Mass production of ornamentation and its recent decline
May 17, 2024 12:14 PM Subscribe
The beauty of concrete. "Why are buildings today drab and simple, while buildings of the past were ornate and elaborately ornamented? The answer is not the cost of labor." A long article by Samuel Hughes describing the history of how ornamentation is produced.
The author seems to have entirely ignored the fact that large, modern urban buildings are simply not built in the same way as they were in the past. Ornament in concrete or stone doesn't make sense on a glass-clad high-rise building. Where would you even put it? What would it be affixed to?
And practically, what aesthetic purpose would this kind of ornament serve 200m above street level? How does small scale ornamentation make sense on buildings that are so much bigger than they used to be?
You can't just argue to bring back this kind of ornamentation without also arguing to bring back the kind of buildings that it works on (which would be incompatible with contemporary urban land values and density).
posted by ssg at 12:31 PM on May 17 [7 favorites]
And practically, what aesthetic purpose would this kind of ornament serve 200m above street level? How does small scale ornamentation make sense on buildings that are so much bigger than they used to be?
You can't just argue to bring back this kind of ornamentation without also arguing to bring back the kind of buildings that it works on (which would be incompatible with contemporary urban land values and density).
posted by ssg at 12:31 PM on May 17 [7 favorites]
Paint the goddamn things for fucks sake. Every single fuckin photo in there looked naked, where the fuck are the painters!! Why is nothing painted in the world anymore, and if it is, the blandest mono colour they can manage. There are hundreds of millions of paintings roving around the world with nothing to paint on. Every grey concrete suface you see is a sign of failure, a blank canvas humanity has organized itself so pathetically comically poorly that the surface will never be painted, and if it is, the society will bizarrely pay to remove it, determined to have as boring and ugly as fuck world as this wretched and wonderful species wants it to be. I'm sick of trying to appreciate the "natural" beauty of stone and cement and I'm sick of acting like "natural" means anything, especially in the context of an artificial contraction and covering them with paints that are equally as natural as everything a human ever uses, or whatever that irritating term was ever meant to mean. Sloppy aimless rant but the oppressive greys of this world really gets me red in the face.
posted by GoblinHoney at 12:38 PM on May 17 [31 favorites]
posted by GoblinHoney at 12:38 PM on May 17 [31 favorites]
The author seems to have entirely ignored the fact that large, modern urban buildings are simply not built in the same way as they were in the past. Ornament in concrete or stone doesn't make sense on a glass-clad high-rise building. Where would you even put it? What would it be affixed to?
I'm skeptical. Even a glass-clad high-rise building has a lobby, for example.
posted by russilwvong at 12:41 PM on May 17 [15 favorites]
I'm skeptical. Even a glass-clad high-rise building has a lobby, for example.
posted by russilwvong at 12:41 PM on May 17 [15 favorites]
You can't just argue to bring back this kind of ornamentation without also arguing to bring back the kind of buildings that it works on (which would be incompatible with contemporary urban land values and density).
I don't know where you live, but there are lots and lots and lots of 4-8 story buildings being constructed all around the world that would benefit from some ornamentation, and which would absolutely be compatible with contemporary urban land values and density. Like, go visit Helsinki.
If your argument is that everything needs to be skyscrapers, well, even then, the first 8 floors or so can have ornamentation that people at ground level would see. And then plop some gargoyles at the top for the penthouse set!
posted by grumpybear69 at 12:59 PM on May 17 [23 favorites]
I don't know where you live, but there are lots and lots and lots of 4-8 story buildings being constructed all around the world that would benefit from some ornamentation, and which would absolutely be compatible with contemporary urban land values and density. Like, go visit Helsinki.
If your argument is that everything needs to be skyscrapers, well, even then, the first 8 floors or so can have ornamentation that people at ground level would see. And then plop some gargoyles at the top for the penthouse set!
posted by grumpybear69 at 12:59 PM on May 17 [23 favorites]
Restored Victorian era Crossness sewage pumping station
And practically, what aesthetic purpose would this kind of ornament serve 200m above street level? How does small scale ornamentation make sense on buildings that are so much bigger than they used to be?
Larger ornamentation is possible.
The story behind the 'Grim Reaper' building that watches over downtown San Francisco
posted by ActingTheGoat at 1:16 PM on May 17 [6 favorites]
And practically, what aesthetic purpose would this kind of ornament serve 200m above street level? How does small scale ornamentation make sense on buildings that are so much bigger than they used to be?
Larger ornamentation is possible.
The story behind the 'Grim Reaper' building that watches over downtown San Francisco
posted by ActingTheGoat at 1:16 PM on May 17 [6 favorites]
Here's a bit of 20th century ornamentation roughly 70 stories (300m) up. People are pretty fond of it.
I'm still working my way through the (very interesting!) article, but yeah, I'm partial to the notion that blank facade international style was sold as "modern" and "the future" to governments and corporations that wanted to project those aspirations rather than something most people wanted. With that said, I think there's some self-fulfilling prophesy in here, in that once the production of classical ornamentation leaves living memory, and technical expertise is redirected towards making skyscraper construction more efficient, you wind up with a lot of boring buildings after the aesthetic justification is long gone.
posted by gwint at 1:20 PM on May 17 [7 favorites]
I'm still working my way through the (very interesting!) article, but yeah, I'm partial to the notion that blank facade international style was sold as "modern" and "the future" to governments and corporations that wanted to project those aspirations rather than something most people wanted. With that said, I think there's some self-fulfilling prophesy in here, in that once the production of classical ornamentation leaves living memory, and technical expertise is redirected towards making skyscraper construction more efficient, you wind up with a lot of boring buildings after the aesthetic justification is long gone.
posted by gwint at 1:20 PM on May 17 [7 favorites]
People like big windows. Big windows don’t leave much room for ornament.
posted by Just the one swan, actually at 1:23 PM on May 17
posted by Just the one swan, actually at 1:23 PM on May 17
The article is good and has much more nuanced and informed takes than the ones in this thread so far.
I suggest you all read it before making any more comments.
posted by signal at 1:30 PM on May 17 [22 favorites]
I suggest you all read it before making any more comments.
posted by signal at 1:30 PM on May 17 [22 favorites]
Ornamentation is also very individual, different people have different tastes. When your building is designed by an individual, ornamentation can reflect the taste of the designer, or when designed for a specific customer, the taste of the client. But when it's designed by a committee for a mass-market appeal, you have to reach a common denominator, which may be either minimal ornamentation (most construction) or incoherent ornamentation (McMansions). A design that everyone thinks is "fine" may sell better than one that half of the room loves and half hates. I think this change in the economics of architectural design, rather than either labor cost or taste, may actually be pretty significant in explaining the decrease in ornamentation in contemporary architecture.
Contrary to this author's suggestion, I don't think people mock McMansions because they're ornamented, but because they're incoherent, reflecting a mishmash of design with no actual artistic vision. The ornamentation just calls attention to the total incoherence in that case.
posted by biogeo at 1:38 PM on May 17 [7 favorites]
Contrary to this author's suggestion, I don't think people mock McMansions because they're ornamented, but because they're incoherent, reflecting a mishmash of design with no actual artistic vision. The ornamentation just calls attention to the total incoherence in that case.
posted by biogeo at 1:38 PM on May 17 [7 favorites]
Something something something Ian McGilchrist; something something something “presentation” versus “representation.”
