Since Modern Architecture FAILED: How to build BETTER

Modern Architecture has failed. And everyone knows it. In this Video I present my ideas for a New Vision of Architecture for the Future - using Timeless Elements of Architecture from the Past, that have proven successful.
Let me know in the comments if you disagree with some points or if you have further ideas how to overcome the desperate and shallow current architectural situation.
New Classical Architecture. A Manifesto.
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#classical #modernarchitecture #architecture
I am Sebastian - a German Architect and University Lecturer.

[@dagwould]

Excellent. Modern architecture sounded its own death knell when it despised people, with housing being 'machines for living'. Not homes to nurture families. Ironically architecture has become what Corbusier warned of: the product of drawing board artists, rather than the organization of what I term socially meaningful shelter for people to enjoyably pursue their interests...and in buildings that delight them.

[@SebastianvonThaden]

yes, as I said, in contemporary arch. it is often about the building itself, or the "genius" of its designer, not about the user or the purpose of the building .

[@evanhadkins5532]

I'm wondering if the universal applies to non-European, like Japanese (where the boundary of the inside and outside can be 'blurred').

[@evanhadkins5532]

I'm wondering about the role of materials. Building differently in stone to brick. And so modern materials, the ones I'm thinking of are things like plywood and straw bale. How much do you think classicism was influenced by stone?

[@konradzawadzki2616]

Also have been thinking about it. But American classicism uses wood very often. I even contemplated concrete modern classicist buildings. Obviously not as classy (pun intended) as stone. But given today's construction techniques and cost effectiveness - why not?

[@SebastianvonThaden]

Maybe I do another video about that. The classical greek column system derived out of early wood contructions. Then translated to stone

[@evanhadkins5532]

@@SebastianvonThaden I had no idea.

[@johans7119]

I generally agree but is this an "is-ought" argument? I'm interested in getting to the root of these proportions. It seems like there is no strict consensus in classicism (and no golden ratio until the renaissance, more likely whole number ratios from music) and there are many elements of symbolism that are lost to time. As you said, Egyptian architecture is very interesting, is it the origin of the classical column? Is the mud brick mastaba with it's sloping walls the inspiration for the Parthenon geometry entasis? Was the cornice cyma molding actually an Egyptian uraeus headdress? Thanks for your video.

[@SebastianvonThaden]

Hm, proportions are an interesting topic. I will produce a video about proportions for architecture soon :)

[@marcuscrassus5229]

Very interesting and fully agree. I have summed up number four as follows: 4. Being definite instead of ambiguous I. a building should not try to challenge assumptions, pose itself as a problem to the viewer. II. a building should not educate III. not about the genius of the architect IV. a building must serve the public The reason why classical architecture had all those 'definite' features was tied to its religious and metaphysical assumptions. If you read Aquinas's treaty on aesthetics, Beauty consists of Integrity, Harmony, Clarity. To the classical scholars, these were attribute of Reality itself; that which gives it 'unity' or 'being'; that essence in which all real things share. The principle of individuality (what makes me unique and unlike others) was seen as diametrically opposed to 'oneness'; it was not rejected, but subordinated to unity. This metaphysical doctrine which permeated all sciences literally shaped architecture since the first Gothic buildings were built and continued through the Renaissance. Now the main reason why modern architecture is ambiguous, 'challenges assumptions', seeks to punish the viewer, does not care to serve the public, or is obsessed with the genius of the architect - is that modern philosophers have rejected metaphysics as a legitimate field. They do not believe in the principle of oneness, with its attributes of being, at the religious level. And thus this leads them to rejecting any theory of aesthetics (beauty and sublime are subjective, there's no such thing as a 'grammar' of building), the glorification of pure technique (industrial revolution, mass production) and the politicisation of art (the building does not seek to celebrate God and reality; it seeks to revolutionise, to enact change, to bring about ideological utopia). We can ask architects to abide by your manifesto, but if they do not start by embracing the classical metaphysical worldview, their attempt will fail. The reason why people feel the need to make beautiful stuff starts from the 'soul' of their culture (Spengler); and if that soul is dead, if they no longer believe in it, they will lose interest in aesthetics.

