Falsifying History by Destroying Cities

[@TheLiamster]

I feel so sad that the Singer Building and the original Penn Station were demolished in New York

[@jamesleyda365]

Ditto!🤘

[@ianhomerpura8937]

The WTYP episode on Penn Station was great in pointing out the numerous problems that the old station had, which all led to its decline and demolition in the 1960s. Those problems, like the notoriously narrow platforms, still plague it today.

[@Hopscotchlemonadespritz]

The Singer Building, had it survived until today, may have been another candidate for residential conversion like 40 Wall Street.

[@greysnake2903]

Are you the guy that prefers modern architecture?

[@Hopscotchlemonadespritz]

@greysnake2903 not sure who you are questioning within this thread. I think there's considerable bright spots within the entire history of architecture. That includes modern and contemporary buildings.

[@randomman057]

I believe one common thread throughout the Tartaria movement is the dislike of modern architecture and its overabundance of glass curtain walls and sheet metal cladding. There is a certain beauty when it comes to stone architecture that can't be overlooked and for that I do sympathize with the notion that many modern structures are boring and uninspired.

[@dianapennepacker6854]

While I would love cities made out of marble and stone. I don't think we have enough beautiful stone quarries to actually do that. At least for all humanity. Also when glass and steel came out. They were beautiful marvels. Today we take them for granted, because they are ubiqutous. I have a feeling we wouldn't care as much for say marble if it was just as cummon, and ubiquitous On the other hand. We still pretty much put cost over everything else. I also bring up survivorship bias. Only the beautiful historic buildings have been kept from demolishing. Over decades each beautiful historic was saved each generation. Making it seem like they always built high quality structures.

[@Shako_Lamb]

@@dianapennepacker6854 Architectural historian here - I like to push back on the survivorship bias argument. Unfortunately beauty has really never been a factor in whether buildings get demolished, and neither has the quality of their construction. Take for example NYC's original version of Penn Station, a monumental building that was demolished after the decline of railroads. Grand Central almost met the same fate until it was saved by activists responding to the Penn Station demolition. The most common reason why buildings are demolished is economic and related to outside factors, such as the original use of the building becoming obsolete or the building becoming abandoned due to ownership complications or hardship. And on the flipside, we have millions of older houses from the Victorian era today that were actually built fairly poorly but have been repaired (either in a historically sensitive way or not) by people who found it worthwhile.

[@OrigamiMarie]

I would settle for having the corrugated metal apartment buildings be painted something that isn't gray, navy blue, and mustard yellow. Like, they could have at least gotten imaginative and beautiful with the paint job, and instead what do we get? Some person's idea of cheap and inoffensive.

[@jimurrata6785]

Someone will always loathe or distain their environment, or something placed in it. Glass curtain walls go all the way back to the crystal palace in Hyde Park. Cities build UP because certain locations are in demand (actual or perceived). The absurdity of billionaires row is evident. The Emperor _does_ have new clothes!

[@FavoriteThings606]

Come to Chicago and see modern architecture in splendid glory. And then go to the gold coast and see boring boxes next to vintage beauties. It's not the movement or style that's the problem. It's the application.

[@kjimbo5569]

This comment will probably get buried, BUT! I worked on the Jackson Park restoration. We uncovered tons of artifacts and I even have a few of the white blocks that were buried sitting in my backyard! It was an amazing experience and I’ve very grateful for it.

[@stewarthicks]

Whoa, so cool!

[@Nachos237]

What was the quality of the artifact. I heard they were cheap plaster

[@kjimbo5569]

@@Nachos237these ones were some type of stone. I’m no expert, but I assumed they were granite. They could have been from any number of prior constructions, maybe not from the Columbia expo. I do know that some of the lagoons were filled in with the destroyed structures after the expo ended and the areas we were excavating were some of those filled in lagoons. Also it’s a very nice park. I know the south side of Chicago gets some flak for its area but it’s definitely worth a visit

[@five-toedslothbear4051]

@@kjimbo5569I really need to go past the museum and see the rest of Jackson Park sometime. Maybe the sakura trees in the spring!

[@redoktobarwarthundervids8820]

I think we all want to check your backyard now...

[@siahsargus2013]

Cheeky of you to include a shot of the Eiffel Tower when mentioning the costs of the Olympic Games. As we all know, that too was supposed to be a temporary structure for the world’s fair.

[@TalmudElite]

Thats because he is still in deep denial

[@misterspock3756]

The fact that not every expensive structure originally intended to be temporary has been dismantled is entirely orthogonal to his point that Tartarians’ incredulity at the cost of the temporary White City is inconsistent with the routinely much higher cost of Olympics not receiving their incredulity in equal or greater measure. It’s worth noting that the Eiffel Tower was intended to stand for 20 years. The White City, by comparison, was mostly dismantled right after the expo ended.

[@xjdkdndnhzndjfndndnnd5506]

@@TalmudElite i think you are projecting

[@byurBUDdy]

@@misterspock3756 Considering recent history there is ample reason for people to distrust the historical narratives that are given to them. Especially when they are able to see people in modern times shape and conform a narrative that will become history in order to fit a political or social agenda.

[@robertlloyd122]

"As we all know..." 🤔

[@Paris-xv9sj]

11:35 - 12:25 Allow me to correct some of your statemens that are not entirely true. While the political and security aspects of Napoléon III's plan of reshaping Paris are true, you seem to overemphasize those elements in this extract. First, Napoléon III's planning for the French capital was actually made before he took power in France. One of the reasons _why_ he wanted to make such an audacious and radical plan was an esthetical one. He saw the modern cities of London in Britain and New-York in the United States, and that greatly inspired him for his vision of a _new_ Paris. He took great inspiration from those two capitals, like when he extended the size of Paris, similary to the Great London, or also, when he tasked Adolphe Alphand to make great parks in imitation of London's greeneries. The second emperor of the french not only wanted to make the medieval city of Paris into a modern metropolis of the 19th Century, he wanted to embellish the capital to make it the most beautiful city ever built. The second reason of this bold plan is also economical and speculative. Indeed, the emperor employed more than 100 000 workers for his transformation of Paris, this in accordance to his promise to the working class to give jobs, while also enriching the many investors, bankers, landlords and speculators by erecting those brand new buildings. This massive project, would also causes to captivate foreign investments and facilitate the flow of money into the city. The construction clearly benefited to all classes and ultimatly participated to the economic growth during the period. In addition before those great works, you actually had to take a whole day to walk across Paris, and most people only walked a few streets near their appartements! So Haussmann's rationnal and srict planning made business and commerce easier by making a safer and (financially) attractive place. The third and final reason is more a social and sanitary one, the emperor was influenced (profoundly) by the works of Saint-Simon a french socialist of the early 19th Century. This is _also_ why he wanted to make such large boulevards, this was a time were urban life was unhealthy for most of the population. The streets were full of dirt, dangerous, narrow and it smelled terribly, the water was non-potable and full of diseases, and there was no electricity, sewage system and adequate housing. For example, a cholera epidemic in 1832 killed around 20 000 people in the capital alone, and remember that people back then believe that such diseases spread trought air. In response to those hard living conditions, the very saint-simonnien that was Napoléon III who believed in hygienism, sanitized Paris to improve the living conditions of the parisians. You have to understand that some streets were so narrow that there was little to no sunlight or air passing trought those unsanitary neighborhoods. As you saw it, the idea of a Napoleonian Paris cannot be reduced to an imperial evil plan against the working classes for security purposes. By focusing only on the political and safety aspects, you have missed several key points regarding the _why_ Napoléon III decided to literally rebuild Paris. And don't get me wrong, those constructions had a heavy social cost (the poor people of Paris being expropriated from their houses without compensations, and because of it were forced to settle into the peripheries) and the motive behind it was also political (Napoléon III naming great boulevards in the names of his relatives or his victories, also the need to be remembered as an Augustus who made a backward city into the city of lights we know as today) and, without a doubt, the motive was also about supressing and preventing futur plausible rebellions in the city. However, all of theses cost payed off, the 2.5 billion francs of debt was clearly worth it. Napoléon III believed in the theory of the "dépenses productives" or the productive expenditure. While some destructions were questionnable, most of the buildings that were destroyed were outdated slums who needed to get rid off because the population was growing so massively and so quickly that the urban developpement was chaotic and often not regulated. Yes, Napoléon III's plan was controvertial and its intents debatable, but he, in the end showed us that he was right, we know Paris as the city of light, of love, of beauty, of the arts, of the sciences, we recognise its uniqueness and authentic esthetic, even today. I'll quote a relevant extract of a brilliant article made by the _Pavillon de l'Arsenal_ on Paris as a model city : "At different scales and in each of its components, the Haussmannian fabric of Paris reveals a set of characteristics that guarantee a number of fundamental balances: between density and viability, between permanence and resilience, between sobriety and diversity, between long-distance and short-distance connectivity, between identity and universality, between intensity and welcoming urbanism, between attractiveness and inclusiveness..."

[@tarhuntas]

the author of this video obviously has no intention on being truthful, he is just trying to defend his aesthetic choices...

[@thomascooney9507]

It is worth remembering that the wide streets didn't make much of a difference during the Commune in 1871. The rebels were able to barricade the wide avenues and squares easily with paving stones, but the army had learned that it was best not assault those strongpoints directly and would instead try to find ways around, sometimes through the same dense neighborhoods that were supposedly a big hinderance. Haussmann himself was not a military man so it is further questionable how he would have even known about any mooted security features. In my view this story persists since it is so fitting for political stories and ideologies rather than any strong basis in fact

[@Nakaska]

Came to say this, he's just repeating a common myth without providing any sources. It's the same as saying Napoleon Bonaparte was short.

[@cdrini]

This video was a rare miss for me because of some of these claims. The other thing to note is that throughout much of his reign, Napoleon was very much beloved by the people of France/Paris. In part because of the changes he made to the city. To say he imposed the vision on the people is a very big oversimplification. Even today, the French have an interesting and nuanced relationship with Napoleon.

[@mikehenson819]

@@Nakaskabut he was short. Wasn’t he?

[@twillison8824]

My home is constructed from materials salvaged from the buildings of the Chicago world's fair. The Chicago wrecking company won the contract to demolish the fair. They then began selling kit homes similar to sears in the early 1900s. My house was purchased in 1904, shipped by rail from Chicago, and built in 1905. All of the lumber is full dimension white oak. The windows are massive as well, with several that measure 4'x8' on the first story. They are singe pane sashes too, so each one is 4'x4'. There are a few floor joists you can see from the basement that show evidence of prior use.

[@frealfreal560]

The actual framing material is oak?!

[@Azula-nt7uc]

I don’t think oak was as scarce then. Also a lot of oak trees fell to a blight in the later 1800s so highly possible they were cut down to prevent front rotting

[@calebmahoney2448]

Well that’s funny cuz the only excuse I’ve ever heard for destroying the buildings at the Chicago world fair was because they were built with chicken wire and plaster.

[@dpunch5192]

Could even be chestnut.