Something something something computer GUI monochrome “flat” icon style.
Something something “house” versus “home.”
(I’m sorry, it’s the best I can do right now.)
posted by Verg at 1:40 PM on May 17
Something something something computer GUI monochrome “flat” icon style.
Something something “house” versus “home.”
(I’m sorry, it’s the best I can do right now.)
posted by Verg at 1:40 PM on May 17
It's a good article. Not sure if I agree with its conclusions, but thought-provoking and worth engaging with.
posted by biogeo at 1:40 PM on May 17 [3 favorites]
posted by biogeo at 1:40 PM on May 17 [3 favorites]
An interesting special case here is the McMansion, the one really profusely ornamented type of housing that still gets built fairly often in some countries. McMansions are built for people who have achieved some level of affluence, but who stubbornly retain a non-elite love of ornamentation. They inspire passionate contempt in many sophisticated critics, to whom they afford a rare opportunity to flex cultural power without looking as though one is being nasty to poor people. McMansions illustrate how easily wealthy people and institutions could ornament their buildings if they wanted to. But, perhaps with that passionate contempt in mind, most of them no longer do.
Oh this is a really wonderful summation of why I feel so tired every time a link to that "look at this hideous McMansion" blog pops up.
posted by egypturnash at 1:59 PM on May 17 [6 favorites]
Oh this is a really wonderful summation of why I feel so tired every time a link to that "look at this hideous McMansion" blog pops up.
posted by egypturnash at 1:59 PM on May 17 [6 favorites]
My dream is that sometime soon green ornamentation will become the new modern, new building design will incorporate creative ways for plants to ornament as many external surfaces as possible, and buildings without it will look naked and old-fashioned.
posted by trig at 2:02 PM on May 17 [13 favorites]
posted by trig at 2:02 PM on May 17 [13 favorites]
In the olden days of the US, buildings were just basic squares, and you bought the ornamentation out of a catalogue and stuck it on. It generally, unless the building was super expensive, wasn't made by designers building the building. Almost all the buildings in any US city's 'quaint historical downtown' were just squares, the ornamentation was shipped in from Pittsburgh PA, made from metal, and just attached to the building after it was constructed.
So if there is a mass manufacturer of building ornamentation today (I honestly don't know if there is) who had a catalogue, you could do exactly the same thing for your basic concrete buildings.
posted by The_Vegetables at 2:03 PM on May 17 [4 favorites]
So if there is a mass manufacturer of building ornamentation today (I honestly don't know if there is) who had a catalogue, you could do exactly the same thing for your basic concrete buildings.
posted by The_Vegetables at 2:03 PM on May 17 [4 favorites]
The Baha'i temple is quite beautiful. Part of what makes it so is that it is itself a kind of ornamentation, overlooking the lakeshore.
posted by HearHere at 2:09 PM on May 17 [4 favorites]
posted by HearHere at 2:09 PM on May 17 [4 favorites]
The article would be a lot better if the author had done any sort of historical research on, you know, architecture. Sweeping statements like "Between the 1920s and the 1950s, modernist approaches to architecture were adopted for virtually all public buildings and many private ones" are both wrong and ignorant of history. Zero mention of Baroque or Rococo or Art Nouveau, and the one mention of Art Deco is to make the claim that terracotta is a prominent component of Modernist skyscrapers LOLwut. But the author had a hypothesis and by god they weren't going to let facts get in the way. The author also seems to think that Modernist architecture means the same thing as new architecture, so anything that doesn't fit their scheme gets ignored—sorry, Zaha Hadid, your ornamentation doesn't count because it doesn't look old enough.
posted by vitia at 2:24 PM on May 17 [25 favorites]
posted by vitia at 2:24 PM on May 17 [25 favorites]
I may have been overly flippant in my first comment, but I do find it odd that the author spends so much time exploring the technological innovations that made ornament cheaper but ignores all the other changes in building technology that have favored plainer facades for large structures: glass curtain walls, board-formed concrete, and empaneled rain screens, for example. Detailed ornament is less practical when a building’s entire facade is assembled remotely and bolted on at the build site. But such technologies have many advantages that make them attractive, like lots of natural light and energy efficiency.
That said, I love the ornamental plasterwork in my 1940 home and would love to see plaster make a comeback. The Alhambra, one of the most beautifully ornamented buildings anywhere, is decorated entirely in molded plaster.
posted by Just the one swan, actually at 2:28 PM on May 17 [4 favorites]
That said, I love the ornamental plasterwork in my 1940 home and would love to see plaster make a comeback. The Alhambra, one of the most beautifully ornamented buildings anywhere, is decorated entirely in molded plaster.
posted by Just the one swan, actually at 2:28 PM on May 17 [4 favorites]
An interesting special case here is the McMansion, the one really profusely ornamented type of housing that still gets built fairly often in some countries. McMansions are built for people who have achieved some level of affluence, but who stubbornly retain a non-elite love of ornamentation. They inspire passionate contempt in many sophisticated critics, to whom they afford a rare opportunity to flex cultural power without looking as though one is being nasty to poor people.
.....
Oh this is a really wonderful summation of why I feel so tired every time a link to that "look at this hideous McMansion" blog pops up.
I'm not McMansion Hell's biggest fan (I think she's generally wrong actually) but I don't think this is why people generally dislike mcmansions. I think just like the lack of ornamentation that is being lamented, people (somewhat) innately understand building ornamentation, scale, and enjoy symmetry enough that mcmansions touch their 'not quite right' buttons. Like "The House of 7 Gables" was meant to be unnerving.
sorry, Zaha Hadid, your ornamentation doesn't count because it doesn't look old enough.
I'm not sure I'd describe the majority of her buildings as 'ornamented', and most are offputting in the same way brutalist and mcmansions are. I know architects like them.
posted by The_Vegetables at 2:31 PM on May 17 [2 favorites]
.....
Oh this is a really wonderful summation of why I feel so tired every time a link to that "look at this hideous McMansion" blog pops up.
I'm not McMansion Hell's biggest fan (I think she's generally wrong actually) but I don't think this is why people generally dislike mcmansions. I think just like the lack of ornamentation that is being lamented, people (somewhat) innately understand building ornamentation, scale, and enjoy symmetry enough that mcmansions touch their 'not quite right' buttons. Like "The House of 7 Gables" was meant to be unnerving.
sorry, Zaha Hadid, your ornamentation doesn't count because it doesn't look old enough.
I'm not sure I'd describe the majority of her buildings as 'ornamented', and most are offputting in the same way brutalist and mcmansions are. I know architects like them.
posted by The_Vegetables at 2:31 PM on May 17 [2 favorites]
This is fantastic, and a beautiful website I had never seen before - thank you!
posted by superelastic at 2:35 PM on May 17 [1 favorite]
posted by superelastic at 2:35 PM on May 17 [1 favorite]
The argument about demand and supply economics is totally convincing, the [implied] argument about the sinister influence of modernism is tedious. And echoes anti-modernist and illiberal arguments about ‘beauty’ you used to see by Twitter accounts with Greek statue heads.