[@SebastianvonThaden]

Hmm... There are a lot of theories about how architecture is linked to fields outside of itself. Interesting / funny enough mostly from the 20th century! We are told: Classical Buildings look the way they are because they embody the “mindset” (or “cultural selfunderstanding”) of the e.g. baroque society, and THUS we can not built “classical” buildings nowadays... because, because, because... we have internet and some gay and muslim living in our country. With these “intellectual connections” architects from the 20th century liked to justify the absence of beauty. Linking it with metaphysics (as you suggest) may be a valid theory, but since “god is dead”, it would mean, we could still no longer build beautiful... ?

[@marcuscrassus5229]

@@SebastianvonThaden - there is a good way to tell whether a certain "intellectual connection" is real or projected back; if the proponent of the theory is part of an uninterrupted tradition, or if he simply looks back, digging for roots. In the case of metaphysics and beauty, I have friends who are Catholic scholars who live immersed in that tradition, and also have a thorough knowledge of architectural history. They tell me that art flows from metaphysics, and separating the fields and pretending they are completely insulated is in fact part of the modern project. I'm not saying we can no longer build beautiful, just that the revival has to happen on multiple levels.

[@SebastianvonThaden]

@@marcuscrassus5229 so, do you think we can bring back theistic / Christian or similar worldviews ?

[@marcuscrassus5229]

​@@SebastianvonThaden yes. Secularism inevitably leads to plummeting birth rates and mass migration. There is a strong correlation between belief and demographic stability. So if Europeans cannot find faith (Christianity or otherwise), their countries will change beyond recognition. And since the newcomers are not committed to secular values, one way or another traditionalism will make a comeback.

[@konradzawadzki2616]

Fantastic content! I have also been thinking about modern traditional architecture from the economic point of view. After all, we have product A which is perceived as a better one than product B when consumers "vote with their feet" (no one goes to Paris to visit la Defense!). However somehow consciously most of them choose product B when asked. That will go down in the economic history of this world as a major, if not biggest, collective manipulation of consumer preferences. After all, it's not about some subjective taste! Human brains are wired by evolution in a way to prefer traditional architecture (which often imitates nature, has no sharp edges as modernist etc.)

[@SebastianvonThaden]

Yes, and in two ways: Also for renting and buying prices it is clear: Investors can ask for higher prices for “pre-modern” buildings. So, why do you think is everyone saying they are in favour of “modern” architecture?

[@shreeyashbadgujar4664]

Hey sabastian great vide, please make a short or video on 'tectonics'

[@SebastianvonThaden]

Yes, I think I will, as I mentioned in the video already :)

[@SenSe-oj5hb]

A historic church or a castle is also egomania. It sticks out of the regular buildings. A museum for art or the military history also sticks out, as it is part of the res publica.

[@SebastianvonThaden]

Yes, you name it. Those buildings (mainly churches and public buildings) stick out, and in my opinion have a reason for that. The reason is what you called "res publica". So they should !

[@St.Basil.]

As they should. Good architecture creates ensemble, different buildings 'play' with each other, so it makes sense that most important public building domineering over other less important, creating hierarchy.

[@johans7119]

What about the plan of modern homes? This would be a critical point to look at since the modern lifestyle and size of homes needs to work with these traditional proportion systems.

[@SebastianvonThaden]

good point. I think floor plans for contemporary requirements can be realised with classical systems too. But maybe I will do another video about that :)

[@schlaumayer3754]

Great video! Though there is something I'd like to criticize: here you mostly talk about classical architecture and not the other form of traditional architecture: (as Leon Krier calls it) vernacular architecture. So buildings that don't follow the typical guidelines of classical architecture, like the building at 36:00, to the right of the one you talk about. I wonder what makes those buildings work and feel beautiful, it is sadly something that feels like it's often overlooked in traditional architecture debates. Classical (monumental) architecture is often more wealthy/urban architecture, while vernacular architecture is an often more casual, rural form of building.

