Why Do People Dislike Modern Architecture?

Great Debates
241

[QUOTE=Hakuna Matata]
There appears to be a naivity about Architects of the past here. The comments here about modern Architects have been also said about these older era Architects in their time and afterwards. Architects 100 years ago had a much larger ego and role on design frankly then Architects today.
[/QUOTE]
Sure, but 100 years ago was right about when Modern architecture was taking off. At least those guys had the excuse of blazing some genuinely new trails-- nobody had ever needed to develop aesthetic principles for 30-story buildings before. Sullivan may have preached “form follows function,” but it’s telling that he never went nuts with the idea-- his designs generally incorporated a fair amount of understated ornamentation.

A century later, we really ought to have a fairly good idea of what contributes to an attractive skyscraper by now, let alone other more modestly-scaled public buildings. So there’s really no excuse for this seemingly endless parade of designs from Planet Gruesome. How does such a design-- for example the one cited earlier, for 20 Fenchurch Street– how does something like that even get submitted by a professional architect? Sure, it’s a neat thought experiment, a cute school project-- but to put it forward as a serious candidate for consideration? That’s a cry for help. It says, “I’m tired of being an architect; somebody please stop me.” Why aren’t there big clown hammers hung on the walls of every design firm for the express purpose of beating down architects who propose this stuff?

The Trump World Tower is another good example of the sort of building exterior that we really don’t need to see any more of again, ever. I guarantee that the design proposal consisted solely of a copy of 2001: A Space Odyssey and a gallon Ziploc of Amsterdam Flame. The picture of that thing next to the Chrysler Building is just hurtful.

242

[QUOTE=Terrifel]
Sure, but 100 years ago was right about when Modern architecture was taking off. At least those guys had the excuse of blazing some genuinely new trails-- nobody had ever needed to develop aesthetic principles for 30-story buildings before. Sullivan may have preached “form follows function,” but it’s telling that he never went nuts with the idea-- his designs generally incorporated a fair amount of understated ornamentation.

A century later, we really ought to have a fairly good idea of what contributes to an attractive skyscraper by now, let alone other more modestly-scaled public buildings. So there’s really no excuse for this seemingly endless parade of designs from Planet Gruesome. How does such a design-- for example the one cited earlier, for 20 Fenchurch Street– how does something like that even get submitted by a professional architect? Sure, it’s a neat thought experiment, a cute school project-- but to put it forward as a serious candidate for consideration? That’s a cry for help. It says, “I’m tired of being an architect; somebody please stop me.” Why aren’t there big clown hammers hung on the walls of every design firm for the express purpose of beating down architects who propose this stuff?

The Trump World Tower is another good example of the sort of building exterior that we really don’t need to see any more of again, ever. I guarantee that the design proposal consisted solely of a copy of 2001: A Space Odyssey and a gallon Ziploc of Amsterdam Flame. The picture of that thing next to the Chrysler Building is just hurtful.
[/QUOTE]

As stated above in another post I agree the Fenchurch project sucks donkey, but that is just my personal feeling. The Trump tower is bland, but there are lots of bland buildings. Many of the background buildings we love today are background bland buildings from that era. I think I am hearing that it is the public display that is such an issue for most people. Other designs are extreme, but we just don’t see them on a day to day basis.

But you ignored my comments about the client. If you are going to spend $80 million on a hi rise–do you honestly want it to look like EVERY other hi rise out there, or do you think you might be telling your Architect that you want something ‘unique’, ‘different’ then what everyone else is doing, you want an edge to market it, something that separates it from the adjacent buildings. That is the truth of what happens.

What we see from big name Architects is not unique to my profession. Look at the fashion industry–do you know anyone who wears what the big fashion designers put out in Paris every year? However those concepts are what generate much of what we wear everyday. Whether that is good or bad is indeed the subject of debate :wink: But those big designers are the edge of the field, but they really don’t represent the majority of clothing design that is out there.

