Modernist Architects On a Crusade Against Beauty

[PsihoKekec]

Forget cattle mentality, even fucking cows need pretty pictures on the walls of their Barnes

Cows produce more milk if you play them classical music. Most young people would shut down and die if you played it to them. Works on homeless and drug users as well.
This 7-Eleven in Austin is blaring opera music to keep the homeless away. It's working.

Ugliness and denial of reality are dogmas of modernity, with architecture being the vanguard of this movement, architects throwing away millennia of experience to produce abominations of ugliness, impractically and unsustainability.

A good example is the festering eyesore that is the Scottish Parliament, set at the edge of old town, right next to a Royal Palace, if you have a soul then one look at the place will make you wish for a Killdozer. It's building costs went tenfold over budget because that's what happens when you build such excremental design and now the maintenance costs are rapidly catching up, having exceeded original construction estimate long time ago despite the fact that building isn't even twenty years old.

https://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/cheaper-tear-down-scottish-parliament-2020-1548157

 

[S'task]

One of the ironies of the modern architecture and brutalism especially I feel is that they're trying to capture the feel the Pentagon gives off:

The Pentagon is an iconic building due to it's, well, unique geometric design. Though strictly speaking it's not a Brutalist building, it's part of the Classical Revival (you can tell by the pretty obviously ornate columns).

But here's the hilarious thing. The building's iconic shape? The thick concrete construction, etc.? Those weren't done for architectural purposes, they were done for practical purposes. The reason for the shape? It was the most effective use of the land they purchased. The heavy design with concrete, etc.? You're talking about a military headquarters built during the Cold War, and thus designed, in part, as a bomb shelter. Small windows that aren't easy to see in? Again, security measure to make spying harder. Gaps between the rows? A large office building... in the US South that was designed before mass air conditioning was widespread. Those gaps allow you to have windows on either side of a building and thus allow airflow to keep the building cooler in the DC summer (which is pretty brutal).

I'm not saying the Pentagon is a pretty building. It's honestly not. But it is iconic and gives off a fortress like feeling that emphasizes its martial nature, which is appropriate to what it is. But much of what makes it iconic isn't purposeful architectural decisions but rather happenstance of engineering. Meanwhile much of Brutalist architecture tries to convey similar emotions but utterly fails because, I suspect, it's trying to hard. The geometric shapes are often inherently out of place and don't serve a practical purpose. The small windows and slabs of concrete end up just hindering people living in those spaces, rather than being there for honest, practical purposes.

 

[colorles]

Freddie DeBoer actually supports allowing kids, especially dull kids, to drop out of school as young as 12. I don't know how I feel about that since even dullards could benefit from becoming a little bit more worldly.

Just thier most formative years and potentially their ability to set roots while they are in their prime. No big deal... college culture and corporate culture have been some of the worst things that could happen in this country.

12 years old sounds right. still remember the clarity I had in the 6th grade. after that - in seventh, eighth grade and into highschool - i just wanted out. The only thing that gave me any interest in school was sports teams. And there is no reason that sports teams and opportunities for teenagers couldn't still exist and be ubiquitous outside of a school setting.

Basically, I was mentally ready and willing as a pre-teen to put the great mental clarity and ability to learn I had at that age to good use to learn actually useful things to help contribute to my family and community ie work, learn and acquire relevant skills, form work networking and connections, and form a foundation for my life at a time where i had so much energy i could mentally focus and learn so well, while being a physically active athlete, all on a single sleep cycle of three hours a night and still having so much energy and focus and, frankly, optimism and willingness to learn everything I could. all schooling after that served to dull my mental clarity and ability to learn and just fuck me up well into my adult years - which, of course, is part of the point of our modern schooling system. and can't cope with it? heres a bunch of pills, sonny boy. swallow them whole and sit down and shut up. and then vilify and call children and young adults weak when they become addicts. but enough of this rant

To sum it up: I was ready to be a man at a young age. Extended schooling well into my teen years sought to dull my optimism and willingess to learn and to forcibly keep me an easy to control and drained child - which, had ramifications well into my adult years.

 

[PsihoKekec]

Meanwhile in New York they moved from Satanism to Slaneesh worship.

 

[KilroywasNOTHere]

Meanwhile in New York they moved from Satanism to Slaneesh worship.

what happened to her arms?!?

 

[PsihoKekec]

They stayed in immaterium.

 

[Zyobot]

Meanwhile in New York they moved from Satanism to Slaneesh worship.

