Sometimes being "ugly" is the point. You want to bring out emotions - the building can be grandiose, imposing, surprising, but, if you look closely, it's a carefully crafted work of art that's also highly functional.

One great example from the city where I grew up: https://hicarquitectura.com/2024/09/lina-bo-bardi-sesc-pompe...

We really need to understand why people who study a subject and dedicate their lives to studying and perfecting their understanding would show a clear preference for something...

But why do the students of architecture prefer brutalism?

It's probably some combination of the subculture effect (i.e., subcultures tend to develop their own in-group aesthetics) and as a functional shibboleth (i.e., being able to "appreciate" things average people don't has an in-group signalling function).

I am a fan of brutalism, but there is also some survivorship bias at work - I'm sure some brutalist hellscapes were demolished because nobody wanted to live in them.

Now, as a contrast, another masterpiece from the city where I grew up: https://www.scribd.com/document/955270807/g10-Cultural-Cente...

brutalism doesn't refer to the architecture being "brutal".

it refers to "béton brut" - french for 'raw concrete'. in this case, brutalism could be more readily understood as 'rawism'. it also emerged during (and is a descendant of) the modernist architectural period, which is well known for those boring, non-descript office towers.

there's nothing wrong with the simplicity of raw concrete. but just like other architecture, it can be done well and it can be done poorly. it can be done for utility, and it can be done for extravagance.

I think many people think of non-descript office towers when they think of brutalism, rather than all of the interesting things that can be done with a single material (shapes, textures, designs, etc. it's a very versatile + strong medium!).

Modernist architecture certainly has its fair share of misfires, particularly where the postwar architects were attempting social engineering to be “cleaner” or more “rational.” The schools were often teaching ideals based in no empirical evidence.

That was all of history.

And also change a lot over time.

you have NO place complaining about originality,

I can definitely complain about a lack of originality for works which lack originality.

Modern designs can often lack originality, I agree. Classical designs can lack originality as well. A lack of originality can make things boring. Don't let your personal choices get in the way of objectively analyzing things. Its not good to put yourself in a camp and act like everything in group A is good without question, everything in camp B is bad without question.

You can't honestly say the modern building I linked above lacks originality. How many other buildings have anodized scales on the outside which change colors based on the lighting? Are you really saying you'd prefer to actually be in and use one of the buildings in that postcard image I pointed out?

Buildings like this have way more originality than all those brick buildings in the postcard I linked, other than the one featured center in that postcard. Or yet another white stone government building with roman columns in front and endless small windows. And I don't even consider it that original.

https://img.imageboss.me/concrete-assets/width/3072/format:a...

I'm not saying all modern designs are good. I'm also not saying all older designs are bad. I'm not even saying those classical revival government buildings are inherently bad, they're consistent and unoriginal for a reason. I am saying I am a human being and like to have some sunlight and see trees and the horizon from time to time, and that's more important to me for a building than some little intricate stonework that I can't even really make out because its three stories up and the whole exterior facade is covered with black gunk because its too expensive and fragile to actually maintain.

I don't think a single building in those postcards is beautiful. Most of them are incredibly forgettable run down old buildings.

I think the prison looks better from the outside, but if you asked me which building I wanted to spend time in I'd pick the school without hesitation (assuming they were both being repurposed for the same non-school/prison use).

There is a clear preference for other people to build in traditional styles, but as soon as you have to care about more than what the facade looks like from the outside people choose the uglier functional option.

You must also be part of the "80%" to think the Babylon Bee is funny.

I had to scroll way too far to find this comment!

All the terribly kept tenements that housed 10 families on two floors were also "traditional," but you can't even find them now. Even in places where there are some left, the ones still standing were probably the best of the bunch AND have been extensively repaired since.

Design, like so many disciplines, can't serve two masters.

So new buildings ignore externalities in the economic sense but also very literally.

We need more of this.

