“As a practitioner, I have had the privilege of coaching many young architects, helping them grow into mature professionals, key members of our business organization, and valued contributors to the communities we serve,” Ferguson said. “At CatholicU, I look forward to expanding the opportunities to create knowledge and to inspire lifetime learners who acquire the awareness, skills, and judgment to be trusted stewards of the places in which we live." — The Catholic University of America
After 17 years, Randal Ott steps down at The Catholic University of America School of Architecture and Planning and will be succeeded by Mark Ferguson, partner of Ferguson & Shamamian Architects, L.L.P. The New York city firm is widely known for its classical and traditional style of architecture, with Ferguson heavily involved in the Institute of Classical Architecture having an award named after him in 2017. Ferguson will be taking over responsibilities as Dean on July 1st, 2020.
128 Comments
Excellent news. Catholic University has mad a wonderful choice. Congratulations Mark!
Catholic University? Why attach such religious nonsense to higher-education places? Garbage academic direction. You don't need an imaginary daddy to be a decent person and do good things (aka stewards of the places we live as per article).
do you not embrace diversity?
How much diversity is embraced in an institution based on the morally bankrupt catholic church?
Plenty of diversity there: you have your Doric order, Ionic, Early and Late Corinthian, Tuscan...
"based on" is carrying a lot of weight in that sentence & I don't agree that it's an accurate description of CU.
This is an announcement of a fine man having been named as dean at a university architectural program. Does it need to instantly become a churning pot of anti-Catholic bigotry? I’m sorry, I’m not easily riled, but this is offensive.
Yes, a catholic university is offensive.
Whatever one says about religions can be said about every other human institution in the world. Either way, we will have another architectural school teaching architecture and not just theory or worse, ideology, and that's something to be hopeful for. May you do wonderful things Mr. Ferguson. There are may of us rooting for you.
Before Thomas Jefferson estabilished UVa all universities were affiliated with different religions.
Volunteer... and most have evolved beyond these silly superstitions. This school's website is full of religious nonsense that screams "we don't care about education, we care about indoctrination". Terrible education policy. No one should be proud to associate with this backwards institution.
Non, do you have a problem with the prominence of Catholic schools (uniforms and all) in Ontario school systems? Just trying to gauge your aversion.
Marc, I most certainly do and it's a big problem. Filled out a form a few month ago diverting my tax dollars away from the separate (religious) school boards. I don't split hairs.
This is indeed excellent news. Hopefully he'll institute a common sense curriculum focused on the end user and the student's needs rather than nonsensical theory and buildings that will never see the light of day.
If the architectural profession is to become relevant, it needs to address the needs of everyday people in real world conditions. Only then will they have the skills to engage developers as participants and possibly affect positive change in the built environment and by extension the natural environment.
so...
Snarky Pete, do you think architecture students graduating with out employable skills isn’t a real issue?
We both know that isn't what you said but sure; if it helps you sleep at night.
"Only then will they have the skills to engage developers"
Enjoy grinding your axe.
"...and possibly affect positive change in the built environment and by extension the natural environment."
Thayer-speak for traditional white people buildings.
I'm not white, I'm a human being. Grow up already.
I never claimed you were white. Obviously you are a human being. One who's incapable of receiving criticism of their blind spots, it seems.
Then what does "traditional white people buildings" mean? I get that we have different tastes in architecture, but what does race have to do with that? Is one more traditional school that much of a threat?
Please elucidate my blind spots because I promise you I intend no harm to any non white races (if there are races), especially considering the harm racism has done to my family. Let's move on already.
Thayer, here's some traditional white people buildings from Ferguson-Shamamian. After a cursory look at their work, it seems that they work solely within the confines of this particular idiom
here's an aerial that ought to drive the point home:
What point is it that you think that photo dives home?
What I find deeply problematic is the fact that a "serious" University would find that someone that designs almost exclusively single family, classically styled residences, an appropriate fit to lead architecture students into the future. Bloated, facile, and boring is no way to go through architecture school.
As opposed to a university who hires someone with an almost purely theoretical portfolio?
