The Horror Story of Modernism

[@willsmath]

absolute banger, it's obvious to everyone that most newly built places are either ugly or just bland, but you did a great job explaining why it's important for the spaces we occupy to be beautiful

[@badabingpixtures3675]

Finally a content creator who "gets it"! I've been ranting about the ugliness of the "modernization" of everything (homes, architecture, restaurants, etc). Everything is cheap, mass-produced indistinguishable junk. Look at the NFL stadiums too -- all soulless "pick me" reiterations of the latest monstrosity with zero charm.

[@felixthecat2786]

@@badabingpixtures3675 A lot of us get it, but our voices are drowned out. I've been complaining about this for 15 years now and I'm finally starting to see people speak up about this publicly.

[@alexsmith-ob3lu]

Funny how architects, designers and interior designers who create such hated ugliness have lame excuses for such sloppy work. Meanwhile, in any other profession, you’d get fired for doing a sloppy job.

[@GPUtest]

The message has been presented perfectly. Masterpiece of a video 👍

[@masescranton9630]

Like Vincent Scully said regarding Pennsylvania Stations destruction in New York, “ one used to come into New York like a God. Now one scampers in like a rat. “ . I believe I quoted the right man.

[@themarvelousemafia4457]

The more I watch this channel the more I really like it, fine work as always!

[@uriustosh]

It's not a conspiracy. Modern architecture and design is just bad. Has been for almost a century, since at least the 1950s. Now we just wallow in this eternal reinvention of nothingness, the endless modern, minimal push that takes away all joy and provides sterility.

[@JCNL871]

Great video, especially the part about “beauty being only something that’s reserved for those at the top”. That really hit me 😅

[@joaobaptista2475]

What a great video as usual! Your storytelling is great and hope more people find your channel. Preferably future architects.

[@douglasharley2440]

excellent analysis, and while i mostly agree, a powerful counterargument remains: look at how much more prosperous and comfortable _all_ of humanity is nowadays, thanks to modernity. it's true our streets looks like shit, with the same old fast food restaurants everywhere...but nobody is starving (i remember when i was a child in the early 70s there were people in this country starving to death), and only crazy people and addicts are homeless (again, i remember wandering "gypsy" caravans of families in the early 70s), and there are actually garbage cans on the streets with people that come around and empty them (you wouldn't believe how much garbage people used to just throw tf on the ground, everywhere). simplicity and mass-production does improve life for the common man. we just need to be very rationally conscious about the messages that we are sending when we can afford to send messages. for example, that idiotic fountain...not only does it alienate itself from humanity by mocking us, it also fails to perform the most basic function of a fountain, to provide a comfortable place to rest and dip one's feet into cool refreshing water.

[@Nostalg1a]

Modernity of industry has nothing to do with aesthetics. If so, then we wouldn’t have had neo gothic high rises before miesian high rises and modernist buildings would have been hyper efficient, but as we know, they weren’t. It’s a fallacious thinking very much invented by modernists to support their meta narrative of historical determinism.

[@UntamedBrutality985]

Are we really better off? Are we really more prosperous and comfortable? Our comfort has so far shown us one thing: a serious amount of people in the western world feel lost, confused, deeply unhappy and without direction. If that's the price we pay for living in 'comfort', I would much rather pass

[@douglasharley2440]

@UntamedBrutality985 lol, you sound like someone who has never had polio!

[@JdeC1994]

"i remember when i was a child in the early 70s there were people in this country starving to death" HUH?! Where?🧐 I've never heard/read of a single American starving to death in the 1970s (or any other decade after the 1930s). Even in the 1930s, despite all the hardship and hunger, did any Americans actually starve to death? Let's see you corroborate your claim.

[@douglasharley2440]

@@JdeC1994 you are correct, apparently starvation in the usa was eliminated in the 1970s, with the food stamps program, and other public welfare programs. yay for taxes! lol, i guess that was just something our parents told us to eat all the food on our plates? that _mea culpa_ aside, i absolutely do remember, personally, all the other stuff i mentioned. once when i was like 4 a bunch of homeless families stopped in the park down the road (corner of edgebrook and grand river ave., lansing, mi) in tents and camping trailers, and the neighborhood had a meeting and told them they had to leave, and they did the next day (i think?). i also remember mad amounts of garbage everywhere, and people used to smoke everywhere, including the grocery store (and airplanes!) and they would just throw their garbage on the ground, and almost all floors inside would be covered with butts. 🤣

[@HighFlyingOwlOfMinerva]

Great video! Though I do think you should show people it's not all doom and gloom, as there are luckily things that are changing. Now, more and more schools are offering _classical_ architecture studies, and also new, beautiful projects are either already finished or underway which will be infinitely better than what was there before. In my city I've already noticed it, and while it's hit or miss, it's certainly better than the soul-crushing brutalist appartment blocs they were building in the 1950s to 90s. It will take some time, but I duly believe the future will be more uplifting for us!

