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Looking at cities like LA ,and New York. When I hear about rezoning, adding more buildings, building new high rises, I know it can be both good and bad.
For LA, the good would be demolishing the crap architecture from the 60's, 70's and 80's. But the bad is that they will be replaced by modern sterile looking structures.
Same with NY. I read that they want to change things up and demolish some buildings. It would be a disaster to destroy historic buildings and then add insulty by replacing it with a glass box, or "artistic" mess.
I admire old architecture because you come close to the building and see smaller details on the walls like designs. Not plain glass or stucco.
I thought about that myself. I wonder if there will be a revival for the desire of ornate style buildings in the US. My favorite are those early 20th century skyscrapers like the Tribune Tower (Chicago) and The Power & Light building (KCMO).
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I have an architect friend that obtained a graduate degree in Historic Preservation from the University of Vermont. Included in the curriculum were design and building techniques from earlier eras.
His focus is on restoration, but he could in fact build a 30's era building from the ground up given the material were available.
Apparently U of V's program is tops in the country.
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Modern looking buildings can also still have a pleasant, intriguing design with plenty of smaller details on them, and they can be built that way.
Historic/Classic forms of architecture should continue to be built, be promoted, have support, and it is possible for being able to create new projects and expand on that.
A significant amount of architects do have the skills and aptitude for all kinds of architecture related topics, including the configuration of sketches/comprehensive drawing for buildings/structures with that. Architects should be given a ton of support, and a simple easy bureaucracy system that does not get in the way too much.
For the USA and some countries in particular, the problem is that the bureaucracy systems can be very complicated, difficult, and become an obstacle for architecture related projects. It is a similar correlation to what is happening in the political system/government sometimes taking forever to get any high quality, practical, and effective actions from being accomplished. Some other countries don’t have to deal with that bureaucracy systems problem nearly as much or at least not to the same extent.
There will be a revival of detail oriented architecture when labor costs are reduced, for example when 3d concrete printing becomes feasible or when robots can perform complex masonry and carpentry. Also back when the titans of industry were building beautiful works of art with no expense spared, their tax rate was closer to 0% than where it is today (and their industries had little to no regulation, enjoying profit margins not to be dreamed of today). They are 'giving back to society' in the form of funding entitlements and government spending through their taxes rather than by creating beautiful architectural wonders.
I love old buildings and hate modern ones. However, I can completely understand why modern buildings are made without ornamentation. First, tall buildings are hard to make look ornamental. If ornamentation is repeated over many stories, they often look repetitive. Second, if you have many tall buildings placed together, the details are often hard to see anyway unless you are standing on the street in front of them with your head cranked back or are in a neighboring building. Third, since most of these buildings are office buildings, the workers inside should be working instead of admiring the architecture of neighboring buildings, and if they did, they would soon lose interest.
Most architects could build whatever their clients want; though some architects do specialize in certain styles, and some architects would prefer not to look backwards to recreate styles of the past. You wouldn't ask Frank Gehry to design something classical, for example. (though I'm sure he could)
The biggest reason we don't build like we used to, is cost. All that extra detail, even if made of Fypon, still costs money that the client would usually rather put into some other aspect of the building, or not spend at all.
I love old buildings and hate modern ones. However, I can completely understand why modern buildings are made without ornamentation. First, tall buildings are hard to make look ornamental. If ornamentation is repeated over many stories, they often look repetitive.
Third, since most of these buildings are office buildings, the workers inside should be working instead of admiring the architecture of neighboring buildings, and if they did, they would soon lose interest.
LOL. I'm not sure what to say about this. How is this different from human-kind admiration of architecture through any age? People have jobs to do, but people can certainly spend 15 seconds to clear their heads, eat lunch and admire, etc.
Most architects could build whatever their clients want; though some architects do specialize in certain styles, and some architects would prefer not to look backwards to recreate styles of the past. You wouldn't ask Frank Gehry to design something classical, for example. (though I'm sure he could)
The biggest reason we don't build like we used to, is cost. All that extra detail, even if made of Fypon, still costs money that the client would usually rather put into some other aspect of the building, or not spend at all.
JR, you seem to have a good background/understanding of this topic. What's changed over the last 50 years in terms of costs, materials, etc that wasn't true 100 years ago? Materials have always been expensive when building with high quality and ornamentation. Is it rapid population growth and limited resources? Maybe it's a shift in values, which would be significant given that hundreds and even thousands of years were spend building with expensive materials.
JR, you seem to have a good background/understanding of this topic. What's changed over the last 50 years in terms of costs, materials, etc that wasn't true 100 years ago? Materials have always been expensive when building with high quality and ornamentation. Is it rapid population growth and limited resources? Maybe it's a shift in values, which would be significant given that hundreds and even thousands of years were spend building with expensive materials.
Thanks!
Cost of labor has increased. I'll use concrete block vs. brick construction as an example. One concrete block is 3 standard bricks tall, 2 standard bricks long, and 2 standard bricks deep. So, there is a lot more labor involved in building a true, solid brick wall. In the old days, labor was cheap, so the owner would be more willing to go with the better material with the small expense of additional labor. But today, the additional labor cost to build the same wall is prohibitive.
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