Founded in Sweden in 2014 as a public Facebook group, [Architectural Uprising] is a collective of citizen design critics who object to what organizers call the “continued uglification” of developments in Nordic cities, and push for a return to classically informed design. [...]
The movement’s size and persistence, however, has earned it a seat in the discourse. “When [historians] talk about architecture during these years, [the Architectural Uprising] will be part of that history”
— Bloomberg
A new report in Bloomberg tells of the staying power of social media-driven architectural criticism. Projects lambasted by the popular (mostly) Scandinavian group include Oslo’s new National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design by architect Klaus Schuwerk and estudio Herreros’ Munch Museum, which Oliver Wainwright also panned.
Its presence has apparently spurred Norwegian firm MAD Arkitektur’s concessions on the Sandakerveien 58 B/C renovation and other projects. Politicians in Norway have even begun reaching out for tacit endorsements in a turn mirroring the "ugly" debate in America concerning the design of federal buildings that has become a charge of late for Republicans in love with the concept of classicism in spite of its racist underpinnings and widely-critiqued past.
62 Comments
Our primary concerns are:
2 Being offered the false dichotomy of a) overpriced neo-modernism in 50 shades of grey (major developers’ choice); b) overly playful deconstructionism (narcissistic starchitect’s choice); or c) a depressing combination of the two (where the developer lets the architect decorate a boring box with clashing primary colours, randomly placed windows and balconies, or scaled-up patterns with no connection to the shape, colour or style of the building). We want buildings that look like buildings and not like gigantic shoe boxes, toys or accidents.
https://www.arkitekturupproret.se/om-au/about-english/
As the Uprising has spread, critics have remarked on what they perceive as the movement’s superficial rhetorics — particularly regarding the use of terms like “modernism” as a blanket condemnation of contemporary styles — as well as a fixation on façades that dominates over deeper issues. “I do think aesthetics are crucial as a motivator for change, but the kind of surface aesthetics promoted by AU isn’t debate we need to have. We need to address bigger questions,” particularly around class and climate, says Ingrid Halland, an architectural historian, art critic and associate professor at the University of Bergen and the Oslo School of Architecture and Design.
from the Bloomberg article, linked in the post.
It intrigues me that the "traditional" building in the center of the trio above comes from Kazan, Russia. Compare with all else that is being said there about "traditional values" now.
Bullshit. We need more duck buildings.
The office building in Gothenburg, Sweden, the third picture on the right, the "narcissistic starchitecture," is by Wingårdh Arkitektkontor. More pictures here: https://www.archdaily.com/289856/kuggen-wingardh-arkitektkontor
Gary, that’s not what’s attractive to people. “Traditional” is a layman’s way of describing intricacy, craft, materiality, and durability - that is more visually accessible to the layman - or actually absent in much (not all) modern architecture. Those same folks would appreciate a Mayan temple or Roman building interchangeably. It’s not a matter of culture that is appealing, it’s the cultural integration into the stone that radiates back as intricate details, and the durability that is inherent to old world buildings made of stone and heavy timber. The task should be to break down the anatomy to its fundamentals and carry those fundamentals into modern architecture…not in a stylistic way.
Thanks for this, x-jia. You’d think that cutting edge architects would be a tiny bit curious as to why certain kinds of buildings appeal to the “layman”, to the non-architect public. If they would be open to learning from this kind of feedback, they’d be poised to craft a contemporary architecture that wasn’t narcissistic, but widely beloved.
Starbucks is the most popular coffee in America. Surely it means that is the best. Right?
Michael Diamant is literally a racist that advocates for a white ethno-state on Twitter, so maybe he shouldn't be getting attention.
Wasn't Michael Diamante the Notre Dame grad who claimed the architecture school there was officially killing Classicism by hiring a DEI Administrator? I may be wrong but I know they both blocked me on twitter LOL. Scratch a Classicist and you'll frequently find a white supremacist, sadly. These guys are pathetic.
That was Erik Bootsma, who doubled down even after the school sent out a message to all alumni distancing themselves from him and his message.
“Scratch a Classicist and you'll frequently find a white supremacist, sadly.” Nonsense. How on Earth do you think you can generalize in this manner?
Could you point me to an example of Diamant advocating a white ethno-state on Twitter? I’m genuinely concerned and curious. Thanks.
Looks like we got a butthurt vvhyte.
How is that racist?
How do you even function.
What are you talking about?
Perhaps you should reread and understand the context of his classcist and racist statement. You're a smart guy. What do you think he means when he writes about issues like the above? What urban centers around transit development have large numbers of poor white people?
Given his tradist mindset, what cultures are high cultures of economic capital would be be referring to?
