Was Modern Architecture A Mistake?

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[@AdamSomething]

Check out Rocket Money for free: RocketMoney.com/adamsomething #rocketmoney #personalfinance

[@collinandrews-wl7sn]

Can you do a video debunking Zoomer Historian? He’s a so-called historian whose entire channel is devoted to defending or denying the actions of the 3rd Reich. I haven’t seen any videos debunking him which is surprising given that some of his videos have millions of views.

[@thomgizziz]

Dude pull your head out... you know you were all on board with making things modern until the tides changed and you change right with them... you are a spinless jellyfish going wherever everybody else goes because you are terrified you might not fit in.

[@Stivsh]

Adam, literally no one ever made the point "yes modern architecture bad because the elite wants to demoralize us". what the fuck happened to this channel

[@mimszanadunstedt441]

The goal of the bland buildings is to emphasize the greatness of older prominent structures. Similar logic as to why the vatican is exceedingly luxurious. Its meant to cause a deference to the more beautiful as part of the institutional psychological and symbolic play. It emphasizes common lowliness. So, this is just righties projecting again. Don't be fooled.

[@fuqupal]

It's all about crushing the human spiriit. This is why the communist built everything in brutalism style

[@lost_boy]

The problem with all of these modern buildings is that they are not trains.

[@Fndijdennd]

This is true, many people are saying this.

[@zapalniczkakaminski9990]

frfr

[@52flyingbicycles]

Snowpiercer architecture when?

[@normanmai7865]

Factual and accurate.

[@solarleaf2029]

Nor are they roads.

[@SuperSmashDolls]

Building a car-free neighborhood in PHOENIX is one hell of a flex.

[@ericfischer8295]

Bro! Phoenix here as well. I feel tgat so hard

[@MichaelLesterClockwork]

You just park on the outside of the neighbourhood. I'm doing a similar thing in Mexico. I love where I live!

[@unit9754]

I'm jealous I want to live there

[@iller3]

Phoenix could probably take some lessons from Santa Fe

[@baalusk2662]

city plans mandating walkways from new buildings over ze roads to all neighbouring blocks when?

[@mRahman92]

You know what else is missing on buildings these days? Gargoyles.

[@skefsongames]

How will we ward off evil spirits without them?

[@GretgorPooper]

There's an old building with gargoyles near my mom's home in the center of a large city. It's hilarious because the Dark Souls gargs fight song alwaysa comes to my mind whenever I see it.

[@secrets.295]

That's why old buildings are ugly as hell 😂😂😂. Gargoyles are ugly.

[@ratticustheemperor]

@@secrets.295sounds like something a gargoyle would say to deter people from knowing they are a gargoyle

[@great_lake]

Architecture student here. Trust me, very few people study architecture to build giant monoliths or soulless white facades nowadays. Essays like this one always make it sound like its the architect that develops the entire project and gets the final say in the design. This is only partially true in the most high profile projects with world famous architects. Most ugly soulless buildings are not that way because architecture school has failed us. They are that way because, like many other things in this world, they are the end product of a system that cares only about the bare minimum and an industry with such an insane number of rules that govern how you can build, that "traditional" building styles are simply impossible today. Weirdly enough there are plenty of great looking modern buildings today and not just those that stay close to neoclassical stylings. Usually those are projects by developers whose clients will pay for that. Many other projects are under such financial and technical pressure that any design over the bare minimum of facade proportions is out of the question. You had a great point about that but for some reason you used it to segue to a sponsor read. So in conclusion, of course there are flashy architecture experiments that are polarising in their appearance and trends that aged very poorly (although those are often trends the whole of society subscribes to), but the absolute majority of bland buildings is not the result of some architect believing its their magnum opus. ARCHITECTS ARE PROVIDERS OF A SERVICE TO DEVELOPERS. Thats why I cant stand these "architecture rebellion" people. Go and rebel against those who actually decide what kind of building they want to pay for. By believing an architect as a great auteur realising an uncompromised vision, youre the ones subscribing to a view of the profession thats outdated by several decades.

[@mustacheman2549]

>that "traditional" building styles are simply impossible today. impossible? then why are some people doing it?

[@great_lake]

@@mustacheman2549 My bad on the wording there. By "traditional building style" I meant the construction of the building, which obviously had quite the impact on the way buildings looked in the past. Of course you could construct a building that superficially looks like it was built 200 years ago, but thats like dressing up a modern car to look like an oldtimer because "all modern cars are ugly". Kind of weird right? It is to be said however, that there are some historical construction styles coming back into the field right now, but those are older than those "traditional buildings" that dominate the conversation.

[@pfftnuffinpersonalkid1541]

The issue is, almost every architect I have spoken too, buys completely into that brutalism, Blobitecture and general anti-human architecture (Hadid, Gehry perfect examples) is actually amazing and you are too stupid to see it, while Neoclassical, Art Nouveau etc architecture is gaudy, tacky crap (look at the pure seething at beautiful Stalinkas across the board). Of course developers and money is what really defines trends, but it's absolutely the mainstream that architects buy into the developer propaganda.

[@miskatonic6210]

So architects are unable to build something beautiful when it has to be affordable? Seriously, it's not expensive to make it a bit beautiful. What you tell us is a lot of lazy bs. Architects are the ones responsible to show the client how a building will appear. You need to show a building from a street level view. You need to stop rendering futuristic bullshit and showing bird view models. Most clients don't even know what they want. Architects provide lazy service.

[@jerichocabalan5054]

In Great lakes defence. As a professional in the construction design field, Architects do not get the final say on the design and can not alter the design without reasonable justification. Saying "We should change this becuase it is pretty" is not a justifiable reason. The client is in charge. Not the Architect Furthermore, Building Fascades that have ornamentation are expensive to produce. They are not cheap as each block used will need to be made bespoke to fit a certain design to match Neoclassical styles. Although I agree that Modern buildings can be very grim and that yes, Architects are designing it. Suggesting that Architects are lazy and the sole reason as to why our buildings look like this is incorrect. There are limiting factors that must be considered. Imagine the outrage a developer would get if they only built 6 houses with fancy ornamentation when they could have built 10 houses with more simple designs in a place with a housing Crisis. Adam Something goes further indepth into this topic in another video. I suggest watching it before commenting.

[@yedder7628]

Turns out Dubai was a joke

[@tombo416]

“Was” 😂 you mean “Is”

[@rafaelcarneiro8957]

**is

[@normanmai7865]

Turns out modern architecture is actually an entertainment industry 😔

[@pw6002]

@@tombo416 Dubai is already dead but they don’t know it.

[@unduloid]

A joke noone gets.

[@mothirl]

Would look much better if there was a road added in the middle, maybe with 12 lanes or so.

[@tombo416]

Don’t forget the two McDonalds, Walmart and Starbucks as well Oh and the Walmart has to have a McDonalds inside it

[@mnm5165]

@@tombo416all of that is gonna need a 7 story parking garage too

[@warcanon9546]

And a huge parking lot between each establishment to push everything further apart

[@yaboye3791]

​@@tombo416 but what about pure concrete with no patches of greenery? The stand-up or lean-on "benches" that make traversing the 9 km long parking lot a nightmare if you are preggo, physically disabled or just exhausted after a day's work and don't want to walk 18 kms?

[@57thorns]

@@warcanon9546 Of course, space is important.

[@PoneTechnologies]

As an Architecture student, one common misconception is that nowadays, Architects no longer have control over their designs like they did. The clients have 100% say and power over the whole design, requirements etc. So as much as many of us would like to design more human sized nice cozy neighbourhoods, it is just impossible.

[@ousamadearu5960]

good ol' Capitalism. Although its true even for us programmers. We really cannot improve the systems they wanted when they give a deadline with so few things to work around with.

[@mikehunt2805]

@@ousamadearu5960 it's not simply capitalism, it's the supply chain and infrastructure. Building anything ornate or with an actual facade is not in demand because it's expensive, it's expensive because it has to be custom made, it has to be custom made because there's no mass production, and there's no mass production because there's no demand. In other words, it's a problem that creates itself. and the only reason we got here is because we pretended that architects are artists in the 60's.

[@ousamadearu5960]

@@mikehunt2805 so capitalism.

[@jackgrflunkin3764]

@@ousamadearu5960 Concerns related to supply chain and infrastructure wouldn't be specific to capitalism. Could easily have similar issues otherwise. There are also probably multiple ways to mitigate it. "Capitalism" isn't the boogeyman.

[@mikehunt2805]

@@ousamadearu5960 no, if it were capitalism, the problem wouldn't exist in former soviet states etc. Infrastructure and supply chains exist in other economic models as well, not just capitalism.

[@billyswong]

The Culdesac Tempe shown in 9:30 shows that the problem is not necessarily the facade/lack of ornament. It is a more fundamental structural problem in urban planning.

[@antonb9459]

Yeah, in this part of the video adam really shows that modernism isnt the problem but that projects are structured too large

[@IWouldLikeToRemainAnonymous]

@@antonb9459 Half-true. Modern buildings *can* look nice where they fit in and are designed to look nice, but *modernism* does not advocate for beautiful buildings but rather only provocative buildings that pretentious architects will appreciate. Modern buildings that look nice are therefore an exception rather than the norm. (modern as in the style of modernism, not new or young)

[@antonb9459]

@@IWouldLikeToRemainAnonymous No modernism isn't a strictly defined ideology as you frame it, but an the artistic and architectural time frame from the 1910s to roughly the 1970s. And what you mean with modernism is most likely the "international style" or functionalism.