It is normal to gravitate towards beauty, it's in our nature. The root of efficiency is always someone's greed, pity that is also in our nature.

They have terrible natural lighting. Wouldn't recommend living in one.

Many of the architectural styles didn't get enough time to stand the test of time!

It is a fact they improved with prolonged exposure to the atmosphere and UV light.

I think the biggest problem with them is that the minute you stop maintaining things like gardens in contrast to the concrete and let it get dirty and scarred, it looks apocalyptic and stressful very quickly.

There's a trend in some Eastern European countries to paint older brutalist concrete buildings as a cost-effective measure to reduce concrete spalling and do thermo-modernization. It's actually pretty amazing how much nicer some of these buildings look even with just a uniform white paint job (others involve more color).

Architects seem to be largely opposed, seeing it as an erasure of the material honesty that brutalism was supposed to represent, but IMHO it suggests that a lot of the core issue with these designs wasn't the shape or creativity of the buildings themselves but just the way the concrete look quickly aged.

I can't tell if this is serious or sarcastic.

Well, let's try crank the knob yet another notch then.

Maybe the majority is actually correct

What a horrible thing to say. The liberal democracy, may it be known to you, is about protecting and empowering the minorities of various kind, and the aesthetical minority exists, and its tastes matter.

traditional architecture is just plain better

It's unsustainable [citation not needed].

If you're really looking for causes, the largest one is price optimization.

But, I think one missing piece between architects and the general public is how architecture students are taught to design (and thus, see) buildings first through the lens of massing [0]. When you compose a building primarily by shaping the different masses, you lose sight of the ornamentation and complex decoration that sets old buildings apart. Then, you add air conditioning and modern building systems and the need for high ceilings and windows with airflow also disappears.

What you are left with is a sealed box. Essentially, architecture has ceded too much design space to engineering in the name of cost optimization and there isn't much 'art' left in it. But look around - that's true across our society.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massing

Nah I think modern architecture is popular among many architects and unpopular with almost all of the public for the same reason modern art is: it justifies their existence.

It gives them some clever thing to know that normal people don't know anything about. If King Charles is right about architecture (he is), then what new experimental architecture can you research? You can't, because we've basically already discovered what people like.

I fully agree! And if they still disagree, perhaps we could open special camps where we could forcefully reeducate them! After all, there is but one correct design language for buildings and it's a hideous slab of concrete that our ancestors would weep if they could see.

On a serious note, I've seen conspiracy theories about how such ugly modernist architecture is being used to break our spirits, to make us numb to ugliness and to promote an acceptance of mediocrity. While I originally dismissed it, I've become old enough to see many beautiful buildings replaced with caricatures of them. I'm starting to wonder if there weren't a kernel of truth to these ramblings.

Am I hot or not architecture edition?

Nonetheless, I think it is a failure of architecture that modern design is ugly. It shouldn't be impossible to make good looking, practical, cost-effective buildings with all the options of materials and engineering that is available.

So let's start as the baseline of these 77 to 23 blowout victories by traditional architecture.

Now gradually substitute other modern designs until you can get more of a 50/50 agreement at least, and hopefully 60/40 in favor of modernism.

You could be right. Some of these might be cherry picked bad modern designs. From the article one of them looked like it should have the wicked witch of the West telling her pretties to fly out from their caves to go attack Dorothy. Another one looks like a massive collection of missile launch tubes.

Some designs I almost have to laugh at, when almost similarly disjointed mcmansion hell type monstrosities are snootily dismissed.

Le Corbusier: "A house is a machine for living in."

Oodi is very much modern architecture. Nordics are full of pretty modern architecture.

The article reads like the author picked a conclusion and made things fit his opinion.

It's not hard to make an old style building with modern amenities

In my experience, the biggest issue is natural light - it's hard to beat glass walls when you need a structural skin with some windows where possible.

Large windows are part of the modern aesthetic.