[@atthespeedofshadow7784]

@@calebmahoney2448 Yeah, that's what I've heard, plaster. I don't believe it, I'm a mud flood guy 100%. So, if this guy is for real, he's suggesting the lumber in his home is the lumber salvaged from the (frame/skeleton) of the structures. If I was a believer in the plaster/temporary narrative, I'd totally find it believable this guys home is partially built from the salvaged lumber. *Signs of wood being reused isn't proof of Chicago World's Fair, but it's sort of proof that it was salvaged. Sort of, in that builders are known to take pieces apart while fixing one mistake, and using those pieces in a different part of the construction. Or even another project altogether. So, sort of, not really definite proof. *Now, like then, pine would have been the wood of choice, for a mulitude of reasons, so I don't understand why CWF would use oak. Building (fast) with hardwoods is pretty much impossible. Crafting with hardwood is difficult. Not impossible.

[@GlasbanGorm]

in regards to your opening segment. I(the average person) dont even require the larger concept of the worlds fair to see this phenomena. There are plenty of photos/videos on KZbin which highlights the pro car centric modern city, contrasting the older pre car cities... These alone show that practically an entire cities worth of infrastructure in every(America )city was destroyed just in the years of 1930-1970.

[@who2u333]

Welcome to capitalism. Ignoring the obvious Worlds Fair (Expo's) temporary facades, Old = trash. Add to that the modernist architectural movement (~1930 - 1960) that disliked classic ornamentation and business that loved the reduced costs of simple glass and metal facades and we get the predominant (some say boring) buildings of today. Remember; everything is a conspiracy if you don't know how anything works.

[@tienatnguyen8899]

That doesn't explain the phenomenon in europe where they put fugly buildings in places where cars are banned too.

[@andrewferrier3351]

That’s because maintaining old buildings often worse than building new ones on resources - you people are really really dense

[@aria8928]

the European cities banning cars is mostly a decade or two old for the most part. cars have existed for ~100 years. hope this helps

[@norlockv]

Many of the European cities lost buildings in WW2, others (like the US) essentially bombed themselves to make room for cars.

[@projectarduino2295]

I think it’s less that what was was made as a facade hiding a darker truth, but rather that we could make the world more beautiful now without sacrificing functionality, but that doesn’t happen due to the desire to get every ounce of functionality with the least amount of money, and that act causes so many intangible losses that can be felt, but it hard to describe. It’s hard to argue for beauty when someone asks why we need it. But everyone can appreciate it when it exists and knows it is something that would be a shame to loose.

[@kodyjbosch1]

Thank you. 😊

[@Aubreykun]

Beauty = individuality individuality = non-universal non-universal = limited amount of buyers limited amount of buyers = less likely to sell/get a new tenant when the old one goes away That is the purpose of the bland buildings. They're investments by people who aren't trying to build a legacy. This applies to both commercial AND residential property. So many people buy homes with the express plan of ditching them at some point and recouping their investment, rather than passing it down in the family.

[@whitegoose2017]

@@Aubreykun Consumerism at every stage of society. Nothing has a quality of permanency to it. Ideally you don't even want to inherit the family home because then you'll pay an inheritance tax on it. Best just live in something bland.

[@TarikJaawani]

Film Master's Student and Architectural Enthusiast here. This video overlooks decades of research that reflects the innate positive effects of biophillic and vernacular architectural/ landscape design. The city beautiful movement was not about showing off, but the (technically correct albeit somewhat misguided) idea that beauty enriches the environment and will spiritually/ socially/ generally elevate a population beyond the haphazard squalor of late 19th century industrial metropolises, particularly in the United States which had no where near the time or wealth to build the imperial style cities that Burnham sought to mimmic in the World's fair, which was to bring European/ East Asian city planning and design to the masses of the US. Of course, other factors like education and social services elevate the population much more, its undeniable what the baseline, immediate effect of an environment on a population was. And that was the target of the entire movement. To hide this video's defense of contemporary design, abandoning traditional and vernacular aesthetic philosophy behind a microscopic reddit conspiracy cult is both dishonest and reductive. The actual people you should be listening to are in the neo urbanist and new classical movement. It goes far deeper than feelings and paranoia. It lambasts the destruction of neighborhoods just like what the Ben Franklin parkway partially leveleled. It decries the US tunnel vision of car-centric urban design and essentially absent aesthetic culture, and most importantly, it's backed by science. Towering glass curtain walls, jagged edges, unreadable silhouettes, and exposed steel i-beams make us uncomfortable and deny our brains the millenia old biological fondness for natural, or naturalistic shape language and design. Its even worse that, despite the endless "survivorship bias" claims, our cities used to be filled with interesting and beautiful places, but events like the US interstate system development and World War 2 levelled even more neighborhoods than Ben Franklin Parkway, marginalized minority communities, destroyed cherished monuments, and in the worst of cases, influenced entire metro areas economic collapse/ stagnation. Not to mention the abhorrent environmental costs of global concrete manufacturing (water), glass, (silica sand/ thermal regulation struggles), and steel (carbon), I can link any papers below if anyone is interested.

[@israeldelarosa5461]

I wish I could give this likes more than just once But do you know any other YT channels that cover the topics that you speak of?

[@Croz89]

I would argue it's not car centric design that creates this kind of architecture, because modern construction in places that are not car centric still look the same, in fact often they look more like you describe because you need to fit more people into a smaller space, so simple modular forms are more common.

[@ARBITRAGEandTIME]

The tram systems were destroyed by Big Oil and General Motors.

[@TarikJaawani]

@israeldelarosa5461 Some great channels are The Aesthetic City, Adam Something, Kings and Things, Not Just Bikes, Alan Fisher, Haussmann, Climate Town, and to paint a great picture of REAL places that were lost, check out Alexander Rotmensz. These range from more scientific/ editorial approaches to quite trivial & factoid based, and they aren't just on architecture, but also urban design, city life, etc.

[@flyingmonkeydeathsquadronc968]

@@ARBITRAGEandTIME They were destroyed by operating costs and government regulations "Big Oil" and GM may have buried the corpses for easy profit but they didn't kill it outright.

[@walker1812]

11:30 that was such a sudden and sharp turn in the tone for your conclusion. It ignored all the other reasons a modern city needs wide boulevards: traffic flow, sanitation, public health, air circulation, civic pride, economic growth, green spaces… just look at Geddes metaphors comparing a city to the human body, parks are the lungs, avenues are the veins, etc. Your conclusion ignored all that to focus on despotic social control. I feel your conclusion smacks of another instance where the modern tries to demonize the classical. Equating a preference for grand classical architecture as belonging to an internet conspiracy cult. But maybe that’s just me?

[@jakedee4117]

Not just you. I have a somewhat similar comment

[@WanJae42]

I get what you're saying, but read it differently. I took it as a call to action to design our cities thoughtfully based our present needs, rather than merely repeating historic standards wholesale.

[@lithic2331]

Oh, well if there's a metaphor for how it's related to the human body, I guess it must be true.

[@rubberdorky]

100% agree with you. Well said The guy is very subversive, either an accident or intentially

[@jaydunno8266]

If I am not mistaken, the Art Museum at the end of the Ben Franklin Parkway was leftover the 1876 Centennial Exposition. There were other building nearby of the same style, but they were demolished after the Exposition. The wide boulevards in addition to hindering the erection of barricades, facilitated the use of artillery to quell disturbances. The City Beautiful movement also gave many cities large urban parks, with green spaces and places of recreation, so it was not aall bad.

[@nikolasao]

Progress is a voyage where there are more drowning than on the ship

[@SubvertTheState]

This notion that "progress" is inevitable, or that those who resisted it were fools wasting their time is wrong. Even the people demanding a halt to AI advance are not wasting their breathe.

[@joestingle7211]

You are partly mistaken. The Philadelphia Museum of Art was chartered with the 1876 exposition but the building at the end of the parkway wasn't begun until almost 1900. Up until that point the Fairmount waterworks reservoir was on top of the hill. The water works, a feat to themselves, was also an exhibition in city-wide potable water delivery

[@jonathanstensberg]

Not correct. Both the PMA and the parkway were constructed decades after the bicentennial-by bulldozing dozens of blocks of the city.

[@flyingmonkeydeathsquadronc968]

@@SubvertTheState That's why when I hear the word "progress" used, I ask to what. So many profess the word but most cant answer that simple question and blind progress is a fools folly.

[@killerdave8022]

You didn't even scratch the surface,there's so much more everywhere.

[@nonawolf7495]

People still believe in Theme Park architecture... that's why we have "tuscan kitchens" and "farmhouse" in the middle of suburbia. That's why people add fake box beams or LED skylights to their ceilings. Our ugly homes have driven people to engage in architectural cosplay.

[@pigeon_the_brit565]

there is no faulting architectural cosplay as long as its done right

[@tann_man]

@pigeon_the_brit565 worse than the real thing, better than not trying at all.

[@jaredtroth8078]

Good architecture understands it's environment and works with it. But it's so common for us just to assign whatever we want wherever we want and it makes everywhere the same. It's sad.

[@greysnake2903]

​@pigeon_the_brit565 Like the abandoned suburbs in Turkey.

[@UFZHQTFB]

They learned it from Vegas.

[@theotherohlourdespadua1131]

The New York Times summed up the whole "Tartaria" thing well: this was not in any way a movement that firmly believes that Tartaria and all the "secret history" is true, it's a movement that verbalize how much modern architecture has alienated them. It's acry that what they know about beauty all their life is being directly at odds with the reality of the current status quo...

[@zsmith8632]

The issue is these kinds of movements have habit of becoming people believing the fiction

[@tann_man]

Wait until you find out modern architecture is intended to be alienating and to harm you psychologically by design. And what group of people are responsible.

[@daviddavidson1417]

​​@@tann_manLet me guess, the people you're hinting at [[Echo Throughout History]]?

[@tann_man]

@@daviddavidson1417 yes

[@UFZHQTFB]

@@tann_man In which way modern architecture hurt your little feelings? You might be a weak individual.

[@michaelimbesi2314]

The impetus driving the Tartaria myth isn’t some philosophical nonsense about “erasing history”, it’s the fact that buildings in the past were objectively better looking and we appear to have lost the ability to build them.

[@tarhuntas]

exactly

[@UFZHQTFB]

It's kind of interesting how those "objectively better looking" building, look so bloated and downright horrible.

[@Crosbie85]

Cope. You haven’t dug deep enough

[@AUDIOPHILEHARDCORE]

​@@Crosbie85 oh stop with the nonsense

[@HeadsFullOfEyeballs]

But we haven't lost the ability to build them. Brand-new neoclassical buildings are constructed every year. It's just that any architecture which requires lots of manual labour, like carving stone or even just laying bricks, has become wildly uneconomical due to the Baumol effect. So you only get those styles anymore when the client is happy to pump a lot of money into a relatively small piece of real estate and also happens to like neoclassicism.