[@SebastianvonThaden]

No, I don't overlook them, I see them part of what I talk about. I call it "Classical Architecture", but traditional Arch. is fine, too. For those buildungs the same things apply, that I spoke about, but usually they employ "less" of these elements, e.g. less axes and often no symmetry

[@yeahibecoollikethat]

love the content

[@SebastianvonThaden]

thank you ! :)

[@ruben4447]

The thing is we dont live in the 19th century anymore where we didnt have many advanced tools or much money. Now we have so many efficient tools which we can use to decorate buildings very fast but we dont use them for that. Instead we use them to build simple concrete boxes. Its because architects and developers now focuse on efficiency and profit instead of building something they can be proud of. Decorated buildings dont have to be expensive. Take in consideration that even the poorest people from the past still managed to add a little touch of beauty on their houses. And trust me there is enough money for them. Plus beauty pays good from tourism and from more people wanting to move there. What we should do is do what everyone else did throughout history. We keep improving the architecture that was before us the same way Art Nouveau did by using newly invented materials such as steel. Modernism did the exact opposite. It completely started from scratch and tried to reinvent architecture. All these 1000s of years of improving and inventing architecture shouldnt go to waste.

[@skagenrora1236]

Is your point that we should go back and develop art nouveau into something new or modernism into something new with new materials?

[@ruben4447]

@@skagenrora1236 Pretty much yeah but we shouldnt straight up build Art Nouveau with a few tweaks. What i am saying is we should look back on the previous style and study them. Then after we start understanding how they were designed we can invent new architecture styles with modern building techniques and materials that still follow the same proportions and rules as all the previous architecture styles. Thats how all the other architecture styles were invented. Trust me we are smart enough to invent a new architecture style. We already have so many tools that can cut the building process in half. Yet what do we use them for? Straight surfaces with almost no detail.

[@skagenrora1236]

@@ruben4447 I would happily be a part in inventing a new architecture style but the main problem I ran into is that there are few things that haven’t allready been done. Thus being categorized as a previous architecture style. One person doing something doesn’t create a new architecture style but rather a personal style. If we reintroduce classical orders and art into architecture we will end up with a continuation of “new classicism”but with modern materials. Therefore I believe we also need a new art style to go with the architecture in the same way as for example art noveau which was also a new art style that everyone happily adapted and which hadn’t been seen before when it came. What should the new forms be and what will be the inspiration? How do someone convince architects that this is the right thing to do? That’s atleast some thoughts I have been thinking about.

[@libebcnofne9835]

One little big mistake you made in this video, and in the one with the architecture history, is about Art Deco. Art Nouveau and Art Deco are two very different movements. One appeared around 1890, and the other around 1910 in France. Art Deco, or just simply Deco, was the result of the efforts of a number of French architects and designers, like André Mare or Louis Süe, of creating a new style for their world around 1910. Although both the Vienna Secession (Austrian Art Nouveau) and early Art Deco designs can look similar, they are still different movements, especially the Art Deco of the late 1920s and the 1930s, like the Streamline Moderne. More info about the two movements here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/o2Sqgqt_ecZjqNksi=HUbnd1eTaFD3rUPh and here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/eWrHonlrjppkpassi=XSAY5jbzA98ZxAXn. In rest, I really really like your videos on Classicism! Whenever I watch one, I share it with other people.

[@SebastianvonThaden]

Thank you, that is nice! Yes, I was searching for an English translation for "Jugendstil". Since "Art Nouveau" is still a french word. But yes, re-reading the articles now, you are right.. Is there another English word for "Art Nouveau"?

[@crazycool1128]

Do you think Frank Lloyd Wright strikes a good balance between the classical and the modern?

[@SebastianvonThaden]

I see him more as a pathway in the development from "classical Architecture" to modern

[@roberttullis6855]

I don’t. Your notion of Wright as a pathway assumes an art-historical vantage point in which “time is an arrow,” always pointing and advancing in one direction. Numerous examples of fluctuations in architectural styles (back and forth through time) and individual architects practicing in different styles at the same time show this to be a generalization (or lie) adopted by historians whose job and methodology is to create categories, assign buildings to them, and speculate about the causes and effects of the categorization that they themselves have invented. (Colin Rowe is an example of the opposite, a theorist who looks across time and style to find enduring architectural principles.) Wright was an individual practitioner with thought-out principles, not a historical theorist. He (and other good but lesser prairie style architects like Purcell and Elmsley) had a particular response to their regional and social and inherited architectural context. Wright was simply way more talented and more of a spatial visionary than his peers. This allowed him to very effectively develop his architecture, its interior spatial interplay, its interplay between inside and outside, its stylistic details, and their integration with its materials and construction more completely. Modernists like Corbusier rejected him (and he them) even though the practiced at roughly the same time. Another good example is the work of Auguste Perret, another contemporary of Corb’s and his direct mentor. They violently disagreed on many aspects of design and how to use concrete. Their vertical window vs. horizontal window argument was actually a contemporaneous argument, not a ‘pathway’ from one style to another.