You might like Athens, in that case.

Ants pack themselves.

hive cities do have a charm

I don't see why this got downvoted. The heart wants what the hive wants.

Abnormal isn't distributed along a single axis.

The people who did feel unheard learned to not respond

When politics exclude a group, or a group feels excluded, it's easy to lure the group into supporting anti-politics, which is a nice way to say "fascism".

This is kind of where we are now, with the far-right preying on the most vulnerable people that feel ignored by politicians.

Very well put. I've also heard it said like this, "abusing the truth is the easiest way to lie".

The pattern is 1. take something that's true then 2. use it to imply the Truth. Step 3. is if anyone doubts 2, challenge them to disprove 1. Even if you don't deny that 1 is true and just challenging that 2 doesn't follow from 1, the waters have already been muddied in the eyes of many onlookers.

It's silly that this works but there's so much over-communication now that simplicity is very effective. People often repeat the fallacies verbatim too.

I might object that being right-wing, or having fear of the effects of immigrants even, does not necessarily entail racism. But it would be more interesting to say that they are related, and that valuable ideas about nice traditional architecture and nostalgia for the good old days are also genuinely related to racism and colonialism and fascism, which means that there's something of value to extract from all that garbage before you can do a clean separation of the ideas. Mercifully I don't have time to write this comment right now, but it was probably going to include the word "culture" in several places.

This is the "two truths and a lie" methodology.

You seem to be making up arguments against some caricature that you have built in your mind in order to satisfy some form of virtue signaling or sanctimonious belief. Whatever it is, it makes no sense and I feel dumber for having read it.

Go touch grass, it's healthy. (And get off bluesky)

You seem to have been triggered by the OP pointing out that a lot of this traditionalist architecture movement is - yes - racist old white dudes who want everything to be like it was when they were kids. Nostalgia is a powerful force, but it's worth remembering that the times filled with traditionalist architecture also had entire lower classes that slept in Flop Houses [0] and Shantytowns [1].

Ultimately traditionalist architecture may look nicer, but it's not surprising that buildings which cost more to build also look nicer.

If someone simply pointing the driving force behind this upsets you so much that you start posting replies like this, I would advise spending less time on X. Go outside, take a break from your "culture war". It's healthy.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flophouse

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanty_town

Nostalgia and white guys have a fraught relationship. The good old days weren't even that good for them, killing them off with cigarettes and booze in their replica colonial and Cape Cod homes.

There isn't just "some" racism and segregation, either. Check the text messages sent by cops in the Karen Reid case. What are the odds that the most racist cops in the state worked that case?

This whole newsletter is a white guy advocating for a 1950s world. But with flock cameras.

It reads uncomfortably close to an anti-intellectual discourse so popular in the far-right.

Somehow, it always makes me smile that the Glenfinnan Viaduct (as seen in Harry Potter) is concrete. I'm not sure quite why.

Not to mention their comparison, modernist architecture, is just mid-century. There is post-modern architecture after that and arguably also contemporary architecture further after that (however vaguely defined).

Cost is a big factor, but so are modern building codes. Some classic architectural features are outright illegal to build in 2026. Others might be allowed, but there's almost no one left who knows how to do it (e.g. plaster walls or ceilings).

Robots are not going to bring any of this back because robots will just create a new set of optimizations and constraints needed to make robotic construction cheaper and easier. If modern cars (which are the result of similar optimization) are anything to go by, this will result in output that's easy to build but hard to maintain or modify - so largely a continuation of existing trends.

Take a look at "3d printed" houses for an imperfect example of this kind of optimization for automation in action. Better robotics will bring about a more balanced version of this trade-off (walls will probably be possible to modify, unlike 3d printed ones) but the incentives remain the same.

