:: post snipped, hijack continued::
Actually, the inspiration for the buildings is more like this, or this. Rand really dug Frank Lloyd Wright. Roark, as far as I can tell, was based on Wright. Linky.
Slee
I have seen it done right - with personality. Bookshelves, small art pieces, wall art, a playroom designed for kids to actually play in. Comfortable furniture with pleasing colors. Comfy beds with those amazing eiderdowns … clean lines, good storage spaces, spaces for living in, areas for hobbies and crafts … and then that sterile manequin box…<shudder>
Architecture is a tricky thing, because there is not a clear line between “classic styles” and “tacky imitation.” I don’t live in a Colonial mansion or a Southern plantation. Why would I want to live in some Disneyland style house that imitates it?
Interior design is whole 'nother ball of wax, but it’s only partly connected to exterior. I have serious doubts that Gehry knows enough about acoustics to have designed that.
However, yes, I could do that. Hard to illustrate on something as small as a ball of aluminum, and the excercise would be rather pointless.
And yet those Southern Plantations are mostly built in the Greek Revival style, why did they want to live in some Disneyland imitation of the Acropolis?
This is one of the things that really annoys me about modern architectural thought; the idea that if a building in any way incorporates elements of old styles that it is somehow “inauthentic” or that people who like it are reactionary fools.
The thing is, I like elements of post WWII architecture. I think the Modernists did kick-ass interiors (especially in commercial architecture), recent skyscraper designs are the best I’ve seen since the golden age of the 20’s and 30’s. The problem is, Modernism and its progeny got way more wrong than it got right. It completely abandoned the human element, both in its ascetics and in its interaction with the rest of the built environment. Despite billing itself as a solution to the challenges of modern living and all the talk about form following function, it was impractical and tended to impose its itself onto its inhabitants.
The result is that Modernism and its progeny have produced a shockingly high ratio of failures for its every success. What makes this all the more damning is that it was the very tenets of the modern styles that caused their failure. People aren’t machines, they like ornamentation and pleasant materials, not reinforced concrete. All-glass buildings are impossible to heat and cool. Buildings that present blank walls and fort-like appearances don’t belong in bustling down towns. Etc., etc., etc.
Why design a building that looks like crumpled aluminium in the first place?
Why not? We’ve now got the technology to build structures without straight lines, pillars, or whatever, so why not have some fun with it?
Because a building is not something you can display in a corner of an art museum for the few appreciative cognoscenti who “get it.” A building is something everybody has to live with.
Exactly. I can choose to not view whatever piece of shit fad those operating on a higher plane than the rest of us have come up with, if it’s stored in a museum. A building? Not so much. The atrocities of the 1960’s are still with us today, after the architects finished having “fun”.
There is lots of modern architecture. Big-box stores, shopping centers and mall, stadiums, skyscrapers. None of these do much more than tip their hat at earlier styles. Sure the Prairie Modern school never got beyond the artsy-fartsy stage, but lots of people learned from those failures and produced our modern world.
You don’t like that building. Fine. Lots of people do, however, and there’s no reason that your personal preferences should be a definition of buildings which do or do not deserve to exist.
There’s no reason why architects should be allowed to rape city centres with their tasteless tat. I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest the overwhelming majority of citizens do not want buildings, like the previously linked, anywhere near them. If City planners aren’t enforcing design controls, turning down planning permission to buildings that are obscene, just as if they’d turn down a design for being dangerous, or blocking out excess light, then they’re failing in their duty.
There’s absolutely no reason why this cannot work in practice. Edinburgh City Council protects the old and new towns with a similar scheme, and the city is better for it (the fact that it’s routinely described as one of the world’s most beautiful cities is not a coincidence.)
You are ignoring the fact that any public building requires MANY layers of public approval processes, often taking many years of vetting. (The Disney Hall was begun in 1988 and opened in 2003!)
These buildings exist because they were demanded by the public through its representatives. They were not ‘foisted upon’ anyone (except the ignorant or the minority dissenters).
Complaining about a building in downtown LA because it wouldn’t look good in Edinburgh is just bizarre!
I have a question: what about symmetry?
For thousands of years, from the Pyramids to the GE Building, virtually every major piece of architecture has been symmetrical on at least one axis. Obviously, human beings automatically find symmetry appealing. So why have so many modern architects - such as the person who designed the crumpled aluminum building - abandoned the concept? Do they think that human aesthetic senses have changed so radically over the past few decades? Or do they simply not care whether their buildings are visually appealing?
What? I didn’t do anything of the sort. I used Edinburgh as an example of a city with a protected city centre, i.e. a scheme similar to what I was suggesting already put in practice, and one that isn’t a cumbrous mess, to stave off that objection. I didn’t say anything about the Disney Concert Hall not fitting well in Edinburgh city centre (although it’s stretching credibility to claim it would look good anywhere).
This is exactly what’s so damning about modernist architecture. The modern world lacks life, intimacy, community, and beauty. The big box store, shopping mall, and McMansion all serve to isolate and alienate those in and around them, a social statement that comfort and beauty are things to be set aside for efficiency, an enforcement of the concept that other people are annoyances to kept away from.
The museums and symphonies mentioned up thread do little to nothing to inspire patrons or passersby with grandiosity that lies within. They do less to draw people together in shared experience, instead they try to be art themselves, and make the conversation about the building over the history, art, or music.
A building ought not to be a piece of art with rooms inside, and it ought not be a monument to soulless efficiency. It needs to fit in where it’s built, interact with both those inside and out, and meet a need. When the daily needs of people (both neighbors and occupants) are ignored, you end up with the monstrosities that the modernists tend towards. Those that manage to recall that there are people around manage to avoid the worst of this, and can make some interesting structures.
edit well it seems you can’t link directly to a google map image. I see no way to delete a post, will see if I can find a link to the building, it’s by some famous designer
http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&tab=wl
The green monstor on my block. Way to incorporate the building into the block.
Are you really saying that the same protection and preservation that is made of Edinburgh city centre should be extended to somewhere like Cumbernauld? Edinburgh is a special case, and is treated as such. Protecting places from change when change is exactly what they need is hardly a great plan for civic improvement.