In the 20thC ornamentation shifted decisively away from buildings (and the article makes mention of filigree ironwork on Sydney and Melbourne houses, which have their own story). The article’s correct to say that ornamentation became cheaper and more massively-produced than ever. People ornamented in the modern era in the form of commodities! They took the increasingly spare houses and buildings and put three-ducks sculptures on the wall.
Modernism isn’t just about the International Style and glass façades, it’s an era of incredible growth in the manufacture of more and more stuff. I mean it’s bizarre to look at the 20thC as an era of decline in ornamented material culture and ignore the cars.
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 2:47 PM on May 17 [16 favorites]
In the 20thC ornamentation shifted decisively away from buildings (and the article makes mention of filigree ironwork on Sydney and Melbourne houses, which have their own story). The article’s correct to say that ornamentation became cheaper and more massively-produced than ever. People ornamented in the modern era in the form of commodities! They took the increasingly spare houses and buildings and put three-ducks sculptures on the wall.
Modernism isn’t just about the International Style and glass façades, it’s an era of incredible growth in the manufacture of more and more stuff. I mean it’s bizarre to look at the 20thC as an era of decline in ornamented material culture and ignore the cars.
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 2:47 PM on May 17 [16 favorites]
The preeminent, perennial Metafilter:
Metafilter: The article is good and has much more nuanced and informed takes than the ones in this thread so far. I suggest you all read it before making any more comments.
posted by Greg_Ace at 3:07 PM on May 17 [20 favorites]
Metafilter: The article is good and has much more nuanced and informed takes than the ones in this thread so far. I suggest you all read it before making any more comments.
posted by Greg_Ace at 3:07 PM on May 17 [20 favorites]
It's worth bearing in mind when reading Works in Progress that the site is part of Stripe (a tech company that does credit card processing) and is very much in the contemporary libertarian / conservative SF mindset.
That's not to say that the content is necessarily bad, but there's generally an ideology behind it. It's people who style themselves as Rationalists, it's people who see themselves as fighting the good fight against the terrible plague of wokeness, it's free speech on campus (but not when the students are protesting for Palestine), it's technology will somehow magically solve climate change and so on. You know the vibe.
posted by ssg at 3:13 PM on May 17 [14 favorites]
That's not to say that the content is necessarily bad, but there's generally an ideology behind it. It's people who style themselves as Rationalists, it's people who see themselves as fighting the good fight against the terrible plague of wokeness, it's free speech on campus (but not when the students are protesting for Palestine), it's technology will somehow magically solve climate change and so on. You know the vibe.
posted by ssg at 3:13 PM on May 17 [14 favorites]
The article presents a dilemma - did orientation decrease because of supply-side factors, or demand-side factors? The author shows, by discussing the building industry, that supy has never been greater. The article concludes by suggesting the "modernism" movement in the early 20th century created a change in demand-side factors.
What it doesn't go on to say is that rich people hate anything that poor people can afford.
posted by rebent at 3:15 PM on May 17 [14 favorites]
What it doesn't go on to say is that rich people hate anything that poor people can afford.
posted by rebent at 3:15 PM on May 17 [14 favorites]
Paint the goddamn things for fucks sake. Every single fuckin photo in there looked naked, where the fuck are the painters!! Why is nothing painted in the world anymore, and if it is, the blandest mono colour they can manage.
When we were having our house built they asked us what colour we wanted the exterior to be and it kind of floored us because when we were looking at drawings they were in black and white and we hadn't thought about what colour it would be or even that we would have a choice in the matter. Eventually we settled on a dark blue and now when someone is coming to our house we can just tell them we're the blue house and they don't have a trouble finding us.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 3:29 PM on May 17 [5 favorites]
When we were having our house built they asked us what colour we wanted the exterior to be and it kind of floored us because when we were looking at drawings they were in black and white and we hadn't thought about what colour it would be or even that we would have a choice in the matter. Eventually we settled on a dark blue and now when someone is coming to our house we can just tell them we're the blue house and they don't have a trouble finding us.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 3:29 PM on May 17 [5 favorites]
That’s a really good point, rebent. You can buy a fiberglass Corinthian column for your front porch for a couple hundred bucks, but there’s no cheap way to obtain a 20-foot floor-to-ceiling window.
posted by Just the one swan, actually at 3:39 PM on May 17 [1 favorite]
posted by Just the one swan, actually at 3:39 PM on May 17 [1 favorite]
There was definitely a shift where ornamentation came to be seen as tacky. It happened in painting and sculpture, too. The really cool thing about minimalism is that the failure state is boring, rather than gaudy and tacky and lowbrow.
The article seems to ignore how much impact novelty had. Like, brutalist architecture, international style aluminum and plexiglass boxes, skyscrapers... They were all high status because they were *new* ways to use materials.
posted by surlyben at 3:40 PM on May 17 [3 favorites]
The article seems to ignore how much impact novelty had. Like, brutalist architecture, international style aluminum and plexiglass boxes, skyscrapers... They were all high status because they were *new* ways to use materials.
posted by surlyben at 3:40 PM on May 17 [3 favorites]
Contrary to this author's suggestion, I don't think people mock McMansions because they're ornamented, but because they're incoherent, reflecting a mishmash of design with no actual artistic vision. The ornamentation just calls attention to the total incoherence in that case.
100%. There are a couple of neighborhoods near mine that are full of beautiful old houses from the early 20th century, built in various historical styles (mostly Tudor Revival).
One of those neighborhoods has a very strict design code -- basically preventing anyone from building anything new that doesn't conform to the historical style of the area. The other does not -- and it's dotted with recently built McMansions that look garish and tacky next to the older houses.
But it's not because the new houses are ornamented, and the old ones aren't. The old ones are -- but in a historically accurate, thoughtfully placed way. The ornamentation is integrated into a consistent, holistic aesthetic. The McMansions have fragments of historical ornamentation from different time periods and traditions, slapped together in a way that has nothing to do with any historical style or even any sense of overall proportion.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 4:09 PM on May 17 [5 favorites]
100%. There are a couple of neighborhoods near mine that are full of beautiful old houses from the early 20th century, built in various historical styles (mostly Tudor Revival).
One of those neighborhoods has a very strict design code -- basically preventing anyone from building anything new that doesn't conform to the historical style of the area. The other does not -- and it's dotted with recently built McMansions that look garish and tacky next to the older houses.