Edit:

Trivial example: One of the easiest way to autonomously insulate a house will probably be with spray foam insulation - you can get a robot arm to hold the sprayer and move it in a specific, continuous motion pretty readily even today. But spray foam insulation is hard to modify after the fact. Removing it is time-intensive compared to removing insulation "batting" and applying it again requires specialized tools, PPE, and perhaps licensing.

I'm not claiming that people instinctively prefer anything. I'm saying that they've been socialized to believe that "traditional" architecture is some indicator of societal excellence. I don't think its weird that people report a bias they've been taught to have.

The article even seems aware of this possibility when it mentions that architecture students prefer modernism (with the semi-covert implication that their education is poisoning their aesthetic sensibilities). I claim its at most partially because they've been taught to prefer modern designs, but mainly because they've been taught to think about visual languages consciously, so they are able to recognize what a given architect is trying to do, in a way that a layperson might not. That's certainly why Thomas Kinkade gets as much hate as he does (that and the dodgy business practices...).

I'm also not claiming that people have been starved of traditional architecture entirely, just that nobody is building things in the traditional style now. They're not tearing them down either, the White House East Wing not withstanding. This is a novelty bias, nothing more. If you only ever see neoclassical architecture in buildings that are designated as "fancy" or "special" or "august", and all these modern, ordinary buildings do not, you're going to assume that the style itself, and not simply the age and intent at construction are what contributes to that.

I mean, 39 out of 50 US state capitol buildings have domes, as does the nation's capitol building. I think anybody in the US can be forgiven for thinking that dome = legitimate seat of authority. Certainly, that was the hypothesis behind the design decision.

Speaking only for myself, I found Washington DC, which is all neo-classical all the time, just really boring. All the buildings look the same, and I couldn't escape the sense that I was in museum that hadn't been updated in a long time. Chicago's Fields Museum has the same quality.

There is a nice youtube channel called The Aesthetic City. There are some really nice new projects done with traditional architecture in Europe.

Not all decisions should be made based on popular vote.

It's not just that, but that too. E.g. a cottage like this https://www.superkul.ca/projects/double-island-cottage/ vs a "traditional" cottage. I'm sure people have preferences for both, but to me this is still a beautiful design where all the examples in the article are just low cost ugly designs.

Or on the flip side, go with cheap "traditonal design" like https://mcmansionhell.com/post/809937203073581056/mctuscan-h... and no, sorry, that's ugly as sin.

I think it's true that construction in general has become cheaper over time, so comparing older buildings to newer ones often results in comparing more expensive design to cheaper design. But that's different than aesthetic. To properly compare aesthetic they should normalize for cost at least, if not also execution.

I suppose they did have the expert vs non-expert study, but the only example they showed from it had a hideous buildings in both types so I'm not sure what that's supposed to really accomplish.

Material costs changed too. Hardwood slats over a raised perimeter foundation used to be the cheapest way. Nowadays that would be a premium build.

but things like ornate decorations and facades were still expensive additional work

This again, is partially true. A lot of ornamental decorative elements in public facades were, essentially, mass produced using molds --- very few were hand-made in the way they are done now.

They would degrade over time, however they could also be repaired or replaced relatively easily.

Your point about survivorship bias is also somewhat more nuanced. The buildings that have survived were often, as you said, made with more expensive materials, and they lasted longer; but there was also a change in tastes over time, in particular against ornament and decorative elements, and a change in the idea that certain buildings should be maintained. In the past, people were just way more accepting of tearing down or replacing buildings. Conservation as a general approach was not as common, nor were people as inclined to see certain buildings in particular as uniquely worthy of conservation. It is those buildings which were deemed "appropriate" for conservation and "historically significant" which have largely shaped our understanding of "traditional" architecture, a somewhat snapshot idea of architecture on the cusp of modernism,

Thanks for stating my point.

In public spaces I have no doubt this is the case.

I'm more curious about residential though - see huge interesting in MCM over the last decades. I am biased but I think there is a great deal of interest in warm, modernist spaces with ideas like natural materials and lots of natural lighting, especially when compared to the beige boxes of American home building.

