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- Hacker News
- I always like to look at the windows for these “more attractive” buildings. They always lead me to believe the indoor experience is worse in some way. Either cramped or similar. Sometimes they imply a dark windowless rooms. Generally, they seem like they prioritize the appearance of the building over the experience of being inside the building, which is unambiguously the more important part of the building.
The funny one is the buildings that have better landscaping. A few of the buildings in the post only look attractive as a consequence of the green courtyard in front. If you cover up that part of the photo, they just don’t look as stunning compared to the other. Perhaps that’s an argument for traditional courtyards (fair enough), but it doesn’t imply the need for traditional building construction.
by strstr - 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.
by hahamaster - I think the perspective from inside vs outside the buildings is important. Consider Meta’s classic campus vs their newer buildings designed by Frank Gehry. I like the exterior appearance of the classic campus much better as it feels “friendlier”, but from the inside, it flips drastically. The newer buildings are far superior in every way compared to the dimly lit, fluorescent feeling you get inside the older buildings with the small windows.by throwaway713
- Next thing you're gonna tell me that English speakers overwhelmingly prefer novels written in English.
Cultures have visual languages just the same as they have written and spoken (and signed) languages. The crucifix symbol has an understood meaning in most European cultures, because of how foundational Christianity is to their cultures. Is it really so surprising that people prefer buildings in a visual language they already understand?
There's also this paragraph at the very end:
>If this is true, a greater puzzle comes into view. Almost every architectural school in the world exclusively teaches broadly modernist styles, and probably more than 99 percent of architects practice exclusively in them. In Britain, there has been hardly a single public commission in a traditional style since the 1950s, and only a trickle of commercial and institutional ones. Except in the market for private housing, traditional styles have been virtually extinct for seven decades. Although in some cases this can be explained by anti-traditional planning rules, the broad trend is still evident in jurisdictions whose development control systems are stylistically neutral.
In a world where we've seen nothing but modernist designs for 70 years, is it really that surprising that people might prefer novel designs? Especially novel designs in a style they are repeatedly told is better, or references a more refined time?
by petsfed - Seems to me that your positions are in opposition to each other.
1. There’s a traditional visual language that people instinctively prefer.
2. Modern architectural sensibilities have superseded traditional visual language through repetition.
I’m reading this to mean something like “people like their own traditional foods but since they've been drowning in pizza for the last 70 years, they’ve forgotten about their traditional foods.”
How can a basal, instinctive preference just disappear? Can the sex drive disappear with enough brainwashing?
by saimiam - 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.
by DGAP - Indeed, the beige boxes are neither modernist nor classicist.
My family lives in a MCM house built around 1960. We bought it in a "hot" market where you couldn't be particular about anything. We chose a house based on location and the interior.
by analog31 - It seems like these comparisons are more "expensive traditional design vs low cost modern design." None of their examples had what I would consider a single expensive and nice modern design. But every single example of "traditional" design was essentially luxury pricing.by tensor
- Several of the referenced studies used award winning modernist buildings, and others used similar size and use of buildings e.g. city halls.by pchristensen
- The missing part is that traditional building used to be cheap (in fact the cheapest way of building things).
What changed is labour costs in western countries relative to the cost of materials and other physical things
by ifwinterco - 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.
by dfgknionio - There are some rules to classical architecture styles regarding windows and window size going upwards that the ones on the right do follow more.by modo_mario
- There's more to architecture than just the façade, which is what people are rating when they are just looking at photos of the exterior. The interiors, structure, and services, etc. of modern building are often far superior to older ones, and i suspect many 'ordinary' people would agree.by perilunar
- If it's my building, e.g. the building that I live in - I care more about the ease of maintenance and repair than any facade.
Because I spend 80% of my time indoors, and 20% working in the garden, so frankly don't even care what the building looks like.
Maybe only care that the property looks neat when it's time to sell.
As it stands, these studies are just cherry-picked navel gazing with extra steps. You can't design a study like this well. There are hundreds of thousands of buildings, and tens of thousands of variations of subjective preference. And all of those go out of the window as soon as practical concerns (like affordability) arise.
by antisthenes - Right but that's not because modern architectural style has made the interiors better. It's mainly technological improvements that allow larger windows, bigger space, better insulation, etc.
You can totally have a traditional style building with a modern interior without a hint of brutalism or concrete.
by IshKebab - Yes, every time people get grumpy about modern architecture and look over to see if I agree I tell the story about how I used to work at a company in Boston which moved from a beautiful 19th century building to a soulless Modernist steel-and-glass skyscraper. And thank fucking god: the old building was too hot in the summer, too cold in the winter, had too little natural light, and was too cramped. The Modernist building was better to actually be in in every way. Buildings are there to be used, not just looked at in pictures.by Analemma_
- "Traditional" isn't really defined here, but seems to mean "first half of the 20th century," which feels like a relatively narrow tradition. Not a lot of preference for teepees and yurts.by addaon
- 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).by wasabi991011
- People definitely like teepees and yurts (and thatched roofs, dry stone walls, log cabins, etc.), it's just that at some point the practicality gap becomes too wide to contemplate.
But this is a reasonable point to raise. Although both would serve their purpose a concrete viaduct is much cheaper to build than a masonry one, to the point that it may be difficult to justify the latter no matter how strong the public preference is for it.
- 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?”
by chasil - I dont prefer traditional architecture because I have high standards, I just hate all these rectangular-prism concrete stripmalls and loglo highways.
- Because it looks good.by chr15m
- It's amusing to watch the movie version of The Fountainhead and see what are supposed to be Roarke's buildings. He likes the pedestal style, where the first floor is mostly open-work columns around a small lobby. Turns out this is terrible in cold or windy areas. Wind hits the side of the building and is forced down into the area around the lobby. Doors are forced shut by wind pressure. People are knocked off their feet. A strong wind in snow produces a horizontal blizzard.
The Meteorology Building (bldg 54) at MIT was built that way, with all of the above problems. Much embarrassment. Later, much computational fluid dynamics and, in 2019, a rebuild of the plaza level with more walls.
by Animats - Modernism is the act of using cheaper resources and more standardized/cheaper methods of production. The aesthetic is more of a side-effect of those limits. Ugliness has become a cultural norm in order to suit the modern economy. It may come as a surprise but it required years of cultural development and education for most people to accept the work of Dieter Rams as some aesthetic pinnacle rather than soulless mass production. It's only recently, (with designs like the Ferrari EV for instance) that people are starting to see how limited our aesthetic language has become. Modernism is too cheap to replace so the "beauty" of soulless minimalism will likely endure in the zeitgeist, but it's not a very interesting environment to be in.by boh
- We are too rich to be able to afford things like Sears Roebuck houses now.
- It's not even always cheaper. https://youtu.be/y5w4REl_Fewby modo_mario
- 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.
by grebc - 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.by msy
- 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...
by chasil - Modern materials and production methods eliminated the need for ornamentation to prove a craftsman's skill and attention to detail.
I'm thinking of something like a violin. You can't pick up a violin and judge the perfection of the fitting between the wood surfaces that are glued together. If that work isn't perfect, the instrument will eventually fly apart. But you can look at the "scroll" and "bees sting" which are unforgiving of tiny errors. These kinds of features persist to this day due to traditionalism, but have disappeared from most industrial products.
Today, I don't expect an ornamented house to be of any better quality than a plain house.
by analog31