[@antonb9459]

But i'll give you that many buildinhs in the international style were big and maybe pretentious, which also had it's roots in the cultural spirit of the time, such as focus on car friendly cities and corporate capitalism and on the other hand the need for housing. But if you look at prewar functional buildings, thibgs were quite different

[@njs701]

@@IWouldLikeToRemainAnonymousI think this is the main problem in architecture discourse. 1. Most lay people don’t actively pay attention to buildings, the only effect of buildings is done sub consciously (temperature of space, materials of space, light in space). 2. The lay people that do pay attention of architecture treat it very similar to judging art or judging clothing or judging any form of 2d design. The problem is architecture is not art. Architecture is the design of spaces meaning something that is experienced with all the senses wether you are consciously examining the buildings or mindlessly occupying it is still affecting your well being. This is why modernism (general term-the most successful modernism is when combined with some form of vernacular tradition and local motif such as alvar aalto) in many regards is a success, we didn’t choose glass boxes because we thought they looked cool, we choose it because it psychologically is better for our well being. We must prioritize the experience of the vast majority of people who do not actively analyze buildings by giving them physiologically studied traits that make people happier in spaces, large windows allowing lots of sunlight, good air circulation, warm and soft materials).

[@smekchy]

What I dislike the most with these modern building is that any trace of dirt or use on the building instantly makes it look even worse.

[@emmar9104]

Yes! Whereas on older buildings, dirt and grime and wear just add to their beauty! Beautiful patina. Oxidized copper. Worn wood. Shading in the crevasses of ornate trims...

[@theultimatereductionist7592]

Again - JUST YOUR OPINION! NOT "objective" fact!

[@smekchy]

@@theultimatereductionist7592 wow, u are so smart. Good job A++

[@smekchy]

@@emmar9104 could not agree more.

[@maximumoverdrive3092]

I've spoken at length about exactly this. I dropped out of architecture school because there was seemingly very little discussion about what people liked or enjoyed and also how a building would fit into the real world with things like dirt or the urban fabric. Of course not every school is like this. my community college had a lot of meaningful discussions about similar topics.

[@meangene123]

As an architect, I just want to mention something that I feel was missing from this video. Architects can only advocate for positive design so much. At the end of the day, it's the clients and the capital holders who decide what they want their buildings to be and to look like. And the "modernist" style has been co-opted by developers in order to justify the lack of human scale detail and ornamentation. You mention how architects want to design these crazy buildings to get ahead but often the owners, through their RFPs, dictate what that building is going to be before any architect designs anything. Anyway I could rant about this but just thought I'd throw a little bit of my 2cents in there. Most of us really try to advocate for these kinds of things, and sometimes its like screaming into the void. Great video!!!

[@leepic9091]

At the end of the day a lot of developers will say no to ornamentation and attention to detail because it will cost time and money. But what I really want to say is that from what I've seen, most architects don't think you need a special training to appreciate these buildings. Ofc for some elements we can say that (mostly in creative problem solving) but generally architects will agree something is ugly even if it has good ideas behind it.

[@PRH123]

What you say is quite true. However, when there is a project (usually publicly funded), where the architect does have a largely free hand, we often still end up with unattractive results. Where I studied, the faculty were lecorbusie obsessed, openly anti classical forms, and so they and their students were really not professionally prepared to design things that human beings like. Pei is my favorite example. I had the opportunity once to see his original drawings and model of lenfant plaza in DC. He populated the central square with stylish couples strolling. In reality anyone who has been there knows it's a windswept square of concrete that is baking in summer and freezing in winter, nothing to protect people from the ceaseless wind, and there are very few people there, because only people who absolutely have to go there.

[@GAHAHAHH]

It all comes back to the privet sector owning and controlling things that should be handled by the public sector. Buildings aren't built to suit societies needs, they are built as an investment. People have plans to fix things but they can't implement them when a corrupt few are running things in such a way.

[@monochromaticspider]

As a software developer, I very strongly agree that some times a designer would very much like to throw in a bunch of stuff to make some project nicer, more pleasant, less hostile to ordinary people, but ultimately the decision-maker is the holder of the moneybag, and the moneybags people usually aren't the people who are going to experience any lack of user-friendliness first hand on a daily basis, so often enough they don't give a damn. They need the MVP functionality, and everything above and beyond that is dragging their numbers in the wrong direction. And before any of the moneybags or moneybags adjecent people out there complain, it certainly is a fair point. A dollar saved is a dollar earned, sure thing. But having anything above and beyond unheated canned food for lunch is also one of those needless expenses that drag numbers in the wrong direction, and yet I'm pretty sure that's never been on the menu, has it?

[@contrapasta2454]

Sounds like what's really needed is some good old-fashioned grassroots intolerance. The people living amongst these structures need to start calling out these buildings for what they are: ugly and cheap. The companies and governments making them, no longer able to bamboozle the public into believing they're actually great examples of modern art, would eventually bend the knee rather than lose face and status.

[@brunomsantiago]

I'm not particularly fond of modern architecture, but I've noticed that many KZbin videos discussing the subject tend to exaggerate its flaws by cherry-picking the worst examples to support their arguments. The problem isn't modern architecture, it is bad architecture! There are beautiful examples of modern architecture. And what leads to bad architecture? There are various factors at play, but I think the most significant contributor is the market-driven development approach, which often prioritizes short-term profit over long-term sustainability, aesthetic quality and overall good architecture. From my personal experience, the most talented architects eventually get frustrated with the quality they are led to create and leave the field.

[@anno4life]

I just want to share some thoughts as an architect: 1st: You have to separate urban planing from architecture. You rightly mentioned that the residential buildings from the 50s and 60s were needed very quickly and cheap, that's why they don't look too appealing. But also the neighborhoods they were build in were build with a new, different mindset. The car made distances shorter, split up functions like working/shopping/living and ignored the human scale. If you hate ugly cities, thank the car industry. But I’m sure you won’t disagree on that one. 2nd: Don't get confused with architectural styles. Post-modernism is NOT the same as modernism. Post-modernists, at least here in germany, already recognized in the early 80s that modern city planing is destroying the european city. They went back to the block edge development, to the commercially used ground floor zone, car-free areas and subtle ornaments. A great example is the altona fish market in Hamburg, where I think only 3 buildings are pre-war, the rest is not older than 40 years. 3rd: You don’t know how the business works. No architect ever decides whether a skyscraper or a mixed-use residential area should be built on a piece of building land. Architects are not the ones with money. Developers are. They decide what building is build where. And they decide how much money they want to spend on it. And they decide if the just want to make profit with the building or if they want to show it off in their portfolio. Architects only decide, of course in addition to the entire internal structure of a building, which is always ignored in such discussions about good architecture, what the building will look like. 4th: Why we need more architecture education: You are talking about the story that the Berlin City Palace was "rebuilt”. That is wrong. A new, modern building was built on the site of the former palace, which has NOTHING to do with the old palace in its internal structure. It is not a Palace. It is a museum, which has completely different requirements for a building. Only part of the old facade has been reconstructed. It is a Disneyland for uneducated big-city tourists. The ironic thing about the story is that actually not even 100m from the "new castle" part of the original castle still stands in the facade of the old GDR State Council building. And that the fake, reconstructed facade is getting more attention than the authentic, original one says a lot about societies lack of appreciation for the value of architecture. 5th: I understand that in many countries there is a large discrepancy between what is designed (and shown in renderings) and what is technically (not only from an engineers perspective, but also from a craftsmans) possible to build. I would also like to defend the profession of architectural photography. The “ugly examples” are often snapshots taken with a cell phone on gray, rainy days. People also look ugly if you don't photograph them from their best side. It's easy to underestimate how small factors can make a building look ugly or beautiful in a photo. Most buildings don't even look half as bad in reality. 6th: I also don't understand how you could choose the Stockholm City Hall as an example of beautiful architecture. The tower is far too clunky, the facade is unattractively structured, the turrets at the corners are too delicate for the large structure, which is not compressed vertically by any avant-corps. If you're trying to bring the beauty of architecture to an objective level, you also have to be familiar with proportions, architectural elements and design decisions. Otherwise you will only be laughed at by professionals.

[@yumtig7444]

True.

[@jacobhaagerup7816]

And I would like to add to that. When buildings are built the way they are today, they are a reflection of the WAY they are built. The materials they are built from, the technical requirements they meet, the building physics, the time and budget contraints, the zoning, codes and regulations. Buildings are no longer craftfully constructed by skilled artisans. They are assembled from systems. When the center of Dresden looks like the old center and is nice to be in, it's cool and all but it looks like something it isn't. Those buildings look like they were built in a certain way, like they were in the 18th century, but they are actually built using moderne techniques, materials, systems and to modern codes and everything you like about them is nothing but wallpaper. This is mainly why most architects have an issue with "going back", because we can't. With that said, there are lots of examples of TERRIBLE projects around the globe you can point to with good right, but equally so there are plenty of good ones. Architects aren't universally bad at their jobs.