There was a whole decade of Soviet design before Stalin, which was often radically modernist even by the standards of its day, and that is what the OP was referring to. Stalin was notoriously conservative in his artistic tastes.

I said early Soviet for a reason.

All the money belongs to a remarkably small group of people.

Yes plus everyone is competing on cost so the lowest bid gets chosen.

The units are basically commodities. Same floor plans same amenities same building about the same rent. True across the country for these sort of newer buildings, only real difference is the pool doesn't close for the season for those in milder climates.

It is designed to be this way for investors more than consumers. Investors want these units to be as fungible as possible so they can better compare local market dynamics. Commodity trading has a lot of advantages for the investor after all. The consumers have no choice really but to be in this market if they want to be sheltered at all. It isn't like you really can exercise free market selection for something necessary like shelter. You have to take what has been made available and you cannot do without.

There is therefore no incentive to make a smart building that is favoring the tenant since this doesn't grow the potential pool of tenants in the area, that pool remains the same size as it was. It is unlike a lot of other markets where having a better product might actually grow the customer base of the product segment overall.

Unfortunately only custom homes can afford to care about beauty. Developers are building for cheapest possible and letting the long term owners deal with the consequences.

Homes still aren’t really mechanized. I’ve seen attempts but they haven’t worked well yet. Labor and materials are so expensive!

And most new homes are built by one of a few big groups. Oligopoly issues again.

Speed of construction is also not the same as efficiency.

The influencer aesthetic. Why do people pay so much to look so boring?

Literally had nothing to do with "NIMBYism." That's anachronistic bullshit. It had to do with the desire to remake the country into Garden Cities with lawn-based neighborhoods filling the spaces between shopping malls.

The people in the places where these neighborhoods were built didn't get a say, they were removed and new middle-class "YIMBYs" were moved in to be little lords on their little lots.

The bathtub curve is not the most optimal however.

I mean look at the ecology of our world. What do you see out there when you look outside? Solely some lumbering generalist beast doing not good and not too bad taking up all the energy that comes off our sun?

Absolutely not. The opposite happens. The generalist tends to die out, outcompeted by the litany of specialists who better occupy the specific niches the generalist attempts to fill.

Left to its own devices, the market ought to look like this: hyperspecialized at all scales and levels such that every demand is maximally occupied by the most efficient manner to serve that demand. One might ask instead what artificial constraints are allowing a generalist to emerge and not be swallowed up by the sum weight of the countless specialists who are more optimal at every possible thing?

Ugliness has become a cultural norm in order to suit the modern economy.

I read someone's argument that the ugliness results in market failure. Because the ugly results in not only local opposition to building renewable it results in everyone in the area being opposed. And they then use the political process to block new construction.

What really bad is after a 100 years of this the construction industry no longer knows how to design attractive buildings. Starts with architecture where 2/3 of the architects are aesthetically blind. And the remaining 1/3 had it beaten out of the in school. Ends with manufactures that have long since stopped manufacturing pleasing materials for construction.

"The aesthetic is more or a side-effect of using cheaper resources and cheaper methods of production."

This is a really interesting argument and very much not the story I've heard. Can you cite any sources for any of your statements at all?

Yes building codes are different, but stuff like trim or brick work or generally curb appeal shouldn't affect that.

It very much does, unfortunately. In the US, the places with the highest housing shortages are mired with endless red tape, discretionary reviews, parking requirements etc. that substantially increase costs. This leaves little room for anything else, including aesthetics.

Developers have gotten very good at navigating this, but it has also led to them sticking to basic "good enough" designs like the five-over-ones we see when new apartments are built.

White or grey are grossly over represented in Australia.

It’s like people visit the remains of the forum in Rome and picture the colours being as they are today instead of the ridiculously bright/strong colours they would have been when erected/used.

In Europe we had this minor disagreement in 1914, which we would prefer not to talk about.