Sullivan preached that the architecture should reflect the culture, don’t you agree what we see actually reflects our culture? Does Architecture reflect society at large or does in influence it? I honestly don’t know, with our mass produced society of fast food restaurants and national chains out there, every city in the US looks like any other city. Our society screams ‘look at me’ with our celebrity based culture and our instant gratification basis.

What is the role of Architecture here? Do we reflect society or direct it? Or neither? Is Architecture just buildings or should it attempt to move beyond that? Can that search for the edge happen without mistakes? You tell me–I don’t feel I have the answers here, I am searching for my own place in Architecture.

243

[QUOTE=Hakuna Matata]
But you ignored my comments about the client. If you are going to spend $80 million on a hi rise–do you honestly want it to look like EVERY other hi rise out there, or do you think you might be telling your Architect that you want something ‘unique’, ‘different’ then what everyone else is doing, you want an edge to market it, something that separates it from the adjacent buildings. That is the truth of what happens.
[/QUOTE]
I didn’t mean to ignore that part, I just don’t know quite what to say about it. Certainly, the client makes the decision to pay. And it stands to reason that a client would not want to pay for an ugly building. Yet these ugly buildings keep getting built somehow.

I find it hard to believe that architects are presenting all these skyscraper designs with marble ornamentation and Art Deco influences or whatever, and the clients are all saying, “No, no-- we were thinking more along the lines of a blank glass box. Or raw concrete-- could you construct the entire building out of scabrous unpainted concrete? Wait! Even better-- a big glass box, except-- twisty! Can you make a box out of glass that looks twisty?”

This is exactly why it is so very necessary to viciously oppress and hinder big-name architects whenever they try to emulate fashion designers. Because this year’s bizarre and audacious fashion statements will be gone next year, but this year’s bizarre and audacious architectural statements will have to be tolerated by the public for decades. People don’t actually wear the stuff that the big fashion designers put out, but they are forced to look at and work in the buildings that stunt architects create.

Architects are (or should be) the exact opposite of fashion designers. They should not be designing for this season, but for the ages.
–you do realize I hope, that I’m not seriously slagging on architecture as a profession here? It’s just that, of all the arts, architecture is the biggest and heaviest, and the ugly examples can’t be concealed inside buildings, because they already are buildings. If I thought that unsuspecting future generations would be forced to wear lime-green polyester leisure suits, I’d probably complain more about clothing designers too. I absolutely did not forsee the whole 1970’s revival.

244

[QUOTE=GorillaMan]
Oh, come on, you’re just making me want to scream CITE? :wink:
[/QUOTE]

Go to Foster’s site and take a look at Tanaka Business School, Imperial College. It’s under education/health I think. You can also look at the relevant Imperial webpages. There’s a notable lack of mention of some of the wonderful ‘features’ such as:
[ul]
[li]Lecture theaters with no natural illumination at all, so you can spend an entire day sat in a sealed concrete box listening to droning professors[/li][li]floor-vented air conditioning in said theaters, so the cold air sinks to the front/bottom and those in the top/rear rows sweat like pigs while those at the front or sat over a vent turn blue[/li][li]Two doors into each theatre, one either side of the screen the prof is supposed to use - so there is no room for flipcharts or similar material without blocking at least one door. It is also impossible to enter or leave the theatre without disrupting the lecture.[/li][li]Exterior doors that turned the place into a wind-tunnel and which had to be replaced with fugly cheap hotel-style revolving doors[/li][li]A five-storey atrium/study/cafe area with no soft surfaces at all which generates a hellish din if there are lots of people there[/li][li]some sort of fabric sunscreen panel things on the top of the gigantic glass atrium which in a high wind sound like a jet taking off - you literally have to shout at each other over the racket[/li][li]The usual ‘huge atrium’ effect of roasting temperatures in sunshine combined with a torrent of cold air coming down off the glass if it’s chilly, so anyone using the ‘shared space’ is either frozen or cooked (as well as deaf)[/li][li]That little staircase thing they show in one of the photographs that goes from the cafeteria entrance up to the main lobby is usually blocked off - because while it looks nice, it doesn’t allow for any access control and they got fed up with tourists wandering into lecture rooms asking if this was the V&A or the Natural History Museum[/li][li]Some of the floors have only mens or only womens toilets, so you have to change floors for a piss. Which is handy since the lifts are slow and the floors are double-height, so you get lots of exercise.[/li][li]Oh, and the plumbing is rubbish so often the floor is awash in water and piss. There are too many sinks for the number of air dryers available, and because Norman didn’t design in bins and paper towel dispensers (so passe, doncha know) the facilities people just leave stacks of paper towels sitting beside the sinks (where they get soaked due to the excessive water pressure in the taps) and bought some little Brabantia bins to throw them in - which are always full so there’s usually lots of used paper towels turning to mush in the water/piss on the floor.[/li][/ul]
The place is bollocks. The only good feature is the row of little vaults/crypts along the bottom of the atrium which make for really good breakout/huddle spaces, and they are original Victorian storage cellars which no-one even knew existed until they were dug up while lying the foundations.