[@roelsch]

That Tartarian Empire claim is thoroughly uninteresting to be honest. But the question in the title is a good and important one. Why can't we have beautiful buildings anymore? It is not cost. That world fair (2:40) is a dramatic illustration of how cheap decoration had become even back then. It is feasible to do this on temporary structures. So why can't we have it on our more permanent ones? We can make a white city with spray paint. Well yeah exactly (*). We can mass produce cast shapes. Yeah exactly, and we can use things like concrete if we want something a bit more durable. And in case we want something custom like at 4:50. Didn't we invent CNC routers in the meantime? And also, casting? Van Loos' argument that decoration takes too much resources is obsolete. Also the idea that decoration is not a function is quite misanthropic to begin with - I have never heard of any culture where people do not decorate their living spaces. It just so happens that cities are living spaces. So making building exteriors presentable is a really important function. (actually, didn't Van Loos write a “no guys not like that!!~~~” follow up to his ornamentation and crime essay? Maybe he saw the impending self-immolation of his entire profession coming.) Modernism destroyed our willingness to have new buildings in our neighbourhoods. Turns out making new buildings is REALLY IMPORTANT. I'm sitting here in Auckland, and most land right next to our city centre are old decaying villas built in the 1920s. They may not have any modern bells and whistles like insulation and double glazing, or up to date electric installations. They may back then have been build nastily and cheaply with mass produced (!) ornaments, but they were also not yet Modernist and some thought was given to making them presentable to passers by. Some are visibly rotting away. But they are (in a sort of oblique way) heritage protected, and we will not replace them with (small m) modern buildings until they literally fall down. This should have been a completely absurd situation that *everyone* would try to fix ASAP, but no. It seems everyone thinks it is perfectly reasonable. Why can't we have beautiful buildings anymore? I don't know. People have simply internalized this as truth. Somehow we (i.e. our past generations, not this weird empire conspiracy) could make them in the past but somehow magically it now became too expensive. Despite having laser cutters, CNC routers, casting, and other mass production technology available now. Isn't that weird? So we find ourself in a situation that no matter how dilapidated an old building is, people still expect anything that we could possibly build today to look even worse. This situation is entirely absurd. If someone has an old rusty car parked up front, it would be considered an eyesore and nobody would baulk at them replacing that car with a new one. But not so for buildings. Modernism taught us that contemporary architecture creates uncomfortable, alienating places. Nobody wants this in their own neighbourhoods. So where did we go wrong? The Mysterious Disappearance of Beautiful Buildings is a legit thing. It is in very obvious ways harming our cities. We need to fix that. And this is not really helping, because I never heard anyone blaming the disappearance of some ancient empire. (*) obligatory mention that ancient Roman buildings and statues were not actually white.

[@wolfy1987]

Many features of older buildings are practical as well. Cornices, window caps, peaked roofs in rainy climates. And modern architects are so dead set against adding them as practical features that it often shortens the lifespan of newer buildings

[@sinisterdesign]

My understanding is that the cost is labor-related, not technology-related; but then again, I'm no architect.

[@pennybourban3712]

Some new condominiums went up in my town. They are orange and gray. Why would one think people want to look at orange rectangles? I've seen the same orange rectangle in the town next to me too. I wish I could include a photograph.

[@sheridansherr8974]

👍💖

[@JohnFromAccounting]

Melbourne has some weird similarities to Auckland in that we have enormous swathes of historic listings of complete junk. We're talking bland, single-storey workers cottages that nobody is allowed to demolish. Historic listings of concrete roads from the pre-war time. Historic listings of abandoned warehouses and factories that have been empty for half a century. History shouldn't mean we abandoned things and never touch them again, it should mean that we maintain our past as a gift to the future generations. If we don't maintain any of it, there's no point having it.

[@justinchipman1925]

I have experienced this kind of loss. I grew up in a gorgeous, older neighborhood in Denver. I lived in a smallish home (by modern standards) on a double lot. The home was torn down so that two homes could be built in its place. Of course, the two new homes are modern and ugly when compared to the old brick home that I grew up in. I am not going to be believing in the Tartarians any time soon, but this sentiment makes more sense.

[@jansenart0]

The reason behind the loss of grand architecture is the lowering of the top marginal corporate tax rate. Without the pressure to find something to do with all their earnings, lest Uncle Sam take 95% of it, businesses no longer have an incentive to show off their wealth through the hiring of tradesmen and architects. We live in the era of the MVP: the minimum viable product. Corporations need not spend away their punitively-taxable liquidity in the manufacture of beautiful buildings when monolithic glass dicks built by migrant labor are cheaper and there is no taxation anymore. Raise taxes on corporations, FORCE them to reinvest their capital instead of hoarding it or giving it away to billionaires (who also need a top marginal tax increase), and you will INSTANTLY see corporations restart conspicuous consumption in the name of the Tax Write-Off, which in itself is an artform that is long passed (you don't need to lower your tax bracket when you're not being taxed at the upper brackets.) We still might not be able to afford homes for awhile after that, but at least things will LOOK better from our tents.

[@has_a_youtube9054]

This is the most ridiculous reason I've heard for increasing corporate tax rate, who gives a rats ass about corporations building "nicer looking" office towers? Making a classical looking facades for multi-million dollar projects is a drop in the water, theres not change in structure, there's just no point because modern corporationa prefer not to seem like they're linked to old money and values.

[@BaltimoreAndOhioRR]

@@jansenart0 You're whole statement is based on the assumption that Corporations don't operate with tax law (the Tax Write-Off, as you say) influencing their decisions anymore. I assure you, tax write-offs are still fully in play. The way the rest of your comment is worded sounds just like something the people who claim Corporations have _too many_ write-offs would say. In other words, always blame the Corporations, and always tax them (and rich people) as much as possible.

[@jansenart0]

@@BaltimoreAndOhioRR It's simple accounting, and it's clear in the name of the concept: after you breach the top-level corporate tax rate by billions in revenue, you cannot logically write-off enough to bring the rate down! You can't deny the facts: there was more liquidity among the people and fewer billionaires when taxation on corporations was at its height. We are now living in neofeudalism and it took only 40 years to get here.

[@BaltimoreAndOhioRR]

@@jansenart0 fewer billionaires means nothing. Those are just some words to make your argument sound better to the masses who hate corporations and rich people. Guess what? There were fewer $100,000aires during then, also! And fewer $50,000aires, too! NO WHERE in these United States is a 95% tax rate ever justified! (Yes, I know it's on the amount above a specific, made up, value). We are not the Soviet Union, we are not Communist China.

[@jmchez]

Penn Station was not plaster over wood. The theme should be, "Don't destroy what you can not build".

[@pigeon_the_brit565]

modern architecture and planning is way more guilty of this kind of thing than the subject of this video, in America especially where you almost wiped out whole cities. The right kind of neotraditional, human scale buildings offfer the chance to write at least some of these wrongs

[@AlienNation_0]

Lame

[@pigeon_the_brit565]

@@AlienNation_0 why?

[@spmcdill]

As a historic preservationist it absolutely drives me up a wall listening to people rant about nonsense like this. They're so close to the point and then Veer off into the lunacy.

[@flyingmonkeydeathsquadronc968]

It's funny because Tartaria was actually on ancient maps as holding vast swaths of land, but people don't realized Tartaria was a map makers short hand for the unknown "uncivilized" lands not yet properly charted

[@andrew2131]

Yeah I also believe everything I was taught in school and never question history because that would make me sound crazy

[@Crosbie85]

Cope

[@Crosbie85]

Makes sense why the fekkit says this. All you do is cope

[@AUDIOPHILEHARDCORE]

😂🤡​@@andrew2131

[@UnrelatedAntonym]

The Eiffel Tower was also made for a world faire, it was meant to be temporary, but it served well for radio experiments and communications, as well as became a landmark/monument in Paris.

[@brucetidwell7715]

I think people are latching on to Second Empire Paris and these Exhibitions because those are the most recent examples of grand classical architecture available to them. Their paranoia is rooted in a more existential hunger for beauty. Modernism was founded on a puritanical reaction against decadence in the lower classes. Mass production made it possible for middle class people to have an ersatz knock off of wealthy opulence. Was it cheap and tacky? Often times, yes, but the modernists wanted to impose their vision of stark utilitarian "authenticity." A project that ultimately only appealed to wealthy people who could flaunt what we call Voluntary Simplicity today. Modernism was widely embraced by builders and mass producers because it was CHEAP to produce. After WW2 there was a legitimate need to make vast quantities of everything quickly and utilitarian anti-design could be marketed as Space Age. Today, we live in an aesthetic wasteland. There is NO beauty in the contemporary cityscape. Even Mies van der Rohe and Les Corbusier would be horrified by what they set in motion. A conspiracy theory about Tartarians is just more glamorous and satisfying than the fact our quality of life has been, and continues to be, co-opted and defiled by the avarice of Capitalistic Corporate greed.

[@nlpnt]

The streamlined toaster! (which is actually practical - "streamlined" household objects are easier to dust than ones with fussy detail.

[@EndoftheBeginning17]

Well said! With today's technology. I suspect the actual cost to creating well designed facades would not be as expensive as it would have been around WWII. Today one can carve out granite using CNC machines in the fraction of the time it would have taken even two or three decades ago. And one can get fairly fancy if we also incorporate the use of CGI into various CAD projects like CNC stone cutting. Literally create stone artwork. Even making aethietic columns is pretty practical. Same with overhangs etc. The cost would be much lower today with the correct applications

[@Aubreykun]

Voluntary Simplicity - ha ha that's a great term for it. I always see it described as "minimalism" but it's really not when consumption is even higher due to everything being handled via services on demand rather than keeping things at hand.

[@brucetidwell7715]

@@Aubreykun I think it's sort of fallen out of fashion lately but, for a while, Voluntary Simplicity was a fad among upper middle class people who gave away all of their jumble and clutter, and reduced their wardrobe to a dozen well chosen pieces. It's a low key self-righteous philosophical social statement for people whose remaining possessions are the best quality possible and who can buy more whenever they choose. Those who can scarcely afford more than a dozen garments call it abject poverty and find it far less amusing.

[@Aubreykun]

@@brucetidwell7715 Yup. Also allows some wealthy enough to show off that they can have anything they need at their beck and call with a few taps on their phone.

[@thintalk5280]

If the Chicago world's fair was just a plaster city mock-up, please explain the interior photos of the buildings. Tons of not temporary looking material. Iron beams, rivets, concrete walkways and pads. Then, let's look at the 2 year's they said it took to build, in a marsh, with no modern roads, Chicago winters that are hell and the torrential rains of the spring. 690 acres. I just finished building a 1 acre apartment building with 9 floors and 212 units. It took hundreds of people 2 full years just of building with modern equipment and cranes and roads, nevermind the planning stages. Were did their labor come from, where did they stay, how did they get back and forth and eat 3+ times a day? Where did they shit/shower/shave? How were they paid? How was all of that material brought in? How was the scraps and trash brought out. It would be hundreds of tractor trailer loads just of the "plaster". Now add wood, thousands and thousands of gallons of paint, hundreds and hundreds of miles of wire. Hundreds and hundreds of concrete trucks. Now look at 27 million people in 6 months. How did they get there? Where did they stay? How was waste removed from that many people? How were they fed? You ever see what it takes for a all of that for a Sunday football game of just 50k people? We're talking 3 times that, every single day for 6 months. 147,000+ people every day. There are no photos of any of the material, food, workforce(other than a handful of guys) dining facilities, bars, vendors.... I could go on with much more, IT DOES NOT ADD UP!!!