[@phillytnoize]

I know nothing about architecture and really haven't given this subject much thought, but this video is incredibly interesting. Subscribed.

[@beautyandthefaith]

One of your best videos, since you are able to speak to our core drives and to see the underlying destructive forces that has creates so much destruction in our culture. But knowing where the roots are, we can start weeding the garden, and plant beauty once again. We just need to come together for beauty and build competing insutitions. In the end, truth and beauty will prevail, but how hard are we willing to fight to see the revival of classical architecture and arts within our generation?

[@CarbondatedOrangeSoda]

crazy to me this channel is so small, such good content man

[@yosemitesam7002]

What an excellent video. I recognized @11:02 a cluster of Modernist highrises in downtown LA; fortunately, DTLA has a well-preserved (albeit underutilised) historic core that includes many Art Deco and Beaux Arts buildings. Would be curious to learn your take on the new LA County Museum building project, which required the destruction of four older buildings.

[@DiamondKingStudios]

At this point, we have lost so much of the skill that went into these older works that the pursuit of a modern, alienating, minimalist design may as well be the most cost-effective way to build things. On the smaller scale, I think of stuff like furniture and other household items. There was a time when handcrafted goods were what most people had, and even in the early days of large-scale manufacturing many designs had similar levels of detail available for reasonable prices. But with the volume of how goods are produced nowadays and the effort to lower business expenses to the absolute viable minimum, the only place where one might see furniture that looks like it has care put into it is one’s grandparents’ house. It isn’t common to see these sorts of items built nowadays, especially at prices most of us can afford. If we are to see a resurgence in uplifting, beautiful design at least in the realm of simple household goods such as furniture, I think more people should be trained to be carpenters or in other similar crafts. In addition to easy and convenient supplies of raw materials (such as wood and cloth), this would allow for even fairly small towns to each have at least one local builder and seller of furniture, and the craft furniture profession business would make its business from a gradual buildup of consumer trust and respect for supplying the community with long-lasting, furniture with various possible designs as a contrast to the cheaply-produced, simple furniture of mass manufacturers. Perhaps in larger communities multiple furniture builders in competition would be able to reduce the prices of their quality goods below that of the large builders. As for the larger-scale stuff, I don’t know how to achieve the same effect, but however it is done, more people ought to be trained to work with stone. Might even lead to the revival of sculpture. How many sculptures and statues like the ones of old do you see built nowadays?

[@alexsmith-ob3lu]

You really think all this modernist (minimalist) garbage is enduring? We’re demolishing and re-building concrete structures every 50 years because the materials used for such buildings are not meant to be long lasting. Also, you don’t need to be so highly experienced to design Art Deco. Art Deco is simply fine arts taken from an industrial perspective.

[@DiamondKingStudios]

@@alexsmith-ob3lu Fair point, but I worry that this is all most recently-educated architects here in the US know, if not also the very bizarre, impractical designs that aren’t even all that aesthetically pleasing. My cousin went to college for architecture. That was basically what he showed us in the presentations he returned home with.

[@jackbryan4676]

There's nothing more oppressive than a modern McDonald's.

[@SonyAPSCshutterbug]

The sin of modernism is money... Modernism can be very pretty, bit it costs money. Inevitably, the cheapest architecture is what get's built.

[@nlpnt]

Indeed, good classicism ain't cheap either.

[@tvorogmoloko7969]

except that these ugly boxes for some reason are extremely expensive

[@tvorogmoloko7969]

just as those ugly concrete fountains etc

[@clamato54]

It's the analogies to our rigidifying social media constraints that are currently disturbing me the most

[@aleksandrk9452]

I just Googled the trone room a little bit. Am litterally shocked by other refferences that architectural elements of that building has, particullary the snake bit.

[@sharonrotmensz4596]

Wow! So good!

[@daveharrenburg7670]

I don't think most, if any, of the things you mentioned towards the end of the video are caused by modernism. It's all suburban sprawl. They have to make everything really cheap to make because they can't afford to make things nice. Prime example of this is the sidewalks you mentioned, they just dump a bunch of concrete without any kind of nice design in mind, and then it falls apart because they can't afford to maintain it. This is exactly why we need to build more dense cities instead of sprawling ones, along with focusing on infrastructure not just focused on cars.

[@Semper_]

It's everything. Same new dense neighborhoods/cities are ugly, depressing, and anti-human too. There is one beauty that can't be rivaled nor ruined by humanity though and that's nature.

[@trashrelationships9657]

10:28 well if it isn't John Adams High from Boy Meets World lol

[@nlpnt]

Marshall High School in near-northeast (just west of the LA River) Los Angeles. Due to its' looks and its' proximity to the studios it has to be one of the most-filmed school exteriors in the world.