One consequence of this was the decimation of skilled craftsmen. Millions of them were sent off to become machine-gun fodder, to never return to their respective trades.

Along with them was their craft. The next generation of apprentices never had the mentors they needed, hence that was that, the end of what you might call traditional architecture.

There was another minor disagreement that began at various times depending on one's nationality. In the UK this meant 1939, and with it a second 'double tap' on the skilled craftsmen that the building trade used to rely on.

Many of the survivors did get to work on war memorials, and every village has one, carved in stone, and often kept in immaculate condition to this day.

In my local station there are two memorials, and I struggle to hold it in as I walk past. Needless to say, we lost a lot of good railway workers too. Sad.

There wasn't a lot of money after each of these minor disagreements and heavily blitzed cities still bear the scars. There can be a wonderful parade of shops with flats above, with wonderful craftsmenship, which is truly wonderful considering they didn't have motorised vehicles as we know them, or cherry pickers, or any machine that is big and yellow (JCB in the UK).

Nowadays there can be a huge 1870s building, with four storeys, all with big rooms and high ceilings, next to some 'rubbish' that was built in the post-disagreement years.

Some places were physically removed from the map. A 500 bomber raid on the special crane used to hoist big guns onto the ships of the Royal Navy happened one night. They completely missed the crane to destroy the entirety of Clydebank, a district of Glasgow. People are sore about that to this day.

The crane still stands, albeit idle, since shipbuilding went to Asia in the post-disagreement years. That crane, once the largest and most capable in the world, has a soul. It speaks of sorrow to me.

So yes, you are correct, but there is more to the story than just a Modernist story of cheap mass production. The limit was not resources as you can see the quarries that were abandoned after the first minor disagreement, and there is enough stone in any given mountain to make millions of homes. The limit was the loss of men as well as the loss of European colonies, on which the wealth of European cities came from.

Moving swiftly on, I am no Ferrari fan under normal circumstances, however, Lewis Hamilton currently drives for their Formula One team and he is a hero of mine. Hence I am willing to defend the loathed Luce!

The Luce does have Mr Ive's design input and I don't think anyone is critical of the interior. It is well understood that serious tax avoidance vehicles need to stay away from having big screens on the dashboard since they are not going to age well (and F1 cars don't have such things). Having four seats rather than just the two makes sense to me, since the car needs to have some length to it for high speed stability and there is no need for a massive red V12 engine in the middle of the car.

The Luce brings much from the world of F1, including high performance cooling systems that cost 100x the price of the radiators in your car. People like older cars because they can tune them, the Luce is the first EV that is what you might call tune-able, with the owner able to set the car up for a given track or just the road, with them also able to do what they want with it.

The aerodynamic package is ahead of its time, and, as such, it will draw criticism. We have been here before, notably in the UK with the Ford Sierra. This was a 'jelly mould' shaped version of the three-box saloon that had gone before, the Cortina. Initially the press hated on the Sierra and people did have genuine misgivings. However, it did not take long before the Sierra rose to the top of the sales charts to set the trend for the 'jelly mould' look, these being the 'peak car' maintainable vehicles that people wish they had today.

Fortunately I will never be a customer for Ferrari, however, if I was a tax-dodging benevolent dictator with the wealth to put together a motor museum, I would not hesitate to buy a Luxe for the collection, to go alongside an OG Tesla Model S, with the faux grille, and a Xiaomi SU7. I would like to add a Ford Cortina and a Ford Sierra too, however, millions were made and millions rusted away, leaving none for my fantasy museum, particularly in the desired Saluki Bronze colour.

This is not a general truth.

The Dana-Thomas House, designed and executed by Frank-Lloyd Wright, spared no expense in an age when skilled craftsmen were affordable.

Are there seeds of the Guggenheim in New York between these two buildings?

https://www.ourchanginglives.com/springfields-dana-thomas-ho...

https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g60763-d108687...

