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If everything art related looked the same every time, there would not be advancement in design. You have to push the boundaries to create new forms. 700 years ago, the Carbon and Carbide building to some would have looked "out there" too perhaps.
When it comes to aesthetics, I don't believe in "advancement". That word should be reserved for fields in which there are actual objective gains in performance. A materials science improvement which enables taller buildings? That's an advancement. Going from the beautiful ornate stonework of the older styles to angular glass? That's no advancement, that's a sideways move at best. And an ugly one, in my opinion.
When it comes to aesthetics, I don't believe in "advancement". That word should be reserved for fields in which there are actual objective gains in performance. A materials science improvement which enables taller buildings? That's an advancement. Going from the beautiful ornate stonework of the older styles to angular glass? That's no advancement, that's a sideways move at best. And an ugly one, in my opinion.
And it's always fine to have an opinion, but as someone who comes from the math and science world, I have three problems with what you just said.
1) You don't believe in advancement when it comes to aesthetic. Let's think for a second here. Everything you see today in the world that is man made and visual was almost always an advancement at one point in history. The clothes you wear, the packaging on the stuff you buy, the way the most common of things in your house like a chair looks - those were all aesthetic advancements at one point and sometimes very, very recently. You are essentially throwing out all acknowledgement of it. I'm glad most people out there are not like you, because in 50 years, everything would look outdated. Ever look at some TV ads from the 80s? Some of that stuff looks terrible versus today, but I guess you'd rather live in a world full of mundane, terrible looking stuff that hasn't changed in years and was never good to begin with.
2) Lets think about engineering for a second. Pretend you have a unique building, do you think that perhaps if it's unique, it would require some perhaps unique engineering to actually build the thing? In the case of this building, or so I've heard from my friends - yes, it will require this that's either never been seen before or has not been seen much before. With form comes function - you have to actually build these things. I have worked a lot before professionally on some major websites that look beautiful. I've done a lot of back end programming stuff - a lot of people not exposed to this have no idea how much the visual design and information architecture of the site affects how the back end programming stuff may be done. I have had times before where the algorithms I've written were very influenced by the visual design and as a result, I came up with new ways of doing old stuff that you would never even notice because you don't see it. But it still had a great impact on this and created an advancement that was indirect.
3) A handful of years ago I never thought I'd say this - shape, form, art, etc has a massive impact on society in more ways than you'd ever imagine. There are many ways to create advancements that affect everyday life - in this case the affected parts are engineering. But in general, I can tell how little exposed to things you actually are from what you just said.
That's fine if you don't believe in advancement, but society always advances including architecture. Your examples were all advancements at one point or another and there was probably someone just like you giving it **** saying how it doesn't count as "advancement."
I'm not a huge fan of the building, but I also think the render is really bad and the material on a more HQ render would make the entire thing look better (a better blue or even changing it to almost black). I do however personally appreciate very much aesthetic advancement and this is what the building is.
Last edited by marothisu; 07-11-2014 at 09:49 AM..
1) You don't believe in advancement when it comes to aesthetic. Let's think for a second here. Everything you see today in the world that is man made and visual was almost always an advancement at one point in history. The clothes you wear, the packaging on the stuff you buy, the way the most common of things in your house like a chair looks - those were all aesthetic advancements at one point and sometimes very, very recently. You are essentially throwing out all acknowledgement of it. I'm glad most people out there are not like you, because in 50 years, everything would look outdated. Ever look at some TV ads from the 80s? Some of that stuff looks terrible versus today, but I guess you'd rather live in a world full of mundane, terrible looking stuff that hasn't changed in years and was never good to begin with.
I do not have your technical background. I am saying that for a given level of technological advancement you can make something that looks good, or something that looks bad. This building looks bad, which is a waste of all the know-how that went into designing it. With the same palette of oil paint someone could paint a impressionist masterpiece, or they could hurl the brush at the canvas and call it modern art. Aesthetics seperate from technology.
Quote:
Originally Posted by marothisu
2) Lets think about engineering for a second. Pretend you have a unique building, do you think that perhaps if it's unique, it would require some perhaps unique engineering to actually build the thing? In the case of this building, or so I've heard from my friends - yes, it will require this that's either never been seen before or has not been seen much before.
The level of technical knowledge required to build a thing, and how visually appealing that thing is, are totally unrelated. I can admire the former while disliking the latter so I don't know why you're trying to conflate the two. The CCTV center in Beijing is another example where I can respect the level of engineering that went into it, but it is really an ugly eyesore of a building.
Quote:
Originally Posted by marothisu
3) I come from the math and science world, and a handful of years ago I never thought I'd say this - shape, form, art, etc has a massive impact on society in more ways than you'd ever imagine. There are many ways to create advancements that affect everyday life - in this case the affected parts are engineering. But in general, I can tell how little exposed to things you actually are from what you just said.
Technology seperate from aesthetics. There's a lot of technical stuff going on under the hood of a Michael Bay Transformer movie. Multi-millions of dollars worth of CGI development and the efforts of a lot of very smart people went into creating giant robot fights on screen which would have been literally impossible to portray back in any previous era. That doesn't make the Michael Bay Transformers any less of a piece of garbage, no matter how good the supporting technology. You say that aesthetics and technology are one and the same, which is an idea I fundamentally disagree with. The former is subjective and cannot be thought of in terms of "advancement". The latter is objective and measurable.
