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Again "architectural honesty" is not about symbolism or design, it's about substituting expensive/hard to acquire or work with and/or superior materials for other (usually inferior) materials.
You mean like gold for copper? Or stone for terracotta or stucco? Is the majority of 19 century architecture architecturally dishonest being it doesn't use the most expensive, scarcest, hardest to work with materials which exist? Being budget conscious is dishonest? Dishonest to whom? They are not building altars or offerings to the gods, they are building buildings.
You mean like gold for copper? Or stone for terracotta or stucco? Is the majority of 19 century architecture architecturally dishonest being it doesn't use the most expensive, scarcest, hardest to work with materials which exist? Being budget conscious is dishonest? Dishonest to whom? They are not building altars or offerings to the gods, they are building buildings.
You act like I just made up the concept... I didn't.
You are ranting on and on about something...god knows what it is... but it isn't the subject. Maybe you should learn something about what we're talking about here before you continue on with more incoherent rants.
You are ranting on and on about something...god knows what it is... but it isn't the subject. Maybe you should learn something about what we're talking about here before you continue on with more incoherent rants.
I would have thought my issue with the flawed concept of 'architectural honesty' was clear enough from page 1 onward. I have gone to every length to point out its duel standards and absurdity, but as the saying goes, I can explain it for you but I can't comprehend it for you.
Architectural honesty doesn't ever seem to have been much of a value; buildings are "architecturally honest" only when there's no reason to dress them up. The OP tried to draw a line in the 1940s, but consider the Tudor Revival style with all its bogus external timbering; none of that is structural. Nor would I consider the Queen Anne style to be the epitome of architectural honesty. The Capitol Dome, as noted, is "fake" -- there's a taller decorative cast iron dome on top of the actual structural dome.
I suppose older Philadelphia rowhouses are architecturally honest; maybe that goes with the Quaker roots of the city.
The structural, functional and material honesty design value
Structural Honesty is linked to the notion that a structure shall display its “true” purpose and not be decorative etc.[9] Functional honesty is linked to the idea that a building or product form shall be shaped on the basis of its intended function, often known as “form follows function”. Material honesty implies that materials should be used and selected on the bases of their properties,[10] and that the characteristics of a material should influence the form it is used for.[11] Thus, a material must not be used as a substitute for another material as this subverts the materials “true” properties and it is “cheating” the spectator.[12] Architectural design values - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
I don't see how this is possible. All buildings would have to be solid stone or solid wood.
it's funny that you think using faux building techniques is new. have you seen Victorian homes? how about the old west towns where the building in the front looked so much taller and in the back was just a one story. faux has been around a long time and i dont think it's fair to change a code to make things look honest. if that is something you want to portray, that is fine, but people should have the choice. in the end the truth will come out. all we need to do is look at the object and we will know it was just an illusion.
Just because something has been around for a long time does not make it good architecture. The most satisfying buildings IMO are those that have an integrity in how they express their construction.
I don't see how this is possible. All buildings would have to be solid stone or solid wood.
Consider an old Philadelphia row house. It has a plain brick facade, stone windowsills and door lintels, and the only real concession to decoration might be a wooden cornice, usually fairly plain. That's pretty "honest". Although less so if you look a bit deeper; that nice clean brick facade is not structural; instead, there's an internal brick wall which is structural.
A log cabin is as honest as it gets, of course, but consider the humble mid-century ranch house. It's a wooden box on a concrete foundation with wooden cladding and (usually) wooden siding (whether clapboard or shake), with wooden windows in a wooden frame, topped by a wooden roof covered by asphalt shingles. Typically devoid of decorative elements of any sort. Again, pretty darn honest (some might quibble with the shingles, but an asphalt shingle isn't really trying to look like wood or slate IMO). Not very well thought of, but honest.
A gargoyle wouldn't be "honest"; a simple rain gutter would. A styrofoam gargoyle which didn't even channel rain would be as non-"honest" as it gets.
Consider an old Philadelphia row house. It has a plain brick facade, stone windowsills and door lintels, and the only real concession to decoration might be a wooden cornice, usually fairly plain. That's pretty "honest". Although less so if you look a bit deeper; that nice clean brick facade is not structural; instead, there's an internal brick wall which is structural.
I disagree with this a little. That exterior brick "veneer" that you're calling dishonest serves to protect the inner layer(s) of brick--which would have been of a lower quality to save money--from deterioration from the weather. Even the plain wood cornice serves the purpose of a little additional protection of the wood windows/doors from some weather.
Quote:
A log cabin is as honest as it gets, of course, but consider the humble mid-century ranch house. It's a wooden box on a concrete foundation with wooden cladding and (usually) wooden siding (whether clapboard or shake), with wooden windows in a wooden frame, topped by a wooden roof covered by asphalt shingles. Typically devoid of decorative elements of any sort. Again, pretty darn honest (some might quibble with the shingles, but an asphalt shingle isn't really trying to look like wood or slate IMO). Not very well thought of, but honest.
A gargoyle wouldn't be "honest"; a simple rain gutter would. A styrofoam gargoyle which didn't even channel rain would be as non-"honest" as it gets.
I don't agree that decoration is dishonest. There is a different argument against decoration, but I don't think it's dishonest.
I can scarcely believe this conversation. Dishonest? Really? To describe architecture? Is it even possible to be any more pretentious? You choir boys need a reality check, there is no such thing as too beautiful of a building, sack cloth and ashes don't win you any points, they're buildings not holy temples, there is no moral code of construction.
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