The work of Dieter Rams, the primary influence for Ive's work at Apple that's set the aesthetic direction for hardware for the last ~20 years to critical acclaim and is a showcase of manufacturing prowess? That Dieter Rams? This is an absurd and ahistorical understanding of modernism.

I absolutely love neoclassical architecture.

I wish more people were building brand new, modern neoclassical buildings that are truly beautiful in a Haussmannian way, yet as practical as modern skyscrapers.. something like 1 Mayfair in London or 150 East 78th Street in New York.

Yes, modern is now old 1890s-1960s. Even post modernism is aging.

You see the same thing in literature, where modernism has crowded out of other styles. As one example, you see way less description today than in older books.

I'm not a hater on modernism -- I like stripped down literature and architecture (though I wish concrete buildings were cleaned more regularly). But there does seem to be some truth in this idea that "the elite critics" have dominated these fields, resulting in the production of art (and buildings) that are broadly unpopular. I think the overriding goal of these critics is avoiding kitsch, which they see in classical forms.

one of them has slightly more classical style of architecture

If aesthetic sense is distributed according a bell curve, the majority of the population will have "average" taste. If you say good taste is one standard deviation above the median, then the majority will have worse taste.

Architecture schools don't really teach you the pragmatic side of the trade. Their projects are building those sorts of abstracted models, talking about forms and voids. It is just so far abstracted from the sort of practical architecture that leads to stuff like built in cupboards in a Sears catalog home. Something to also consider is while these young architects are getting trained they aren't really living like adults either. They are in their early 20s after all, still perhaps lashing out in reflexive opposition from their suburban upbringing, and probably don't understand why a built in cupboard would be so exciting.

Many have never seen a really, truly beautiful high modern home, and it shows. Lots of both traditional and modern slop out there, with gems on both sides every once in a while.

architects (experts) prefer the modernist buildings. while common people prefer the classical buildings which makes cities more livable.

Good architects match modernism with livability. A couple months back I visited the Barbican Centre in London and it never ceases to amaze me how thoughtful is every little design item.

Once there was a blackout in my neighborhood that affected commercial properties too. While driving down the street in total darkness the only structure that stuck out when my headlights pressed them was the local Mexican restaurant which isn't traditional in the least—it sort of looks like what Davy Crockett would've built if he survived the Alamo and opened a Cheesecake Factory. But it stood out that night.

When we moved to the bay area in 2015 (south bay), I was absolutely stunned at the variety of residential architecture, having come from the mid-Atlantic where everything tended to be uniform based roughly on construction date/period. Since land is exorbitantly costly, homeowners tend to build what they like, no matter whether it fits the neighborhood aesthetic or not.

My kingdom to have RAD developer tools be the norm again. I don't want yet another website as an app, or website bundled in a Chrome fork as an app. You could have built the same thing in VB6 or Delphi with less effort and used less of my resources in the 2000s...

Look at the buildings. We're already suffering.

https://worksinprogress.co/issue/against-the-survival-of-the...

Not according to this article, which looks into it.

Architecture is about optimizing for people inhabiting the city. Cities with detailed human-scale architecture at the lowest few floors are nicer to live in. You can still have a city full of soulless luxury towers, as long as you avoid cheap hostile architecture in places pedestrians can't avoid looking at.

It might be subtle but interior and exterior matters. The housing projects (70s, 80s) often had nicer interior design and comfort, but the overall neighborhood felt void, full and worse.

modern architecture is best understood as an expression of the ethos of efficiency. because it is cheap, easy to maintain, uniform, reproducible (which are machine values), therefore it is good, aspirational, wholesome (which are humanist values) for people.

as an aside, for the longest time i have thought modernity was fully understood by the 60s (ellul, debord, macluhan, ...). but maybe there the focus was too narrowly political, sociological. it has been revealing to see this ethos (and it is an ethos, make no mistake) recently linked to autism. high modernists are uniform, monomaniacal people. like machines. and the world they fashion, is therefore one that is uniform, principled. how the unsociable autist colleague cannot distinguish between is and ought, so will modern architecture barrel down deductively to its unpleasant conclusion.

modernisn is the commodification of all spheres of existence, it is an unprecedented evolution, how to break out of this, how to get of this train with only a single endpoint.

