Architecture

This crazy kind of modern architecture is trying to counterbalance the boringness of the other kind of architecture: the square stone and glass blocks you can find in every city.

I consider both branches horrible. Remember e.g. industrial architecture from 150 years ago, with all those gothic facades? Or when houses were not just boxes? The modern architects mentioned in the article simply overdo it in the other direction.

Oof.

There is nothing more painful to me than seeing an op-ed written about how shit 'contemporary' architecture is ('contemporary' being used as a description of style is usually a dead giveaway)- especially when there is quite a lot of shitty contemporary architecture. There are plenty of substantive discussions about what qualities make contemporary work successful, and which make them assaultingly ugly. But, invariably, those are not the discussions that get shared on public architecture forums. Instead, what we get is:

"Look at how ugly this [contemporary work] is. Look at how beautiful and amazing this [historically significant work of art] is. Why doesn't anyone make [universally loved 18th century architecture] anymore?!"

Usually it's not even any specific design motifs or genre's that get the 'ugly modernism' treatment, it's some abstract 'feeling' the author got when visiting one European cathedral or another that they just don't get from anything that isn't a historical landmark. Just look at this mindless slop and tell me that this person is doing anything other than reminiscing about their favorite vacation walking tours:

Of course, tradition has gotten a bad reputation, simply because most “neo-traditional” architecture is so bad and Disneylike. Recreations and pastiches are not the solution, and the mindless conservative love for everything Greek, Roman, and Victorian is a mistake. The point is not to just mindlessly love old things; that gets you McMansions. Rather, instead of recreating the exact look of traditional architecture, one should be trying to recreate the feeling that these old buildings give their viewers. Don’t build a plastic version of Venice. Build a city with canals and footbridges and ornate pastel houses dangling above the water, and give that city its own special identity

Suffice it to say that there is plenty of work being done that fits the author's impossibly vague descriptions of 'beauty', they just aren't a part of the Essential Architecture of [European tour-destination] listicles that get passed around at christmas. Nor should they be - architecture is complicated and messy, and it's only in hindsight that they shed their complexities of reality and get sanitized into perfect beacons of beauty. This is contemporary. So is this.

Please keep these low-effort gripe pieces to your facebook groups, thank you.

Do I hate it? That building looks kina sweet.