245

On the subject of achitects versus clients. WHile I haven’t any personal experience in that, from what I’ve read in the papers, it appears that clients often accept some proposals and then grab one. Then they try esperately to change it, because it’s hideously bad.

Look at the new World Trade Center tower. They accepted two architects. One for a splashy design and one to actually do serious work which people can live with. And it’s a fairly nice, with some pizazz but not too much glitz. At the same time, I’m really worried about the bare concrete base of the thing.

Honestly, the original “concept” design was not intended to be a skyscraper but a monument. And not a very good one. And I think it would actually have been a better-than-average example of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named’s work, which is very sad.

246

of Modern Architecture. I find his work awesome-how cn anyone look at the Guggenheim Museum (NYC) and NOT be impressed? Of course, he tended to be a tad arrogant-but being the greatest architect of the 20th century , one can forgive a minor peccadillo. What I don’t understand: instead of learning from Wright, the architects today just rpeat the mistakes! Take that horrid monstrosity of Frank Gehrey (the Stata Center at MIT): it takes real effort to design something this stupid!

247

[QUOTE=Hakuna Matata]
For myself how people interact with my projects is VERY important to me. I often go down to the openings of my projects with my family and mill around acting like just another citizen. I like to eavesdrop and hear what people like and don’t like about the project; which is something that they would never tell me if they knew I designed it.
[/QUOTE]
Now, why do I get the feeling that the archiSTARs who’ve taken the most flak in this thread never do this sort of thing? :wink:

For the record, if I were having a house custom-built, I’d be happy to work with you or the folks you linked to; I don’t doubt we’d synthesize a marvelous result, given how well traditional New England materials and themes (Shakers, anyone?) can be used in Modern architecture, at least at the domestic level.

248

[QUOTE=Terrifel]

I find it hard to believe that architects are presenting all these skyscraper designs with marble ornamentation and Art Deco influences or whatever, and the clients are all saying, “No, no-- we were thinking more along the lines of a blank glass box. Or raw concrete-- could you construct the entire building out of scabrous unpainted concrete? Wait! Even better-- a big glass box, except-- twisty! Can you make a box out of glass that looks twisty?”

[/QUOTE]

Well the cost difference between a glass box and an ornamented box is substantial–very substantial. Money is indeed the name of the game and anything beyond a glass box is indeed money and it is rare client who indeed wants to spend money without a return. I can’t speak for the big name Architects but for my own practice it isn’t like I present one concept to my clients. We typically present at least three or more design concepts and the client in theory picks one of those designs. Yet they typically don’t, they like one over the others, but like this element or that from one of the other schemes. Then I am left to try and reconcile those issues. Or they do indeed come in and state they want something really different then anything out there (that is where the twisty crap comes from). Or they are a committee appointed with their own political agendas and each wants some element and, by god they are going to make sure their view of the design comes through—frankly when I see a building that looks like it was designed by committee, it typically was :wink:

Or the client is a wanna-be Architect–damn those are the worst. These guys think they know Architecture and won’t move off the dime of their pre-conceived ideas. Or they are only concerned about the bottom line–that is where the glass boxes come from (think that tower by Trump is that way for a reason?–think about who the client is). Or conversely the client who has BMW tastes but a Pinto budget and won’t adjust and tries to do a lame imitation of the BMW (and I know you have seen buildings that look like this).

