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Post by harrispilton on Nov 15, 2020 14:11:28 GMT
I've said that I understand the appeal of this architecture remotely. I get why some people seem to love it from a purely aesthetic perpsective, but love of architecture must, fundamentally, take into consideration the people that live next to it or nearby, and also those who live within it. There is a fascination with this sort of thing that sometimes borders on sociopathy because it is just concerned with the thing itself, rather than all the other aspects of architecture. The manner in which some of it sits is just downright objectionable. There's a house near my son's school which is built to modernist designs and it is hidden behind massive hedges because, frankly, I'm sure the owners are aware that it doesn't sit right with the rest of the people who live nearby. I get the "shock of the new" with this stuff and how those straight lines can be arresting in some respects, but shock value should not be taken into consideration when playing with the mindsets of the people who have to live in these buildings. This is such an odd post. I think I’ve mentioned it before but I grew up in Wyndham Court Southampton in the ’70s , which is considered one of Britain’s best examples of post-war brutalist residential architecture. It was a great place to grow up. You were in the middle of town...it was functional, they built the walkways wide enough for milk floats to drive around the whole building, it had an amazing waste disposal system, they incorporated shops and a pub on the ground floor. Its design was based on an ocean liner. I don’t live there any more, as I wanted somewhere with a balcony...but the people I know who still live there, still say it’s great (albeit it needs some major renovation work). I’m not sure what you’re argument is? Is it that people couldn’t possibly like living in them, or they're eyesores? Personally I loved Wyndham, as a kid it was like growing up on some sort of mad space station.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 15, 2020 14:46:15 GMT
I think the polarization of views on this issue means there's a danger of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Certainly some schemes were designed with more thought than others and I haven't said that all modernist or brutality architecture is rotten. I guess what I was reacting to was some of the photos in the link. This seems less an attempt to highlight the best design in a brutalist style and more about finding the most ugly buildings possible and reclaiming them in a perverse display of iconoclasm.
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Post by Mr. FOLLARD on Nov 15, 2020 14:57:28 GMT
I guess what I was reacting to was some of the photos in the link. This seems less an attempt to highlight the best design in a brutalist style and more about finding the most ugly buildings possible and reclaiming them in a perverse display of iconoclasm.Why would anybody do that? Just because you find them ugly doesn't mean people who write about them do. Give them some credit.
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Post by Reactionary Rage on Nov 15, 2020 15:14:19 GMT
This is getting tiresome. If you don't like it, then fuck off to the football thread. People find this stuff genuinely ugly, dispiriting and soul destroying..you get that right? Furthermore the people who have to live in these places never get asked their opinion. If they were the ones salivating over this stuff, there wouldn't be nearly the same reaction. But they're not are they? And that's why Toby is right to point out the voyeuristic titillation in all of this. I mean look at those buildings in the Rickersgate or Wigan photos..why should we celebrate them? Why not instead say 'Knock the ugly fuckers down'. There is something totalitarian about it. And not just physically - the imposing, inhuman concrete monolith or whatever - but just a bunch of architects who were divorced from what people actually feel and want but through ideas and theories and bubble dwelling solipsism decided this was what the people wanted. But they didn't. People like beauty and whilst there can be beauty in ugliness the people who appreciate this stuff are often divorced from it in terms of its real world application and not representative of the wider population imo either. Why do people like Georgian architecture and drool over Edinburgh or Bath or whatever. It's because they are aesthetically pleasing as well as functional and therefore desirable - people want to live there. You have ornamental railings or little details that serve no functional purpose but simply look nice. To me, on one level, this kind of architecture, and I know a lot of this stuff is pretty old now, is symbolic of a greater problem...that is, a small group of people making decisions that have a huge impact on peoples lives, and often in ways that cannot be measured empirically, but who are not answerable to the people they are impacting on. This contributes to a general feeling of powerless, a feeling that You and your Group are not listened to or understood by those with power and influence.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 15, 2020 15:20:50 GMT
But it's so obviously bogus and most people hate this stuff. But a kind of snobbery comes out where those feelings are dismissed as reactionary or philistine or not understanding the principles of modernist architecture or something. I'm not saying you're doing that, but I have come across this attitude from some of the advocates for this stuff.