But it's not because the new houses are ornamented, and the old ones aren't. The old ones are -- but in a historically accurate, thoughtfully placed way. The ornamentation is integrated into a consistent, holistic aesthetic. The McMansions have fragments of historical ornamentation from different time periods and traditions, slapped together in a way that has nothing to do with any historical style or even any sense of overall proportion.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 4:09 PM on May 17 [5 favorites]
I did keep wondering about the politics of this call-back to ornament ("to exaggerate a little, it really did happen that every government and every corporation on Earth was persuaded by the wild architectural theory of a Swiss clockmaker and a clique of German socialists, so that they started wanting something different from what they had wanted in all previous ages"). There's some scrambled history--the Palace of Westminster is Charles Barry's design, and the only aspects of Augustus W. N. Pugin's interior decoration visible from the exterior would be the windows!--but the nineteenth-century Gothic revival, for example, had a theory of architecture and its ornamentation that made pretty substantial claims for its spiritual, moral, and political effects. E.g., Pugin's own Contrasts, or John Ruskin's The Stones of Venice (On the Nature of Gothic Architecture is excerpted from Vol. II). I don't think the author has Pugin in mind, let alone Ruskin (Ruskin would have been aghast at the trends in mass production Hughes describes...), but, as I said, I was wondering.
posted by thomas j wise at 4:15 PM on May 17 [10 favorites]
posted by thomas j wise at 4:15 PM on May 17 [10 favorites]
The separation between modern buildings and grand 19th century buildings has borne out a very niche but utterly bizarre and unintentionally hilarious conspiracy theory: The Tartarian Empire.
In a nutshell, these believers look at all these amazing post offices and ballrooms and hotels built back in the day, especially in the Americas, and decide they couldn't have been built merely in the 19th century. It must've been from an advanced ancient civilization who spread their architecture across the globe--the Tartarians. Tartary was a real term that generally described a big swath of Asia and the Middle East, but the conspiracy theory inflates it to ridiculous heights. Basically, these nuts see all the drab, plain, cheap architecture of modern day and lack the imagination (and basic reading skills, it seems) to realize that 150 years ago, the Jeff Bezoses and Elon Musks of the day actually spent their money on public and quasi-public works.
posted by zardoz at 4:15 PM on May 17 [15 favorites]
In a nutshell, these believers look at all these amazing post offices and ballrooms and hotels built back in the day, especially in the Americas, and decide they couldn't have been built merely in the 19th century. It must've been from an advanced ancient civilization who spread their architecture across the globe--the Tartarians. Tartary was a real term that generally described a big swath of Asia and the Middle East, but the conspiracy theory inflates it to ridiculous heights. Basically, these nuts see all the drab, plain, cheap architecture of modern day and lack the imagination (and basic reading skills, it seems) to realize that 150 years ago, the Jeff Bezoses and Elon Musks of the day actually spent their money on public and quasi-public works.
posted by zardoz at 4:15 PM on May 17 [15 favorites]
When the DC Metro was still relatively new, I recall a prominent article saying something like, What the Russian Metro did with marble, the DC Metro does with shadows. Somewhat implied in my comment above is that there are different varieties of ornament, including the insight that materials themselves are worthy of attention. The author's impoverished architectural vocabulary also can't really account for Craftsman or Mission styles.
The article does lend itself to a possibly interesting reading through Derrida's idea of the supplement as applied to ornament, but I bet there are at least half-a-dozen scholarly articles that have already made that point.
posted by vitia at 5:03 PM on May 17 [3 favorites]
The article does lend itself to a possibly interesting reading through Derrida's idea of the supplement as applied to ornament, but I bet there are at least half-a-dozen scholarly articles that have already made that point.
posted by vitia at 5:03 PM on May 17 [3 favorites]
This article suffers from a sort of humanities version of engineers' disease. It's all about the details rather than the actual understanding of the underlying problem.
From ancient times ornamentation has had several functions. The most basic architectural function is that when two building components meet, there will be some sort of a seam (I'm not sure I'm using the correct terminology in English, but I hope you get my point), and this seam was very hard to make perfect. This was not only an aesthetic issue, cracks are where the light gets in, but also where moisture, dirt, cold air and pests get in. So you would cover the seam with a profile that could in a way connect and close the components. This why one would get the most ornamentation everywhere things met: around doors and windows, where the wall met the ceiling and the floor, and around the hooks that carried chandeliers or wall-mounted lamps. On the outside of the building, the critical points were where the building met the ground, and where the walls met the roof, and again around openings.
For architects, it could be very interesting to use these details as a form of expression. The classical orders represented different human or godly properties, like strength or bounty.
The orders are very interesting. Vitruvius, writing in the 1st century, describes 3. I think we have a couple more that are broadly seen as classical, and then there of course plenty others in other cultures. But the point of orders are that they define a system. Imagine a building site in classical antiquity. The architects and clients and some other people were very learned people with lots of knowledge of international architecture that they found through travels. But the majority of workers were illiterate. There were no blueprints, and while there definitely were drawings and models on site, they weren't spread out all over the place. So there had to be a common language that could be conveyed to everyone on site: the orders. An architect and contractor could enter the site and tell everyone: we are going to build a Doric temple, with these basic measurements like this model, and then everyone would know how to do, because the system covered every aspect of the building: the general outline, the columns and their decorations and all the other details of the building. Very cool.
Then on top of the system, there were the functions of symbolism, including showing one's wealth and/or purpose in life. This is where the decorations on the surfaces come in, including stained glass from the late Middle Ages onward. Sometimes the client would have a very strong desire to have narratives in the space, and downplay the spatial interest in favor of rich paintings or tapestries. The Sistine Chapel is pretty boring, spatially, and I am inclined to believe this was on purpose, because the Popes really wanted to send a message through the imagery. But the images could also take the form of carvings or stucco. All of these images had their own life, independently of the architecture, though the artists and artisans would most often work with the space in different ways. Also, the decorations weren't always figurative, since color and materials had meanings in themselves. In Islamic architecture, depictions of humans and animals are often not allowed, so the decoration may be a mix of calligraphy and geometric designs, both praising God.
All good. This hierarchy of a construction system (which obviously changed over time) and a meaningful decoration worked fine for at least 4000-ish years. Then during the 18th century it began to fall apart, mostly because of the beginning industrialization, but in the beginning NOT because of the industrialization of building parts, but because of the new generations of wealthy people who felt less attached to the old orders. This is not a pun. There is a reason we use order to describe societal rigor as well as architectural systems. The people of the enlightenment were not convinced that the old systems and moral narratives were appropriate ways of understanding the world, and they began to challenge the conventions, with oriental follies and decorations that had no other meaning than to delight the spectator. Classicism didn't disappear, but it became a style, alongside all the other historical and global styles.
Then during the 19th century, building components did become industrialized, and relatively cheap. Everyone could have all the ornaments, and they mostly did. But in that new context, the original purposes and meanings of the ornaments and decorations were almost entirely lost. Ornaments were just thrown randomly all over facades and interiors. There were some heroic attempts to return to order, for instance by Louis Sullivan in Chicago and Adolf Loos in Vienna. Contrary to how they are read today, they were both architects who fully mastered their order and ornamentation. People forget that the original purpose of the Bauhaus was to educate artisans to build future cathedrals. And there are still architects who work in that tradition. But mostly it was a vulgar mess and a lot of really bad construction. The reason we don't know so much about it is that a lot of 19th century buildings have been torn down because they were unsafe.
Young architects during the first decades of the 20th century dreamt of returning to the local vernacular architectures of the different regions. Using local materials and methods and letting the meaning grow out of the proces and functions.