[@SanctusPaulus1962]

​@@jacobhaagerup7816 Nobody cares if the buildings that are being built today are EXACTLY the same as buildings that were built hundreds of years ago. People simply want new buildings to look more like the old style, instead of ugly concrete and glass monstrosities that make you want to jump off a cliff. We can 100% go back to the old architectural styles, and it's already been done many times before. King Charles built an entire town in the old gregorian style, and people love it (normal people, I mean. Architects hate it, because of course they would). Saying that it's impossible to go back to the old style is just an excuse so you people can continue building soulless disgusting eye-sores to satisfy your own desires with zero thought into what the other 99% of the population who actually have to live and work in these places want...

[@jacobhaagerup7816]

@@SanctusPaulus1962 Firstly, I don't really appreciate your blanket accusations regarding what architects want to do to the rest of the population, but I won't bother too much. As to the first part, I think you fail to grasp the point. The historic buildings you and many others want to emulate looked the way they did, mostly because of the way they were built. Aside from ornament, there's an inherent logic to their structure and materials, such as bricks, stone and timber. Building those same buildings today using those traditional methods is too expensive and inefficient and using modern methods, systems, materials and to current standards, codes and legislation does not carry that logic with it and the buildings become movie sets. Poundville is exactly that. It's a set for a way of life and living in that set carries enormous restrictions on what you can and cannot do in order to not break the magic spell (which btw is not Gregorian in the least, but never mind). If that isn't living under the diktat of a sovereign ruler of what is and isn't stylish, then I don't know. And like somebody else points out somewhere in these comments - the whole idea of "style" isn't actually something architects are very preoccupied with in real time. It's really only a way of ordering architectural history. So when you call for buildings "in the old style" it is just as hollow and pointless as when you accuse architects of wanting "an excuse so you people can continue building soulless disgusting eye-sores". I could point you in the direction of the wonderful historic slums of the era you yearn for in the cities of Europe, which have all but disappeared by now and ask you if actually lethal built environments is what you want back, but I suspect those historic soulless disgusting eye-sores aren't what you're looking for either.

[@lisaw150]

Criminologist here, currently writing a paper on ghettoisation and crime due to bad urban planning/architecture. My argument is (short version): if you want to build a city, build urban - if you want to build a socially inclusive city, don't build different quarters for different classes! That means: Blockrandbebauung with different sized flats for different social classes and dispersed social housing for mixed quarters and more local opportunities (education, jobs, public institutions, leisure activities...), sufficient density for short walking distances creating more pedestrian traffic, so more social cohesion/collective efficacy. This stops rich people from hoarding opportunity in their well-funded, well-equipped, well-connected city enclaves and helps poor people achieve integration into the job market, education system and networks of opportunity.

[@siegechamp2295]

As an EE student, modern buildings look like they are oversized electronics parts, and a city built for automobiles looks like a circuit board

[@Raven_Leblanc]

Interesting take, I never thought of it that way!

[@theastuteangler]

As a person who has been on the internet since 1997, yes I too have seen the image of the circuit-board city that started floating around in 2014.

[@quantum.9883]

Whilst walkable cities looks like tissue cells, like especially superblocks in Paris and Barcelona.

[@jaumesol3480]

What's EE?

[@thor1829]

@@jaumesol3480 electrical engineering likely

[@averagetachyonlanceenjoyer1129]

Every good builder in Minecraft: "never make big flat wall, add some texture, depth, windows, patterns". Architects: "you know what? Perfectly flat wall of glass and steel is what this city needs."

[@rulesandregulations7192]

do not compare people with passion to modern arhitecs. there are countless extremely nice and art like buildings and places built in minecraft.

[@szczypawa]

I think we should fire architects and hire minecraft builders with youtube pro tips as experience

[@ye_zus]

If only building were free in the real world...much like how survival Minecraft players don't generally build as decoratively as creative.

[@ANTSEMUT1]

As the architects in the comments pointed out, they don't have as much say about how buildings look when it's done.

[@runawaysmudger7181]

Everyone can make something nice without cost, time, building codes, landuse regulations, engineering feasibility, client's decision and a whole bunch of other stuff factored in. Real life isn't creative mode. Your design might look nice in rendering until it passed through the cutting room. At the core architects aren't trained to just "make building beautiful". They can but that's secondary. They are trained to design something in compliance with all those things mentioned above

[@carlramirez6339]

The Sydney Opera House and the Eiffel Tower were widely ridiculed and considered weird when they were first built. What matters is that a building is useful, because it would make people eventually stop hating it.

[@theultimatereductionist7592]

THIS! I am disgusted with people who TRIVIALIZE AGONIZING BOREDOM forced upon PRISONERS, yet whine about some buildings not looking nice. When you free all prisoners, then I'll give a shit wft some buildings look like.

[@diemes5463]

One thing that every essayist who talks about modern architecture misses is we only see past architecture that was worth preserving. There's plenty of boring, and frankly unsafe old architecture that was rightly destroyed (not including buildings lost in war).

[@etienne8110]

Yep, survivor bias. We only saved the most beautiful buildings. Concrete can do the worst and some good. In France we had Péret, who was tasked with rebuilding many cities post ww2. This gives some very ugly buildings but also some nicer ones in the end, once he got a feel for it and the will to build compréhensive neighbourghoods.

[@MaticTheProto]

@@etienne8110lmao no. We demolished the pretty ones that didn’t get bombed as well. Look at Stuttgart before and after WW2

[@christinagobel8968]

I disagree. In the town I live in, there are many remaining houses from the middle ages. Obviously, the very pretty/special ones survived, but many ordinary ones too. And the ordinary ones still look better than anything built after 1930.

[@simonbone]

Also, they may be ordinary or unexceptional old buildings, but they blend in with the better quality older buildings in a way that a glass and steel facade does not.

[@MaticTheProto]

@@simonbone agreed. Steel and Glass feel so cold and uncomfortable

[@eyesofthecervino3366]

Imagine if culinary school consisted of training people to have a higher spice tolerance, but if you didn't like how spicy your food was they called you stupid and uneducated for not sharing their taste. It's a bit like that.

[@frivolousmagpie5155]

However, you can decide not to visit a restaurant if you don't like the food but its a lot harder to avoid buildings in the city you live in. One would think it would therefore be even more important not to fill the city (the world even) with intentionally provocative buildings..

[@jamalgibson8139]

To be fair, high end food is kind of like that. They're all about weird textures and things that no layperson would eat, at least not on a daily basis. The difference, as noted by the commenter above me, is that you aren't forced to eat high end foods all the time. Imagine if McDonald's started only serving pig testicles, because that's what was trendy among high society. You'd probably see a massive peasant uprising pretty quickly if that happened.

[@Peorhum]

Some truth to that. Those that only know spicy foods and have eaten nothing but spicy foods all their lives, find anything but spicy food bland. Whereas those not used to spicy food may love a simple roast with light spices on it, and may find any heavily spiced meat having lost it's flavour, as all it taste like is the heavy spice. The question is what is truly better? Is the simple roast bland or has the person that grew up with spicy food lost their ability to taste anything beyond heavily spiced food?

[@evank8459]

People are free to sweat through their own karma lol

[@hyliangod3120]

The chef calling me an idiot because I asked for a steak and not a "Deconstructed Greek Salad" (it's just the ingredients of a greek salad but separated from each other on the plate and stacked neatly and it's fancy and artistic and primed to be eaten in a specific order for pallete cleansing application)

[@mochi_owo]

modernism doesn't have to be ugly (like mid-century modern architecture), the problem is that most buildings built now have monochromatic colors, copy-paste shapes, dull materials, unnecessary minimalism and an overall "corporate" feel

[@LRM12o8]

That's halfway true. A lot of ugly new buildings could be made to look "acceptable" simply by adding a colorful coat of paint (at least for a few years until the paint gets weathered), or some 3D facade decorations, giving it a little bit of color/depth. Luckily, many builders in my city have started doing that in recent years, but in a lot of places they won't even spend that miniscule expense! 😮‍💨 However, to make buildings that are truly beautiful and will remain beautiful throughout their own era (or even well beyond) requires to break up the monolithic shape of today's buildings into smaller, overlapping shapes with a harmonic composition of extruding and recessed parts, different angles than just right angles and organic, non-straight lines. In a sense, buildings are like cars: You can make a boring car look interesting by painting it in a bright color with a beautiful shine to it, but the bodywork will always be run-of-the-mill, no matter how you paint it. Whereas a beautiful car with exceptionally good bodywork will look stunning even in silver, the boringest of paints (I drive one such car, in fact). In the same way a building with a beautifully detailed and organic (or "human-szied") shape will look good even if it's unpainted, grey concrete/stone, while a plain box will never look truly beautiful, only "quite nice" at best through paint and decorations alone.

[@mollof7893]

Fr, I've seen modern houses that look very nice because they have proper colors.

[@SkySong6161]

aka, "the cheapest possible thing we could build and get the most possible money for."

[@vegyesz89]

Agree, the Bauhaus (or functionalist) architecture is pretty good. (My favorite...)

[@tonywalters7298]

The interesting thing is that people 20 years ago were ripping out mid century modern.