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Post by harrispilton on Nov 15, 2020 15:26:50 GMT
Although I appreciate that brutalist architecture isn’t for any everyone, & I fully appreciate that a lot of people find it ugly,I am a bit suprised that a number of people here have decided ‘what everyone wants’ When I was a school everyone was jealous of me living in Wyndham..what more could you want? It had everything., and it looked brilliant . I live a mile away now, but pass it everyday ( I just did an hour ago) and I still get excited by it after 49 years. It’s a bit like me saying ‘why do they keep repressing White Light, White Heat when people really want The Joshua Tree.
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Post by Reactionary Rage on Nov 15, 2020 15:27:12 GMT
I dunno how to put this or what I'm getting at, if anything, but....some people are divorced from this kind of internal feel and common sense for what actually works. There was also an element of, I dunno, rebellion? But then you just end up rebellion against what people and the result is inevitably some kind of failure. In a way I think it is a bunch of cultural snobs and "elitists" pushing their shit on the masses and, predictably, that gets my back up.
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Post by Mr. FOLLARD on Nov 15, 2020 15:32:05 GMT
Le Corbusier - pushing shit onto the masses since 1923
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Post by Deleted on Nov 15, 2020 15:34:58 GMT
Although I appreciate that brutalist architecture isn’t for any everyone, & I fully appreciate that a lot of people find it ugly,I am a bit suprised that a number of people here have decided ‘what everyone wants’ When I was a school everyone was jealous of me living in Wyndham..what more could you want? It had everything., and it looked brilliant . I live a mile away now, but pass it everyday ( I just did an hour ago) and I still get excited by it after 49 years. It’s a bit like me saying ‘why do they keep repressing White Light, White Heat when people really want The Joshua Tree. Maybe Wyndham is a successful example of modernist design. I happily concede there are examples of that. But I also think they're strongly outnumbered by all the ugly concrete buildings or eyesore shopping centres that blight many of the UK's town centres.
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Post by Reactionary Rage on Nov 15, 2020 15:34:59 GMT
I'm referring more to the brutalist stuff
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Post by Half Machine Lipschitz on Nov 15, 2020 15:35:20 GMT
Everything should be designed by committee! Socialist architecture only!
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Post by Reactionary Rage on Nov 15, 2020 15:37:57 GMT
Paging griff and Carol!
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Post by harrispilton on Nov 15, 2020 15:42:50 GMT
I dunno how to put this or what I'm getting at, if anything, but....some people are divorced from this kind of internal feel and common sense for what actually works. There was also an element of, I dunno, rebellion? But then you just end up rebellion against what people and the result is inevitably some kind of failure. In a way I think it is a bunch of cultural snobs and "elitists" pushing their shit on the masses and, predictably, that gets my back up. But a lot of them do work. They were often built with function in mind. Attention was paid to size of living areas and the use of light & space in walkways. The sort of flats now being built in my hometown aimed at lower income workers are frequently appalling. Tiny living areas, ram as much in as possible. From my experience they often worked fantastically, that was the point. I totally get that something like Hulme Crescent was eventually a disaster, but there’s probably a lot of economic factors that played into that, and I’ll admit that the sheer scale of that development meant it was doomed from the start.
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Post by harrispilton on Nov 15, 2020 15:53:13 GMT
Although I appreciate that brutalist architecture isn’t for any everyone, & I fully appreciate that a lot of people find it ugly,I am a bit suprised that a number of people here have decided ‘what everyone wants’ When I was a school everyone was jealous of me living in Wyndham..what more could you want? It had everything., and it looked brilliant . I live a mile away now, but pass it everyday ( I just did an hour ago) and I still get excited by it after 49 years. It’s a bit like me saying ‘why do they keep repressing White Light, White Heat when people really want The Joshua Tree. Maybe Wyndham is a successful example of modernist design. I happily concede there are examples of that. But I also think they're strongly outnumbered by all the ugly concrete buildings or eyesore shopping centres that blight many of the UK's town centres. Oh believe me a huge amount of people hate it. It’s the first building you see when you come out of the station. That bothers a huge amount of people. I recently got in a Facebook tear up with a Tory councillor who wants it torn down and replaced with something more in keeping with the area. It’s a grade 2 listed so he’s fucked. People forget that when it was built in 69 they were seen as ‘the posh flats’ I’ve just been on YouTube to watch a short film about it..comments are turned off..that probably tells you all you need to know.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 15, 2020 16:19:37 GMT
I have to say I prefer your castle!
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