Mark is one of the most skilled and highly effective administrators I have ever known. When he was Chairman of the Board of Directors of the ICAA, I saw it first hand. He guided the Institute back from years of poor management to real stability. This is the most important task of a dean.
Mark has run one of the most successful residential practices in the nation. And he's a fine architect. Catholic University is moving to establish a classically-based architectural program in the vein of Notre Dame. We can certainly have a discussion about whether that's the best way to lead architecture students into the future, but I can tell you that the top students at ND are getting salaries at the very top of the curve, so they must be in very high demand. Under Mark's leadership, I look for Catholic University to be up there soon as well.
Well, I'm sure the "trads" are happy, but my point is to the end user. It appears that the end user, and financial well-being, especially when it comes to ridiculous footprints as the ones above, are not in the realm of consideration when it comes to the kind of architects we need, for the challenges we face. You've replaced heterogenous design theories, with a homogenous singular vision catering to one type of individual. At least with the multivalent contemporary design thinking you aren't relegated to silod thinking. Classical, yeah, in the most facile form. Not critical.
That’s nonsense. Contemporary design thinking couldn’t be more siloed.
Actually, I’m going to try to be a bit more nuanced. Truth is that we are talking at each other from across a great philosophical chasm. From my side of the chasm, current avant-garde architecture looks super siloed. Same visual tricks over and over, same curvy blobs and the same shifted, stacked boxes. From your side of the divide, I can see why it seems to you that trad architecture is siloed. It repeats many of the same forms that have been used for centuries. So “silos” may not necessarily be the problem. If the philosophy behind the silo is sound, and it speaks to people and makes their lives better, then that’s the point, right?
See above.
Staaaaaaap. Do you even look at the work on the very same site you're posting this comment? Really? Lake|Flato is the same as ZHA? Olson Kundig the same as Morphosis? Give it a rest. This doesn't even begin to crack the thin argument you are making. Stern isn't even the same league as Graves, and I'm not a big fan of Graves.
I think the similarity is the inability to formulate a critical armature with which to understand work that seems to stand in isolation from one another. It’s one thing to like one sculpture over others. It’s quite another to build a coherent street where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, something that modernism has yet to achieve.
That's not the goal of modernism, and yet hear again you keep referring to a style that doesn't exist in this time. And again, like the "trads" trying to negate NYC, we have proof in the city that what you proffer is false.
I've never seen modernism produce a city that's as attractive as a traditional city, at least if tourism is any guide. That doesn't mean there should be no modernism, but back to the post, why not have more than one school teach the principles that make the cities people love? And if none of that sways your opinion to allow some academic diversity, why not leave it as a matter of taste and coexist? That's what we have to do with so much else.
I don't have a problem with a multiplicity of voices to create an environment, most cities achieve this idea. Rome, Athens, London and NYC all do this. However you've never advanced the idea of heterogeneous environments, or acknowledged the value of them. I find value in the conversations, multiple languages that architecture construct, when newer buildings stand side by side with older structures. Cities of homogeneous architecture, speaking the same language, speak to unilateral and nationalist discourse, and fail to join the community of diversity.
I have indeed advocated a heterogeneous environment, you just haven't heard because it doesn't fit your preconceived idea of what a traditionalist thinks like. As for cities of homogeneous architecture, that isn't what some thought of 19th century cities as the attached image makes clear. Exceptional sites and unique programs do indeed call for iconic architecture and modernism surrounded by traditional fabric can in fact look striking. This is how the early modernists always imagined their work, separate from its context like Mies's famous glass tower rendering, and that was my point. I'm for pluralism, but in terms of art, it isn't always conducive to harmony. Think about it like music. An orchestra falls apart if a soloist goes off on a tear. Cities can accept a lot more diversity obviously, but how else to talk about inserting an iconic building on a Parisian Boulevard or a New England village. Given the need to densify, why always go against the grain with the public's innate sense of harmony? What's missing from schools isn't how to design an iconic building but how to insert new construction harmoniously into a much loved streets cape. Like it or not, this is a highly valued and renumerated skill which Mr. Ferguson's appointment would go a long way to remedy.