After WW1, some realized that things were completely different. The shapes of the old orders had grown organically out of timber and stone construction. What could it mean that construction in the future would be based on steel and concrete? What properties do these materials have that in their own way can form the basis of a new organic order? They knew that it was possible to make a cast-iron Corinthian column, but also that that column would lack the beauty and precision of a column carved in stone. They knew it was possible to cast a profile in concrete, but also that it would lack the luminance and delicacy of a plaster molding. On the other hand, they know from engineering works that specially steel could accommodate a very high degree of precision in assembly, even when it was standard components. And that concrete could be shaped into organic forms that had never been seen before.
In these buildings, ornaments would have undermined the narrative and the order.
This is too long, but I need to write a little bit about the curtain wall. Most buildings now are built on the principles of the curtain wall, even if the walls are made of concrete and bricks. The main idea is to separate the load-bearing structure from the facade. This means there as few places as possible where heat can be transferred from inside to outside and outside to inside, which saves money on AC and heating. The curtain wall can have any form of decoration you want, and sometimes it can even serve a purpose, in filtering sunlight or protecting privacy.
But contemporary architecture is struggling with the same problems as that of the ancients: there are so many seams everywhere, and they are problematic. Someone needs to do something. A lot of the perceived uglyness of contemporary construction is about the poor quality and all the issues that arise from unsolved problems.
Modernism has become a style, just like classicism, and it has lost its original meaning. It's OK to hate it.
But I don't think the article in the OP understands why.
posted by mumimor at 5:27 PM on May 17 [66 favorites]
From ancient times ornamentation has had several functions. The most basic architectural function is that when two building components meet, there will be some sort of a seam (I'm not sure I'm using the correct terminology in English, but I hope you get my point), and this seam was very hard to make perfect. This was not only an aesthetic issue, cracks are where the light gets in, but also where moisture, dirt, cold air and pests get in. So you would cover the seam with a profile that could in a way connect and close the components. This why one would get the most ornamentation everywhere things met: around doors and windows, where the wall met the ceiling and the floor, and around the hooks that carried chandeliers or wall-mounted lamps. On the outside of the building, the critical points were where the building met the ground, and where the walls met the roof, and again around openings.
For architects, it could be very interesting to use these details as a form of expression. The classical orders represented different human or godly properties, like strength or bounty.
The orders are very interesting. Vitruvius, writing in the 1st century, describes 3. I think we have a couple more that are broadly seen as classical, and then there of course plenty others in other cultures. But the point of orders are that they define a system. Imagine a building site in classical antiquity. The architects and clients and some other people were very learned people with lots of knowledge of international architecture that they found through travels. But the majority of workers were illiterate. There were no blueprints, and while there definitely were drawings and models on site, they weren't spread out all over the place. So there had to be a common language that could be conveyed to everyone on site: the orders. An architect and contractor could enter the site and tell everyone: we are going to build a Doric temple, with these basic measurements like this model, and then everyone would know how to do, because the system covered every aspect of the building: the general outline, the columns and their decorations and all the other details of the building. Very cool.
Then on top of the system, there were the functions of symbolism, including showing one's wealth and/or purpose in life. This is where the decorations on the surfaces come in, including stained glass from the late Middle Ages onward. Sometimes the client would have a very strong desire to have narratives in the space, and downplay the spatial interest in favor of rich paintings or tapestries. The Sistine Chapel is pretty boring, spatially, and I am inclined to believe this was on purpose, because the Popes really wanted to send a message through the imagery. But the images could also take the form of carvings or stucco. All of these images had their own life, independently of the architecture, though the artists and artisans would most often work with the space in different ways. Also, the decorations weren't always figurative, since color and materials had meanings in themselves. In Islamic architecture, depictions of humans and animals are often not allowed, so the decoration may be a mix of calligraphy and geometric designs, both praising God.
All good. This hierarchy of a construction system (which obviously changed over time) and a meaningful decoration worked fine for at least 4000-ish years. Then during the 18th century it began to fall apart, mostly because of the beginning industrialization, but in the beginning NOT because of the industrialization of building parts, but because of the new generations of wealthy people who felt less attached to the old orders. This is not a pun. There is a reason we use order to describe societal rigor as well as architectural systems. The people of the enlightenment were not convinced that the old systems and moral narratives were appropriate ways of understanding the world, and they began to challenge the conventions, with oriental follies and decorations that had no other meaning than to delight the spectator. Classicism didn't disappear, but it became a style, alongside all the other historical and global styles.
Then during the 19th century, building components did become industrialized, and relatively cheap. Everyone could have all the ornaments, and they mostly did. But in that new context, the original purposes and meanings of the ornaments and decorations were almost entirely lost. Ornaments were just thrown randomly all over facades and interiors. There were some heroic attempts to return to order, for instance by Louis Sullivan in Chicago and Adolf Loos in Vienna. Contrary to how they are read today, they were both architects who fully mastered their order and ornamentation. People forget that the original purpose of the Bauhaus was to educate artisans to build future cathedrals. And there are still architects who work in that tradition. But mostly it was a vulgar mess and a lot of really bad construction. The reason we don't know so much about it is that a lot of 19th century buildings have been torn down because they were unsafe.
Young architects during the first decades of the 20th century dreamt of returning to the local vernacular architectures of the different regions. Using local materials and methods and letting the meaning grow out of the proces and functions.
After WW1, some realized that things were completely different. The shapes of the old orders had grown organically out of timber and stone construction. What could it mean that construction in the future would be based on steel and concrete? What properties do these materials have that in their own way can form the basis of a new organic order? They knew that it was possible to make a cast-iron Corinthian column, but also that that column would lack the beauty and precision of a column carved in stone. They knew it was possible to cast a profile in concrete, but also that it would lack the luminance and delicacy of a plaster molding. On the other hand, they know from engineering works that specially steel could accommodate a very high degree of precision in assembly, even when it was standard components. And that concrete could be shaped into organic forms that had never been seen before.
In these buildings, ornaments would have undermined the narrative and the order.
This is too long, but I need to write a little bit about the curtain wall. Most buildings now are built on the principles of the curtain wall, even if the walls are made of concrete and bricks. The main idea is to separate the load-bearing structure from the facade. This means there as few places as possible where heat can be transferred from inside to outside and outside to inside, which saves money on AC and heating. The curtain wall can have any form of decoration you want, and sometimes it can even serve a purpose, in filtering sunlight or protecting privacy.
But contemporary architecture is struggling with the same problems as that of the ancients: there are so many seams everywhere, and they are problematic. Someone needs to do something. A lot of the perceived uglyness of contemporary construction is about the poor quality and all the issues that arise from unsolved problems.
Modernism has become a style, just like classicism, and it has lost its original meaning. It's OK to hate it.
But I don't think the article in the OP understands why.
posted by mumimor at 5:27 PM on May 17 [66 favorites]
> It's worth bearing in mind when reading Works in Progress that the site is part of Stripe (a tech company that does credit card processing) and is very much in the contemporary libertarian / conservative SF mindset.
That's a great call out. It raises the question, what function does Works in Progress perform for Stripe? What justification is there to fund such a magazine?