[@1974Muzak]

You’re saying that it didn’t happen because you know nothing of the work force available at that time. Labor was a huge percentage of the work force: there were no computers, no cubicle jobs etc. Arguing there are no pictures of the garbage and process (which there are so you lied) is ridiculous because in 1893 film was expensive. People didn’t take unlimited pictures on phones like they do now. No one would say hey I want to spend I ton of money and employ a photographer so I can have pictures of dirty scruffy laborers doing their monotonous thing, let alone take pictures of all the garbage? You are also unaware that they just burnt garbage back then. They didn’t do anything green. Sometimes they landfilled unburnable garbage. By your opinions it seems you couldn’t fathom how the pyramids were built. Were they not built because you don’t have pictures of the garbage and workers? 😂 I suggest you visit the Science and Industry Museum in downtown Chicago. It was built for the 1893 world’s fair and still stands today. It is a beautiful building. Stop seeing everything in the past through a narrow modern lens. Humans were extremely capable in the past. We are a mere shadow of what we once were.

[@MsPoliteRants]

@@1974Muzaklet’s also not forget that people literally have houses built from the wreckage of the world fair because they auctioned off the pieces. Only the plaster would’ve been unusable. The steel and wood structural beams are perfectly reusable and were.

[@ElliottBradenS]

The Science and Industry is not"downtown" Chicago. ​@1974Muzak

[@A.F.Whitepigeon]

1. Anything is temporary if somebody is willing to pay to demolish it. 2. Building on a tight schedule in a wintry marsh means even things that look permament probably wouldn't stand the test of time, directly going against point 1. 3. Work got done faster in an era without modern building codes or labor protections. 4. The workers stayed in Chicago, obviously. 5. They probably lived nearby to the building site and walked. 6. They ate from either cafeterias provided by the building company or local street vendors. 7. They shat wherever they could. Sanitation wasn't great back then, especially for laborers. 8. They probably didn't shower. See point 7. 9. They probably didn't shave unless required to by their bosses, in which case they did so wherever they could. 10. They were presumably payed in US dollars. 11. The materials were borught in mostly on trains. They were the dominant form of long-distance land travel in those days, before roads and cars were very well developed. Some was brought in by boat. 12. The scraps and trash were probably just dumped into Lake Michigan or somewhere else out of sight. Environmental regulations weren't really a thing back then. 13. Hundreds of semi trucks is a single freight train. 14. The visitors got there by train, and some by boat. 15. They stayed in Chicago, obviously. 16. Human waste ended up in the river and then the lake, garbage was mostly burned and some landfilled. 17. They were fed by fair vendors and local restaurants. 18. NFL games are nothing. Google the Hajj. 19. Photography was expensive back then, and nobody wanted to show off the dirty underbelly of their big shiny event.

[@calebmahoney2448]

Only part I’ll comment on is the photography. The cameras at the time needed people to be still for the photo to develop. So when they took pictures of the streets it looks like no people because they are moving around. That’s very simplified but that basically sums up that.

[@vliedtke]

disingenuous to compare a real desire for more beautiful architecture to a crazy conspiracy theory i mean sure, those provided examples may not be the greatest examples of neoclassical and beaux art archictecture but that doesnt deminish the fact that many of the greatest "classical" works of architecture were actually part of that kind of neoclassical revival

[@vliedtke]

and yeah...no calling this style of architecture oppressive because "some french king used it to exert and show of power" is bullshit first of all, its not just kings who used to commission these sorts of buildings, but they were also popular amongst the more well-off parts of the general populace to show of their own level of wealth and prosperity industrialization has indeed made it possible to mass produce these building parts which has actually allowed these excessive styles of traditional architecture to be made available to many people britain has many famous examples of revivalist styles (not as baroque as the french i suppose, but the idea still stands) and with britain being more of a long standing democracy than a monarchy those buildings are more about overall national pride rather subservience to a king and of course, the US literally has its own history of neoclassicism and many of the US historic landmarks that built the country are neoclassical buildings these are like some really sweeping generalizations made in this video that are entirely ignorant to the culture behind this style of architecture

[@tann_man]

yeah this guy is a hack. Barely worth listening to.

[@09_jp_]

Demoralisation is the ethos of these government agents. Sell people the belief that once was will never be and what is is as good as it will be. It's objectively true to anyone with an eye to see that we are not living in the most technologically advanced time of the history of this planet. The whole Tartaria story is similar to the flat earth movement in that it serves to shoehorn free-thinking individuals into a group to believe a specified narrative. The reality is likely to be much more nuanced. Humans deserve and will receive much better very soon

[@longiusaescius2537]

So true Misato

[@oColt45o]

I turned thia video off half way through. Dude doesn't debunk anything. Clown shoes.

[@FavoriteThings606]

Thank you for a thought provoking video! Paris may have been planned for military strategy but thank the French that it's well planned and beautiful. In the best scenario, the economic driver of a project isn't divorced from civic value. And vice versa. The setbacks on the wide boulevards allow light to bathe the city and provide plenty of space for cultural events. Military parades? Sure, the Arc de Triomphe is an exclamation point on that concept. But is there a more famous avenue for culture than the Champs-Élysées? It was correct for Paris to limit the height of buildings. That would not have been right for Chicago. I celebrate both! Chicago did well to preserve the Cliff Wall and allow for incredible innovation in other places. I'm not a fan of all building styles but I appreciate that there are building blocks, learning and progression. There's value in that. I'm glad that Chicago has great examples of this. I like Federal plaza but boxes of windows have become soulless in parts of the city. On the other hand, without Van der Rohe, would we have 333 Wacker? Forgive my ramblings.

[@BuildNewTowns]

We need to build more cool, walkable towns - with nice architecture again!

[@RPWStudios]

Unfortunetly, american corporations wouldn't like that.

[@BuildNewTowns]

@RPWStudios We can make our own "American corporations". If a couple hundred like minded ppl could organize properly, we could do anything.

[@tsbrownie]

Anyone who thinks that "cities" like these can't fall down and disappear need to do 2 things: 1) Get backstage on a movie set and see how these seemingly real things used in movies are made, and 2) Spend time on KZbin watching videos by urban explorers who go visit some not-all-that-old ruins of things that were actually made to last.

[@muminmamman43mumindalen20]

It is not the demolishing, it's the building, planning, orgnanizing of staff, materials etc. But it is a mind set, people who psycologically need to suck up to the establishment, won' t find it in themselves to look for and gather other content than that which sustains the same established world vision. Their prime work is to mock people who do question and who do dare to contemplate the possibility that we have been fooled in many small and grand ways. Not daring to ask valid questions is a brown nose mind set. Which ever ends up being proved the accurate theory, on the way there, those who won't even formulate questions outside the established frame work aren't actually doing investigative work.

[@expojam1473]

I can’t fathom that we as a society all over the world moved away from building grand, beautiful spaces for everyone to enjoy 😢

[@theotherohlourdespadua1131]

"For everyone to enjoy", that statement is a lie. The Palace of Versailles is a testament to French Baroque, Rococo, and Neoclassical beauty as expressed through architecture and garden design, but most of France were not allowed to enter the palace, much less the land it is built on until the French Third Republic. Neuschwanstein Castle is the most beautiful of the "Mad King" Ludwig II's projects that were completed, but this building and all the other buildings WERE off-limits to the public until after the King's death and the Bavarian government deciding to open it up for public visits. The Forbidden City and the Old Summer Palace in Beijing are testaments to East Asian architecture and garden design yet they were only open to the public in 1924, 12 years after the fall of the Chinese Empire. Even the Kingdom of Hawaii has the Iolani Palace that was off-limits to the public until the overthrow of the monarchy. Point is... Most of the most beautiful buildings on earth are built NOT FOR THE BENEFIT OD EVERYONE. They were built as monuments to their patrons. Shelley's Ozymandias captures the rationale of such monuments well...

[@sohlasattelite]

@@theotherohlourdespadua1131 sure, but we have now the means to design out cities like emperors were able to design their palaces and gardens. I don't get that mentality of "welp, stalin drank water so i guess it's time to die from dehydration"

[@harbl99]

@@theotherohlourdespadua1131 By 1900s the sense that 'beauty in public spaces was for all' was already a principle of European public architecture. In the _belle epoque_ luxury and gracious spaces were being democratized on an unprecedented scale. See, for example: Paris, Budapest, Vienna, Prague, old Havana...

[@theotherohlourdespadua1131]

​@@sohlasattelite"Civic Architecture" is a recent concept that can be traced to Rome but it finds expression with countries and states that have a republican government. Florence during its time as an independent city state - especially under the Medicis - spend on building public spaces like Piazzas and cathedrals partially as a way to buy the public approval of their rule. Same with Venice with the Plaza of San Marco. What did the Kings of England or the Holy Roman Emperor or even the Chinese Emperor built for the public benefit before the French Revolution? As I said, rulers don't build things for the public good most of the time, they were built mostly to satisfy their ego, and if they built anything like that they are off-limits to most of the public...

[@theotherohlourdespadua1131]

​@@harbl99My point is that for most of its history between the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the French Revolution, any state that doesn't rely on the patronage of the "popular" masses don't build things for their benefit...

[@proffiesloth]

And yet today people flock to Paris for its architecture and grand designs.Its streets may have been paved with ‘bad’ intentions but it built one of the most iconic cities in all of human history.

[@ARBITRAGEandTIME]

💯

[@watermelontreeofknowledge8682]

The whining about Napoleon III at the end of this video was particularly insufferable. ‘Oh he was a TYRANT’ yeah but not nearly as much of a tyrant as the masses during the French Revolution. Just seems massively historically illiterate to try to impose 1990’s neoliberal definitions of tyranny or political repression into the rebuilding second empire period which had just made it through so much social turbulence.

[@pierren___]

Haussmann rebuilt Paris because it was overcrowded and didnt have sewers. Not bad intentions ^^'

[@awillis2676]

Most people that question these things actually don't have set "beliefs" about the past. So labeling doesn't usually apply (like tartarians.) Most of us are just that, questioning without speculation.

[@stephenspackman5573]

Many people grew up in a time and place when “history” was about kings and emperors. For them, monumental architecture is naturally synonymous with historical architecture. I get interested in old streets, canals, and defensive structures, and I can trace most of that to the way _I_ was taught history.

[@Squossifrage]

Ironically, the building you used to illustrate “Paris, France, 1900” was a temporary structure built for the 1878 World Fair.

[@christiankruse1970]

The Tartaria silliness stems from a very real desire to have architecture that is beautiful and provides a sense of place.

[@shigemorif1066]

It’s interesting because the jewel of San Diego, Balboa Park, has a similar story with it being a world’s fair and the buildings being temporary. But they were preserved and have been the inspiration for a lot of architecture in SoCal. I suppose you could call it theme park architecture, but I call it beautiful and resonant and far preferable to a lot of current architectural trends.

[@szurketaltos2693]

Often some fair buildings were built to last, see also 1904 world's fair in St. Louis. Depending on how low quality the original, it may have been replaced (see San Francisco Palace of fine arts) as well.

[@wolfy1987]

I'm kinda not sure what the point of this video is. Most of our architecture was borrowed from somewhere to some degree. Philadelphia's early architecture borrows heavily from English architecture. Los Angeles' from Spanish tradition. Main thing I agree with is that architecture should be inspired from local traditions. I'm sure the Tartaria movement has more to do with a disdain for modern architecture than a love for any particular architectural style. Its funny how many people I meet who dislike modern architecture. Almost everyone I've met prefers traditional styles. Yet a majority of what's built now is modern style. And that's very alienating to people. People can innately recognize beauty.