[@glooriouswalrus]

My main issue with this video is what he himself says. It's poorly researched. Like he's not wrong about a lot of contemporary buildings lacking human scale and having unpleasant materiality, but the issue here is not "Big Architect" deciding that's what is beautiful now. Also, Adam never defined what he meant by modern architecture. Anything since the modernist movement? The beef he has with architects who design buildings for the sculptural value of abstract art is with modernists. That was the attitude of the early 20th century, and it isn't prevalent now. The examples of buildings he shows from the actual current era have a different problem entirely; they aren't built for an abstract art reason; they are built by corporate developers trying to make the most profit from minimal investment. There is rarely an architecture bureau involved; it's a very technical project that was never even meant to be beautiful or thoughtful for human users. So the problem is capitalism; if architects had any sway in what we were building, we would have much more human-centric design; it's literally what they teach in universities. Also, the question of "going back" is always silly. The classicist and baroque buildings had decorative facades, sure, but they were specifically meant for wealthy people and cost tons of money. Poor people lived in the tiniest of horrible little rooms in cities. The facades are fun, I agree, but we have to make affordable housing that isn't a war crime. Plus, there was a whole reactionary movement to modernist architecture where people tried to copy old designs, classicism, baroque, etc., and what we got from it was uncanny valley McMansions. My final verdict is yes, capitalist, non-human architecture sucks ass, and we should stop private developers from doing it. We should always keep moving forward, not back. source: A friend with a masters degree in Architecture and Urban design

[@ed8212]

you can have a beautiful facade with a livable humane interior. you dont have to give up one aspect. Also the ornaments and facades were at one point able to be cast and mass produced at a pretty low cost. The idea that it all has to be artisanally and expensively hand carved is so silly yet prevalent somehow.

[@marcomartins3563]

Why can't we have something that blends nicely and draws from earlier architecture instead of aggressive-looking modern stuff? Not everything that draws from earlier architecture becomes a "mcmansion". Also even Neuschwanstein castle was considered a kitsch "mcmansion" back then and was condemned by some for being an imitation of the past, yet it is today the most famous and visited castle in Europe and only someone really pretentious would say it's not beautiful.

[@vrrooooommmm123]

if we can mass produce weapons of mass destruction we can build cool building for everyone

[@mymom309]

Well put in pointing out that our buildings are a product of our economic system. A large part of the ornementation of the past was built on the back of comparatively very cheap labor and/or expensive materials. It just isn't really reasonable in an era where craftsmen are paid decent wages. Plus, I garuntee that the same people who populate the more conservative parts of the "go back" movement would also be the exact same ones complaining that the local government is jacking up taxes to put money into the gargoyle fund.

[@Maxwell_Twist]

@@ed8212 You are completely miss the point of what's being said. OP isn't saying to just give up of giving a house a nice facade, they're saying to work on making a functional affordable house first before wasting time making it pretty. You can paint and prettify a dog turd all you want to, but at the end of the day, it's still dog shit that nobody wants.

[@anthonychester5512]

Architectural assistant here, Whilst I do agree with many of the points brought up on the video I have to clear up that in a majority of cases as with any other creative proffession the client is the one that decides what they want not the architect, alot of the times we have to design what they want with gritted teeth because we have to make a living somehow and dont get the liberty to choose who to work with in a lot of cases. I am quite fortunate to be working with a practice that values placemaking and human scale designs in our masterplans but I have come across many clients (especially developers) that dont care about the design of the proposal and are rather interested in the figures and maximising their profits at the cost of designing a meaningful place and ornamentation.

[@memed4509]

Architecture student here, after working in the industry for a while, I've found that the majority of architects and architecture firms nowadays are mostly limited by the cost of construction and how much a client is willing to pay, because it's far cheaper to make an uninteresting cube than it is to make something beautiful. In my opinion, modern architecture can look as beautiful as traditional architecture, but clients are more interested in the return on investment on a building than the design of it. This is why in my country most local architects work more like underpaid pencil pushers who certify documents than actual designers while foreign architects are brought in for more "artsy" designs, foreign architects who are unwilling to take into account the local traditional architecture style in favour of their own (mostly modern Western) style. I feel like this is the main reason why a lot of architecture in the world nowadays ends up feeling incredibly boring and ugly. (Apologies for bad English I am not a native speaker)

[@pigeon_the_brit565]

your english is perfect, by the way

[@memed4509]

@@pigeon_the_brit565 thanks!

[@invalidaccount6147]

​@@memed4509native speaker? Now a days non natives speak English way better than natives. Take example of Indians

[@beckysam3913]

costs was always a challenge in human history when homo sapiens sapiens "left the caves" and started building temples and structural hubs like in göbekli tepe or karahan tepe, when starting a transition from hunter and gatherer to pastoral life. today, its just a bad excuse how funds, taxes and materials are used, we as homo sapiens sapiens were never in history this much "rich" as in today and have the needed education and machines to do so. its just about status, lobbies, profit, political powerplay.

[@CeoMacNCheese]

@@beckysam3913 yeah but you don't really think about costs when you are building a temple for your god.

[@ambds1975]

Also, can we go back to building buildings that work with the local environment, instead of assuming every building will be a sealed, air conditioned island of isolated dullness?

[@edvingjervaldsaeter3659]

As someone whose body doesn't handle heat very well, I would still appreciate the air conditioned part, and just in general just good ventilation of the house, because living in an old apartment with, not even joking, no air ventilation system is not fun. I'd love take the design of buildings to look more old-school and pleasant, just still with AC as long as it doesn't impact the environment too much

[@Jack-gf8fh]

​@@edvingjervaldsaeter3659 in most temperate or even subtropical places, AC is only necessary because of poor ventilation. You can reduce cooling load *a lot* by just building your buildings to use the wind and outside air rather than block it.

[@agentzapdos4960]

@@Jack-gf8fh Completely sealed spaces still have a place, though. Obviously there need to be clean rooms for certain kinds of medical procedures, research work, and other things. Some people have multiple environmental sensitivies and need to live in the residential version of a clean room.

[@Solstice261]

​@@edvingjervaldsaeter3659isn't that, like against regulation in most countries, because, monoxide poisoning, fire, gas explosion etc

[@Solstice261]

​@@agentzapdos4960yes, a room, not a whole building

[@gabrielgerbaulet2684]

Quite dusturbed sometimes in front the video. Because modern architecture, even with a brutalist approach all made of steel, glass and concrete, can be at human scale, and experiments about news types of living spaces and urbanism build from scratch, testing different approaches and philosophies of this concept. To speak about the things I know, places like Créteil and Noisy le Grand in Paris suburb are some of those best tries. Pretty nice places to live around, overlooked for a long time because extreme exemples of those post-war experiments, but with interesting mixes of thoughts in their design. And some are now cool as hell !

[@halbarroyzanty2931]

Sometimes it feels like this is a decision between modern buildings vs traditional architecture, but making more friendly places doesn't have to mean copying what has already been done, and "modern" design doesn't have to be simething that doesn't care about feeling human and pleasant. We can come up with new modern ways of designing such a space

[@scoops237]

Architecture Syndrome. You can produce an aesthetically pleasing structure that absolutely no one remembers or you can be 'bold' and 'visionary' by making something that is visually confusing, loud, and obnoxious.

[@raddadchris]

Totally correct. I honestly believe that some of these modern designs are intentionally ugly and unpleasant just to stand out. They want you to hate it b/c then it gets attention

[@zapzapfishes5878]

Those two things are not mutually exclusive, but I get that it's harder to do both, which may be why we often see only one or the other.

[@toms5996]

Or it can be bold, aesthetically pleasing and also inviting as well as properly scaled all at the same time like most new big structures in Finnish cities nowadays - good examples being Oodi Central Library, Kamppi Chapel, Kiasma Museum of Modern Art etc. etc.

[@sevware]

*Gaudi enters the chat*

[@TheDallas62]

@@toms5996 thanks for mentioning this buildings, they were new to me and all of them are great!

[@ShayminLover492]

If designed and placed correctly, modern buildings can still be beautiful. The problem is that nobody is willing to provide the capital to make them beautiful; they're instead designed as cheaply as possible so that they can make the most money.

[@CoffeeMaus]

Yeah, there are some new housing in my neighborhood that manage to look okay. But the traditional looking suburb the next street over still looks way better, more colorful and has a lot more trees for shade.

[@jeffersonclippership2588]

Good thing we don't have communism, otherwise there'd just be a bunch of concrete and steel blocs everywhere

[@texanplayer7651]

And still a shared student dorm room is $2,000 rent

[@ArcologyCrab-gq9ub]

Exactly!

[@Meadowy]

Nah, not really. There are many districts around the world built using the early modernist principles. They can look... not bad, but that's it. Not bad. Classical local-based architecture is and always will be better than modernist and the shiny new postmodernist ones. They create a sense of place, something really important, especially today Also something that you'll see with all modern developments in older cities that (except for the city centers) they're mostly empty, even if they're well designed. People just don't want to spend time there and it's for a reason - there are better places to do so...

[@ariesmp]

I actually liked the Berlin Palace of the Republic. It was a beautiful building that needed an update with more modern materials, as well as the sorrounding area. Those buildings are perfect for large venues and can be versatile for a variety of usages. The new building is limited to a single use, usually office spaces.

[@yvltc]

Same, I think it looks really good. Refurbish it, make the surroundings pedestrian-friendly, add greenery and it would be a beautiful place. This "trick" works for everything, for example one of the most beautiful buildings (at least in my opinion) in Lisbon is the Gulbenkian Foundation, and that is just one big brutalist piece of concrete and glass, but it just works with the garden.