They stayed in immaterium.

Funny, but seriously, how the Hell do you design something more mismatched than Slaanesh?!

 

[Aldarion]

 

[Morphic Tide]

Oh how I pity the people who have to keep that monstrous overhang from collapsing

 

[DarthOne]

Why was I born into this accursed age…?

 

[Cherico]

Why was I born into this accursed age…?

You rolled a nat one like the rest of us

 

[AnimalNoodles]

Why was I born into this accursed age…?

you won the war, and lost the peace.

 

[Lord Sovereign]

Why was I born into this accursed age…?

Perhaps to make things a touch less accursed?

The world often turns in mysterious ways…

 

[Agent23]

One of the ironies of the modern architecture and brutalism especially I feel is that they're trying to capture the feel the Pentagon gives off:

The Pentagon is an iconic building due to it's, well, unique geometric design. Though strictly speaking it's not a Brutalist building, it's part of the Classical Revival (you can tell by the pretty obviously ornate columns).

But here's the hilarious thing. The building's iconic shape? The thick concrete construction, etc.? Those weren't done for architectural purposes, they were done for practical purposes. The reason for the shape? It was the most effective use of the land they purchased. The heavy design with concrete, etc.? You're talking about a military headquarters built during the Cold War, and thus designed, in part, as a bomb shelter. Small windows that aren't easy to see in? Again, security measure to make spying harder. Gaps between the rows? A large office building... in the US South that was designed before mass air conditioning was widespread. Those gaps allow you to have windows on either side of a building and thus allow airflow to keep the building cooler in the DC summer (which is pretty brutal).

I'm not saying the Pentagon is a pretty building. It's honestly not. But it is iconic and gives off a fortress like feeling that emphasizes its martial nature, which is appropriate to what it is. But much of what makes it iconic isn't purposeful architectural decisions but rather happenstance of engineering. Meanwhile much of Brutalist architecture tries to convey similar emotions but utterly fails because, I suspect, it's trying to hard. The geometric shapes are often inherently out of place and don't serve a practical purpose. The small windows and slabs of concrete end up just hindering people living in those spaces, rather than being there for honest, practical purposes.

Cold war?!?!

It was built during WWII because of the massive increases in demand coming from the Department of Defense, and it was supposed to be temporary, with Roosevelt wanting to turn it into a massive archive after the end of the war.

Lack of sufficient steel forced them to build it low, too.

 

[DarthOne]

Cold war?!?!

It was built during WWII because of the massive increases in demand coming from the Department of Defense, and it was supposed to be temporary, with Roosevelt wanting to turn it into a massive archive after the end of the war.

Lack of sufficient steel forced them to build it low, too.

Huh. The more you know.

 

[Agent23]

And by massive increase of demand I mean, "the bureaucracy ballooned".

Also, it has always reminded me of a star fortress somewhat, without the edges:

 

[LordDemiurge]

Oh look, a topic I love bitching about

Just to throw in the my two cents, I should note the Japanese have already invented something like a Modern minimalist style, and they did it better. The aesthetic discipline is referred to as using Ma(negative space).

In the Buddhist tradition, all things are considered as either evolving from or dissolving into nothingness. This "nothingness" is not empty space. It is rather a space of potentiality.[5] If the seas represent potential then each thing is like a wave arising from it and returning to it. There are no permanent waves. At no point is a wave complete, even at its peak. Nature is seen as a dynamic whole that is to be admired and appreciated. This appreciation of nature has been fundamental to many Japanese aesthetic ideals, "arts,"

It's an interesting idea in a lot of Eastern Philosophy. The notion of a divine void, an emptiness that is seen as a canvas rather than a conceptual desert. You would think post-modernists would learn a thing or two, as emptiness wrapped in a facade is practically their religious motif.

Most of us probably have an idea of what Japanese living spaces look like. To give some artistic examples that illustrate this, take a look at say...
This 16th century surcoat
Another one here
A cute drawing of a frog
Japanese Family Crests

This is of course supposition, but I believe this aesthetic plays a part in why Japan is such a massive exporter of its culture in the modern world.

It's also what gives Star Wars its distinct feel, given the original designers did borrow from Japanese art. It isn't ornate or traditional like Warhammer 40k, yet at the same time it isn't infested with greebles or sterile chrome to the same degree other sci fi settings are.

Yet nevertheless it maintains a look of being authentically modern and futuristic without the the sterility.

Of course I personally still hold that Art Deco should've been the style of modern America.