. Los Angeles.
I live in NYC. I was walking back from lunch and thinking about the various patterns I notice. Speech patterns, slang, fashion, garden decorations, house colors, railing details. How is it possible to ignore zeitgeist? How is it impossible to ignore the hundreds of people wearing the same goddamned Canada Goose jacket this year? Its impossible. We're designers. Culture, tradition, trends, patterns, history, memes... its all too interesting to ignore.
It might be easier to ignore the evolutionary history of things in a small town where change is slower and a person comes in contact with fewer other people and things are not discussed to death by the media.
traditions are very much personal. if you look at the tradition of greek architecture, it generally covers areas where europeans or greek and roman descendents settled, right? not as much neoclassicism in japan or tehran is there (there are examples, it's just not as sought after)? the other side would be opening a present on christmas eve. same sort of 'tradition,' but different for most families, and specific to a fairly narrow segment of the global population. no reflection of 'human nature' or values in either tradition.
i find it hard to trust the media to tell me what 'the people' like anymore. any conversation of 'traditional v. modernism' (or "alien architecture of nihilism and death" as it is now referred) shouldn't be seen outside of fox news, but unfortunately a lot of our media outlets are deteriorating to that level.
i would rather live in one of the classically styled old mansions out by where i live too. not so much because of the style, but they're a hell of a lot better houses, and they cost a hell of a lot more. it's not the 'style' that makes me like those houses better than the one i live in, but if this reporter was surveying my opinion, he might erroneously come to that conclusion. i would be happy with a modern house that cost 100x what my house costs too.
on the other hand, you could certainly say that they should have spent a lot more money on this housing to make it nicer. that would start to have economic red-lining sort of implications though, right? only the wealthy should be allowed to live in the parts of europe you like to visit? i know you're not saying that, just throwing it out there as a potential pitfall to continuing the line of reasoning that every building should follow certain levels of 'high design.'
I'd answer that two ways.
First, I think that architecture is not the same as fashion design. Because of the expense, and the permanence of it, it should be concerned with lasting, universal values, not fashion trends. If we are really interested in sustainability, the we must recognize that nothing is more wasteful than trendy buildings that fall out of fashion tomorrow and are demolished.
Second, I would say that I'm not advocating that a zeitgeist doesn't exist, or that it shouldn't be addressed. I'm saying that we should not obsess about it, or fetishize it. It should not be the primary concern of our architecture.
The good thing about life is diversity. Every culture or style or movement is just as valid as any other one, and what is beautiful is seeing these differences woven together into a landscape. Thank god for wonderful traditional architecture based in a rich history and evolving as the construction changes, and thank god for amazing innovative buildings pushing the limits and exploring new boundaries. However, seeing how buildings of different styles can work together and play off each other really brings out the strengths of each one.
It's hard to pick out a single analogy, but I think the term itself embodies the lackluster environments we'd have if we only had one style to design with:
monotone.
EKE,
"I think that architecture is not the same as fashion design. Because of the expense, and the permanence of it, it should be concerned with lasting, universal values, not fashion trends."
I don't think thats entirely true. Windows, railings, outdoor light fixtures, signage, even building surfaces are being updated regularly enough to notice trends. Fashion is faster, but buildings (especially in places with high property values) are constantly changing in small ways that reflect new products and services on the market. I'd like to think that architecture is above trends but I don't think thats the reality on the ground.
Some ever-changing quasi-architectural items:
Then why don't people like it as much as the older buildings?
Apparently the people living there like them a lot.
Clearly there must be some human needs it's not addressing as well...right?
High profit development.
Miles, maybe I missed something, but the point of the original Amsterdam article seemed to me to be that the post-war modernist infill buildings were generally thought to be ugly, and have proven to be undesirable in the marketplace, only able to demand low prices and rents, which has caused them to be used generally for low-cost, rent-subsidized housing.
"I don't think thats entirely true. Windows, railings, outdoor light fixtures, signage, even building surfaces are being updated regularly enough to notice trends. Fashion is faster, but buildings (especially in places with high property values) are constantly changing in small ways that reflect new products and services on the market. I'd like to think that architecture is above trends but I don't think thats the reality on the ground."
I agree with everything you just said. I said that architecture SHOULD be concerned with the universal rather than the transient. I didn't say it IS.
Are you saying the tenants don't like low-cost and rent stabilization?