[@franciscodanconia4324]

Modern architecture is all technical and zero craftsmanship. Very few have the talent to carve beautiful figures from stone. But any worker can construct a glass curtain wall section in a factory. There’s a feeling of connection to the craftsman’s talent and humanity you don’t get from mass produced buildings. And yes I know even most Victorian ornamentation was horsehair plaster facsimile, but your mind still connects it to ancient craftsmanship.

[@Aubreykun]

@@franciscodanconia4324 There was some good modern architecture up to the early 2000s but that stuff has also gone away. I am talking about amazingly crafted marvels with often oodles of glass and steel done in whimsical ways. Elevators that let you see the mechanical pieces turning, grand skylights, gently curving walkways, chunky pillars, areas with ample plantlife and warm wood, locations for rest and recreation, and often controlled splashes of bold color to calm the senses. You can see them around sometimes, but many are being torn down because they don't suit the tastes of the people who want bland boxes that they can sell to people with as little risk as possible. Buildings with identity mean that there's a likelihood that some would be turned away from it based on aesthetics alone. But blank boxes allow attachment of signs and decorations, which can be easily removed rather than needing renovation or demo to change. This drives the potential demand up. It's efficient, but ugly. It also means that businesses which ape the startup model are more common, since they're less distinct from those who want to build a legacy. This is likewise destabilizing to a community. Basically, loads of businesses are spirit halloween now, with a 3-5 year rather than a 3 month lifespan and no way to tell that the store you like has a VC behind it who wants his return.

[@robertruffo2134]

That's because many architects are brainwashed and/or malignant narcissists and/or weak sheep who do what they think won't stir the pot too much.

[@HeadsFullOfEyeballs]

The early architecture of Philadelpha/Los Angeles doesn't "borrow from" English and Spanish architecture, it _is_ English and Spanish architecture. The people who designed it were English/Spanish.

[@sercabie]

It's crazy that as a race we've been so beaten down, and dumbed down that we think the achievements of our forefathers must've been accomplished by an alien race, very sad what a crime against humanity

[@neatnateable]

I don’t think you are dumb at all. :) I hope you aren’t beaten down either!

[@harhar4844]

The theory never says it was aliens who built anything. Youre inventing to win an argument. It was a human civilization, it was us, just more advanced before a cataclismic event that took us back to basic technology. Those who remained kept history secret and became the most powerful. There is an overabundance of proof that this happened. History was rewritten to give us a sense of narcisim and greatness while not easily answering to how things were built. We can actually see today how some social groups are trying to rewrite history before our very eyes.

[@Josh-yr7gd]

13:27 "You, you're a details person. You check at least half a dozen reviews before making any big ticket purchase..." I feel exposed, Stewart!

[@Herbit-k4j]

I love watching Tartaria videos because they dig up the most beautiful images of old architecture. I'm gonna go out on a limb here to say most of their viewers are the same and don't actually believe in the conspiracy, but just want to look at nice old architecture. If you look at it through a modern fiction lens, the conspiacy aspects are entertaining too.

[@dbhstockton]

No I think Qanon has taught us that a lot of people have genuinely lost their minds. Millions.

[@ElectricGrapes]

I've known about the Chicago world fair thing for some time now, but this is the first time I'd ever seen someone try to make it into a conspiracy involving the Tartars. I think this might be one of those situations where someone tries to attach a belief to another group of people that they don't have much contact with.

[@VAULT-TEC_INC.]

Um… that entire Subreddit has considered it a conspiracy for YEARS. Did you see the dates on those posts? This video author is trying to DEBUNK those lunatics.

[@Crosbie85]

@@VAULT-TEC_INC.cope

[@calebmahoney2448]

The world fairs have been a conspiracy since the internet was introduced to the public.

[@Sokofeather]

The weird pagan rituals at those old World Fairs don't help their internet publicity.

[@c.rutherford]

I spent my life like most people, quietly clapping at some of the most ridiculous and ugly modern architecture. While all the grand inspiring old buildings and culture most people actually like were torn down in the name of progress. And the world was filled with plain glass squares, irregular shaped preschool boxes, huge misshapen dollops, giant melting contact lens cases. Even statues of ourselves that are grossly misshapen. I'm thinking of our infamous "Garbage Lincoln" statue in our downtown, which is basically a pile of scrap metal shaped into a distorted monster that sort of looks like old Abe, which is called Art. Until I finally realized that I was part of the problem. Nothing is ever going to change until lots of people start saying they want it to.

[@assaraan9407]

i bouth disagree but also agree personaly I am not a big fan of modern architechture but other people do like it so it has it's place BUT that place is NOT in the historical city center. modern styles like monimalisme ar no mire progresive as any other style of architechture some people like it and some dont but erasing history and culture is definatly not progres if you ask me

[@aachor]

I think a lot of this comes from the feeling that modern architecture is just......ugly. Those older buildings with their visual hierarchies, their classical proportions, and their detail and their decoration were beautiful. So much of modern construction- especially the 'monumental' buildings of the 20th and 21st centuries, lack visual hierarchy, classical proportions, or attention to detail. Their beauty often pales in comparison to what came before. What was considered beautiful was largely unchanged in principle for nearly 2000 years. And then modernism and post-modernism came around, and with some exceptions, failed to deliver.

[@lucifertheharpist]

"And that's why we..." OH SO CONFIDENT! It's precisely overconfidence in whatever we're told by official authority which makes us fools. If adulthood has taught me anything, it's to doubt and to double-doubt and to triple-doubt every word ever uttered by another adult. So there's that.

[@righn3494]

In my humble opinion the narrative has been completely disassembled regarding most if not all of the old world constructs still standing today. We must learn to think critically about the world around us. And agree to disagree

[@dbhstockton]

Don’t throw out the baby with the bath water. It’s ok to be skeptical, but also BE HUMBLE and respect the accumulated effort of generations of very clever and dedicated people.

[@ahilltodieons]

I think this same mentality needs to be turned towards any modern construction or post-modern architecture as well. Many of those neighborhoods that were "destroyed" by way of the City Beautiful movement were in fact crowded, smoggy, smoke-filled slums. As many know, 75% of those polled rank Classical architecture as the most beautiful style. Following this logic, if we are to make way for new monuments and redesigned cities, they need to incorporate this knowledge. Modern architects, just like those "insensitive Victorians", are just as guilty (more-so, possibly) of subjugating the desires of residents and patterns of vernacular cities and towns to the corporate executives that need vessels for their real-estate holdings, or new office blocks for workers. The CEO and board room have become the new Napoleons: dictating the lay of the land and impacting style on a scale he could only have dreamed of. Napoleon, indirectly at least, inspired untold masses with the style that eventually made its way to the forefront of a more idealistic and egalitarian America. Most of those buildings on Franklin Parkway were designed for the benefit of the public. Can we just accept that beautiful buildings, full of light and a human touch, are better than Brutalist, post-modern polygons that break our minds and fill our souls with dread?

[@elizabethdavis1696]

Please consider doing a video on crime prevention by design!

[@iMoha46]

Yeah! Start with the island of Mykonos! Really interesting stuff

[@elizabethdavis1696]

I heard that even keeping lawns mowed can reduce crime.

[@Senumunu]

This guy actually makes the argument that beauty has to be sold to you and not that there is natural demand. Bug man psychology.

[@Novusod]

Yeah definitely a "Bug Man" brain level video here. People desire beauty. It is a human need. I am a true believer in Tartaria. The world's fair is a convenient excuse do destroy our Beautiful heritage. There are many beautiful in the late 1800s that never had any world's fairs and still got demolished. Cincinnati is really good example of this. The before an afters are wild.

[@someone2987]

What does "Bug man psychology" mean?

[@EmperorSanz]

Parisian beauty does have to be sold to you. Chicago is inherently beautiful, because it eventually carved its own identity. Not because it became Paris 2.0.

[@Aubreykun]

@@someone2987 Misanthropic mentality where one has been convinced that everything would be be better if most people were to simply be cogs in a grand machine with limits and restrictions on what we can consume and demand, as well as many decisions being made for us so we aren't burdened by the stress of agency. All in the name of harmony, security, and safety.

[@jaspernewcombe7502]

There is no natural demand

[@guy_incognito]

Thanks for an excellent and informative essay! Now, if only we could find the missing civilization behind the 1967 Montreal Expo. What a world that must've been!

[@sethjones5250]

One of the Columbian exposition buildings survived. The fine arts building is now the griffin museum of science and industry. I think I read somewhere that for a while it was the home of the field museum before it's current building was constructed.

[@NewOldResearch]

I believe this guy because he has glasses, a mustache and pumped up 538k subs.

[@richardw3052]

Architecture is art and if we are forced to look at it, it should be beautiful art, or it could even be meaningful, but modern architecture is neither beautiful or meaningful. I hate to think the movement to beautify public spaces is being sidelined as something only conspiracy theorists value. Cities have planning and zoning committees, they represent the public interest, we can demand beautiful buildings in our cities.

[@Azula-nt7uc]

Some basic insight is walls can talk but technically they can’t. I live in a home that is 120 years old an spans three generations of my family. There’s a connection. It provides shelter, warm and many of memories. Another aspect is things that stand the test of time are intriguing. The sad part of the home I live in is it will probably be torn down. It’s tied up in an estate, all the buildings and homes around me get bought and torn down then replaced by cheaper OSB Board homes etc. This home is made of all boards, no plywood or OSB board. Hardwood floors and rough cut timber. Plumbers have commented on the beams and etc. Buildings are more than just a space. It’s part of our lives and they tell the story of those who come before us. Who built it, how many people it took to get the wood, stone or etc. How many hours of labour and skill.

[@righn3494]

Very cool story. I wish I could live in one of the houses my grandfather built in 2x6 rough cut lumber he milled himself still standing today.

[@Sam_T2000]

public, government-funded buildings should only be designed and built in such a way that the people will treasure it, and to demolish it would be unthinkable. the most sustainable building is one that people want to keep around.

[@EtruskenRaider]

A thing to remember about Daniel Burnham and Chicago was that he was doing this in 1893, just 20 years after much of the city was reduced to cinders in the Great Chicago Fire. The Exposition and subsequent Burnham Plan tapped into a civic ideal of rising from the ashes. A final note on the Tartarians is the contempt for Modernism, but what Modernism does when it’s at its best (such as in Mies Van Der Rohe’s Federal Plaza) is to restore the sense of human scale. When you’re actually there, the open glass facades and austere interiors, draw your attention to the people walking, working, and gathering in those spaces. Quite a remarkable feat for a 40 story skyscraper.

[@jeffreyfaudi4999]

So even though they lost millions on each expo they continued doing this all over the world ? Yeah right !