[@markvandenberg4606]

Outstanding. 🙌🏻

[@chrisd3674]

I can't agree more. I see all of this as a side effect of anybody who wants to become an artist, regardless of talent, being allowed to--so long as they have either an art degree or money/influence. It's lazy and akin to making art with boxes and squares in MS Paint. My goal in life is to build a town and/or community modeled after a pre-car village. Humans are so unhappy because we only rarely exist in a social community like we evolved to want. I just sold my cabin and have spent the last 6 months searching for the right property to work with, but it looks like I'll have to be patient--I want it to be perfect. I can't agree with you more though. Modernism might have been cool when a select few people first did it, but now it's just lazy. I'm surprised you didn't use the design-by-commitree MLK Jr. monument as an example here, BTW.

[@african8855]

I kinda like the artwork tbh

[@Lexarf0rk]

Very well-done video.

[@reginka47]

Very good presentation, well-made video

[@nlpnt]

I know you're from LA - did you want to go to Marshall but ended up going to Bernstein? (If so, you could at least have given it a fairer shot by using an interior pic with people in it and posters on the walls rather than the pre-move-in architectural file photo).

[@CyrusDawson]

Thank you.

[@BoredSquirell]

Few rewards in architecture are given for actual completed buildings after some time in use. Students and young architects get rewarded for pretty renders rather than the feeling of belonging felt by citizens. And modernism looks great in renders, even bland boxes do.

[@nlpnt]

And everything goes through an "embarrasingly dated but not yet retro" phase. It takes a lot longer for buildings than for fashion, music and cars (almost in that order).

[@fluffy_tail4365]

1:15 damn imagine doing an essay on modernism and using AI slop instead of actual photos for the vatican? What a joke

[@bigzclipz5104]

I’m guessing you have read E MICHAEL JONES book about logos

[@Bioniking]

Modernist architecture is gatekeeping. Apart from architects and engineers (and even then I feel like that’s a stretch), no one appreciates or likes it.

[@standardizedshipping]

The Vienna fountain has a simple sillyness I find appealing, but I agree it should not be where it is. It would be better suited for a Childrens museum.

[@DiamondKingStudios]

I was a child once, and can attest that it would probably frighten most children. It belongs in an absurdist comedy film set.

[@standardizedshipping]

@@DiamondKingStudios Thats true ha. It would be cool on some kind of surrealist set.

[@nlpnt]

It looks half-finished (and sponsored by Michelin?), like the statues should be in full-color.

[@swilliams937]

By their fruits you will know them (John XXIII onward).

[@TheFerarrispeed]

Dude, are you seriously blaming social “change”? I respect the research that you do for your videos but pretending that hyper capitalism isn’t THE problem is insane. We have cheaper building materials and design and you think that’s related to citizens toppling over statues and not property developers investing in the cheapest labour/material in order to turn a buck? Also, do you know how much social unrest France experiences, and yet they still preserve their historic architecture. They’ve murdered nobles! Screw a statue.

[@SwampTrooper2005]

Go away commie

[@bosnbruce5837]

I appreciate the video and footages that go with it, but the accompanying story is beyond pale. So simplistic it hurts, yet I guess it resonates with many a "common man". - He's on a crusade against modernism, yet modernism is almost a meaningless category because nearly anything made after 1950 that's not "classical" can be shoved in it. And this crusade is purely ideological in a sense that modernism=atheism=bad=ugly and classical=faith=good=beautiful. It's that simple. That silly. Worse. According to him ugly suburbia and cheaply built malls are modernism. -There are countless examples of successful modernist buildings and neighborhoods. Like... I live in one. My birth city was built by a Roman Emperor. That's where he chose to retire. The first in the history to do so voluntarily. Me, I love a good brutalism. I was born, educated and live in one. Doesn't mean I have anything against a good gothic or renaissance. - How is it not bleeding obvious that any and every architectural style can be uplifting, esthetically pleasing and fully functional, depending on the implementation. Blimey...

[@bosnbruce5837]

As for France. Everyone should love French for their food and their arts and their rebellious spirit, but lets not forget that these are the same a holes who couldn't hold France proper before sending troops 10,000km away to clutch, murder and steal other people's land AND FAILED. And the same goes for his examples of beautiful classical buildings nurturing fine and truth loving people. Like GTFO Austrians are like original aholes before England was just a stinky marsh and swamp.

[@swampwillow]

2:06 looks like a snake and the pope's throne is the snakes tongue.

[@nlpnt]

That sculpture in the papal throne room may be a dud, but the Paolo VI Audience Hall itself is a banger, at the same time one for the ages and a great example of circa-1970 Italian design, like a Fiat 128 without the rust and electrical gremlins.

[@tartariantech]

Tartarian

[@reginka47]

Very good presentation, well-made video