[@Rexotec]

I will say, as someone who has, a little weirdly, studied architecture through videogame level design of all things, I do often find 'the beauty in modern buildings' or whatever, but I also completely 100% agree with your point on the human scale. There's two main concepts to think about when designing a 'space', per se, and they're roughly called Appeal and Character, and are fairly self-explanatory. A huge factor is the existing character of a neighbourhood, there's a reason why Venice and Paris have Form-Based zoning laws - a lot of these *'Renderite'* projects have completely disregarded character and by extension, the human element. Honestly some of the most fun projects are those where you think about how a building will age and weather, because if you look at it and you can't wait to see what rain or dust will do, as opposed to getting annoyed when a tourist gets their fingerprints on your nice glass door, then chances are the building's probably gonna be alright, Also you completely called me out about the ship, dammit.

[@MTTT1234]

Also, there is a reason why putting somebody into a white room without anything else is considered torture. Human minds need details. So if all around us are just buildings that lack all the details older architecture styles have, we of course feel unpleasant and uneasy.

[@MajimaEnterprises]

Same could be said for flat design and the lack of colours around us these days.

[@NeovanGoth]

Humans need stimulus, not details. Details can be overwhelming. Good modernist architecture can provide stimulus without being overwhelming, by focusing on shapes, materials, textures, and how light interacts with them.

[@yurisei6732]

That's a balancing act though, excessive detail is also painful.

[@Solstice261]

​@@yurisei6732 "cough" baroque "cough"

[@Herrieberg]

@@Solstice261 I love Dresden, I love baroque. There's not enough random ripped nude men in today's architecture.

[@byfrax2371]

One huge difference is also that rebuilding in traditional style like in Dresden supports local craftsmanship. I know a guy that made a lot of the ornaments you can see there today. He has started this monstrous project of reconstructing ornaments just from pre-WW2 images about 30 years ago and is still going. Remember that behind every beautifully carved stone is a determined stonemason, every painted detail required a skilled artist to make it and every planned building needed a patient architect who had come up with a design that worked in the urban context. You rarely see the latter with modern architecture

[@Solstice261]

Might you point into the direction of his work, it sounds incredible

[@jonakason4451]

Yes it supprts craftmanship, but since labour is the most expensive component of any building no one seems to able to afford it

[@onurbschrednei4569]

yess, excellent point! These are artistic works after all. Ive heard that the reconstruction of the Berlin palace alone saved the entire stonemasonry sector of Berlin/Brandenburg.

[@gildedpeahen876]

my dad was a commercial painter but also a gifted artist. his best job was an old Ukrainian Catholic church where he was repainting the angels faces and gold leaf work etc. as a Buddhist he had lovely debates with the nuns too

[@bruxodomorro]

Thank you. It is like you people forget, how expensive it is to build like this. It is not financially viable to build buildings like we used to. Some of the great buildings we appreciate today were being built for DECADES. Cities were not built for the amount of people we have living in them right now, and as a matter of fact, most people were either living in rural areas or in wooden barracks when we have built the housing we appreciate so much today. Only a portion of wealthy townsfolk could enjoy the luxury of living in a stone building. Also no one is practicing these crafts anymore, no young person is becoming a stonecutter. It just doesnt make sense in this financial climate. Who is supposed to build these houses? This would not fly in our day and age and we should get over it.

[@yourneighbourino424]

Designing beautiful and classical buildings is great and all but there are multiple problems with this 1. The materials as well as the extra labour and craftsmanship required is much more expensive than more contemporary designs 2. Because of their intricate design, it’s much more difficult and expensive to prefabricate each component that makes up the building, so more traditional construction methods are required for them, this runs up cost, requires more time and increases waste I think a better solution is not to go back to classical designs, but to work with what we can currently do with present technology, to design human-oriented buildings that are inviting, and the issue isn’t so much the buildings themselves, it’s the way they are planned, they need to be walkable, easily accessible, and have room for commercial and recreational activity Some modern buildings do genuinely have interesting designs, I’m not a fan of modernist architecture and it still seems to stick out like a sore thumb, but postmodern, contemporary, rationalist, futurist and even some brutalist architecture is great and can and should be utilised in better ways, it mostly boils down to planning

[@danieltomitch7048]

My suggestion is that, millionaire and billionaire real state/burgies stop dictating how the city will look like just because they Don't want to spend a few extra pennies

[@maximumoverdrive3092]

I have noticed how walkable planning, scale, and greenery actually end up mattering way more than the design itself. Replicating the traditional is probably not the most practical or widely applicable solution but there's definitely lessons to be gleaned from it. Also the fact that you know the names of all those styles means you're technically not a layman.

[@williamw4643]

This is not true! 1. Where does this idea come from? materials today are much more affordable today than 100 years ago, while labour is more expensive. Classicism isn't necessarily more expensive, why would it be? If you think that renaissance palaces and baroque castles are the norm for a classical building you are just uninformed. If you build a classical building with modern industrial techniques and with cheap materials like prefab concrete or whatever, then it will be just as expensive as a modernist one built the same way. 2. Again... Intricate designs are expensive, regardless if its classicisim or modernism. A modernist building like the ones of Frank gehry are expensive because they are complicated, and simple plain classical buildings are cheap because they are simple. Don't confuse classicism with complexity.

[@angrygopnik2317]

​@@maximumoverdrive3092 the idea could be achieved with the 15 minute city where everything is accessible within a 15 minute walk but a lot of people are paranoid that a walkable neighbourhood is a form of surveillance that strips away their freedom.

[@laapprentisorciere5241]

Let me just write something, since I've seen this video circulating here and there, and I see almost the same arguments made without really adding something to the subject. I know I've come into "enemy territory" since this comment section is mostly dominated by fans, but I'll give my 2 cents and if anyone cares he will read 'em. First of all, calling modern architecture ugly (from the Barcelona pavilion and the Fallingwater House to Therme vals, and so many more) is a pretty... bad opinion. This goes back to the division that existed before modern architecture, between "high art architecture" and "low", "simple" construction. "Simple" construction was always kind of "ugly", because it needed to be economically efficient at all times. There are many other views (like the "renderite") that this video states and are huuuugely correct, but I can see 2 problems that it states and then keeps going with. The first is human scale, and the second is ornamentation. The human scale is an aesthetic choice. There is the aesthetic of the sublime, there is the aesthetic of something "more than a human's", and it is real, it can be beautiful. In the end, if it couldn't be, it wouldn't exist that much. The off-human scale can, and has produced, works of art, and it's open to criticism and personal preference. It's harder to design in off-human scale though, since you need to understand scale, human views, and many more in order to do so and make your building "beautiful". Ornamentation is an old subject. There can be less ornamentation and the project can be beautiful, as in the culdesac tempe this video mentioned, so it still remains not an absolute guideline. Both of these options are also not so much a design problem, but a money problem. Clients pay less and less for architects to design them good, quality buildings, which they want to be delivered as fast and as cheap as they can be. To produce good ornamentation, for example, is expensive, it needs maintenance, and enough time to design. These are big no-nos for most clients who most just want to maximise the economic efficiency of their buildings (i.e. how much space it provides, material costs, time constructed-maintained, etc). Another thing to add is the non-human scale that the huge number of people in cities impose on the city itself. To make this scale more human(with ornamentation, or application of the "human scale") is something that can be designed, but needs, again, money. If the client barely offers any money for the basic needs of the project itself, then how can the architect add costly ornamentation/human scale elements? Nevertheless, the video shows the discomfort of many people against badly designed(or, better, badly financed) buildings, which is normal and should happen. To address the problems of money shortage in architectural design must, and should be, a common goal for both people, cities and architects alike. Buildings are there to last, and to make them beautiful is the least we designers can do. P.S. As for the car-free cities or neighbourhoods, yes, this is already being strived for, and it is true that modernist(not modern) architecture thought of the car as an essential part of the future, but these days are long gone, except if you're a rich person. Still, these neighbourhoods need a lot of infrastructure(like regular, mass transportation) and efficient use of urban design to make them work. This is being worked on and researched a lot, and let's hope society will be open to these changes.

[@blerg]

Architect from Norway here. When I started studying I loved(and still love) the old wood houses around Oslo from the 18 and 1900's, not to mention the churches. The ugly concrete blocks built around 1930-1980 nearly disgusted me. As I learnt more about the nuances of technical solutions, creating various atmospheres with materials, lighting etc., I started to appreciate those ugly blocks, but more like "Oh, thats a creative solution on this specific corner of the wall", or "wow, they really used what little material they had efficiently". The old is still the most appealing, friendly, and "cozy" to me, even though they might be a bit less convenient than modern ones. I think alot of architects start relating to architecture like whiskey-enthusiasts do with whiskey. At first you like the sweet smokey kinds, then you try that weird one thats almost sour, then you move onto some weird smokey sweet sour thing, and at some point you find nuances in dishwater. I think it's easy to get lost along the way and forget what the sensitive child in you experienced before it was filled with dogmas and authoritative opinions from professors. I'll take an old room in a wooden house with a crooked tree in the backyard and thin walls over a concrete apartment any day.

[@onurbschrednei4569]

I think the worst offence ist that most architects don't actually live in the type of houses they design, very often they live in beautiful old 19th century houses.

[@mathis8210]

"might be a bit less convenient" Inconvenience is where life happens. If everything is convenient, we may aswell stop existing. Our minds are grown to face adversity, so we go mad if we don't get it anymore. In modern society we slowly, step by step, optimize our lifes away.