I realize that you aren’t slagging on Architecture as a profession here. but I also feel that there is a fair amount of misconception on how buildings come to be. But the buildings of the past in my opinion will never occur again. The costs associated with that type of design, the craftsman who no longer can do that type of work and the amount of floor space that is given up for that type of design just isn’t going to occur in today’s society in my opinion.

249

[QUOTE=ralph124c]
of Modern Architecture. I find his work awesome-how cn anyone look at the Guggenheim Museum (NYC) and NOT be impressed? Of course, he tended to be a tad arrogant-but being the greatest architect of the 20th century , one can forgive a minor peccadillo. What I don’t understand: instead of learning from Wright, the architects today just rpeat the mistakes! Take that horrid monstrosity of Frank Gehrey (the Stata Center at MIT): it takes real effort to design something this stupid!
[/QUOTE]

FLW on his houses was indeed a wonderful designer, an obnoxious prick, but a damn good designer. His larger work is more hit and miss in my opinion. Housing is easier to reconcile and make it something that people feel at home in. Commercial and public structures are a much more difficult task. FLW had a design concept for a mile high tower–can you imagine that in any city out there? Much of his larger work suffers as much as the work being denigrated in this thread. Personally I think the Guggenheim is okay, not his best work, but that is just my opinion. I could describe it as an upside down ice cream cone–how is it any more ‘in place’ then Frank Gehry’s work? The EMP in Seattle is at the Seattle Center with the Space Needle (yet another odd building, yet very beloved bulding here in Seattle, and indeed around the world). The EMP fits the context of the Worlds Fair architecture of the Seattle Center more then the Guggenheim fits the context it is in.

http://www.greatbuildings.com/cgi-bin/gbi.cgi/Experience_Music_Project.html/cid_emp_kmm_005.html

250

[QUOTE=smiling bandit]
On the subject of achitects versus clients. WHile I haven’t any personal experience in that, from what I’ve read in the papers, it appears that clients often accept some proposals and then grab one. Then they try esperately to change it, because it’s hideously bad.

Look at the new World Trade Center tower. They accepted two architects. One for a splashy design and one to actually do serious work which people can live with. And it’s a fairly nice, with some pizazz but not too much glitz. At the same time, I’m really worried about the bare concrete base of the thing.

Honestly, the original “concept” design was not intended to be a skyscraper but a monument. And not a very good one. And I think it would actually have been a better-than-average example of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named’s work, which is very sad.
[/QUOTE]

Why would a client pick something and then try to desperately to change it? Fire me, it is pretty simple. Any contract a client has with an Architect has the clause of a ‘termination for convenience’ which means they can’t get rid of me for any reason. I have been terminated for convenience when we couldn’t agree on the design approach. If a client is going to spend $80 million on a project you can be damn sure they are behind the design concept being proposed. If a client is changing the design later it is because the building came in at $88 million and he needs it to be at $80 million to make his performa work.

The World Trade Center is a political design and the issues surrounding it are what is directing the design more then anything else in my opinion.

251

[QUOTE=Hakuna Matata]
I realize that you aren’t slagging on Architecture as a profession here. but I also feel that there is a fair amount of misconception on how buildings come to be. But the buildings of the past in my opinion will never occur again. The costs associated with that type of design, the craftsman who no longer can do that type of work and the amount of floor space that is given up for that type of design just isn’t going to occur in today’s society in my opinion.
[/QUOTE]
That’s a depressing thought. I don’t think anyone is demanding that the buildings of the past must be recreated using the exact same cost-intensive crafts techniques; but it seems like it shouldn’t be an impossible goal to achieve that same aesthetic appeal using today’s less costly materials. Yet the impression given by much large-scale contemporary structures is that most architects have indeed given up in this regard. Sullivan and Wright, it seems, were wrong after all. There is no hope for an attractive tradition of architectural design in the modern world.