@Diamant tweet: What an extraordinarily ugly—and false—statement about beauty. Cf. Putin's use of "spiritual values," below. A value is corrupted then used to define an opposition—an enemy—to provide separation, exclusion, and, if necessary, attack ("get the problem fixed"). It is the logic and psychology of cruelty and oppression.
b3: I don't know the context of the tweet because you didn't link to the tweet. You posted a screen shot with no context. I dont see any reference in the snip you posted to "urban centers around transit development".
Gary: What is ugly and false about his statement on beauty? He said beauty is objective and beauty attracts. You may disagree with that, but that's not a fringe statement. Many argue for objective beauty. Or at least a component of beauty as having a basis in shared human nature.
"Given his tradist mindset, what cultures are high cultures of economic capital would be be referring to? "
Maybe he's referring to "residents with high cultural & economic capital".
Why must you racialize everything?
Twitter
Maybe do your own work next time. You deliberate stupidity might work in your own practice, but it has zero cache here.
I'm not the one accusing others of racism and advocating for a white ethno-state, and then offering zero evidence.
Seriously – How could you read that tweet any different? The racist implications are very clear. You really can’t see what he is saying past the first sentence? Like at all? Are you deliberately playing dumb?
No, I'm not playing dumb. It seems to me he's saying that he hopes that the beautiful architecture will attract people with cultural connections and financial means to stop the degradation of traditional neighborhoods. For you all to extrapolate that into racism and a desire for a "white ethno-state" seems spurious, unless you've seen something more explicit in his public musings. I certainly haven't seen it.
"Traditional" neighborhoods, as opposed to "Non-traditional" neighborhoods. Right. Got it. I wonder what that could mean? Are you "Wrath of Gnon"?
That's right, racism is always explicit, or needs to be so for you trads to consider it "real".
Here's what it means: Traditional neighborhoods = neighborhoods featuring traditional architecture and traditional urban planning. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the race of the inhabitants, of course.
Right. OK. Sure. Terms that you, as a western white traditionalist get to define in a country that exists on stolen land, utilizing European values. Yes, of course it has nothing to do with race, how could it. Grow the fuck up. Pay attention and stop trying to snow am audience that is clearly not believing your bullshit. You're embarrassing the profession.
He's definitely not PLAYING dumb.
The level of insanity of this statement knows no bounds. My mothers parents and she are polish jewish. As socialists and jews hey fleed the nazis in 1939 to the Soviet occupied side, were sent to Siberia. When grandmother got pregnant they were allowed to go somewhere warmer and my mother was born in a refugee camp in Buchara in Soviet Uzbekistan. After the war in 1946 grandfather were almost hanged when he returned to his hometown in a local pogrom. These are my "white ethnostate trad" credentials.
No, those are your family's credentials. Let's not play dumb, you cuck. Israel is an Apartheid State, their ethnonationalism is well known, and I don't give a fuck about you waving around your Jewish heritage as some kind of insulation from your white privileging asshattery.
Compare The Architecture Uprising site, linked above, with Shubow's National Civic Art Society:
https://www.civicart.org/americans-preferred-architecture-for-federal-buildings
You'd think they'd give us something that appeals to our better natures and higher faculties, as the architecture they promote is supposed to do. Instead both make bald appeals to "beauty," unexplored. Both defend themselves by setting up an opposition they misrepresent and trivialize so they can smear and knock it down. Arguments of both are shoddily built, relying on terms ill defined or not defined at all, and are filled with fallacies—false dilemma/either-or, straw man, argumentum ad populum, etc. Their thinking, in fact, is quite ugly. They are miserable architects of thought.
We learn nothing about architecture in general or in particular, about the style they promote, the one they set in opposition. Nor do we get any real sense of tradition, of the thousands of years continuum of the rich and varied development of world architecture. It's as if they want to pull out of it and stop.
You do have to wonder what motives lie beneath.
We're seeing similar elsewhere now, in politics, in cultural discussion, here in the US and around the world. And a lot of people are listening.
In Russia:
This anti-Western ideology is based around the Orthodox Church, the fatherland, the family and the “priority of the spiritual over the material,” as laid out in Mr. Putin’s decree on spiritual and moral values issued in November.
The enemy, it proclaims, is the United States and “other unfriendly foreign states,” intent on the cultivation of “selfishness, permissiveness, immorality, the denial of the ideals of patriotism” and “destruction of the traditional family through the promotion of nontraditional sexual relations.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/06/world/europe/putins-forever-war.html
By the way, doesn’t that Munch Museum building look like it slumped over in a structural failure of some sort?
Josh Mings: Since you went through and gave me a “thumbs down” on every single post, perhaps you’d like to pick one or two and actually engage in a dialogue about this. What do you say?
Why?
I'm good, thank you though. I blocked Michael Diamant for his racist views and not seeing how what he says isn't advocating for a white ethnostate means that any discussion you and I were to have would be futile because we won't change each other's minds.