densify, diversity etc. LOOK at the freaking work I posted and try to square the values you claim to champion with the sterility and excess on display, ffs! No time today to answer fully, but just saying you traditionalists are continuously appearing more and more like hypocrites steeped in willful ignorance
Thayer-D, you're one of the most stubborn of the lot. Here's a case in point- Barcelona, a modernist urban planning masterpiece, better than most cities I've been in and infinitely more humanistic, interesting, democratic, and aesthetically stimulating than any faux-beaux-arts shit that the neocon-allied re-neo-classicists like you are peddling
again, no time today, but the entire Santa Caterina Market project by Enric Miralles could probably fit inside the property in the aerial I posted of a Ferguson-Shamamian residence, and it includes real historical architecture, beautifully presented in preserved ruins, restored classicism, completely contemporary solutions for doing both while operating a public market, and has a social housing component attached. All love and zero nostalgia
I'm only stubborn when confronted with ideological thinking masquerading as open mindedness. For starters, a grid layout isn't modernist, it's as old as the Romans. Second, those buildings by Gaudi and the other Modernistas (Catalan Art Nouveau) are traditional in conception and ornamentation, even if their style doesn't originate in Greece. And third, design whatever colorful canopy you'd like, just don't tear down that lovely market facade with it's elegant rhythm and humanist detailing. For your information, you don't need a single classical order to design humanist cities, just an eye for what might make the public like the buildings. In fact, your analysis proves my point, which is...we need more traditional education, because the Modernista buildings you reference where designed by architects reared on Beaux-Arts schooling, even if they abandoned the orders in practice, but I wouldn't expect you to have learned that from a history book written by Pevsner or another modernist version of history. Speaking of Barcelona, enjoy the photos.
The Barcelona city plan that we know today started with the Romans and was comprehensively master planned in the mid 19th Century. Hardly "modernist". The fanciful architecture of Gaudi (more classical than modern, I'd argue) or the Santa Caterina market sprinkled throughout the city are wonderful counterpoints to what is a substantially traditional city. By the way, traditional architecture need not be nostalgic or retrograde, any more than writing a book in English should be considered so because the language has been spoken for centuries.
right, they must have called themselves Modernistas ironically... Barca as we know it today, at least the Eixample almost in it's entirety was planned by Ildefons Cerdà (whom even wikipedia acknowledges as founder of modern town planning who coined the new word “urbanization") in the 1850s. There's a couple of roman walls left in the middle of the gothic quarter, but nearly no trace of whatever city planning they might have done in this location. It's not modernist just because it's a grid, but the way the grid is layed out and proportioned IS modernist.
"By the way, traditional architecture need not be nostalgic or
retrograde" you are right, but the Ferguson Shamamian brand of traditional design is both of those simultaneously
"design whatever colorful canopy you'd like, just don't tear down that lovely market facade with it's elegant rhythm and humanist detailing."
There's every bit as much elegance and rhythm to the EMBT canopy as there is in the white arcade of the old market, and even more humanist detailing in the two housing structures attached to the project. Go ahead and keep ignoring how a contemporary designer, educated in the most modern of institutions created an innovative project that is completely respectful of tradition and history, while looking forward (but no parallel/counter-example can be given from a neo-traditionalist camp). You say blind shit like that while calling me an ideologue - this is why it's often fruitless to have these chats with you lot on here!
How do you define "looking forward"?
"Nothing ages faster that yesterday's vision of the future." -Witold Rybzynski
Merriam-Webster defines forward-looking as: concerned with or planning for the future.
Synonyms: farseeing, farsighted, forehanded, foreseeing, foresighted, forethoughtful, forward, prescient, proactive, provident, visionary.
Antonyms: farseeing, farsighted, forehanded, foreseeing, foresighted, forethoughtful, forward, prescient, proactive, provident, visionary
What's missing in that definition is "good".
Do you think the Santa Caterina Market is bad? And if so, why?
Aristotle would remind you that there's at least two kinds of good - good for, and good at. I think the market is both good for (the city and it's denizens, as well as commerce, as well as culture), and good at (preserving history and displaying it in an engaging way, making new space for commercial and social activity in the city, being photogenic, showing the way with new technologies etc.)