[@SebastianvonThaden]

@@roberttullis6855 Yes, I partly agree. Could you name more examples of "numerous examples of fluctuations in architectural styles" ? I see a few, but not so many

[@brainpope6660]

I could follow you until you started to make this comparison between nature and history. Nature remains the same, but I certainly do not want our brutal history back. I can completely understand the architects after the First World War who believed that all these dramatic, pathotic styles supported nationalisms on all sides. So they wanted to build more soberly, in a more human way, without national pathos distracting us from being human. I can fully understand that, especially today, when Tucker Carlson, the German neo-Nazis and other right-wingers are trying to support the idea of new beauty in order to regain that pathos. No, I don't want that again. Architecture should start from scratch, without any reference to our messed-up history. Let us develop new styles of beauty and not repeat the mistakes of the past, please.

[@SebastianvonThaden]

but Modernism has tried that since 1910s and has not succeeded.

[@brainpope6660]

​@@SebastianvonThaden How do we know? They obviously succeeded in the 1920s, when the whole world was trying to break the old bonds and start again for a more humane future. Unfortunately, the other, reactionary side took over and launched fascism. Today, we remember those dark days of the First World War only from history books. We no longer feel for the victims of war, for the fallen soldiers. We only see the beauty of the stones that transported an ideology of supremacy. But this supremacist ideology of the 19th century is far from us today. That is why we could and should start again with architecture. I would not say that the modernists have failed. They had their place. But now it is time for something new: beauty for a more humane future.

[@Spartan_Disiplin]

​@@brainpope6660 No one should be subjected to demoralizing, despicable architecture because of ridiculous myths of your own creation, such as "It reminds me of the colonial past" and "It reminds me of the suffering of the First World War." No matter what kind of nonsense you are comfortable with, it is not and will not be appreciated by the public, except for architect circlejerks, and some leftist assholes who think they are elit

[@GHeTtOLyF]

You have a false consciousness, implanted in you from those who revell in anarchy, that if the people begin to value hierarchy and social cohesion they will go mad with bigotry and start genocides and war. Also, it's foolish to be afraid of powerless agents like Tucker and 'Nazis', when you're much more likely to be hurt of killed as a consequence of the Left's policies.

[@Thedude35]

Interesting point. I understand that generally a lot of Classical Architecture is associated with problematic historical movements. But i dont think that a western classical architectural tradition, that dates back to ancient Roman and Greek times (and even further back), should be generally banned because 'it happened to stand there' whenever human suffering was the cause of a historic event. I agree with your concern to question the symbolic meaning of individual buildings. I for example went to a gymnasium near Zurich, Switzerland with one of its modernist buildings, when viewed from google earth, looks like a giant swastika. That building is also under "Heimatschutz" which means that it was officially declared to be protected against demolition under any circumstance. The modernist movement and "its pioneers also has it's shared past with Nazism. I can strongly recommend to read "Das Bauhaus: Werkstatt der Moderne" by Winfried Nerdinger.

[@lukekvas]

@2:48 you show The Palais Tokyo, literally an example [en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_architecture#:~:text=Palais%20de%20Tokyo%2C%20Mus%C3%A9e%20d%27Art%20Moderne%20de%20la%20Ville%20de%20Paris] of the modern architecture which you claim has failed. You're entitled to your opinion but you should at least steelman your argument and deal with the actual modern architecture and the best examples of it. You're presenting a really incomplete understanding of modernism.

[@SebastianvonThaden]

this video was more a way how to do it better. I critizised modern architecture more thoroughly in this video: kzbin.info/www/bejne/mJKmi6OQq9aflbM The Palais de Tokyo is for me a very good example of reduced classicism. It for sure does not follow the ideology of Bauhaus etc, although it is quite reduced.