I do not believe it. The buildings of today are ugly not out of necessity, but by historical accident: first because of decades of out-of-control Modernist philosophy that rejected all unneccessary ornamentation, extending the “form follows function” principle to an absurd dead end of stark geometric concrete and glass volumes, and then the ongoing Postmodern backlash which offers no alternative except repetitious negation of Modernism. Both traditions are fundamentally negative-- they only seek to dictate what contemporary architecture shouldn’t look like.

252

[QUOTE=Hakuna Matata]
Why would a client pick something and then try to desperately to change it?
[/QUOTE]

I didn’t say it was rational. I’ve just seen it happen. It weirded me out, too, but I have no knowledge of the internal issues of whomever was designing things.

I also have to disagree about Frank Lloyd Wright. He was an accomplished artist. He was a terrible architect, and half his successes were accidents. But so many of his designs were hideously impractical, even insane (cough ater running through the house cough), and he ought to have known that. In some cases, it appears he did and just ignored it. His art is fantastic. Architecture, however, must be useful and livable as well as striking.

253

[QUOTE=Terrifel]
That’s a depressing thought. I don’t think anyone is demanding that the buildings of the past must be recreated using the exact same cost-intensive crafts techniques; but it seems like it shouldn’t be an impossible goal to achieve that same aesthetic appeal using today’s less costly materials. Yet the impression given by much large-scale contemporary structures is that most architects have indeed given up in this regard. Sullivan and Wright, it seems, were wrong after all. There is no hope for an attractive tradition of architectural design in the modern world.

I do not believe it. The buildings of today are ugly not out of necessity, but by historical accident: first because of decades of out-of-control Modernist philosophy that rejected all unneccessary ornamentation, extending the “form follows function” principle to an absurd dead end of stark geometric concrete and glass volumes, and then the ongoing Postmodern backlash which offers no alternative except repetitious negation of Modernism. Both traditions are fundamentally negative-- they only seek to dictate what contemporary architecture shouldn’t look like.
[/QUOTE]

Did you go to the links in my post above of the Seattle Architects? Did you feel those firms did bland work? These are representative of firms around the country. I guess I just don’t agree that there isn’t good Architecture being done out there. Or did you feel the buildings I posted to were ugly as well?

254

[QUOTE=Terrifel]
By “obviously sound principles,” I mean those elements of style and proportion that exhibit a near-universal appeal to the eye even across millennia and across diverse cultures. That is to say, those features that most people find naturally attractive and harmonious. There’s no ironclad set of rules, so there’s plenty of room for innovation. A Doric temple and a Chinese pagoda have few direct commonalities, but they both exhibit a keen sense of eye-pleasing proportion and respect for the viewer and environment.
[/QUOTE]

Except there’s no factual basis in history for any of this. The Doric temple was basically rejected for about a millenium between the fall of Rome and the Renaissance (again because aesthetics reflect ethics). The Parthenon itself, which ought to be the holiest of holies according to your premise, was used by Turks as a ammunition dump. That must say something about their aesthetic appraisal. The Gothic style gets it very name from the fact that its was considered ugly and crude. Same for the Baroque. As I mentioned before, in domestic architecture the Victorian styles were replaced by the Craftsman style about 1900. They share NOTHING in terms of “elements of style and proportion.”

The story told by architectural history has nothing to do with consistent principles. Obviously any given point of time might have been relatively stable or unstable in terms of change. It seems to me we’re in a particularly unstable time right now, which makes some people uncomfortable and others quite excited.