As far as a project that was designed in 1997 and finished in 2005, I think it didn't age a minute. Certainly looks like it's settling into "time" easier than most newfangled Zaha Hadid stuff, or the EIFS faux-trad columns that are shedding stucco quicker than acceptable all over the world.
What's your next deflection?correction on forward-looking antonyms: half-baked, half-cocked, improvident, myopic, shortsighted
Myopic as in: thinking that arguing over column capital styles or the type of crown molding to use in order to hide shoddy craftsmanship is what architects primarily need to concern themselves with. Or willing to restrict client base to the richest class in society, in order to practice outdated form-making under the pretense of "tradition", while consuming resources at exceptionally elevated levels in comparison to the overall history of human civilization, and taking up more and more land for private purposes, which also happen to destroy heterogeneous native ecosystems, just so you can have that manicured kentucky bluegrass lawn surrounding your pool, regardless of geographic location.
this type of myopia is not restricted by "style", but is prominently on display in the works of Ferguson-Shamamian.
one can be critical of a neo-classical, widely excessive (economically and environmentally) architecture without being a complete sychopant for neo-liberalized starchitecture. there is plenty of middle ground that allows the profession to move forward in terms of design, aesthetics, user experience (especially widening the net...) and environmental stewardship. the fact is the world is not long for the type of architecture that mr ferguson practices.
Like this?
How is that more obscene than this?
If your gripe is that they are too large and extravagant, then they are both equally obscene by that standard. I'll bet the one I posted cost more, actually.
Actually, the interior of the one I posted, probably cost more than the one you posted.
erik, yes i agree the example you posted is extravagant as well, hence the reason i said i'm less interested in style. though the examples you posted is not the sort of middle ground i'm referencing, both examples are the sort of buildings architects need to move away from because of the few extremely privileged people it serves, as well as it's detrimental impact on the planet. you seem to have a gripe against liberal academic architects for their lack of connection with a broader audience, yet the person you are defending perpetuates the same sort of back practices with a different label.
Could you elaborate how these styles are any more white than modernism? And didn't Greek culture borrow, steal, or adapt (depending on your politics) from the non white Egyptians? Lastly, should we go through all the arts and define everything by the race of it's origin or can we like most great artists imagine these creations as belonging to all human beings, assuming there is no inherent difference. At least that's what science tells me.
BTW: Can't wait to get a pro-science anti-racist president.
One school gets a dean who champions traditional architecture and the world is ending. Students are free to go elsewhere. Apparently modernists want diversity - but not really.
Duty Now for the Future!
I've always thought traditional architecture would need to be re-engaged with in order for "modernist" or contemporary practice to really save itself, but the comments here seem to prove that most aren't ready for it. (coming from someone who works at one of the most avante-garde firms in the united states)
The day that the voices here prove anything due to being "most" I shall eat my hat.
True plurality
False dichotomy.
Care to elaborate?
The drawing sets up a dichotomy which consists of only two of many styles of buildings, then posits that it somehow illustrates some sort of inclusive plurality, which it does not.
What two styles would those be?
the two styles pictured in the cartoon are: square boxes with pointy pyramidal roofs, and square boxes with random curvy shit for roofs.
What I would call them is irrelevant. That the drawing pretends a plurality while showing only two is the point.
Here's a little secret I'll let you in on, Pete. It's a cartoon. It's intentionally simplified in order to make a point. And the point is this:
The most beautiful places are places where the range of the aesthetics are relatively narrow, and the urbanism is most coherent. The French Quarter, Paris, Bath, Siena. If places adopt a certain tradition in their built environment, and other places adopt different traditions, then people can choose to live in the city they find most appealing. Freedom of Choice = Plurality.
If every city is a mishmash of styles, with no coherence, then nobody has a choice. I can choose to live in Bath or Dubai, and it's a choice with a difference. If every city becomes Dubai, then there is no plurality. This is where we are headed.