OT, but I've discussed Gothic cathedrals with Gemini, and we don't make 'em like we used to--charitably, because they take up a lot of space? A Gothic cathedral looks like a bird with massive wings. Those "wings" are outside of the church's interior; people call them "flying buttresses"--they stop the walls from bursting outwards.

Then again, I wonder whether the modern innovation of using steel under tension could enable us to make the "wings" (buttresses) smaller.

The traditional examples look sturdier and heavier. The brick bridge looks overbuilt and hence safer.

The examples where arch students gave higher scores, like with that god awful-looking house, I don't have an answer to. Maybe they had terrible taste. Just because you are a student of architecture it does not mean you have good taste or how to build beautiful things that evoke a specific emotion.

I hope you live in a Khrushchevka and aren't a hypocrite.

Am I the only one who thinks they use especially weak modernist buildings as references?

Maybe the average modernist building really is that bad and the issue is that "traditional" buildings are more forgiving for an average architect.

Just the usual things. There are a handful of gatekeepers who somehow, miraculously, dictate trends, and everyone follows them like some sacred text. To draw a parallel with porn, OnlyFans showed that people actually do not care that much about long form porn movies. I wonder when people will realize that most minimalist modern buildings are cheap, tasteless, and soulless, and start building whatever they actually find beautiful.

I thought this was an article about microservices.

Look at this picture:

https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!5kYm!,f_auto,q_auto:...

Which side is modern and which is traditional? The examples on the right are clearly more modern than the examples on the left to my eye: the left looks like it's from the '70s while the right is unmistakably 21st century. But the examples on the left are run-down, plain, and feature advertisements and bricked-up windows and steel shutters and security doors, while the examples on the right are brand new and shiny and walkable. There's graffiti in the first example and in the last one they replaced the asphalt with pavers!

Hard to take the conclusions seriously when the authors have their thumbs on the scale.

While my karma might get incinerated with this quote, it is incisive on traditional architecture. The author is reviled by many.

“Yes, God damn it, the Parthenon!”

The ruler struck the glass over the picture.

“Look,” said Roark. “The famous flutings on the famous columns—what are they there for? To hide the joints in wood—when columns were made of wood, only these aren’t, they’re marble. The triglyphs, what are they? Wood. Wooden beams, the way they had to be laid when people began to build wooden shacks. Your Greeks took marble and they made copies of their wooden structures out of it, because others had done it that way. Then your masters of the Renaissance came along and made copies in plaster of copies in marble of copies in wood. Now here we are, making copies in steel and concrete of copies in plaster of copies in marble of copies in wood. Why?”

Why are we commissioning styles that we say we dislike? There are several interesting possibilities.

Like what? A shadowy cabal of liberal elites pulling the strings from the shadows? Stripe (who own Works In Progress) founder Patrick Collision donated to the Trump campaign in 2024. Tiresomely obvious what this "piece" is trying to do. Find a new gimmick imho.

Baumol’s cost disease makes building ornamentation cost prohibitive for all except the highest profile (and budget) projects.

TLDR: Architecture optimizes for what is cheap to construct and meets the needs of the commissioning entity at the time of construction. This is often about a big facade, a dream, grandstanding or power dynamics instead of livability or community experience, particularly street acceptance. It's no wonder people prefer older architecture: it was necessarily more reasonably scaled, often more ornate and particular (since hand tools were used anyway: why not make it beautiful?), and featured now basically unavailable materials like giant timber beams which present more softly.