The Next New Thing: architecture's gulf between the traditional and the modern

https://theamericanscholar.org/the-next-new-thing-2/

by tintinnabula • 2 years ago

11 23 2 years ago

codevark• 2 years ago

Form vs Function, all over again.

Work the function aspect until it is beyond reproach. Then look at form and tweak things until the neighbors don't complain.

Or move somewhere where there are no neighbors, and skip the second step.

History is still OK, it's already there, we have pictures and drawings, with circles and arrows.

lmpdev2• 2 years ago

This is all well and good but I thought the primary reason for eschewing traditional design was the cost of labour rose just as the cost of material production fell (a gap which continues to increase)

You can’t get a highly skilled stonemason to devote dozens or even hundreds of hours to ornate a building’s nonfunctional aspects without inordinate wealth and a lack of desire for a ROI on the building’s construction

Glass, steel and concrete have emerged as the cheapest mainstay structural materials, and without cheap labour was bound to become the language of contemporary architecture

CuriouslyC4• 2 years ago

Concrete is an extremely flexible building material, you don't just have to pour box forms. Brutalists just lack imagination.

lmpdev2• 2 years ago

How do you go about easily producing reliable intricate dies and casts with novel designs?

That’s a tough scale to nail for one offs with one shot

I know precast is all the rage but surely there are better materials like metal or wood for particularly ornate design elements that don’t waste as much CO2 on potentially miscast half tonne experiments

Unless my intuition is wrong and cement casting is reliable and foolproof at any scale/desired fidelity?

VyseofArcadia• 2 years ago

I thought the primary reason for eschewing traditional design was the cost of labour

That's part of it, but there's more to it.

I used to work on architectural CAD software, and the office I worked out of was (probably not coincidentally) close to a well-respected architecture school. Even as a software engineer, I ended up going to a lot of architecture conferences and seminars, as it was important to the company that even the devs try to understand the users.

There is a large and very vocal contingent of architects who are insufferable artistes who want to eschew traditional design for the sake of eschewing traditional design. Practicality is of secondary or even tertiary concern.

snowpid• 2 years ago

" There is a large and very vocal contingent of architects who are insufferable artistes who want to eschew traditional design for the sake of eschewing traditional design. Practicality is of secondary or even tertiary concern. "

Yes, it is even worse. These advocates (in Germany at least) call everyone traditional minded literal Nazis (though they cant name any antisemitism, anti Slavic , pro war behaviour of traditional architecture). Also these architects tend to boycott Israel because you know they think they have a deeper insight of Palestine conflict.

throw0101c3• 2 years ago

This is all well and good but I thought the primary reason for eschewing traditional design was the cost of labour rose just as the cost of material production fell (a gap which continues to increase)

Yes, the post-WW2 building boom was all about fast and cheap to serve the needs of returning GIs.

But in the last few years it is possible to get pre-made moldings from a factory so local mill works / skills are not strictly necessary:

* https://www.kuikenbrothers.com/moulding-scale-proportion-sem...

* https://windsorone.com/products/moldings/

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=guM4z6Hps0I

The problem is that designers/architects still need to understand the theory behind the proportions if you want to do it properly, and most folks don't have it:

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUUpj2Du8wY

CharlieDigital3• 2 years ago

There are a few things that always puzzle me when I think about it.

1. Divided lights in windows. They end up looking like cages to me!

2. Non-functional plastic shutters. They don't make any sense!

3. Wood textured vinyl or cementeous siding. Why?

4. Why aren't we using MORE (recycled) plastic in the one industry where plastic or resin impregnated products would probably benefit (moisture and insect resistance)?

We have such weird "traditions" when it comes to our home design, construction, and material selection.

AnimalMuppet• 2 years ago

Doesn't plastic degrade over decades, especially when exposed to sunlight? That could be why not.

We have traditions in material selection because nobody wants to have to rebuild their building after a decade because some "new, innovative" material didn't age well.

CharlieDigital3• 2 years ago

Only the exterior cladding of a house is really exposed to UV and even there, there is no shortage of vinyl siding or latex polymer paints (over cementeous boards) which have been UV stabilized.

Azek[0] and Trex[1] have been popular due to their low maintenance and insect resistance.

We're seeing some polymers and polymer impregnated products starting to be used heavily now in construction.

Huber's Zip system[2] is one example. Makes perfect sense. It seems like there are other applications where it would be a boon to use plastics.

I'm just surprised that we don't see higher adoption of plastics (again, not necessarily structural, but even as cladding or plastic impregnated) in the core structural elements that are often susceptible to water or insect damage.

[0] https://azekexteriors.com/products/trim

[1] https://www.trex.com/

[2] https://www.huberwood.com/zip-system/wall-sheathing

detourdog4• 2 years ago

my answers... 1. divided lights help keep costs down by getting the glass in more manageable sizes and being able to replace smaller panes when things go wrong. 2. Yes they are an abomination. 3. These faux finishes keep costs down by removing the need to make perfectly flat untextured surfaces. Some believe that wood texture over other choices won't shock the consumer. 4. We should be using more recycled materials the bigger issue is that the color choices tend towards black or diarrhea.

The way I see society has to maintain a certain amount of continuity to maintain momentum. The original article seems to touch on this need but I think spend too much time developing a more conplex and less true perspective on the issue.

CharlieDigital3• 2 years ago

Divided lights come in simulated either sandwiched in the glazing or installed outside of the glazing!

My house had them outside of the glazing (Andersen windows) and I removed them all.

CuriouslyC4• 2 years ago

I'm all for not trying to be a crazy Avant Garde brutalist weirdo with your buildings, but these guys seem to be fixated on an architectural style that screams "pax americana" and is really rooted in a culture of imperial grandeur.