An analogy: If I like corn flakes, and my wife likes shredded wheat, then she can pour a bowl of her cereal, and I can pour a bowl of mine. But if we mix them all together, then all we can have is a mishmash of different cereals, without the distinctive flavor that each has individually. It's possible that a blending together of different cereals might actually be a good thing, but it's rare, difficult to predict, difficult to get exactly right, and doesn't account for differing tastes.
you're clearly coo-coo for cocoa puffs, and there's no need to hide it
Um yeah, if I use one spice in my dish, it would be stupid, and incoherent to add another.
Um yeah, if I put ketchup on my hamburger I can't put mustard on it too, it would be stupid, and incoherent to add them together.
I mean why do salt AND pepper, why not just salt, or pepper?
You want basil and oregano in your sauce? Sorry sir, but Olive Garden only serves sauce with oregano.
regular ball-park yellow mustard is terrible. Gimme we honey-mustard or don't bother starting the grille. Dijon will do if desperate.
i personally like the spicy chinese mustard, but then again I'm putting hot sauce on just about everything i eat.
I guess the world must be getting back to normal, a politically motivated dumpster fire by educated architects.
1. Why do architects who support traditional architecture spend so much time on Archinect driving their traditional architecture points? This site clearly is not traditional leaning...
2. Why do presumably educated architects, who I'm assuming took history of architecture classes, buy into the misappropriation of traditional architecture as some weird racist shit? Did the internet tell you its true?
If you're into diversity you should probably not think like a bigot, you know - like equate "style" with a bunch of irrelevant shit. That is literally the mental act of being a bigot. Equate style to ethical values and you're on your way....of course someone will say, but "the oppressor has chosen this style!" Then we have to get technical with regard to which generation of oppression, which group of oppressors, and then you would have to somehow weave that to have a direct tie to a symbol that would still have to be a meaningful symbol...but who has time to be rational...just let the internet tell you. The propaganda is simple and it's working.
Archinect purports to be a website serving the profession at large. So I presumed I was welcome here. Perhaps not. I enjoy these discussions because they help focus my point of view. But maybe it’s time to shove off, particularly because this site has become a locus of anti-religious bigotry.
Furthermore, you might direct your question to the Archinect editors, since they posted a story a traditional architect appointed to become dean at Catholic University. I was posting originally simply to congratulate my friend. Then the obnoxious storm hit.
Please, anti-religious bigotry? No such thing. That is just as non-existent as all the silly gods folks invent for themselves to feel special. The catholic U you're defending is a steaming pile of garbage. It deserves criticism and anyone associated with it should be ashamed.
I've limited my comments to architecture. I have opinions on religion, but they are not relevant to the stuff I was interested in commenting on.
A debate about architecture on archinect!
well, I learned that religious indoctrination south of my border is even stronger than I feared... and that even universities are willing to feed this shit-storm.
Wiki shows 26 colleges and universities in Canada affiliated with the Catholic Church. I am not Catholic and certainly not a fan of the current Pope, but you have to give credit where it is due with respect to the founding of the whole concept of the university.
26 you say? That's lower than I expected but I only know of 2. I've not seen any of the important institutions here associate proudly with this garbage. Founding history or not does not protect from criticism and they deserve far more vile criticism than I have time for. It's intellectually poor and morally bankrupt.
/\ never randomised. The editors and users themselves have been brainwashed by the social media propaganda and with each suggestion of classical it triggers an emotional non-scientific reaction one of either shear offensiveness or defense. An example of left wing science denial - Gender. An example of right wing science denial - Evolution. That's called a true equivalency within the field of biology. Literally same dumb humans, different values, trigger each side with a topic like "traditional architecture" and you get humans acting like monkees (and yes I think Sam Harris is right about a lot of things (that's when I gave up)).