[@AliothAncalagon]

I think you described a path many disciplines can fall victim to and you described it in the most concisive way I heard so far. Welcome to my collection of quotes xD Unfortunately I can only credit you as an anonymous architect from Norway.

[@blerg]

@@AliothAncalagon Cheers! Let me know if you find a good word for this phenomenon - I was wracking my brain thinking of one.

[@DundG]

@@onurbschrednei4569 How... do you know?

[@chrisball3778]

5:05: That 'thing' is the head office of MI6, the UK's foreign intelligence service. There could be many, many reasons it looks the way it does, and we'll never, ever get to find out about them. Fun facts: a model of it got blown up in a James Bond movie, and it's more or less directly across the River Thames from some very debauched gay nightclubs.

[@thechainwarden]

Personally I kinda like the way it looks, though I do also think that the look only works for a small number of significant buildings and not as a general design motif for a dozen nameless office buildings.

[@joesmith942]

So there's debauched gay hang outs on both sides of the river.

[@christopherwilliams6848]

I feel like a giant, inscrutable monolith of concrete and green tinted glass is actually pretty on-point for an intelligence service.

[@richardsandy6080]

I've heard that surviving rocket attacks is a part of its design

[@AppleIPie]

Hah! I knew I recognized it! I was like, oh, that is the MI6 building from James Bond, at least whatever stand-in they used to show it. Cool to know it was (a model) of the real one. Sometimes movies switch buildings around to show different tones via the architecture. No fun if the MI6 building is just one cookie cutter tower out of dozens in an office park.

[@faceofsarcasm4947]

Something I'd like to add is that Culdesac Tempe is in Tempe, AZ a suburb of Phoenix. It is being built on Apache Blvd. Apache Blvd is home to the only light rail line and the only street car line in the entire Phoenix metropolitan area. The street car links to Arizona State University just down the road and goes north to the Tempe City center, but never leaves Tempe. The light rail links up to the Phoenix city center. This kind of public transportation is great for many of ASUs international students who can't get a driver's license. Culdesac Tempe also has its own restaurant, corner market, coffee shop, bike repair shop and storage, and some retail on site. All of these commercial parts are in the northwest corner of the property, right next to the light rail and street car stop. It truly is human-centered, car-free, mixed-use, transit-oriented development.

[@cb022]

As a Swede it makes me so sad every time I see pictures of the thousands of buildings (140k+ iirc) they tore down in the 1900s. If you have the time, please look through the pictures on the architectural uprising page, it's truly depressing.

[@artembaguinski9946]

thanks for the warning, I won't

[@theultimatereductionist7592]

I am disgusted with people who TRIVIALIZE AGONIZING BOREDOM forced upon PRISONERS, yet whine about some buildings not looking nice. When you free all prisoners, then I'll give a shit wft some buildings look like.

[@MojnMojn]

Fast flesta byggnader som revs var ju i dåligt skick och i "slumområden" och kunde inte fixas utan att riva

[@jamew85]

Renderite has to be the best term for that madness I have ever heard. Thank you so much for pointing that out! As someone who works with CAD and archetecture programs it always makes me eyeroll when i see an architects "vision" with those improbably shapes and material that magically does never age.

[@drrodopszin]

It would be great to add a feature to these software that ages the materials. But honestly that feels like a problem with missing a team: there should be many others in the process who can veto things based on usability, reliability, endurance, sustainability, energy efficiency, healthiness, etc.

[@23nine]

Also the ambient in the renders is usually unrealistically bright, vivid, and saturated. Of course the architects want to sell their design as best as possible, but you have to ask yourself, "how will this look like in reality, on a normal day?"

[@GKCanton]

Also those magical trees that have no root depth that can thrive on a balcony of just 20mm width. We all need to live in the Matrix!

[@Jayo2498]

'I hate when architects come up with new/interesting ideas. Sad!'

[@jamew85]

@@GKCanton omg yes! the rootless trees haunt me!

[@jakeohare913]

Using the Age of Empires soundtrack while furthering your argument for more traditional architecture is a boss move 🏰

[@GaryJust]

It's actually from Heroes III.

[@jakeohare913]

@@GaryJust A of E too he put in both haha

[@alphajackal6648]

That track is a pretty common feature on this channel.

[@pedroparamodelvalle6751]

He has been doing it for a while. Though I was the only one who noticed it

[@Silent_Depths]

He also used Papers, please theme song when he described the modern Berlin castle. Fitting, but blatantly manipulative in favor of his narrative. Even if the intention wasn't malicious in this case, it's good to be aware and listen carefully for others' rhetoric.

[@wasmic5z]

There are lots of regular people who like modern architecture. Maybe not all modern architecture, but a lot of it. Here in Copenhagen we have some modern architecture that basically everybody likes and admires ("The Black Diamond" and "Axel Towers"), but the Black Diamond in particular would be a "horrible" building by your description - it's big, monumental, and doesn't have any human-scale elements. Yet it's almost universally loved. Of course, there are also some modern buildings that everyone hates, like Østerport 2, which is extremely ugly (at least on the outside, it's very pretty inside). Others, like the Cactus Towers, are divisive with many people liking them but also many people hating them. Just remember that not everybody shares your taste. And it's not only architects who like modern architecture. Some people also find traditional architecture boring or over-ornamented.

[@beepoboopo546]

The Palace of the Republic was actually a really nice sleek design and was genuinely a super fuctional and actual public bulding for ordinary people: It featured the following Wikipedia: two large auditoria, art galleries, a theatre, a cinema, 13 restaurants, five beer halls, a bowling alley, billiards rooms, a rooftop ice skating rink, a private gym with spa, a casino, a medical station, a post office, a police station with an underground cellblock, an indoor basketball court, an indoor swimming pool, private barbershops and salons, public and private restrooms and a discothèque. In the early 1980s, one of the restaurants was replaced by a video game arcade for children of Volkskammer members and staff." The palace these days does far lass, wirh a museum, two resturants, theatre and cinema and auditorium. It's pretty, but artificial. Its exclusive. How can you credit it for human scale design when it's vastly scaled down the public spaces available for people. You're also placing your own emotions onto it, saying it was towering and monolithic, when it's a pretty horizontal building with heavy use of glass, compared to the very tall grey palace. Also personal preference I prefer the modernist palace, I don't think it's a particular exceptional bit of baroque architecture and pales compared to what was does in that era in Southern Europe.

[@euler4273]

Love the use of the "Papers, please" music when talking about Soviet era architecture.

[@fouler3606]

it is the attention to details! i like when Adam give all his attention to details

[@blacxthornE]

I cackled when I heard it... Glory to Arstotzka

[@evank8459]

¿What you mean Matryoshka was not a proponent of Zettelkasten ?

[@FalkonNightsdale]

Oh, I didn't recognised that… So that Erathia HoMaM3 theme in 6:46 was probably also on purpose…

[@AleksandarBosakov]

Did I hear the "UNATCO HQ" from "Deus Ex" at around 11:50?

[@justanotherredbeard4439]

Ngl, I feel that the Palace of the Republic vs Humboldtforum in Berlin feels like one of the worse examples - the Palace was a distinctly interesting building, chaoticially multi-purpose - a concert hall, an arcade, even a lamp shop hehe. Frankly, despite supporting most points here, I don't think that building belonged to it. I'd rather take the Birmingham Central Library as an example, with most people going in/out or straight to the top floor... Where there's a room dedicated to the first library. Or, rather, the unnamed, nondescript fugly buildings of the 1990s-2010s (and now) as seen.

[@eazydee5757]

Was the stuff provided in the Palace of the Republic available for the common people to use, or was it just for government officials and their families only?

[@frleulenberger]

erich's lampenladen ... i see what you did there 😂

[@justanotherredbeard4439]

@@eazydee5757 Yes! The vast majority of facilities in the Palast der Republik were meant for the broader public - I haven't mentioned the disco, the arts exposition hall, the restaurants... And much more. The parliamentary hall was in the smaller main hall - notably, gatherings of the SED were instead held in the grand concert hall. There were a few exceptions, I believe mainly in the form of one of the restaurants, but in terms of amenities most were meant for all.

[@eazydee5757]

@@justanotherredbeard4439 I find it quite fascinating and surprising how even a government building was able to provide all these amenities to the people for socialization and community cohesion. I can’t say the same for my own country (USA) where the presence of third places for people to hang out and socialize are in serious decline, and the ones that still remain are becoming increasingly expensive and unaffordable for working class folks.

[@callowaymotorcompany]

@@eazydee5757 Most things in most government buildings are meant for government officials and their families only. Why is this something people only bring up when commies are involved, you probably can't even go beyond the first floor of your own local city hall.

[@_bats_]

Every once in a while, I do see a decidedly modern-looking building that is actually attractive, but on the whole I totally agree with the thesis of this video. I actually really enjoy "fake" traditional-looking architecture and find it usually results in places that are really pleasant to be in. This includes manufactured "main street" sorts of neighborhoods/lifestyle centers that I've been to in the US, the fake Old City in Warsaw, and even the Yu Yuan area of Shanghai.* All very pleasant places to be in compared to soulless brutalist concrete or glass cubes. *This one is a double-edged sword; I find the area really attractive and pleasant to be in, even if a lot of people write it off as a "tourist trap." The negative part, for sure, is that actual historic buildings were demolished to build the newer, more visually impressive fake historic district, which is a real shame.