(a) the magazine is a pet project of someone influential, e.g. one of the founders / executives / their partner. It provides no benefit to Stripe. The magazine is itself ornamental, financed by some of the surplus generated by Stripe's business. Perhaps Stripe's investors tolerate its existence as they are otherwise happy with how Stripe is being run. Perhaps Stripe's investors hate it, but they don't have the power to eject the executives responsible for diverting Stripe's cash to fund this ornamental magazine.
(b) it's the world's worst enterprise sales funnel for stripe, with no description of stripe's products or services, calls to action, links to case studies, etc.
(c) it's a very weird hiring funnel, designed to attract a certain demographic of readers and expose them to Stripe, with no call to action or link to a careers page.
(d) it's a mechanism for Stripe to influence / lobby / editorialise. Maybe most articles aren't explicit lobbying attempts, there's a mix of articles that the editors expect their target demographic would find interesting and would help build the credibility and prestige of the magazine, and every now and again there's a payload of corporate lobbying / influencing.
I'd bet it's a dollop of (a) and a dollop of (d) and perhaps maybe a splash of (c).
posted by are-coral-made at 6:11 PM on May 17 [6 favorites]
That's a great call out. It raises the question, what function does Works in Progress perform for Stripe? What justification is there to fund such a magazine?
(a) the magazine is a pet project of someone influential, e.g. one of the founders / executives / their partner. It provides no benefit to Stripe. The magazine is itself ornamental, financed by some of the surplus generated by Stripe's business. Perhaps Stripe's investors tolerate its existence as they are otherwise happy with how Stripe is being run. Perhaps Stripe's investors hate it, but they don't have the power to eject the executives responsible for diverting Stripe's cash to fund this ornamental magazine.
(b) it's the world's worst enterprise sales funnel for stripe, with no description of stripe's products or services, calls to action, links to case studies, etc.
(c) it's a very weird hiring funnel, designed to attract a certain demographic of readers and expose them to Stripe, with no call to action or link to a careers page.
(d) it's a mechanism for Stripe to influence / lobby / editorialise. Maybe most articles aren't explicit lobbying attempts, there's a mix of articles that the editors expect their target demographic would find interesting and would help build the credibility and prestige of the magazine, and every now and again there's a payload of corporate lobbying / influencing.
I'd bet it's a dollop of (a) and a dollop of (d) and perhaps maybe a splash of (c).
posted by are-coral-made at 6:11 PM on May 17 [6 favorites]
It raises the question, what function does Works in Progress perform for Stripe? What justification is there to fund such a magazine?
Stripe is a private company, so presumably they can do whatever they want and Works in Progress (and the ideologically similar Stripe Press that publishes books) is what they want to do, I can only assume for idealogical reasons. I'd guess it is more tax efficient for their particular situation to do it this way rather than using the traditional route of funding some sort of charity. I doubt it is more complicated than that.
posted by ssg at 7:16 PM on May 17
Stripe is a private company, so presumably they can do whatever they want and Works in Progress (and the ideologically similar Stripe Press that publishes books) is what they want to do, I can only assume for idealogical reasons. I'd guess it is more tax efficient for their particular situation to do it this way rather than using the traditional route of funding some sort of charity. I doubt it is more complicated than that.
posted by ssg at 7:16 PM on May 17
mumimor, APPLAUSE
Thank you for that wonderful and in-depth comment. (Mods, I meant to flag as fantastic, not just flag with an empty note!)
posted by rrrrrrrrrt at 7:26 PM on May 17 [8 favorites]
Thank you for that wonderful and in-depth comment. (Mods, I meant to flag as fantastic, not just flag with an empty note!)
posted by rrrrrrrrrt at 7:26 PM on May 17 [8 favorites]
Locally, there's been a lot of high end condo buildings built over the last 10 years. The newest ones have the lowest cost, plainest box exteriors. The condo buyers don't care about the outside of the building.
In the 1800s, people walked by buildings and houses. So they noticed details that we don't see when driving by.
posted by jjj606 at 8:12 PM on May 17 [3 favorites]
In the 1800s, people walked by buildings and houses. So they noticed details that we don't see when driving by.
posted by jjj606 at 8:12 PM on May 17 [3 favorites]
Oh fuck! he's a Tufton Street man. His twit bio has employers as @CPSThinkTank Centre for Policy Studies (CPS, founded 1975 by Sir Keith Joseph Baron - the brains behind Thatcherism [wikipedia] (Along with Patrick Minford). That puts Stripe in the same orbit.
This means all of Works in Progress should be treated as an astroturf. As a designer Works in Progress and its contents is VERY attractive. I think it will suck a lot of people in.
CPS is very tightly aligned with the Christian fundamentalist US Council for National Policy [ splcenter.org ] - (founded 1981). Link has a whole rogues gallery so CW applies.
Re the fall of bulding ornament: I suspect Samuel Hughes has deliberately omitted (as he is thorough - and pedantic) the deeper real financial reason (article has an odd two-thrtead structure when I read it again). I put this on his tweet but during my degree (and since) I've dug deeply into an argument by James Russell in a June 2003 Architectural Record article Leading the Money. [ I have a .pdf as it's extremely hard to find] Russell cites Chris Leinberger @ChrisLeinberger:
"The real difference between the prewar era and now, he contends, is that investors then expected to reap their rewards over a very long time - and did.".
Leinberger (who seems a very secular and anti Trump pewrson - which makes me feel better for New Urbanism as opposed to the CSP) was doing interesting developments in Albuquerque at the time based on treating buildings as nested tranches with different-age returns, in order to set a building up (like a pre-1930's one) where it would be worthwhile upgrading every 30+ years. And to invest more money into a higher street-facing facade/frontage, and gain a longer, higher-level lease from this finer ornamentation.
posted by unearthed at 9:29 PM on May 17 [8 favorites]
The article makes a lot more sense in light of the political stuff. Hughes is anti-modernity, aesthetically and politically.
posted by vitia at 9:51 PM on May 17 [2 favorites]
posted by vitia at 9:51 PM on May 17 [2 favorites]
This reminds me of articles I've read by Christian evangelicals. The author will be, say, a Christian who loves rock music but worries that it's the work of the devil. He therefore writes a long screed arguing that rock music is acceptable to God if it's performed in the right spirit.
The author of this article loves architectural ornament on modern buildings, but worries that it's incompatible with supply-side economics. He therefore writes a long screed arguing that there's no contradiction. Ornament disappeared from modern buildings because it fell out of fashion, not because economic forces made it too expensive. So the good news is we can have our cake and eat it too -- we can have ornament on our buildings without losing our faith in supply-side economics. What a relief!
I'm very happy for Samuel Hughes that he's managed to ease his conscience. However, it seems to me that the article misses a basic point. Modernists turned away from ornament not because they 'mistrusted' it, or because they 'wanted something different' and persuaded other people to want it too, but because they saw mass-produced ornament as a contradiction in terms. Here's Eric Gill:
posted by verstegan at 2:55 AM on May 18 [12 favorites]
The author of this article loves architectural ornament on modern buildings, but worries that it's incompatible with supply-side economics. He therefore writes a long screed arguing that there's no contradiction. Ornament disappeared from modern buildings because it fell out of fashion, not because economic forces made it too expensive. So the good news is we can have our cake and eat it too -- we can have ornament on our buildings without losing our faith in supply-side economics. What a relief!