[@christopherstephenjenksbsg4944]

Thanks, Stewart. This was excellent! Another, slightly more recent example these Tartarian-types might want to look at is Bernard Maybeck's Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco. It was built in 1915 for the Panama-Pacific International Exhibition out of plaster and wood, like the Chicago Exhibition, but the architecture was so grand and popular that it was retained after the Exhibition closed. Of course it deteriorated over the decades. There are numerous photos of it in its later years where you can see plaster elements have fallen off, and the underlyting wood framework and wire lathe are clearly visible. It was eventually demolished and replaced with a concrete replica in the late 60s. The old photos show that it was really just an outdoor stage set, but it is magnificent, and it is set in a beautiful park. Your story about Franklin Boulevard in Philadelphia reminds me that the kind of sweeping, monumental changes made by these sorts of city planners lasted a very long time. When I was a little kid, Lincoln Center in NYC was being built. It replaced a neighborhood called San Juan Hill, which was a typical working-class neighborhood. By the 1940s it was considered "blighted." All the property was taken by eminent domain and Lincoln Center went up in its place. Even though it was built in a modernist manner, the buildings obviously owe a debt to the kind of architecture that Baron Hausman and Daniel Burnham built decades before. In addition, Lincoln Center was almost completely shut off from the city around it, and on its back side, it was like a fortress, with no visible access to the plaza level or any of the music and theater facilities, with the exception of an entrance to a public library branch. Efforts have been made since to connect it more effectively with the neighborhood, but it's still an alien and rather hostile presence.

[@threeriversforge1997]

I think what drives the fundamental desire for Tataria is this sense people have that nice things are possible... but have been stripped from us as a people. As a blacksmith, I hear this same refrain in all the craftsman circles I travel, and studying the history of the Traditional Trades makes it rather plain that we've unwittingly shot ourselves in the foot. People don't consider the 2nd and 3rd Order Effects of things they support. When I buy a steel bar to forge into something nice, I'm having to pay a percentage of everything that went into making that steel bar. This includes all the wages and taxes and compliance costs placed on everyone along the manufacturing chain. And when I go to sell the finished product, a part of my cost to the customer is all those intangible things that went into the production - like the cost of the electricity to light my smithy. In other words, when the cost of labor goes up, the cost of a can of beans will increase, too. It's not that the grocer is some big meanie, but that every single employee along the way had to get a pay raise because the government mandated it and the voters supported it. The farmers, drivers, mechanics, miners, packers.... just think about how many people do jobs that make it possible for you to have a can of beans on the store shelf. That's a lot of employees necessary, and if there's a federal "minimum wage" law imposed on the small businesses, they have to get that money from somewhere. Now add in the cost of lighting, fuel, and a hundred other little things. Buildings are no different. We love the details of those old buildings, but don't appreciate that the only reason why a Victorian home was possible, was because those details were economical. Fine carvings and fluted cornice molding might seem wonderful, but they also took time and materials to make. The wood had to be processed. The carpenters had to spent hours working with hand tools. Time is money. You don't get that delightful gingerbread detailing on your home without paying people to do it, and if those people must be paid $10/hr..... how many hours are you really going to want to invest in a porch railing? You might want it to be ornate and such, but are you going to pay for it? The decline in craftsmanship is inverse to the incline of costs. If you want a lower price, you are going to have to get a lower level of design. Straight lines and square corners, mass-produced chintz, homogeneity. You get the walmarts because you wanted to save a penny or two, not the quaint mom-n-pop shops that once employed millions and made our communities special.

[@JayCWhiteCloud]

Well stated...a fellow "maker" here...and I battle this desire for "speed and greed" all the time in architecture that I design and fabricate. My work will last millenia, just as or forbears did with their craft and I'm proud to rest upon their ever present wisdom. "Old buildings"...even the crappy ones...still out last and preform modern architecture by a significant margin...

[@neatnateable]

I like your approach of considering all of the people and costs that go into making something. Add to that the parasitic taxers, and you’ve got a major recipe for loss of quality.

[@threeriversforge1997]

@@JayCWhiteCloud Thank you! Isn't it a weird thing how people will come up with all these strange ideas to explain why these old buildings disappeared rather than simply look at the historical facts? The folks from Lotus Eaters channel did a great video on the "fathers" of modern architecture - kzbin.info/www/bejne/jnnShHp6Z8xgY9k While we might want to believe that one person couldn't have done all this, we have to remember that it was that "father of" plus the laws and regulations. His ideas would never have taken hold, I don't believe, if they weren't fortified in the customer's minds by thoughts of speed and cost. Straight lines and bare walls will always be faster and more economical than some Elizabethan wonder. Even if we wanted to, as 'makers', how can we convince a customer to go with our timeless designs when they are double or triple the cost due to have wonderfully made they are? Yeah, they'll last forever..... but how many times have we heard a customer say, "This'll be 'good enough'!"

[@threeriversforge1997]

@@neatnateable Thank you for your kind words. I think most people don't consider it because they haven't tried to run a small business. That's an odd thing, too, because just keeping up a home is the same thing. You have to worry about costs all day long. The light bill has to be paid, whether it's in a shop or a dining room. People understand this, but they don't put two and two together when they're supporting some new law or tax. When I forge a decorative wall hook in the smithy, I have to account for how many I can make in an hour. If I can only make one hook per hour because it's very fancy, that one hook has to be priced such that it covers every single expense that comes with having the shop open for an hour. How many people even think about how my rent must be factored into the cost of what I make? The landlord is a great guy and gives me a great deal, but he still has to be paid every month. Even if, by some miracle, customers understand that I've gotta make the rent, how many understand that one of the reason's the rent is so high is because the property taxes are constantly going up due to immigration into this county/state, and that drives up the cost of land as demand increases? Most people have been trained to think they're "sticking it to the Man" when they vote for things that "force" businesses to do something, and never think that the small businesses have to comply with the same laws yet have no money to do comply with. That's why folks happily voted for the policies and regulations that turned the Rust Belt into the Rust Belt, never thinking that they were voting for the things that would destroy the beautiful world they were living in.

[@neatnateable]

@@threeriversforge1997 I would love to work for/with someone like you. :)

[@jamesjurgensen6332]

This is the worst research ive seen done by a youtuber and thays saying something

[@michaelimbesi2314]

8:37 That is not a majestic boulevard. That is a car sewer that only Le Corbusier and General Motors could love.

[@sinisterdesign]

Facts.

[@EmperorSanz]

I don’t think you know what boulevard is….

[@HeadsFullOfEyeballs]

@@EmperorSanz Well, if we want to be pedantic then that street definitely isn't a boulevard, and in fact there may be no boulevards in all of North America. A boulevard is a street that runs along a current or former city wall (and is thus typically a ring-road). US cities aren't exactly famous for their Medieval fortifications. But in America the term got broadened to mean any sort of wide city road because it sounds fancy.

[@vestaarcadia]

A society in decline cannot differentiate incompetence and conspiracy.

[@neatnateable]

That’s an interesting thought, but a generalized “society” is not something that exists. Every person can think for themselves no matter the circumstances.

[@claudermiller]

Actually, the Griffin Museum of Science and Industry is a surviving structure of the exposition.

[@righn3494]

the griffin is on many old world buildings. Is that the symbol on the Tartary flag depicted on ancient maps?

[@Krn0530]

I have trouble with the claims that the Paris boulevards were made to make the city more defendable. I have never been able to find a reliable primary source that proves that Paris’s boulevards were made to quell rebellion. I found a lot of more contemporary sources with strong biases claiming that, but never any tracing back to the time of its design. For a project as well documented as the planning of Paris that’s kind of odd. There’s also the fact that widening the boulevards would be disadvantageous for the French military. As proven by the Paris commune in 1871 the boulevards could easily be blockaded by a small rebel force. More over the French armies tactic during that revolt was to use the narrower streets and avoid the boulevards, so it seems like French defense doctrine hadn’t changed since the construction of the boulevard which adds credence to it not being an intended feature. There’s also the fact that being completely out in the open in a boulevard would be just as disadvantageous to an army as it would be to a rebel force. And lastly it’s fair to say that the redevelopment displaced people, but it doesn’t mean that those who were displaced were made homeless. The plan created temporary accommodations for those who were dishoused and they were given a new home in the city after the construction was completed. In fact the housing stock in Paris actually drastically outpaced its population after the plan was completed and sensus from the time show that there was no sizable loss in the lower income population of Paris. Somehow the plan managed to not even gentrify, which is more than we can say about even the most conscious urban planning today. So in reality the plan was unanimously positive and increased the quality of life in the city. I think it’s a great plan to look back towards and there is a reason that it was successful. Just like any other precedent though it’s important to understand why it worked which unfortunately for us in Philly didn’t happen.

[@spiritualanarchist8162]

First the U.S destroyed most of it's own 18/19th century & art-deco/art nouveaux architecture . And now it visits Europe to watch old buildings (that were often re-build after WW2) and invents the mythical Tartaria.

[@peanut422hb]

Maybe🤔 they create the conspiracy and control the narrative and then shoot it down. But the fact that they destroyed marble buildings

[@jonathanstensberg]

Guys, there are whole YT channels dedicated to revealing the “Old World” buildings in American cities, where the old world refers to previous civilizations with modern design and construction technologies. The thinking is that, since people before circa mid-1900s couldn’t possibly build grand buildings like, say, the old St Louis Courthouse or the Cologne Cathedral, they must have been leftover from a previous civilization and discovered when our civilization moved in. In this telling, the world wars and depression are an Orwellian rewrite of history to explain the collapsed ruins that had to be bulldozed away to erect our cities around these still-standing old world structures. It’s really quite the conspiracy theory!

[@Crosbie85]

It’s true

[@cutkeybrucejr1]

It literally has to be true considering the population and the timeline of some of these places where these grand buildings were “built”. Your not building a cathedral with a town population of 1000 people and horse and buggy in 1 years time it simply makes no sense

[@dbhstockton]

@@cutkeybrucejr1look up the populations of those towns in Europe that built those massive cathedrals in the 13th century

[@erikvanconover]

Tartaria was labeled on many old world maps (you can see these maps very clearly on the library of congress archives online). While it was not some "cover up" the true reason for embedding sacred geometric symbols, principals and proportions into our buildings of the past runs much, much deeper than "pretty ornamentation" as you say and aligns with the astrological ages of man, the law of one and the many cycles of the rising and the falling of the collective consciousness.

[@righn3494]

look for the sphinx on buildings across the world.

[@righn3494]

um ... Griffin I mean to say.

[@dbhstockton]

Tartaria was the label they used for the vast expanses where the nomadic people they referred to as “Tartars” lived. Consider Occam’s Razor.

[@kev3d]

I often think about this when watching pre-CGI epics like Cleopatra and Ben Hur. Some of the sets spanned acres and were meticulously painted and dressed, yet very few survive. Even the props, which were very numerous and much easier to preserve, are quite rare. I understand that storage costs money but I still find it very sad that there isn't more attention paid to preserving beautiful things from the past.

[@hupprechtchristego3092]

Hollywood doesn't even adequately finance the preservation of their old films deteriorating on silver-nitrate stock. All those billions earned by blockbusters but not enough to preserve the past.

[@philpaine3068]

It's worth the effort to get details right. The correct name of the school in Paris is: École des Beaux-Arts [Beaux, not Baux]

[@RobertBooker-xi8cc]

The correct name of the school in Paris is "Ecole des Beaux-Arts" (the hyphen is sometimes missing).

[@liamastill6733]

I find it weird that you failed to mention that several hundred times more architecture was demolished by the advent of roads and the car, turning much of the USA into nightmare asphalt dystopias. Ignoring cities that were almost entirely erased like Houston and Detroit is pretty disingenuous.

[@dakel20]

A couple of the Columbian Exposition buildings are still standing! The Field Museum and the Museum of Science and Industry were both built for it. :D

[@swooooop]

And this video says none of them exist today . I left the same comment thanks

[@yeetman4953]

@@swoooooptimestamp?