That's fine Josh. I thought we might have a good conversation and explore this a bit.
Personally, I don't feel that the likelihood of changing someone's mind is a good reason to avoid conversation with others whose viewpoints we oppose.Debate can sharpen our points of view, and we can always learn something about how other's see the world. This is often valuable, I think.
It's not valuable when the other person is defending someone that advocates for a white ethnostate, Erik.
I don’t believe that’s what he’s doing, and no evidence of this has been offered by anyone, other than the quote above about beauty and wanting to save endangered urbanism, which says absolutely nothing about race, or a white ethnostate.
Enjoy your postmodern echo chamber, Josh. I’m out.
We'll miss your contributions.
Vox populi—
Public opinion can be fickle:
Mussolini, before the masses, 1922. He did not accept asocial behavior and used cultural capital to fix the problem.
Mussolini (second from left) and the masses, 1945.
This project right here, is a prime example of the stupidity of the classicist position. This project is contextual, uses local materials, and is modern as fuck. Modern beyond the insipid cries of dopey trads envisioning of trad style, and spurious claims about modern/contemporary architecture.
That's a gorgeous project.
I had a conversation with someone once about "traditional architecture" and basically just said I'd love nothing more than to design a building with stone and a thatch roof, is that what you'd like? The answer was obviously no.
White ethnostate?
Out?
Amateur hour with this guy. Took me all of five minutes.
To do what? Cherry pick some snarky critique from Dezeen?
Please read all the articles.
"One consideration why some people want to live in Cayala boils down to the fact that many of the wealthy are simply racist. They do not like their fellow citizens. In fact, they don’t even think of them as citizens. Granted not all elites and not all those who are living in or will live in Cayala are racist. However, many of the attitudes that led to the civil war and that were documented in the various human rights reports remain pressing concerns today. Racism lies behind much of what the people and the government do or do not do."
Then this;
The realities of places like Zona 5, however, only really kicked in when we arrived in Zona 16, the upscale zone for Guatemala’s wealthiest elite, and home to Paseo Cayalá. Like other upscale malls in Guatemala, built to serve the needs of the global elite, armed security guards are positioned at the entry and exit points. People are allowed to enter based on the sole qualification of their physical appearance of affluence. We, as obvious international tourists, were quickly granted entry. But this bothered me even more. As we walked around observing the marble-topped cappuccino bars, avant-garde art galleries where items cost upwards of $1,000 and or steak houses and sushi bars filled with mahogany, white table clothes and romantic candlelight, I found myself hating every finely-trimmed bush, ornately-carved turret and shiny storefront with piped in muzak. What were we doing there?
And this;
The first phase of the Paseo project has 110 apartments, with prices ranging from $260,000 to $800,000. Developers say the first of the two buildings has sold 80% of units, despite the average Guatemalan earning less than $300 a month.
However, its detractors say it will segregate the country's wealthiest citizens from the urban poor.
"Cayala sells an illusion that everything is okay, but it is not open to all people," said local architect Carlos Mendizabal. "[It] tries to imitate a historic centre, the way people move around an urban city, but it fails because it is not a city."
Citizens of Archinect, please watch the whole video.
You mean the cherry picked gated community designed by whites and their pet rich Guatemalan neo-lib hacks?
Ruh-oh. Erik went darque.
While we're at it, this Colosseum inspired stadium was proposed for Bath Rugby and caused a stir.
https://www.dezeen.com/2023/08/03/classical-stadium-bath-rugby-apollodorus-architecture/
Project description:
https://www.apollodorus.uk/project-bath-arena
The comment section is what I expected it to be. A few reasonable people and then the usual modernists that never argue other than calling everything racist and white supremacist.
As for me.. my mothers parents and she are polish jews. As socialists and jews, they fleed the nazis in 1939 to the Soviet occupied side, were sent to Siberia. When grandmother got pregnant they were allowed to go somewhere warmer and my mother was born in a refugee camp in Buchara in Soviet Uzbekistan. After the war in 1946 grandfather were almost hanged when he returned to his hometown in a local pogrom.
These are my "white ethnostate trad" credentials and I will continue to advocate for a beautiful built environment for all.
I don't understand what this changes.
No, those are your family's credentials. Let's not play dumb, you cuck. Israel is an Apartheid State, their ethnonationalism is well known, and I don't give a fuck about you waving around your Jewish heritage as some kind of insulation from your white privileging asshattery.
“Scratch a Classicist and you'll frequently find a white supremacist, sadly.”
"...the usual modernists that never argue other than calling everything racist and white supremacist."
These two comments are exactly the same.
Certainly the same illogically.
Bingo, Gary. Neither of them is logical. I said the first one, Michael said the second one.
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.