I'm very happy for Samuel Hughes that he's managed to ease his conscience. However, it seems to me that the article misses a basic point. Modernists turned away from ornament not because they 'mistrusted' it, or because they 'wanted something different' and persuaded other people to want it too, but because they saw mass-produced ornament as a contradiction in terms. Here's Eric Gill:
Can such things be made by machines? It is obvious that they cannot. At the best, machines can only be used to produce lifeless copies and repetition (lifeless -- i.e. like corpses, incapable of communication or response). And it is only because the competition between rival salesmen has tempted them to use every possible means to tempt us, that such a thing as machine-made ornament exists.Gill is a problematic figure, but this passage strikes me as quite prophetic. Yes, we can mass-produce classical ornaments if we want to. We can also train intelligent machines to take tests, pass exams, write essays, compose poetry, design pictures, and talk to us like a therapist. But isn't there something essentially lifeless about all these activities -- something that takes away the point of doing them at all? And do we actually want machines to do all these things for us, or is it only the 'competition between rival salesmen' that has persuaded us we have to have them?
posted by verstegan at 2:55 AM on May 18 [12 favorites]
I agree it is down to cultural change, and I think we can say something more about why that happened. In the nineteenth century technology advanced but styles continued to defer to obsolete forms that had originally been functional. Cast iron columns, say, were shaped to resemble stone pillars, windows were given gothic arches and leaded lights they didn’t need. Beauty became something added, stuck on afterwards. Modernism rightly rebelled against that, but sometimes the baby of attractive forms was thrown out with the bath water of meaningless, stylised ornament.
What we need is not new ornamentation, but a renewed care in making functional elements look good. Decent architects have always shown this care, and I think the most austere kinds of Brutalism are already behind us?
posted by Phanx at 3:04 AM on May 18 [1 favorite]
What we need is not new ornamentation, but a renewed care in making functional elements look good. Decent architects have always shown this care, and I think the most austere kinds of Brutalism are already behind us?
posted by Phanx at 3:04 AM on May 18 [1 favorite]
I'm late to the party here, but there are things we must remember.
EVERY single time somebody talks about ornament, has a Greek or Roman statue as their avatar, or both - they are nazis. Seriously, there is no exception to this rule. If you are an architect you will maybe come across an article by a colleague or a real historian with something to say, but if you find this online as somebody who is not connected to the field it will always be written by people who are at the very minimum into eugenics. Sure there might be an exception, but this has been going on for maybe six or seven years and every single time it holds up.
It works for people who have profound insight into classical art and who know why modern art is evil and bad.
Oh and there was one whackjob who did this whole spiel except it was about right angles.
So sure, you might find something like this interesting at first. Then dig a little bit, just a little, there's never any need to dig deep. Talk to architects if you know any, find people who still have it in their hearts to do things like mumimor wrote.
Remember, you will never meet an architect with insane opinions like these people insinuate. I have never in my life met a colleague who hates ornament (or the lack of it). Our practice so far from this caricature that you wouldn't believe.
It's nazis every. Single. Time.
posted by mayoarchitect at 5:11 AM on May 18 [12 favorites]
EVERY single time somebody talks about ornament, has a Greek or Roman statue as their avatar, or both - they are nazis. Seriously, there is no exception to this rule. If you are an architect you will maybe come across an article by a colleague or a real historian with something to say, but if you find this online as somebody who is not connected to the field it will always be written by people who are at the very minimum into eugenics. Sure there might be an exception, but this has been going on for maybe six or seven years and every single time it holds up.
It works for people who have profound insight into classical art and who know why modern art is evil and bad.
Oh and there was one whackjob who did this whole spiel except it was about right angles.
So sure, you might find something like this interesting at first. Then dig a little bit, just a little, there's never any need to dig deep. Talk to architects if you know any, find people who still have it in their hearts to do things like mumimor wrote.
Remember, you will never meet an architect with insane opinions like these people insinuate. I have never in my life met a colleague who hates ornament (or the lack of it). Our practice so far from this caricature that you wouldn't believe.
It's nazis every. Single. Time.
posted by mayoarchitect at 5:11 AM on May 18 [12 favorites]
Ok. Have finally read TFA.
What kind of scholar would argue that something couldn’t possibly be happening because of increases in the cost of labor without *actually* providing the numbers on the cost of labor, particularly across a period of time representing the political end of slavery in the US, the tail end of the Industrial Revolution, the rise of public schooling in some of the economies discussed, and the dawn of the labor movement, much less a host of revolutions led by have-nots against haves?
What kind of scholar would set up such a weak economic argument to battle a straw man that that cost of labor is the ONLY factor that could have led to the decline of ornamentation in architecture, when we also have information that can be gleaned from art history and the origins/intentions/reception of movements like Cubism, Fauvism, Futurism, Surrealism, Dada, Pop Art, Abstract Expressionism, Photorealism, and so on? Does Cambridge not teach Art In The Age Of Mechanical Reproduction? Would this guy go out in a suit covered in yards and yards of machine-made lace, a cravat, and a cane? What about a flashy tracksuit with heavy cubic-zirconia rings, multiple gold-tone watches, a pile of chains with pendants, rhinestoned sunglasses? A codpiece, bear-claw shoes, a ruff, ribbon garters?
posted by rrrrrrrrrt at 10:52 AM on May 18 [3 favorites]
What kind of scholar would argue that something couldn’t possibly be happening because of increases in the cost of labor without *actually* providing the numbers on the cost of labor, particularly across a period of time representing the political end of slavery in the US, the tail end of the Industrial Revolution, the rise of public schooling in some of the economies discussed, and the dawn of the labor movement, much less a host of revolutions led by have-nots against haves?
What kind of scholar would set up such a weak economic argument to battle a straw man that that cost of labor is the ONLY factor that could have led to the decline of ornamentation in architecture, when we also have information that can be gleaned from art history and the origins/intentions/reception of movements like Cubism, Fauvism, Futurism, Surrealism, Dada, Pop Art, Abstract Expressionism, Photorealism, and so on? Does Cambridge not teach Art In The Age Of Mechanical Reproduction? Would this guy go out in a suit covered in yards and yards of machine-made lace, a cravat, and a cane? What about a flashy tracksuit with heavy cubic-zirconia rings, multiple gold-tone watches, a pile of chains with pendants, rhinestoned sunglasses? A codpiece, bear-claw shoes, a ruff, ribbon garters?
posted by rrrrrrrrrt at 10:52 AM on May 18 [3 favorites]
Late to the conversation, so glad mumimor has already said like 90% of what I wanted to say, and that the writer’s neocon credentials have been uncovered. It sucks that if you’re interested in color, texture and human scale in architecture that you have to constantly be running into reactionary shits. New Urbanism has this problem. But I want to point out that there are also lovely people interested in these things, both within the history of modernism (Aalto, Lewerentz, Miralles, etc etc etc) as well as without (postmodernists of all stripes). I’ve been following Charles Holland on Instagram and I really like what his students did this year in their final project.