[@yeetman4953]

ok and?

[@jake1776]

Who cares that these were temporary. We all know most of the world’s most beautiful buildings were replaced by cinder block nasty ghetto buildings or parking lots.

[@calebmahoney2448]

Because they weren’t temporary. The material were sold off. Buildings were sold off. Some buildings even stand to this day.

[@McAlexton]

The final conclusive words in the video stand out to me as regurgitated nonsense; it matters not the intent behind the Parisian architecture, nor the creator being a tyrant or not. To call it ‘imposed’ is likewise foolish, as the only manner in which it could be imposed is in the same way that one might view us imposed to eternally breathe air. One must learn to distinguish the artist from the art, otherwise all they will meet is the thief of joy.

[@WinstonBleubon]

I think a hard pill for modern architects to swallow is that modern architecture is boring most of the time it doesn’t bring joy or excitement that old forms of architecture brings. I think it’s a bit disingenuous to insinuate paris is bad because it’s wide boulevards make for easy military or having uniform architecture is bad like when send boulevards provide natural light greenery easier form of transportation (which is what a lot of cities need now more the ever), uniform architecture can be really beautiful especially when said architecture is beautiful.

[@williamdunklin]

Thank you. 100% Agree. I usually like Stuart's topics, but this attack on the City Beautiful movement feels like a complete departure in tone and substance.

[@mr67927]

I for one can agree that this concept of modern architecture is absolutely ridiculous. It lacks so much character.

[@Aubreykun]

We WERE going towards some beautiful stuff. There were obvious eyesores that got approved like The Blob (Selfridges Building in Birmingham) but overall there was this idea of trying to make things cool and futuristic up until the mid-2000s or so, with examples that still exist despite many being torn down already. But that fell out of favor in place of intentionally-bland boxes made in the interest of reducing risk. A few places have interesting stuff but visionary architects just aren't given as much of a shot anymore. For example, there's some buildings in bolivia put up within the last decade that look amazing, but I don't believe the guy who designed them (Freddy Mamani) has been take up for much outside his local area.

[@WinstonBleubon]

@@williamdunklincity beautiful movement of the late 19th to early 20th century was about giving people living in cities access to modern amenities and green space and comparing it to the “city planning” of the 1950s and onwards that prioritized suburbs and that destroyed historic downtowns of cities to make space for automobiles is just crazy these two are completely opposite of each other the only thing they have in common is that they are a form of city planning. One was to help people in the city, the other one was to kick people out of the city.

[@suppositionstudios]

Agreed, Vienna is pretty uniform in style generally, but the style is so ornate and beautiful that the city is a treat to wander around.

[@GoErikTheRed]

Let’s not forget that a lot of American cities were essentially bulldozed to accommodate cars. Road has to get wider, so all the impressive brick buildings have to get torn down

[@virginiacreager4331]

Just because you don’t agree with Napoleon’s politics doesn’t mean Paris’s buildings aren’t beautiful… ~have you ever been there?!

[@dougrobinson6683]

The plaster facades are exactly what they did at the World's Fair in Seattle, too. The University of Washington campus looked so amazing with them that they tried to preserve the facades as along as possible, but they eventually had to be demolished.

[@jaxman1362]

This whole Tartarian conspiracy theory just boggles the mind with the whole ancient globe-spanning civilization stuff and I just don't get what it has to do with historic preservation of these City Beautiful buildings. It's like they've never heard of the neoclassical architecture movement in vogue at the time! It's certainly an interesting footnote to the story of these beautiful forgotten buildings but I feel like the pseudohistory detracts from the story as a whole. I definitely think this was a well-produced, fascinating, and informative video, but in my opinion the pseudohistory mentioned in the start leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

[@ARBITRAGEandTIME]

Average Joe isn't aware of all the different architectural periods that have occurred.

[@eyespymenu]

All you have to do is ask how the buildings were built with horses and wagons. No one has an answer. Especially the issue was not addressed in the subject video.

[@righn3494]

@@eyespymenu lets ask chatgpt ?

[@neatnateable]

This is because the author of the video paints the Tartarian theory with a very large brush and doesn’t really approach the topic with some of the nuances it deserves.

[@jansenart0]

The reason behind the loss of grand architecture is the lowering of the top marginal corporate tax rate. Without the pressure to find something to do with all their earnings, lest Uncle Sam take 95% of it, businesses no longer have an incentive to show off their wealth through the hiring of tradesmen and architects. We live in the era of the MVP: the minimum viable product. Corporations need not spend away their punitively-taxable liquidity in the manufacture of beautiful buildings when monolithic glass dicks built by migrant labor are cheaper and there is no taxation anymore. Raise taxes on corporations, FORCE them to reinvest their capital instead of hoarding it or giving it away to billionaires (who also need a top marginal tax increase), and you will INSTANTLY see corporations restart conspicuous consumption in the name of the Tax Write-Off, which in itself is an artform that is long passed (you don't need to lower your tax bracket when you're not being taxed at the upper brackets.) We still might not be able to afford homes for awhile after that, but at least things will LOOK better from our tents.

[@theotherohlourdespadua1131]

You really want to make sure the Paris before 1789 is a physical reality...

[@Cntr-Cmd-Delete]

You have a point but it has more to do with weaker governments than corporate taxes. European nations tax everyone more and they invest it into infrastructure along with strong regulations to ensure the building is there to last and meet the style. Americans have delegated that responsibility to the elite and they essentially decide what the city looks like not the government (people).

[@tann_man]

@@theotherohlourdespadua1131 Paris was much better pre-revolution. yes.

[@Aubreykun]

There is not that much liquidity in corporations, so that take misses the mark by a wide margin. What there is, is an extreme tendency to avoid risk coupled with a lack of a sense of trust, unity, and loyalty to the groups of people who make up these companies - fueled by (again) risk-avoidance. But specifically, risk-avoidance in the manner of trying to beat the peter principle via the practice of hiring to fill middle/upper vacancies rather than promoting people from within and continuing to hire at the lower rungs. The rampant job-hopping means the entire structure is full of interpersonal holes and people don't really care if the company lives or not or how the products or services are. It just results in: Why would you build a monument (beautiful architecture) to something you don't care about?

[@jansenart0]

God, would you look at all the anti-tax bots i riled up.

[@Shahrdad]

You saw the same kind of movement in Europe as well, but decades earlier than in the US. For example, Mainz in Germany still has a Medieval feeling (although it was 80% destroyed in WWII) whereas Wiesbaden across the river has a much more Beaux Arts or "City Beautiful" feel to it. Mainz was an important city for centuries while Wiesbaden was just a village which didn't start growing till the early 1800s. Vienna also replaced a lot of its medieval city with much more elaborate Beaux Arts architecture.

[@deanjacobs1766]

I read Erik Larson’s The Devil in the White City. A true account of The building of the Colombian Exposition of 1893, and one of our countries’ most despicable and prolific serial killers, and the architects, architecture and the men and women who worked in and on the exposition. The exposition was SUPPOSED to be temporary. George Westinghouse and Nicola Tesla powered and lit the entire exposition using AC electricity thus wining battle of the currents sparing us from the disaster of Edison’s DC power. The level of ingenuity at this exposition was amazing. The book is mainly about the killer Dr H H Holmes but his killing spree takes place up the street and at the same time as the exposition ,a great read.

[@k8g8s8]

It's so weird cause they are just looking at neo classical buildings like... Roman and Greek inspired things that are indeed empires that affected the whole world.

[@tann_man]

and western european culture which has dominated by hundreds of years now. Although one can argue post-war it has declined in power, and architectural prowess.

[@five-toedslothbear4051]

I know that building the expressways and the University of Illinois both destroyed some neighborhoods, but something I think unique to Chicago was how we built out the lakefront. We filled the lake to make land. The video shows Michigan Avenue being widened, but downtown, it was once on the shoreline. Streeterville and Grant Park...used to be lake. The sites of the Art Institute, Buckingham Fountain, the Field Museum, and the Adler Planetarium, that used to be water. Remember, the Illinois Central couldn't get land to come into Chicago, so they built the tracks out on the lake. Thanks for a great video.

[@noone1929]

Many of those big fair buildings were not made of stone, but plaster and wood only meant to stand for the duration of the fair. In the Omaha at a museum I was surprised to learn Omaha had a pretty big fair of its own in 1898 the Trans-Mississippi and International Exposition. Some buildings were reused once, but afterwards it was torn down because it wasn’t meant to last.

[@antiGAE1776]

I am a Nebraskan and never knew this. Thanks for the information.

[@calebmahoney2448]

Some of the buildings were literally sold and transported and are still standing. Some still stand in their original locations. I’m not saying it was a conspiracy but the explanation of chicken wire and plaster doesn’t hold up. Where did they get that amount of plaster back then? How did they transport that much of it in a 2 year timeframe and manage to build the structures.

[@oColt45o]

Plaster melts in the rain....

[@oColt45o]

You're telling me it didin't rain for months in Chicago? That's nonsense.

[@joecesa1013]

Great, this was so interesting. Griwung up in Philly I just knew there was more to building the BF Parkway than "just do it", which is/was the norm. I always got stuck on the whys that never got answered. Thanks.

[@mattwales2734]

I don't think the style of architecture matters as much as the rarity of public spaces now days. Dallas has Fair Park with an esplanade featuring several buildings in Art Deco/ Art Moderne. You could have a public space done in Brutalism and it would work... almost.

[@tann_man]

public spaces suffer from the tragedy of the commons. Private spaces are MUCH better.

[@Jack93885]

I think the style of architecture certainly does matter; like Milton Keynes, for example

[@C.Petsos]

@@tann_man troll harder

[@tann_man]

@@C.Petsos I'm not trolling.

[@TimSlee1]

Brutalist public spaces mostly end up as crime-ridden holes

[@EtoinShrdlu]

City Beautiful is a hell of a lot better than what we have now. Just replace the plaster with stone.

[@lansonfloyd4687]

The biggest thing that does not line up with the official narrative is the population vs. these buildings. Take late 1800's Kansas City, just as an example. Some of the buildings are insanely detailed, granite and other stone. All while the population is recorded in the thousands. Another oddity are "construction" pictures. Where's the debris?? The whole thing doesn't add up, I lived in Vegas for a time where the place is always under heavy construction somewhere on the strip. Last one for me is the in-road rail where horses are pulling trolleys. If you haven't seen it, there's original film redone in 4k these days and you'll see what I'm talking about. Where's the machines that would be able to lift 12ft by 4ft granite blocks? So many interesting inconsistencies.

[@righn3494]

There was a large population jump out of nowhere. there were very little people around at that time . These buildings were all built around the same time , often in one to two years, but with a very finite number of skilled labor. all built beside roads made of mud. Impressive!

[@JoeSevy]

The current "Tartaria" attention, whether intentional or not, covers up the very real fact that, yes, people in the late 18th and early 19th century built quite amazing architecture pretty much up until the debasement of the money supply. The very fact that cheap structures, made with all the latest amenities such as running water, buried sewers and electricity is sufficient to explain most of the change, while regrading cities to retrofit sewers explains most of the semi-buried buildings. In at least one photo of a torn up sidewalk revealing the buried building below, a sewer pipe crossing the gap between the original building and the filled in area demonstrates exactly what happened. They needed to fill the area to install buried sewers and it was more cost effective to retrofit a new entrance than to either raise the building or tear it down for a new one.