[@calogerohuygens4430]

Look at the reconstruction of Frankfurt centre. They are blending modern housing in old city pattern and fashion.

[@EVO501]

At 5:03 giving the MI6 building as an example of ugly, modern architecture is kinda weird considering it was designed with functionality as its main criteria, you know, cause its a spy agency headquarters.

[@NeovanGoth]

That's a prime example of post-modernism, which produced a couple of really weird buildings whose aesthetics totally don't work for me, although I'm a big fan of modern architecture in general.

[@LordShplane]

I personally liked that one specifically. I know exactly jack shit about architecture. Idk it just kinda looks cool.

[@lassassindu5071]

My first impression as a Frenchman of that building was "Looks like someone tried to recreate a fortress with the limited assets of a 90's video game". Glad to know it looks like a prison fortress because it is a prison fortress, truly a proper case of form following function and expressing it. But espionage is ugly, and so is a building built for espionage.

[@nakenmil]

Yeah, that's one I like too, it doesn't just look a cube, it has some interesting and pleasant things going on. It's almost a bit like a castle. ​@@LordShplane

[@smalltime0]

Technically it houses other things, its name is Vauxhall Cross. I think the building was actually finished before the UK government officially recognised MI6, which is wild. Its better than the MI5 building (Thames house) which almost looks like its a disguised use building. It looks almost identical to the building next to it.

[@ronifraimovich9145]

Adam, I work as an architectural designer. I think what you're describing in this video is less an issue with style and more an issue with execution, which comes down to cost cutting. A lot of contemporary architecture is like fast food. We now have the technology to build something much cheaper than before, even if it isn't as "tasty" or "nutritious" (ie. good for the urban environment), and quite frankly, people have voted with their wallets. It doesn't mean you and I are still only cooking recipes from the 19th century, it's just that we don't eat fast food all the time, whereas architectural clients often do. There are modern developments, in a "non traditional" style, that I think you and I would both agree look fantastic and contribute positively to their environments. I would take Houthavens in Amsterdam as an example, or some of the work by Peter Barber in the UK. There is a lot to criticise about modern architecture, but ultimately modern architecture came from the desire to put technology to use to make people's lives better, rather than just blindly sticking to traditional designs. Lots of people love having huge windows, plenty of people like the ability to rearrange walls in a space without worrying about structure (or just having an open plan to begin with), and not to mention the advances that have been made in heating, cooling, and insulation. All of this is still "modern architecture".

[@Marconius6]

As someone currently living in a 100 year old apartment in Helsinki... I can't wait to move to a more modern building. Old buildings may look pretty on the outside, but all those features and parameters and building materials the architecture nerds get all excited about do start to matter when you're, y'know, actually living inside one. Not saying we couldn't make modern buildings more pretty ofc, but maybe it's not all bad?

[@theultimatereductionist7592]

THANK YOU FOR MAKING THIS BADLY NEEDED POINT! I am disgusted with people who TRIVIALIZE AGONIZING BOREDOM forced upon PRISONERS, yet whine about some buildings not looking nice. When you free all prisoners, then I'll give a shit wft some buildings look like.

[@chyza2012]

Really old buildings being bad to live in isn't caused by them looking nice, it's caused by them being really old. There's no reason you can't build stuff that looks nice with modern materials.

[@Marconius6]

@@chyza2012 Exactly. So we should replace the nice-looking, but bad to live in old buildings; with nice-looking, and good to live in new buildings!

[@septicbro]

Couldn't agree more. I have a couple of points to add. The lack of ornamentation nowadays has less to do with architectural styles and more with the fact that investors consider it an unnecessary expense that delays the construction process. In other words, ornamentation is the enemy of those who want the new building built quickly and cheaply. The other thing is lighting: in contemporary architecture, there seems to be a lot of emphasis on bringing natural light into buildings, as well as having a beautiful view from as many points as possible inside the buildings. The result of that are buildings made entirely of glass or with huge windows, which obviously reduces the surface available for ornamentation.

[@Borkon]

That Stockholm school of architecture building has been voted the ugliest building in the city for decades now (the school of architecture moved out many years ago though). It was supposed to be all green and covered in vines, but something in the concrete was poisonous and killed the vines. If you walk around it you can see brown dead bushes of vines that are trying to climb the building and dying. Thing is, they knew already 50 years ago that this didn't work and could have decorated it in some other way. They didn't. You might imagine that such a building would be redeemed by its interior. That's not the case here. The interior has been described as "ascetic" and "meager". The students hated it. Everything inside the building burned down in 2011 because the architects didn't bother thinking about fire safety at all. The fire department described it as one of the hardest fires they had to put out in decades. Literally every normal person in the city hates the building. Except of course the experts. The experts on buildings have decided that it's a cultural monument and it has one of the highest protection classes a building can have in the city. Their reasoning is that it's important because it has caused so many emotions. I'm not joking, that's their motivation - so many people hate the ugly piece of litter that it needs to be protected because apparently hate is one of the feelings that good architecture should invoke or something. I guess me hating the concrete blob so much that I wrote several paragraphs that no one will read just contributes to it being protected, so I'll stop here.

[@AppleIPie]

Thats hilarious. You know, I give them props for trying something experimental. We've learned something, maybe something as simple as a kind of concrete that repels plants, but we've learned something because they tried something. No excuse for them not trying something else now that their first attempt didn't go as planned, but ya know

[@frivolousmagpie5155]

The building they tore down to build that soul crushing building was a prison that just happened to look like a medieval castle, towers and all. Its so sad that it is almost funny that the new building looked more like a prison than the old one ever did.

[@theultimatereductionist7592]

@@frivolousmagpie5155 I am disgusted with people who TRIVIALIZE AGONIZING BOREDOM forced upon PRISONERS, yet whine about some buildings not looking nice. When you free all prisoners, then I'll give a shit wft some buildings look like.

[@drongilad]

As a structural engineer, I can tell you exactly how the design process works and why we can’t have nice things: 1. Capitalism- architect design is only a small consideration in any project (public or private), and the biggest consideration is money. And here we have two distinct problems: A. The rendering problem you mentioned is usually when an architect “goes wild” and then both the engineer and the developer have to rein them in. Because everything is almost possible today, but only if you are willing to chip in the dough. B. The “they will buy it anyway”- since the dream of many people (especially young people in the west) is to own a home and many will buy these ugly cheap units because it is better than nothing. 2. Nostalgia glasses- most of the buildings in older European cities were for the wealthy. Poor people lived in poor neighborhoods that were often demolished or slums that mostly don’t exist anymore. As time will pass more of the commie blocks will make way for different styles and buildings, because usually the poor people’s homes will be demolished (not the rich). 3. The most important factor for developing a site is the planing policy. If the regulations stipulate a parking minimum it is ironically easier to comply than try to lower them. If they allow you to build a massive 50 story “di&d0” you will build that (because it maximizes your profit. No regulation regarding how the building will fit with the neighborhood, no need for that and you can build the biggest middle finger in the neighborhood. So in conclusion, ugly buildings always have and always will exist, with cycles of demolition and reconstruction… if you want a good neighborhood or building, then you have to be rich… and like everything is about the bottom line and doing the bare minimum…

[@DonHavjuan]

Yes communist buildings were well known for their beauty. Wait....

[@thedoruk6324]

@@DonHavjuan Compare that with homelessness. Pick one

[@jayreed9370]

I mostly agree, but even the poor worker housing from 100 years ago used more durable materials and more beautiful construction methods. When maintained, it is still a highly desirable part of urban fabric. And yes: shacks, cottages, boardinghouses, SOME kind of public housing and other types of housing that were zoned away will need to return because the free market will never on its own build below-market rate housing.

[@D-angelin.Moarar]

I agree with points you raised, but not point 2. Sure, wealth is a factor for ornamentation and generally fancy buildings. But an old center of a small town that has never been considerably rich can still feel cozy and have a nice aesthetic to it. There are many such places in Europe, MENA and probably also other places in the world I don't know that well. But I would concede that "nice" (and thus likely belonging to rich people) old buildings probably had a higher likelihood of surviving to the present.

[@drongilad]

@@jayreed9370 This is also due to capitalism in the west , and in communism it was for scale production. Concrete structures today are mostly planned for 50 years. You can technically design for more, but aren’t required to… Same for the weird plywood s#!t they call houses in America. The nature of large scale manufacturing and development of today is definitely a reason older small scale development is always better.

[@TroIIingThemSoftly]

"hey look, a civilian airliner!" really got me 😂😂

[@Scyths1]

The reality is that MONEY is taken into account first and foremost, be it from the seller's point of view, be it from the buyer's point of view. Sure you can make an appartment with a beautiful roof, nice architecture on the front façade, put a couple statue and even gargoyles on it, but at the end of the day, who's going to be paying 800 thousand bucks for that appartment for example, when all the others on the neighbourhood go for around 400k. It's illogical to spend that much money as the builder if there isn't any certainty of selling it at a good cost, because at the end of the day the people building it aren't doing it as a charity but as a business. It's the exact same thing for the interior. Are you going to put a 300$ bashtub inside the bathroom, are a 5000$ fully equipped jacuzzi.

[@UristMcPerson]

I think one of the main issues is that architects are not engineers. They can make renders as fancy as they want but if they don't understand at least some of the actual limitations of things required of buildings, you only end up with those 'fake views' ones where it's nothing like the envisioned product. An engineer probably had to come in as a consultant part way through construction and re-do large parts of the architect's designs to fix it all.