From the inside of the architectural beast, it feels difficult and frustrating to escape the current ossified state of modernism-as-style. I’d say it’s a complicated dynamic that is part a lack of visual / decorative arts training in school, part reification of minimalism in architectural product design, and part timidity and lack of imagination with clients. It takes extra energy and ability to escape the international default setting.
posted by q*ben at 12:55 PM on May 18 [5 favorites]
From the inside of the architectural beast, it feels difficult and frustrating to escape the current ossified state of modernism-as-style. I’d say it’s a complicated dynamic that is part a lack of visual / decorative arts training in school, part reification of minimalism in architectural product design, and part timidity and lack of imagination with clients. It takes extra energy and ability to escape the international default setting.
posted by q*ben at 12:55 PM on May 18 [5 favorites]
This reminds me of articles I've read by Christian evangelicals knowing what I now know of Hughes it's more likely than not that he is a Christian evangelical. CPS is a secular organisation only in appearance, best viewed alongside the European Reaserch Group (of who they are a litteral physical neighbour in Tufton Street).
afaict many secular Americans (and New Zealanders ime) fail to see British expressions of Christianity and tend to dismiss this type of neo-con as a non-threat, e.g. 'only a cultural thing', 'their speech is just rhetoric' as opposed to say US politicians like Ted Cruz or DeSantis - or much of American Christianity in general which is very ra-ra.
Sure you can still hear speaking in tongues in the UK if you look for it, but it's rare in the 'establishment', and rare in wider UK neo-con and far-right Christian society.
Sam Hughes is not just a camp follower
Politico Oct. 2022 London Influence: Nature calls - New think tank klaxon - Comms 101
"ON THE MOVE
Two senior hires at the Centre for Policy Studies. .. and Oxford University research fellow Samuel Hughes becomes head of housing."
But it's sure 'interesting' to see the length this belief-system will go to effect political and social change.
posted by unearthed at 7:49 PM on May 18 [1 favorite]
afaict many secular Americans (and New Zealanders ime) fail to see British expressions of Christianity and tend to dismiss this type of neo-con as a non-threat, e.g. 'only a cultural thing', 'their speech is just rhetoric' as opposed to say US politicians like Ted Cruz or DeSantis - or much of American Christianity in general which is very ra-ra.
Sure you can still hear speaking in tongues in the UK if you look for it, but it's rare in the 'establishment', and rare in wider UK neo-con and far-right Christian society.
Sam Hughes is not just a camp follower
Politico Oct. 2022 London Influence: Nature calls - New think tank klaxon - Comms 101
"ON THE MOVE
Two senior hires at the Centre for Policy Studies. .. and Oxford University research fellow Samuel Hughes becomes head of housing."
But it's sure 'interesting' to see the length this belief-system will go to effect political and social change.
posted by unearthed at 7:49 PM on May 18 [1 favorite]
Mod note: [btw, this post and mumimor's fascinating comment are now adorning the sidebar and Best Of blog!]
posted by taz (staff) at 12:32 AM on May 19 [6 favorites]
posted by taz (staff) at 12:32 AM on May 19 [6 favorites]
I just spent an hour looking for movable type blocks for mass printing of sheet music ornamentation symbols, but no. We do have unicode characters 1D194 - 1D19B though!
posted by polytope subirb enby-of-piano-dice at 3:11 AM on May 19
posted by polytope subirb enby-of-piano-dice at 3:11 AM on May 19
IMO, the comments about architecture-qua architects is part of the problems:
"They knew that it was possible to make a cast-iron Corinthian column, but also that that column would lack the beauty and precision of a column carved in stone. They knew it was possible to cast a profile in concrete, but also that it would lack the luminance and delicacy of a plaster molding. On the other hand, they know from engineering works that specially steel could accommodate a very high degree of precision in assembly, even when it was standard components. And that concrete could be shaped into organic forms that had never been seen before. "
Architects might have known that, in the same way that musical engineers know that CDs have different sound quality than Mp3s, but nobody else gives a darn. They lost track of the fact that other architects are not the only people allowed to have opinions about buildings - most people do, and they don't care nearly as much if the materials are 'real' or not, they only care if it pleases or offends the eye.
And that is extremely vague and class-based, so we use nonsense terms (sunlight gradients, breaking up the massing, differing materials, local groups who determine appropriate paint colors) to prevent the worst offenders, but these rules don't necessarily make anything better, because they are prescribing cures without even knowing the specific disease any building is going to suffer from.
And to add to confusion, when you are talking 'curtain walls', you are talking high rise construction generally, which is maybe 200 buildings in the US & Canada per year (probably way more in Asia), so most people aren't complaining about the glass-fronted high rise or the work of 'starchitects', they are complaining about the 90% of tilt-wall (which are often load bearing, not curtain walls) featureless offices, warehouses, and big box stores littering their neighborhoods.
Also, the nazi stuff is non-sequitur, and most of the complaints people are making that "nazis like" aren't even present in the article. Newsflash: the reasons nazi suck is because of race profiling, genocide and warmongering, not their opinions about architecture or pizza or other normal -human stuff.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:43 AM on May 20 [4 favorites]
"They knew that it was possible to make a cast-iron Corinthian column, but also that that column would lack the beauty and precision of a column carved in stone. They knew it was possible to cast a profile in concrete, but also that it would lack the luminance and delicacy of a plaster molding. On the other hand, they know from engineering works that specially steel could accommodate a very high degree of precision in assembly, even when it was standard components. And that concrete could be shaped into organic forms that had never been seen before. "
Architects might have known that, in the same way that musical engineers know that CDs have different sound quality than Mp3s, but nobody else gives a darn. They lost track of the fact that other architects are not the only people allowed to have opinions about buildings - most people do, and they don't care nearly as much if the materials are 'real' or not, they only care if it pleases or offends the eye.
And that is extremely vague and class-based, so we use nonsense terms (sunlight gradients, breaking up the massing, differing materials, local groups who determine appropriate paint colors) to prevent the worst offenders, but these rules don't necessarily make anything better, because they are prescribing cures without even knowing the specific disease any building is going to suffer from.
And to add to confusion, when you are talking 'curtain walls', you are talking high rise construction generally, which is maybe 200 buildings in the US & Canada per year (probably way more in Asia), so most people aren't complaining about the glass-fronted high rise or the work of 'starchitects', they are complaining about the 90% of tilt-wall (which are often load bearing, not curtain walls) featureless offices, warehouses, and big box stores littering their neighborhoods.
Also, the nazi stuff is non-sequitur, and most of the complaints people are making that "nazis like" aren't even present in the article. Newsflash: the reasons nazi suck is because of race profiling, genocide and warmongering, not their opinions about architecture or pizza or other normal -human stuff.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:43 AM on May 20 [4 favorites]
In reference to the whole thing about how classical western architecture has to be hand-carved out of stone, keep in mind the details and decoration so beloved by people are a skeuomorph of older construction techniques in wood.
posted by signal at 8:53 AM on May 20 [2 favorites]
posted by signal at 8:53 AM on May 20 [2 favorites]
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posted by grumpybear69 at 12:20 PM on May 17 [5 favorites]