Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
It may be "historical," but it is cold and alienating.
Is government itself, and the big businesses and banks on Manhattan's Sixth Avenue, not cold and alienating?
One doesn't have to like Modern Architecture but I guess what annoys me is when people lament what was lost to make way for it. There are some tragedies -- Penn Station, neighborhoods of poor people losing their homes -- but NYC erecting the World Trade Center and the UN didn't mean the Chrysler Building and Empire State Building got demolished. Most of the older cities still kept their architectural diversity when these buildings went up and this unfeeling, human-hating, soulless buildings should absolutely be part of the portfolio.
Doesn't mean one has to like it... I do though. But even when one doesn't, it's not like this style took over entire cities, and it's certainly no longer influencing contemporary architecture.
Is government itself, and the big businesses and banks on Manhattan's Sixth Avenue, not cold and alienating?
One doesn't have to like Modern Architecture but I guess what annoys me is when people lament what was lost to make way for it. There are some tragedies -- Penn Station, neighborhoods of poor people losing their homes -- but NYC erecting the World Trade Center and the UN didn't mean the Chrysler Building and Empire State Building got demolished. Most of the older cities still kept their architectural diversity when these buildings went up and this unfeeling, human-hating, soulless buildings should absolutely be part of the portfolio.
Doesn't mean one has to like it... I do though. But even when one doesn't, it's not like this style took over entire cities, and it's certainly no longer influencing contemporary architecture.
Everything that still stands affects everything else, specifically people who interact with it, see it, feel it . . . The "butterfly effect."
Everything that still stands affects everything else, specifically people who interact with it, see it, feel it . . . The "butterfly effect."
I agree with this. I personally think that cities in America should look to cities like Paris or Rome which kept much of their historic architecture much more compared to even places like New York. One reason why I think they should stop building modern architecture by demolishing old architecture, a big reason is because no one builds in the old style anymore and once you lose it, it is gone forever. However if you demolish modern architecture, there are 10 for every one being built and few will miss them. There is so much land and other places for modern architecture to be built, without destroying old architecture so why should they build by replacing? I wouldn't mind if they ban demolishing old buildings to replace them with modernist ones in most or all American cities today, I think that would be good. Most cities have lots of vacancies for apartments or offices, and if they really needed to build for some reason they can build add-on stories on top of existing pre-war buildings and there are many good examples in NYC today. In places like Cleveland for example, there are lots of empty parking lots they can build more apartment buildings or office buildings, to add more population and commerce without demolishing old architecture.
I think the reason why modern architecture today is not creative is because America too much values cheapness and profit, and building old style buildings may cost a bit more. But my brother said that good architecture doesn't cost more than bad architecture, so I wonder why too that cities continue to demolish old buildings that are perfectly fine for rehab and instead build modernist buildings that do not enliven the soul, and dispromote street life instead.
Last edited by JKFire108; 07-07-2012 at 01:24 PM..
My friend's grandpa was an architect who worked on some of the major shopping malls & stripmalls in SoCal and he considered himself a DEVELOPER first, draftsman second. Profit was the driving force of his designs and he made tens of millions over his career. I think the reason why post-WW2 commercial buildings are "ugly and uninspiring" is because the real estate boom emphasized cheap models that could be reproduced & scaled up anywhere, anytime for a minimum of cost. Given the advances in CAD/CAM and prefab, i wouldn't be surprised if cookie-cutter, 1-size-fits-all construction becomes the de-facto standard for office buildings in the coming years as developers and the major firms try to pare down expenses.
My friend's grandpa was an architect who worked on some of the major shopping malls & stripmalls in SoCal and he considered himself a DEVELOPER first, draftsman second. Profit was the driving force of his designs and he made tens of millions over his career. I think the reason why post-WW2 commercial buildings are "ugly and uninspiring" is because the real estate boom emphasized cheap models that could be reproduced & scaled up anywhere, anytime for a minimum of cost. Given the advances in CAD/CAM and prefab, i wouldn't be surprised if cookie-cutter, 1-size-fits-all construction becomes the de-facto standard for office buildings in the coming years as developers and the major firms try to pare down expenses.
I agree with you. Even in new urbanist developments there are an abundance of prefab panel structures. Some of these developments are only 10 years old and you can see fading of the molded brick facades and rust stains of joints. In the prefab structures many of the windows, balconies, and railings are already looking tired. It saddens me to think of what some of these buildings are going to look like 10 or 20 years from now. Will they spray on a new "brick" finish since the brick isn't really brick or will they level the development and put up a new one?
Regurgitating the same old rehashes of Greco-Roman architecture is the definition of all that is good in architecture. Any deviation from regurgitation is uninspiring and hateful and clearly only occurs because America too much values cheapness and profit to build proper by regurgitating more Greco-Roman architecture.
Ironically for the Europhiles, Paris has more modern architecture than you can shake a stick at. Here's the Paris Docks, the original structure was retained, so I'm sure JKFire would approve.
Brazil House, product of "The Hated One" -- Brutalism with a splash of color.
Adding curves and color is adding architectural style, interest, and detail . . . your examples of "Brutalism" are not so Brutalistic with the enhancement of design and color. American architects fail to provide these style details.
Warning to posters: I have not been very vigilant about enforcing photo copyright rules and often it's a bit hard to tell if a photo is acceptable. But at the very least, you MUST give a link to the source of the photo for any photo you didn't take. I wouldn't want anyone to post my photos without sourcing it. Posts that do not source photos will be deleted. Posters that violate these rules frequently will get warnings or infractions.
I like the last one. The first one is a bit cherrypicked as it's boarded up. I thought this apartment building in Victoria, BC did a good job:
The Pacific Northwest in general had some neat looking new buildings
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
