Ugly, practical and bland is the new standard https://npub17452qsluvqyc8qdf0atjpujn783u4kxwmxuk6pk5ce0tt89ga99qqqt5hd.blossom.band/0a4d0759489273a7cc6246dbac281e844e5f7d73668a6e527715899d4c9ad0a8.jpg ...
This is actually my favorite part of The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. It specifically tears into the tastes of the masses that are descended from the limits of the materials of the past.
For example, all those pillars, arches, and the trims around the joints were all due to the materials that the ancient Greeks and medieval Europeans had access to. They didn't have steel beams so they needed arches and domes to hold up the roof. If they wanted a heavy marble roof, they needed the frequent Greek pillars because no wooden arch is strong enough for that. They didn't have welds or bolts so they needed wooden trims to hold the pillar in place. And a lot of the decorative things you see on buildings are ways to hide the ugly features that the materials exposed.
Rand criticizes the fact that architects have adopted the features from these old structures, even though the underlying material reason for their existence no longer exists. The book criticizes the architects today that make new buildings and try to emulate those old patterns in them, as well as the absolute minimalist architecture (the right side of these pics) that just makes a purely functional building with nothing offensive and nothing in the realm of beauty.
She advocates for aesthetic designs that use the strengths of current material and tech, and use them in ways that feels amazing even to people today. For example, the Greek Parthenon must have been world breaking at the time. That giant rock roof weighing tens of tons hoisted that high up with giant gaps between the pillars probably blew the normies minds at the time. But if you were to see a newly completed Parthenon today, it would look good, since your aesthetic preference is influenced by that, and the buildings that copy its features. But if you were not ever exposed to Greek architecture or anything based off it, it wouldn't faze you. Theres nothing impressive today about holding up tens of tons of marble. You drive under entire apartment buildings if you just drive through New York. A modern structure analagous to the Parthenon IMO is the CN tower. It looks like it defies physics a lot stronger than the Parthenon. You have a large structure on top of a much thinner smaller tower.
Also don't compare everyday architecture today, to the multi-billion dollar vanity projects of ancient Greece or Rome. All those pictures are picked from famous buildings spanning over a millenia. You can find just as good looking and impressive structures in just the last 50 years.
For example, all those pillars, arches, and the trims around the joints were all due to the materials that the ancient Greeks and medieval Europeans had access to. They didn't have steel beams so they needed arches and domes to hold up the roof. If they wanted a heavy marble roof, they needed the frequent Greek pillars because no wooden arch is strong enough for that. They didn't have welds or bolts so they needed wooden trims to hold the pillar in place. And a lot of the decorative things you see on buildings are ways to hide the ugly features that the materials exposed.
Rand criticizes the fact that architects have adopted the features from these old structures, even though the underlying material reason for their existence no longer exists. The book criticizes the architects today that make new buildings and try to emulate those old patterns in them, as well as the absolute minimalist architecture (the right side of these pics) that just makes a purely functional building with nothing offensive and nothing in the realm of beauty.
She advocates for aesthetic designs that use the strengths of current material and tech, and use them in ways that feels amazing even to people today. For example, the Greek Parthenon must have been world breaking at the time. That giant rock roof weighing tens of tons hoisted that high up with giant gaps between the pillars probably blew the normies minds at the time. But if you were to see a newly completed Parthenon today, it would look good, since your aesthetic preference is influenced by that, and the buildings that copy its features. But if you were not ever exposed to Greek architecture or anything based off it, it wouldn't faze you. Theres nothing impressive today about holding up tens of tons of marble. You drive under entire apartment buildings if you just drive through New York. A modern structure analagous to the Parthenon IMO is the CN tower. It looks like it defies physics a lot stronger than the Parthenon. You have a large structure on top of a much thinner smaller tower.
Also don't compare everyday architecture today, to the multi-billion dollar vanity projects of ancient Greece or Rome. All those pictures are picked from famous buildings spanning over a millenia. You can find just as good looking and impressive structures in just the last 50 years.
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