That's a very real marketplace, and from where I sit an infinitely more important one than upscale gentrified.
No, I'm saying that the article suggests that those units are not valued as highly in the open marketplace as the older ones, so the only use they have is as subsidized housing for people who are just damn glad to have a roof over their head. If the low income folks had a choice, I bet they'd choose the traditional townhouses too. But they don't have the same options.
Didn't this cheap ugly architecture replace crumbling and unserviceable traditional housing?
Archinect: we need a jump to last comment button for news, features and blogs.
Yes... but how is that a factor? Now those buildings are there, competing in the open market with the existing traditional architecture, and the verdict is pretty clear, it seems. I'm glad that the low-income renters have somewhere affordable to live. That's great, but its a byproduct of the fact that those units are undesirable.
When people buy a home, they assume they'll be in it for a certain amount of time. Not flippers, but those who don't relish the sense of dislocation that moving a family can produce. That's why it's silly to compare homes to an I-phone purchase. Sure there's overlap in the symbolic nature of objects and how one might like them to speak our values to the wider public, but there's a fundamental difference. The I-phone doesn't have to withstand nature's fury, which in our increasingly volatile climate, is becoming a greater concern, at least sub-consciously. People gravitate towards buildings that at least imply permanence versus something a storm could pick up and throw, assuming one has the means. This might invariably lead to traditional designs for better and for worse.
As every practitioner knows here, the concrete foundation and bolts are all but invisible to home buyers, so they will look for other visual clues that speak of permanence just like we might when choosing a mate. The wide vocabulary and nice manners might mask a homicidal maniac, but it's these exterior markers that we use to navigate our world, based on cultural understandings of what they represent that we rely on in many cases. Sometimes you have a one night stand, and sometimes you splurge on a crazy looking out fit, but with a home, one tends to think of permanence, and that is where traditional styles have an edge. Again, that doesn't mean they are better built, but when you hang a glass box from wires (to exaggerate) vs. solidify the base through rougher materials, it's an unmistakable que. Or when you have a cornice, like the bill of a hat in a rain storm, it communicates shelter, like it or not.
This doesn't make traditional architecture better, or more legitimate or anything so stupid, but it does reflect the way humans read and react to their environment and the subsequent choices people make in their choice for shelter and home. I'm not trying to tell people what they should like or even less pretend to speak for 'the masses", but I'm always trying to learn about human psychology to better design for it, and this article is but one bit of empirical data, ie, derived from or guided by experience or experiment. . Do with it what you may though.
Perhaps the older architecture is more desirable because the dwelling units have higher ceilings, architectural details, parquet wood floors? Some interior shots would have helped this article along.
fineprint of fantasies,
I don't think I need you telling me how my "time here would be better spent". We are having a conversation, which if you don't agree with, fineprint enough, but you are in no position to tell me how to contribute here. If my "ongoing critique falls short of manifesting any meaningful effect", then let that speak for itself, it needs no embellishing on your part.
I'm not accustomed to showing my work off to make a point, as you seem to be when you'd plaster these pages with your neon collages of traditional plans with parametric graphics superimposed.
"Personally, however, I have a feeling most of your "lessons" have already been learned. If I'm wrong, then please show us all how you have learned to do better."
If I might suggest, why don't you stick to your "feelings" and keep your childish baiting for someone who gives a shit. Better yet, let Clevelanders teach you something about place.
http://www.ideastream.org/programs/downtown
Bushwick Bill
Thayer, yes a cornice does express a function, but as technology advances function becomes less visable. Think about the evolution from the steam engine with its visible mechanisms to the jet engine...the i-phone is completely void of any functional expression. it would look like majic to a 18th century person. Think about sci-fi films. The monolith from "2001 space odessy". Nano tech will appear monolithic solid. no parts. function happens behind the scenes. Just seems like concealing this expression of function is a broader trend...
maybe this trend is not an intentional one but rather a consequence of technological efficiency? Just throwing it out there. could be wrong. Maybe we eventually end up back in a tree like Yoda lives in....Maybe once we learn that technological advancement and progress are very different.
Can we at least agree that the flying butress is functionally obsolete?
rasberry pi is the sort of functional beauty we should be striving for. it's has a lot parts/a lot of detail similar to the sculptural work of a gothic cathedral. it communicates it's function. it can be profoundly simple at the same time as it's remarkably complex. nothings hidden.
it wasn't designed for god or government like the great churches and palaces of the past. this is accessible and available to almost anyone. does providing beauty and design mean it has to be limited to the wealthy or ultra wealthy?