I want people to go back to beautiful medieval village architecture. That is much more organic and unpretentious than the "classical" stuff they're trying to shill here.

didgeoridoo• 2 years ago

This distinction is a great example of Christopher Alexander’s “selfconscious” vs. “unselfconscious” ways of building.

Unselfconscious buildings slowly evolve in response to challenges faced by the inhabitants, and thus are marked by an almost organic tendency to shape to the environment. Functions emerge as innovations to solve problems at the speed of societal evolution — the mud huts of 50,000 BCE looked remarkably similar to the huts of 25,000 BCE.

Selfconscious buildings have prior “intent”, requiring elaborate upfront planning to express the will of the (often singular) architect. The building isn’t just a solution to a set of problems — it’s a shape, a statement, something intended to be seen and considered, intended to evoke feelings, maybe even to make some people uncomfortable.

I don’t recall if Alexander says this explicitly, but I’ve always felt that selfconscious architecture is a form of conspicuous consumption by power elite. By wasting resources to communicate messages in stone and steel, a society is saying to rivals (and to itself) how much it matters. The intent of this message is the same whether it’s the Durham Cathedral or the Louvre Pyramid.

(Ironically, I’d also argue that most “modern buildings” now fall into the unselfconscious camp — cranking out block after block of orange aluminum clad five-over-ones is a well-established and reliable way of putting square meters on site. It’s just unfortunate that accidents of history and economics led to the dominance of this stark and antihuman aesthetic.)

detourdog4• 2 years ago

I was just in Norfolk VA. and I saw a multi-block new development that somehow managed to be built with enough thought to look like it was plucked right out a very dense 1830 city. The feel was very much like center city Philadelphia.

I was really pleased because with it which definitely fits with one aspect of this article on classical architecture.

All the houses had small little nooks cranny yards and porches that were necessities in the 1830's and awesome luxuries in today's cities.

The development was very true to the original design but used modern materials to look old. I would be just as happy to have seen the exact neighborhood recreated in another material such as cast concrete. I bet it would have been just as exciting and cheaper to build.

throw0101c3• 2 years ago

[…] an architectural style that screams "pax americana" and is really rooted in a culture of imperial grandeur.

It's amusing you mention America given that the author comes from Canada (and was born in the UK):

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witold_Rybczynski

And the style that is picture at the top of the article is the Federal style in the US, but is a variant of Georgian, which is used—yes—in grand buildings like court houses, libraries, etc, but also for townhouses and row housing:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgian_architecture#Gallery

The article/architect mentions Kligerman and his creativity in blending traditional designs with the modern, and looking at his oeuvre it hardly looks "pax americana":

* https://kligermanad.com

I want people to go back to beautiful medieval village architecture. That is much more organic and unpretentious than the "classical" stuff they're trying to shill here.

The author is arguing to going back to what works instead of trying to be completely original all the time:

Ignoring the past often means ignoring the good ideas of one’s immediate predecessors. In the past, copying masters was a valuable part of architectural design—Andrea Palladio copied Bramante, Inigo Jones copied Palladio, Christopher Wren copied Jones. Now copying is taboo. For example, the work of early Scandinavian modernists such as Sigurd Lewerentz and Alvar Aalto, who humanized their stripped-down modern designs with interesting handcrafted details, was ignored by later generations. Similarly, when Louis Kahn produced the sublime skylit vaults of the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, his ingenious solution was highly praised, but it was never repeated. As a result, instead of a considered evolution, modern architecture has been marked by a succession of fresh starts, some real and many false.

And more than that, it is to understand the why behind a building's design and construction and the underlying theory that was used, e.g., Golden ratio:

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-0XJpPnlrA&t=3m13s

Even people who try build in a certain style mess things up because they don't understand the details that are necessary for things to work properly:

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUUpj2Du8wY

CuriouslyC4• 2 years ago

I understand that imperialist architecture has been co-opted throughout history to evoke a connection with Rome and project a legitimacy of power and order. Regardless of the origination of the architectural style and the author's nationality, it is choosing a specific "functional" architecture from a plethora of options because it projects a message which is strongly associated with the dominant imperial power. Maybe the author likes that style because it subconsciously makes them feel safe and protected by the power of the empire in an uncertain and rapidly changing world, that would track with conservative appeal for a lot of folks.

Modified3019• 2 years ago

Amusingly, in the first photo I actually prefer the house hiding in the background to the right.

xnx• 2 years ago

3D printing and 3D carving has the potential to make bespoke ornamentation affordable at scale. Worth keeping in mind that the examples from the past that are often referenced are from the 1% of the day. Common housing was cheap and ugly.

detourdog4• 2 years ago

After a few hours I finally figured out what bothered me about this critique. The author seems to state a premise of what designer think. His premise of the state of Architecture seems outdated from even the early 90's when I was in design school. What he states as a give was rejected by my generation at the beginning of my education.

He also seems to have fallen into the trap of believing what he learned to say in Art History class about modernism. This common description of modernism is pretty far from the original ideals.

From my point of view post modernism was created by the students of the original modernist to claim their own spot in history. There is noting about the definition of post modernism that is not encompassed in modernism. I see the post modernist as almost an oedipal complex of a movement instead actually intellectual progress.

The international style which is what most people consider modernism is actually only a modernist study in glass, steel, concrete, stone. These materials were chosen because the modernist were focused on developing as much housing as quickly as possible. The materials they choose were perfect for this goal. Modernism does not dictate only these materials are acceptable.

People often describe the coldness of modernism but that coldness only reflects the materials used at it's inception.

This is all just my opinion but this writing seems to lack the actual experience of design and it's roots.

The Next New Thing: architecture's gulf between the traditional and the modern

Related Stories