[@JSpradley123]

People obsessed with neoclassical aesthetics, stark white marble buildings and statues always conveniently overlook that just about everything in Ancient Greece was painted in bright garish colors.

[@szurketaltos2693]

I'm not sure how garish they were. We can identify the pigments used, but a lot of info on tints and shades are lost to us.

[@WhirlpoolFarmer]

This was a helpful video. It answered a lot of questions that had been bugging me. Thank you.

[@Zenas521]

The same thing happened in San Francisco when they had the fair. They built one building to last, The Palace of Fine Arts, and everything else was built out of plaster, wood, and chicken wire. When the fair was done, the fake buildings were torn down. If your really want a beautiful city, you need to maintain cultural connection, otherwise your just re-imagining Disneyland.

[@nlpnt]

Ironically, Disneyland was built to last (being intended as a *permanent* attraction) by people with experience building movie sets, no less. Some of it more than others - the demolition of the Monsanto House of Tomorrow is a story in itself, the wrecking ball bounced off it!

[@Feynman981]

I'd rather live in Disneyland than in a dystopian, cold, grey concrete hell.

[@szurketaltos2693]

Palace of fine arts did not in fact last. The current building is a recreation. Compare to the St. Louis world's fair, the St. Louis art museum did last as well as a couple other buildings.

[@Zenas521]

​@@szurketaltos2693 I stand corrected. Thank you. It appears that Walter S. Johnson gift of $2 million helped turn it into a permanent structure.

[@Zenas521]

​@@Feynman981 Disneyland is a description of all that is fake. The land of lies and hollow optimism.

[@MiamiMorslav]

On Chicago, you mentioned that none of the worlds fair buildings exist today when in fact a few do. The one Im sure of is the “palace of fine arts”. Studying this particular building is a big part of where the hidden/demolished old world Chicago/Chilaga ideas are substantiated. It still stands today, massive and beautiful with solid columns and ornate trimmings. If even a small portion, say 10%, of the buildings built for a temporary exhibition were built in the fashion of this structure then the construction timeline given the construction technology supposedly available at that time just does not compute. So then refer back to the photos, it seems that every building in the fair was of identical construction to the palace. Even if you were to allow the belief that it was temporary plaster to be demolished after the fair, you dont just find artisan masons or even art sculptors of that caliber standing around on street corners in those kind of numbers. The narrative is suspect. Dont get me wrong, the “Tartarian” narrative is suspect too. A few inconsistencies in the mainstream historical narrative proven by architecture pointed out and all of a sudden there’s thousands of people who believe we’ve devolved, that life was absolutely perfect in the 1700s because the buildings prove it. I think the truth is hiding in the old story of the birth of liberalism and the fact that alongside that general era, you see the end of outright slavery which was commonplace for 100s if not thousands of years. A caste system. In order to build and maintain structures like that, you need a system of heirarchy that, while it creates beautiful buildings, also creates a collective consciousness that wants something better for everyone, not just the ruling king and priest classes. So in the process of throwing out the old ways, the baby was thrown out with the bath water so to speak.

[@righn3494]

They renovated the palace in the 90's to facilitated an underground parking lot 3 levels down beneath the front lawn.. so weird.

[@MiamiMorslav]

@@righn3494that’s wild. Definitely something to that, unless the first two levels beneath the ground are also being used for something else, why put it 3 levels down unless all of the underground structure was already there... Have you ever seen the parking lot?

[@righn3494]

@@MiamiMorslav I have not but it would be a good way to cover up what must have been down there.

[@Naturally-Fragrant]

The 'Tartarian empire' might only have been spray painted wood and plaster exhibition halls; but with modern materials, moulding, forming, and 3D printing, why can't we achieve more than the flat warship-grey cladding found on so many city buildings?

[@szurketaltos2693]

We certainly can and often do build non-modern themed buildings (see for example McMansions). However, it seems that builders do not have incentives to build more authentic older style homes for many reasons, such as demand for greater space per person, more bathrooms, open concepts, and of course zoning and safety codes that make for example "missing middle" traditional flats or elaborate cornices infeasible.

[@Aubreykun]

@@szurketaltos2693 And that occurs because of people seeing homes as investments rather than places to settle (in the frontiersman sense of the word, not the "particles in a glass of water" sense). The concept of a legacy has become life insurance and a numerical assets in a will.

[@scrisytro]

Face it we're getting poor.

[@Aubreykun]

@@szurketaltos2693 Because your average homebuyer is not planning to pass the home down to his/her kids, but hoping it appreciated by retirement to get a fat stack. It's all about the hot potato.

[@kennj321]

Commercial space economics has changed a lot in the last 150yrs. back then your building location really mattered and they was really really high land value in really concentrated space. At those locations so it was worth alot to put an eyecatching building there. But today with commercial space so spread out probably due to automobiles its not worth a lot economically to make buildings that are really expensive to build and maintain. there is also a problem that these traditionally beautiful buildings don't scale well into the really big buildings we have today.

[@tann_man]

adding a bike lane alone to a shop has been shown to increase revenue by 20-100%. Car dependent shops do far worse than pedestrianized shops. Foot traffic is far more important than cars flying through the road your shop happens to be on.

[@povisykt]

Thank you so much for your work, your videos are very educational.

[@MyDarkmarc]

My favorite quotation from my favorite Architecture critic was Ada Louise Huxtable. She said, "Any city gets what it admires, will pay for, and, ultimately, deserves... And we will probably be judged not by the monuments we build but by those we have destroyed."

[@pietervoogt]

This video is full of jealousy. Modernists have always tried to make an ideal city and failed. But now it is suddenly classical architects who 'fool people into believing the theme park could become real'. While of course it could become real, there are real cities as beautiful as theme parks. Ever walked through Prague? Also modernists have always been accused of destroying local charm, in this video the classicists are accused of the same and connected to tyranny. This is a dirty move. This is just a cheap revenge video. Also the idea of timeless beauty is rejected by warning: it could just be plaster. But the truth is of course, that some shapes have a timeless power to move us, made of plaster or not. And the timeless shapes are not modernist shapes (repetitive grids) but rounded forms and ornament. I understand, it is incredible painful that people feel more love for a plaster building from 140 years ago than the 'honest' Van der Rohe skyscraper that you like. But just take your loss instead of inventing convoluted arguments against beauty.

[@ArchitectureUprisingIndia]

Go to the website - "The Aesthetic City" or search on Google - 'The Architecture Uprising'

[@rasmusjp]

What a curious, flailing diatribe. The video is stating simple historical facts. The Haussmann regularisation did in fact have a sweeping political aim, including the aspects mentioned in the video. The Beaux-Art school of architectural thought was revisionist. These are widely accepted facts and not in question. And the world fair did in fact consist of fake facades and mass produced decorations to sell people the story of a grand and noble city. Architectural history is full of similarly grand notions, and late 19th century neoclassicism is not alone in trying to peddle a throughly untenable vision. There are loads of equally guilty isms and schools of thought. It is one of the more pernicious, however. Especially because people who buy in to it wholesale tend to think all we need from architecture are fluted colonnades, volutes and grandiose avenues. It’s more complicated than that. Immensely so. Any first year student can draw a Greek temple, but ask them to arrange a proper door schedule or provide adequate space for plumbing or door swings, and they come up short. Architecture is hard, and not a matter of Instagram worthy marble fantasies.

[@justmoritz]

I think the point I took is more that master-planning a city is bad no matter what the style is.

[@dianapennepacker6854]

Hogwash. I would take a modern city with all of its infrastructure over some piece of stone vanity any day of the week. More people live in cities today than ever. WTF do you mean modernist cannot build a city? That is the eye of the beholder. I think two things some of you suffer from is one. You don't appreciate modern structures, and the constraints ancient structures have. You see a glass skyscraper, and are not impressed, because it is so ubiquitous. Secondly, you fail to see the survivorship bias at play. Only the high quality buildings were kept, and maintained. Over generations those buildings added up, with the average or poorer ones torn down. Over generations it turned into the cities we love today. Rome and Prague were not made in a single day. Some of those land marks were centuries apart. Oh did I mention many stone quarries would be depleted if we went back to building everything with classical architecture. It is a non renewable resource. It costs a hell of a lot more to mine, and transport it these days with so many cities having already depleted the local stone in some.

[@pietervoogt]

@@rasmusjp You are completely missing the point. Of course there are big flaws in Haussmannian destruction, ideology, of course there are lazy copies of old buildings and they can be unpractical or leaky or whatever. The real point is that the majority of the population can quickly develop an emotional connection to classical styles (also to not so classical styles as art nouveau or art deco) a connection which after 100 years they still have not developed for modern styles. So you can throw a thousand good, valid arguments against classical architecture and 19th century city design on a pile and it still doesn't change the fact that we feel good when we walk though a city from before 1940 and we feel bad when we walk through a city from after 1940. All the effort that goes in making these videos could have gone in research in what people actually like, but modern architects just don't care. They present themselves as empathic sociologists, concerned about poverty and segregation, but actually they think they know better than the people and try to smuggle in their repressive dogmas together with their empathy.

[@judegabbard2081]

I think it's incomprehensible to people that an entire city would be built and then just dismantled, but people forget San Francisco, Los Angeles, Portland, New York have remnants of these events.

[@Orthodoge]

So we just have to accept parking lots, strip malls, stick frame houses, monolithic glass box skyscrapers

[@Senumunu]

No. Those are for bug men. We will only accept greatness.

[@georgecisneros5281]

🐝🐜

[@forslavjo]

I've been super interested in the whole Tartarian theory for a long time now. It does bring A LOT of questions to the table, but your analysis is level headed and well put. I still like to think that America was covered with giants and incredible cities. It makes our history much more interesting if you ask me, whether it be true or not.

[@angrymobsneedattention9712]

I'd think it might be a good idea to do more things like this, a way to show another kind of architecture, also a great video once again

[@seanp8220]

They are finding that buildings weren't made of wood during great fires and that stadiums weren't built in the years timeframe provided. When one actually looks at what we are being told it sort of debunks itself.

[@drgyt2469]

Sometimes your ideological social lens distorts the essence...

[@worldisbetter]

this feels like the word soup version of the “rule of cool.” please elaborate, i can’t tell if this is a reference or something

[@drgyt2469]

@@worldisbetter The beauty of the "haussmannian" architecture in Paris does not depend on the fact that Napoleon could send his troups down the large boulevards to combat a potential local uprising. It is beside the point but, he could have done the same if the buildings were ugly.

[@worldisbetter]

@@drgyt2469 well said, thanks for elaborating

[@franciscodanconia4324]

@@drgyt2469and actually bland oppressive buildings lining the boulevards would be more in keeping with someone wanting to keep the people subdued (look at Soviet architecture). Inspiring beautiful buildings instill pride in the city residents.

[@elelaluz4921]

What the "tartarian theory" taps into is our yearn for the revival of our intrinsic human ability to craft meaning into our environment. An intrinsic human ability that has developed separately in all traditional societies but somehow shares a certain timeless quality which reveals a deep profound understanding of the branch of mathematics known as fractal physics.