Why You Hate Contemporary Architecture currentaffairs.org

Submitted by neku at January 31, 2018, 6:19 AM in general

i'm not sure if i agree with this article entirely in terms of declaring some buildings ugly and others beautiful because i think there are examples of compelling brutalist architecture (ie i quite like this building https://images.currentaffairs.org/2012/10/d4b38359d380657639f2e99d6e4aa7e7-amazing-architecture-contemporary-architecture.jpg) but i think emphasising the point that buildings should be functional and appealing to the people who live in them is important

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hollyhoppet wrote at January 31, 2018, 4:34 PM

this commentary is pretty...... brutal

waggles eyebrows

hollyhoppet wrote at January 31, 2018, 4:51 PM

On a more serious note, I do agree that public buildings especially ones for services oriented toward disadvantaged people should be generally significantly less dour. But yeah I also agree with you that the author went a bit overboard with some of their assessments.

Also that building in Paris is in one way really rad looking but yeah I would hate living in the city with that looming over everything lol.

hi_i_post wrote at January 31, 2018, 4:56 PM

well thats an angry and populist article, but i see where it's coming from. It's pretty telling how easy the authors mix up modernism and postmodernism imo. I think it's easier to understand in the historical context, for example how classic pre-WWII modernism was pretty human-orniented (how dare they just write off Gropius as a misanthrope) and how popular housing projects from that era still are. And how after WWII you couldn't just start to rebuild everything in a traditional style, as just about every system that shaped that old world had catastrophically failed. I totally get sentiment of just trying to reinvent everything, mocking of the past, and doing away with all kinds of lavish facades to hide behind. That being said i completely agree with the authors about most things that were put up after like the 80s of so. These fucking soulless mallscapes everywhere, and still so much empty spaces and fear of density.

musou wrote at January 31, 2018, 5:25 PM

i guess this is not a popular opinion but i really like boston city hall.

i also know nothing about architecture

hollyhoppet wrote at January 31, 2018, 5:00 PM

You know while we're tearing the article apart I think the thing that irks me the most is the title like... it could have been "Why I Hate Contemporary Architecture" but using "you" makes it feel like... I dunno the word for it but yeah I don't like it :P.