[QUOTE=Terrifel]
Architecture was largely evolutionary, not revolutionary. The goal was to use the lessons from the past to build the most beautiful cathedral possible; not to discard all preconceptions of what a cathedral should look like, and instead build a cathedral that looked nothing like any cathedral before it.
[/QUOTE]

Again, no. Practically every chapter in the architectural history textbook was a revolution. Most new styles (take the Renaissance) ABSOLUTELY REJECTED “lessons from the past” and created a whole new aesthetic which the unwashed masses had to learn to appreciate.

What is usually ‘evolutionary rather than revolutionary’ is construction methods. That remains generally true today - the techniques of the glass tower have evolved for over a century now - although computers have obviously accelerated what is possible and that’s reflected in the new aesthetic.

[QUOTE=Terrifel]
The London City Hall might be judged an aesthetic failure compared to the surrounding architecture-- but there aren’t any points of comparison to begin with! The building makes absolutely zero appeal to context or dignity or proportionality or function or history of any kind. It could have been built anywhere on the planet-- Belize, Reykjavik, the Sahara-- and it would refuse to relate to its surroundings in exactly the same manner. It could have been built for any purpose at all. Is it a city hall, or a revolutionary new geothermal power station? What can you say about it? It’s like it was poorly Photoshopped onto the city.
[/QUOTE]

To move upstream a bit, I suppose the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben probably looked poorly Photoshopped onto the city in their time too. And St. Paul’s. And the British Museum. Great buildings should be innovative and distinguished from their context. You want London’s City Hall to blend in with its office buildings? Thankfully London has higher aspirations.

To restate what Hakuna has said or implied: great cities consist of foreground buildings and background buildings. The people that commission foreground buildings know what they’re doing, and know what to expect when they hire “signature” architects (and are free to start over if they don’t like the design).

255

[QUOTE=EddyTeddyFreddy]
For the record, if I were having a house custom-built, I’d be happy to work with you or the folks you linked to; I don’t doubt we’d synthesize a marvelous result, given how well traditional New England materials and themes (Shakers, anyone?) can be used in Modern architecture, at least at the domestic level.
[/QUOTE]

In your neo-Shaker house, would you also wear a bonnet and milk cows and practice chastity?

256

deleted
double post

257

[QUOTE=Hakuna Matata]
Did you go to the links in my post above of the Seattle Architects? Did you feel those firms did bland work? These are representative of firms around the country. I guess I just don’t agree that there isn’t good Architecture being done out there. Or did you feel the buildings I posted to were ugly as well?
[/QUOTE]
I agree that there is also good architecture being done out there. I just feel that cost and craftsmanship probably aren’t the fundamental reasons why so much big-name architecture is not good. It has more to do with art theory.

258

[QUOTE=Key Lime Guy]
To move upstream a bit, I suppose the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben probably looked poorly Photoshopped onto the city in their time too. And St. Paul’s. And the British Museum. Great buildings should be innovative and distinguished from their context. You want London’s City Hall to blend in with its office buildings? Thankfully London has higher aspirations.
[/QUOTE]

Can I ask, how do you feel about the planned design for the Czech National Library? As I said upthread, I really do have a liking for the look. But it still looks, from the design team’s own model, to be very jarring when the juxtaposition with the neighborhood is shown.

On preview:

What the Hell does that comment add to your position?

Are you seriously going to argue that everyone must follow your standards, which you’ve already argued are completely arbitrary, and often ephemeral?

259

[QUOTE=Key Lime Guy]
In your neo-Shaker house, would you also wear a bonnet and milk cows and practice chastity?
[/QUOTE]

If you could dial back the defensive hostility, maybe you’d understand the point I was making.

260

I see this thread revived.

Hakuna Matata: Those architects you linked are good. I have zero problem with any of their work. The reasons for the attitudes you are encountering are, as I see it: (1) Good architects like the ones you cited, don’t get the big jobs. (2) Much (not all) of the architecture that has been created in our lifetimes is so bad and has left such a bad taste in people’s mouths that its hard not to reject all modern architecture. (3) When certain people still sit there and insist that something like Boston City Hall is actually a good design, its awful hard to trust the architecture profession.

Tenifel: You’ve said pretty much everything I would have said, but better. Bravo.