Erik - My first point was mainly aimed at Thayer-D and Volunteer that stoop down to millenial base type thinking every so often just to get millenial based moronic arguments like - "false quivalency", "reverse" whatever doesn't exist. You have put a concerted effort in, but I feel it's for nought with much of the younger crowds brainwashed minds. I gave up a few years ago with the cult of academia, its really disturbing how close-minded academia has become. Thanks to you though, I did investigate traditional architecture and purchased books, kind of into it, but I'm affraid to say it out loud for fear of hate mongers from academia ;)
Sam Haris was good reading a while back but I've not really been able to follow for the last 10y or so. His podcast has promise but is impossible to listen to. 2hr+ of monotone speaking, eugh.
poet, have you given up? you seem as engaged as ever. i'm less interested in style for the sake of argument, and more concerned at how tone deaf this new dean's work is, considering the current economic, public health, and environmental crises we are facing. if you're worried about the cloistering of "liberal" architects in the academy, i'm not sure how bringing in a dean who's work is by all accounts more exclusive and grotesquely wasteful provides a panacea to the problem..
Hi R. Poet. Since you directed those questions to me, I'll answer the one that seems directed to me. 1. Why do architects who support traditional architecture spend so much time on Archinect driving their traditional architecture points? - Because I believe it's all architecture, modernist or traditional and we simply have different tastes. It's depressing to think of humanity having to silo themselves for political or ideological reasons when we need to come together now more than ever. Are those who profess to hate traditional architecture revolted by stroll through a bungalow neighborhood in Venice California? Was I upset when I came upon Frank Gehry's Binocular building? That's silly talk, yet this is how we are framed by those who seek to divide us. Just look at our politics and how autocratic governments have taken advantage of our divisions. This is why I seek to engage those with different ideas, to show that we can be civil, even if at times I fail.
Fuck off with your boomer wannabe elitist holier than thou crap, "Poet" or whatever the fuck you call yourself. You're so fucking smart that you change your username every so often so people stop skipping past your drivel. Get bent.
As for style, I love traditional architecture. I love modern architecture. I love good architecture. I have issues with what I perceive to be vendettas or single minded pursuits of one idea at the detriment of others. So I call it out. The thing is, there's not too many people pushing contemporary architectural styles who also find every contemporary architecture thread and start spewing dogma. Seems to happen in every news article about anything even slightly traditional, though.
Of course you love traditional architecture, who doesn't? I even like some modernism, and I agree about single minded pursuits, which is why all architecture needs to be put on the same level, or else it's endless style wars. If academia where dominated by traditionalists who banned the study of modernism, guess who would defend it?
Well, this reads as a debate to me revolutionary poet, a debate from 1985 but nonetheless still a debate! People sharing their points of view, supporting it with imagery and the occasional profanities.
Correct Rando. I personally came here to debate the correct type of mustard. Very few contenders it seems.
That's because everybody already knows Zaanse Molen is the best!
Anno 1786!
can you send me some?
We have one dutch store in town... I will keep an eye out for this whenever things get back to normal.
This is the best.
I hope those ingredients are alphabetised, because brown sugar as the main ingredient of mustard, no thanks...
You'd think so, but then it crawls up into your sinuses and burns real good and you're hooked.
I'll give it a go then if I ever see it on a shelf...love stuff crawling up my sinuses.
NS - I'll agree with you religion is archaic, outdated, not something really needed if you're familiar with what and how science works, but to be fair the opposite of a "Catholic" university is say Evergreen (for example), that place is a cult like Waco, Texas. It's disturbing to me that educated people in academia can't see the difference or frankly similarity they have to their "opposites". And... If I wanted make some good propoganda I would get people to react like above.
The conversation could have actually been on this firms work, but like comments about architectural design, but instead it triggered a whole host of irrational behaviors.
irrational? Promoting an institution that associates itself with an organization that promotes hates, ignores reason and social advances, protects child abusers, etc... Architecture is second here. Why give any good press to this?
If you think religion is outdated you clearly don't know your science. It's been shown that people with faith live longer lives. You don't have to subscribe or even like the Catholic faith, but if you have one non-prejudice bone in your body, you'll see that tarring the whole religion for the faults of a few is as bigoted as they come.
so, the secret to longer life is adherence to superstition? If so, then I'll be glad to die earlier. I have no problems tarring religion. It's not bigotry because it's true.
I have faith that people will do the right thing. It isn't always born out, but that faith makes it more possible than not. Is that superstition? I like to call it an empirical fact.