Yes, a flying buttress is functionally obsolete, especially since there aren't many gothic cathedrals going up. But buttresses are still an economical way of supporting tall structures, whether they be cathedrals or dams. But
As for cornices, last time I checked, it still rains, so not only does a cornice express a function, but it actually performs one. Sure you can caulk the shit out of every joint protruding into the sky, and you'd have every right to express yourself that way artistically. But if you're making a case against employing cornices based on the evolution of I'm petroleum based products, then you'd have to excuse the occasional rube who might want to build a cornice instead. It's a maintenance thing, the style comes in if you're feeling artistic. And as you might be aware, it's not exactly as if the current state of modernist expressionism is functionally grounded any more than Corb's flat roofs or Mies's glass walls in Northern Europe were, so I'm not sure where you're going with that one.
But I'll leave the trees to themselves while acknowledging that technological advancement and progress are very different. BTW, I love Sci-Fi, and most technology, I just would rather have a stroll along the Tiber river after a meal in Trastevere rather than own the latest I-phone, given the choice. Fortunately, I can have both, at least for now.
Change will always be difficult for some architects who are inclined to resist change. There are still architects who still don't know Autocad and they're usually the same ones who romanticize the act of hand drawing.
I think that to some degree, the resistance to change we see in Architecture is the same marginal resistance we see in the population at large to pretty much any change.
I have no idea what "rasberry pi" is, other than it's obviously a digital electronic device of some kind. It hardly communicates it's function, other than I know its general class of object. Other than that, I have no idea whether it is a video card for a PC, a controller for a smart-home system, or the digital brain from the device that delivers lethal injections at a prison. Its function is opaque, and its morality is ambiguous. Actually, everything important is hidden.
It's interesting that you would use this example as a paradigm for how contemporary buildings should communicate with us. It projects a general, vague impression of something "modern" "high-tech" and digital, without actually communicating anything else. It says nothing about human beings, and makes no effort to convey a moral point-of-view. It just says "I'm complex, I'm technological". That's exactly how so much of the avant-garde architecture functions today.
davvid, if the change you seem to be espousing where that simplistic, then please explain the fact that millenials seem to prefer reading off of actual paper.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/why-digital-natives-prefer-reading-in-print-yes-you-read-that-right/2015/02/22/8596ca86-b871-11e4-9423-f3d0a1ec335c_story.html
Could it be something to do with the fact that our physiology doesn't seem to be evolving at the same pace as our technology? Wait till you reach past 40 and tell me how those eyes like reading an article in fine print from a glowing screen, apparently many young eyes don't like it either.
It's not either or, as you seem to insist. It's what's right for the context and what's right for the individual. I don't know anyone who likes to draw by hand producing on anything but computers. But I do know a lot of whippersnappers who thought they where great because their computer program lit up like a Roman candle, only to be let down when the next 100 millenials could do the same thing. Some things do take time, like it or not. In the mean time, enjoy the ride and try to stay nimble.
you could google 'raspberry pi' and learn all about it. as far as your guesses, it is certainly morally ambiguous, as is pretty much all education isn't it? what you do with it is up to you, so if you have no morals, then neither will your buildings or your tools, right? you could say the same for the vatican or the westminster palace. or i suppose you could say those clearly lack morality because of what people do with them as symbols.
it's interesting that you would say everything important is hidden. apparently what's important is what you do with it. that comes with people's interaction with the device, not the device itself. the device is open and honest. i doubt your confusion is any different than someone who doesn't know the difference between greek and roman architectural detailing. the fact that this doesn't communicate to you just means you don't understand it. compared to an i-phone, as mentioned above, this device is really not complicated at all.
"davvid, if the change you seem to be espousing where that simplistic, then please explain the fact that millenials seem to prefer reading off of actual paper."
The thing about change is that it keeps happening. Change changes.
Actual paper has evolved. So too will screens.
When people buy a home, they assume they'll be in it for a certain amount of time. Not flippers
They might not be flippers but RE appreciation as an investment is a large consideration in pretty much all home purchases. It wasn't always that way ...
Re: Steve Lauf, only an idiot believes their own bullshit.
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