When it comes to aesthetics, I don't believe in "advancement". That word should be reserved for fields in which there are actual objective gains in performance. A materials science improvement which enables taller buildings? That's an advancement. Going from the beautiful ornate stonework of the older styles to angular glass? That's no advancement, that's a sideways move at best. And an ugly one, in my opinion.
I don't think this is intended to be an "advancement" in building technology, it's just a newer building, and I don't see why that should be bad. Sure, it's not moving the world forward in terms of taller buildings, but it sure is a unique style that would be hard to find anywhere else. I too am all for taller and more advanced buildings, but this one's just not really supposed to be a "huge" step in human development. It's not like this is taking away from anything or anyone, if anything it would provide jobs, an interesting place to stay, and a new addition to the various building downtown.
I do not have your technical background. I am saying that for a given level of technological advancement you can make something that looks good, or something that looks bad. This building looks bad, which is a waste of all the know-how that went into designing it. With the same palette of oil paint someone could paint a impressionist masterpiece, or they could hurl the brush at the canvas and call it modern art. Aesthetics seperate from technology.
The level of technical knowledge required to build a thing, and how visually appealing that thing is, are totally unrelated. I can admire the former while disliking the latter so I don't know why you're trying to conflate the two. The CCTV center in Beijing is another example where I can respect the level of engineering that went into it, but it is really an ugly eyesore of a building.
Technology seperate from aesthetics. There's a lot of technical stuff going on under the hood of a Michael Bay Transformer movie. Multi-millions of dollars worth of CGI development and the efforts of a lot of very smart people went into creating giant robot fights on screen which would have been literally impossible to portray back in any previous era. That doesn't make the Michael Bay Transformers any less of a piece of garbage, no matter how good the supporting technology. You say that aesthetics and technology are one and the same, which is an idea I fundamentally disagree with. The former is subjective and cannot be thought of in terms of "advancement". The latter is objective and measurable.
A lot of this sounds like your subjective opinion, and that's fine, but this building would bring more positives than negatives and that's a fact. A building not payed for by the city, that would create a plethora of jobs both during and after construction, contributing to the economy, and the only argument you have against it is "it looks bad" and "It's not an advancement in technology"? The real question is what will the final product look like.
I don't think this is intended to be an "advancement" in building technology, it's just a newer building, and I don't see why that should be bad. Sure, it's not moving the world forward in terms of taller buildings, but it sure is a unique style that would be hard to find anywhere else. I too am all for taller and more advanced buildings, but this one's just not really supposed to be a "huge" step in human development. It's not like this is taking away from anything or anyone, if anything it would provide jobs, an interesting place to stay, and a new addition to the various building downtown.
That word was used by Marothisu back in page 2. We are basically quibbling over his usage of the term. I still don't think there is such a thing as aesthetic advancement, only sideways changes from one style to another.
I do not have your technical background. I am saying that for a given level of technological advancement you can make something that looks good, or something that looks bad. This building looks bad, which is a waste of all the know-how that went into designing it. With the same palette of oil paint someone could paint a impressionist masterpiece, or they could hurl the brush at the canvas and call it modern art. Aesthetics seperate from technology.
Yes, but aesthetics are subjective. Some people hate this building, some people love it, and others like me are in the middle.
Quote:
The level of technical knowledge required to build a thing, and how visually appealing that thing is, are totally unrelated. I can admire the former while disliking the latter so I don't know why you're trying to conflate the two. The CCTV center in Beijing is another example where I can respect the level of engineering that went into it, but it is really an ugly eyesore of a building.
Actually, no they aren't totally unrelated. I just gave you a prime example of something from work I've professionally done before. I was exactly like you before I started doing some of this. I literally thought there was 0 correlation between technical design/engineering and visual design. I can't tell you how much work I've done where the actual technical implementation has changed in an algorithm and how data is stored because of how the end product wanted to be layed out and how its information presented. The visual design drives the information architecture (or visa versa) which drives back end, which drives algorithmic design. It's fine if you don't actually want to believe me, but in this case, you're wrong.
In the case of a building - do you really think that all buildings are created and supported the same? In this case of this building, the caisson placement and support system will be different than most all buildings in the world and this has to do with aesthetic form of the actual building. I mean do you really also think that architects just design **** to look good without any regard for physics/statics, engineering, etc? It would be absolutely frivolous to think that they don't - they have to, or else their buildings with crumble to the ground and kill people.
Even the simplest of things, like a chair, have to be engineered in such a way that things actually work, and how things are designed visually have a great impact on the engineering of physical objects. It's called Industrial Design.
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You say that aesthetics and technology are one and the same, which is an idea I fundamentally disagree with. The former is subjective and cannot be thought of in terms of "advancement". The latter is objective and measurable.
No, I didn't say they're one in the same. I said one can affect the other - and they often actually do in the physical world much greater than most people who aren't exposed to both worlds will ever know. As someone who actually practices this - I couldn't disagree with you more.
Last edited by marothisu; 07-11-2014 at 10:45 AM..
Can't wait to read what the people on Curbed think.
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