Relying on invisible forces which cannot be observed and examined in any tangible way is the definition of superstition. Religion is just a connivent catch-all category for all this nonsense. You don't need it to do the good thing, but it certainly is very easy to do a shit-ton of bad stuff with it. You don't know the definition of either empirical or fact.
empirical - based on, concerned with, or verifiable by observation or experience rather than theory or pure logic. If one sees a mother's love deeply affects the well being of a child then one can infer that love is an essential good. Love is not observable in any tangible way, but its effects are. I hope this helps.
oh please, not this "argument" again. Easily dismissed strawman. Love is not same thing as the invisible force that controls and affects everything (and needs your money) religions try to convince us exists.
Counterfactual opinion; it could be the young lad likes the nipple more than the bottle. Meaning: Jeffrey Dahmer's dad LOVED him too, but we're not consigning him to the Corinthian Order.
Here I re-wrote this thread:
Title:
Mark Ferguson appointed Dean at The Religion with Lots of Bad History University of America School of Architecture and Planning.
Ferguson's Work:
The name for the style has been misapproriated by racists to fit their agenda with an equally insane reaction by liberals who love talking about race, and accordingly we cannot talk about this style anymore rationally. Therefore, work must be reviewed within the window of architectural design, but I can't, I can't, my mind is so brainwashed I can't see this type of architecture as architecture and find it's faults accordingly within the field of architecture.
Thread:
Dude, your style is conservative and its offensive.
Dude, your style is liberal and its offensive.
Styles.
By the way, Fashion is over, the fashion world will never come back like it was, give it 10 years for being a totally useless industry. Thank you Corona ;)
Bring back the corset.
"Bring back the corset."
What's stopping you ;-)
Does anyone know of firms practicing traditional or neo-classical or similarly inspired work but in a sustainable way adapted to current living? (for example, not outrageously sized and built out of foam plastic and stucco). My issue with the work shown isn't so much stylistic as with process and environmental/ social impact.
Especially in Europe, addressing older historical buildings with an eye towards adaptive re-use (and not just rote preservation) has created some amazing projects. Is there an analog in new construction?
Depends on how you define sustainable. It's difficult for any firm working at the margins to justify sustainably grown and harvested wood. You would need government regulations to ensure a long term outcome that's good for the environment. If you're talking about where people build, then dense neo-traditional communities are a great way to promote social interactions while minimizing our footprint for environmental regeneration. The only issue is it requires looking at architecture equally, both modernist and traditional.
Patrick Ahearn, with his shingle style homes on Cape Cod and Marthas Vineyard, comes to mind. He also does renovations. A few of his houses are on the big side, but most aren't. The firm of Hugh Newell Jacobsen usually does modern interpretations of classical designs.
Thanks! Both are really interesting.
Going to go look up RAMSA's LEED/ LBC scores now...
As if LEED or LBC are anything except good ideas co-opted by monied interests who vampirically sucked all of the usefulness from them in pursuit of cash.
a constructive comment by archonymous. this is a plausible angle with regard to ethics of a "style".
Downvote me all you like, Sheds, but intelligent designers shouldn't pay LEED or LBC, the sticker is as useless as energy star these days. Do the work, make the best building you can and fuck certifications.
This doesn't need to devolve into a conversation on the virtues or sins of LEED/LBC. They are imperfect, but they are the measures we have.
Sneaky, it's the internet, it's not real.
People write these things, at least for now.
I think what I'm endlessly fascinated by is that the "trads" here are proffering arguments that no one, literally no one is making. Every time you post an image of buildings that were constructed by early turn of the 20th century or prior, I think yeah, those are great looking buildings, it would be a shame to lose those. But that's not what I, or anyone else seems to be talking about. I for one don't think those ideas represent our culture, government, or modern thinking today. They are wholly uninteresting, unoriginal, and not inventive enough to engage any critical dialog.
I think it's called PTSD or something. They are so used to being told what Trad is or isn't... I have to admit, if I was a propagandist - the angle those wacko's took with tradition (historical) and far right views was quite damaging in many respects. Divide and conquer.
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