[@georgesgamingchannel2696]

Engineers make cubes, architects make spheres.

[@AliothAncalagon]

When I was in university to become a civil engineer, the architects shared many of our lessons. On a more surface level, they weren't trained as ferociously in the math, they knew everything we knew. I can't tell how other countries handle that though.

[@UristMcPerson]

@@AliothAncalagon Certainly not the case at the Architecture wing in the university I went to. More time was spend in modules about the 'history of architecture' than best practices and mechanics. One module in Y1, which was about 2 months at most of engineering based study.

[@mydlo3]

As an architect, the fake renders come simply from competition. To sell the design to the investor or a contest jury, architects want to have pretty images which will convince them to choose their design. Some of us try to keep it realistic and not go overboard, but some just don't care and want to buy the client at all cost

[@yuzan3607]

In my country an architect must first finish a civil engineering degree.

[@bruxodomorro]

Bro i love your stuff but ive got some stuff to add to this one. First, i dont know where youve got the theory from that architects love ugly buildings. As a former achitecture student, i can assure you, that nobody actually likes grey blocks of concrete. Thats nonsense. You can respect the architect for breaking boundaries of architecture, which they certainly did with this concrete trash back in the day. This was actually pretty cutting edge back then and the huge demand for residental housing justified it. By no means it is considered beautiful though. Secondly, architects are actually bound to certain structural norms and can not build whatever they like. Furthermore, no one likes to spend more money than necessary when building houses. These two factors usually arent leaving much room for the architect besides building the cheapest, norm-conforming option. Cubes with holes. The type of architecture we see built today. You are mostly on point with the topics discussed in the video though. You dont need to be a fan of modern architecture, but good design actually does not need millions of ornaments stuck to it. Nor is anyone in his right mind willing to pay for it. It is kitsch and something to avoid. A staple of good design is simplicity and approachability.

[@TroIIingThemSoftly]

Casually dropping A Link To The Past music in the background was pure genius.

[@cachorrovinagre2979]

The main issue is price and functionality, but also the spirit of the time. The Palace of Versailles is beautiful, but it has no bathrooms, people defecated in buckets carried by employees. Modern buildings are efficient in terms of heating, plumbing, energy, etc. One thing that really saddens me about modern buildings is the excessive use of glass, the brutalism of concrete is less boring in my view. Concrete brutalism is a style that can be beautiful, feeling small next to a building can also be a good feeling. It's something that is calming, like looking at a mountain or the sea, we can see how small and transitory our problems and dramas are in relation to the world.

[@void-creature]

5:13 this would've been the PERFECT placement for a world of warships sponsorship. Maybe that was the plan in an earlier draft?

[@dairallan]

While I agree with much of this premise there are two glaringly bad examples presented. The Scottish Parliament Building is truly ugly as fuck. But the reason for that is not because of some brutalist design premise, its because its is designed specifically to work at a human scale and function was the first priority. Its literally an opposite example, modern architecture thats designed for people. And it works very, very well on that basis. Secondly the MI5 building is **supposed** to look imposing based on its function as the headquarters of British Intelligence. Its meant to work as propaganda in and of itself and again it does so very well, hence its been used in establishing shots for James Bond films pretty much immediately from its completion. Personally I also think it looks pretty good.

[@Game_Hero]

My grandpa loves the Scottish parliament building, he founds it to be very beautiful.

[@seneca983]

"Secondly the MI5 building is *supposed* to look imposing based on its function as the headquarters of British Intelligence." I don't think looking imposing is necessarily a problem. However, I think the building looks a little bit bland and boring which is a very common problem with modernist architecture. You should be able to achieve imposing look with more ornamented style as well. On the other hand, at least it has 2 different colors (and no bare concrete) so it doesn't look as bland and boring as some other modernist buildings.

[@IainLambert]

I think Holyrood is gorgeous, myself. Particularly once you’re inside it and can see all that functional design to promote productive working and keep the public access, but also the way the exterior controls light and shade.

[@theultimatereductionist7592]

GOOD for the Scottish Parliament Building!

[@DizzyNPeas]

I'm weirdly a fan of a lot of the smooth-looking, boxy, and modern buildings you showed. I never liked ornamental designs on buildings. But personally, I'd like them to be short (probably only 2 stories), and have some amount of colour.

[@user-tp2td8mq6p]

5:40 bro i got a booking ad right where it started spinning 💀

[@martinkrehbiel560]

One note on the architectural gigantism: IT DOESN'T HAVE TO BE A BAD THING I once saw a video that mentioned how the tallest building in a city should say something about the city. This used to be the case; the tallest building in a city would be a cathedral indicating the piety of the city. Alternatively the tallest structure could be a castle, back then people valued martial might protection and loyalty so this worked just as well. For contrast what does the burj khalifa say about dubai? that some rich guy needed to compensate for something? Personally I wouldn't mind if my birth city of Copenhagen added a single large building as a land mark. If it had some nice values attached. Like maybe a single university building that could house all the departments and institutes and faculties. Not kilometer high but maybe 2.5x larger than a regular building and with an underground metro station so it wouldn't be isolated from the rest of the city by one kilometer of parking in every direction. I don't know if it would be practical, but the idea is nice. For an example look at Prague. The city has a big prominent castle located on a hill that looks over the city. Its a cool landmark at it says something about the history of the place. Architectural gigantism is only a problem when either the landmark is surrounded by empty space or when there are thousands of them because everyone building a thing want their thing to be special/imposing/tall thereby preventing anything cool from standing out. PLEASE COMMENT WHAT YOUD WANT AS YOUR CITYS SPECIAL LAND MARK BELOW. Like stated above the city I feel the closest affinity towards is Copenhagen and I'd want a BIG university, cause I really like education and stuff :D

[@pigeon_the_brit565]

architectual gigantism is also a problem when the building is so bland its difficult to describe

[@toraqi8225]

Point in case, the Sagrada Familia absolutely towers over the rest of Barcelona but I don’t think anyone would argue it is a blight on the city haha (tourism notwithstanding)

[@Iwwilolnatchu]

Is it the school of life "how to make beautiful cities" ?.

[@andrewphilos]

I'd argue this is why the Eiffel Tower won over Parisians. It's kinda shocking at first, but it creates this lovely variety in the skyline that fits perfectly with the beauty of the City of Lights. It really is a beautiful piece.

[@stellasilverr]

Before the rapid movement to skyscraper-ify everything in NYC, this is basically what the Empire State Building was (as well as the Chrysler Building). A very tall and massive, yet beautiful and highly decorated building that stood above the city skyline as if to say, "hey! this is the biggest city in America!" ofc now with every developer building gigantic towers everywhere in the city, the Empire State doesn't have that charm anymore.

[@Tondadrd]

6:47 music from Heroes III: "Heroes Of Might And Magic III Soundtrack-Stronghold Town" Followed by Papers Please at 7:10 "Papers, Please: Theme Song" 9:04 Heroes 3, took me a while, start at ~18 seconds "Heroes of Might & Magic III Rampart Town Theme Animatic (1998 NWC)"

[@normanmai7865]

thank you

[@VJK102]

Also AoE music all around

[@catbakkorrel]

Around 0:55 is Age of Empires 2 soundtrack

[@carpedm9846]

I KNEW I heard heroes!!! Thanks for the citation!

[@canicheenrage]

Add 0:55 and 12:22 AoE 2, and 11:50, Deus Ex UNATCO theme. Not the first video with HoMM3 themes either. Glad to see i'm not the only fossil here.

[@tomnewsom9124]

Architect here. We dont have a fraction of the power this video suggests. Developers pay our wages, and they want returns on investment. £/m² is king. Labour is expensive but materials are cheap, so you get what you pay for. I've worked on beautiful, human scale projects and they were vanity projects for the ultra rich. Its not a design problem, its (as usual) an economics problem.

[@OehrchenVT]

We liked to name the Palace of the Republic in Berlin also "Erich Honecker's lamp shop".

[@ThunderTheBlackShadowKitty]

We should revive Art Deco. Not Streamline Moderne, but real Art Deco. It combined classical elegance with industry, technology, cosmopolitanism and progress. It showed pride in humanity's creations much in the same way Baroque does.

[@lenas6246]

yeah its almost like the "99%" cant be arsed to google how many actual different styles emerged when modernity was happening. Even as a sociologist I'm annoyed that modernity is not referred to as a concrete historical period but a synonym to "contemporary thing i dont like"

[@contrapasta2454]

I'm not entirely in agreement with Adam about his opinion on the RW critique of architecture. It's basically a strawman, which I'll forgive him because he's a youtuber. I agree with you, rather. Architecture is not without a spiritual and ideological dimension, and asking for a return to art deco is tantamount to asking for a return to the values it represents. If the things we build are ugly and impersonal it's because we've allowed ourselves to become that way, at least in part.

[@razorwireclouds5708]

@@contrapasta2454 I actually agree with you fully here. While I too would genuinely love a retvrn to Art Deco more than any other style (and I say this as an architecture university dropout), we cannot do so because society's values are shit.

[@neji-blm6579]

As much as I love art deco, I feel it would be better to have a new style and innovate according to new ideas and styles. The past does not always have to be referenced

[@theviniso]

@@neji-blm6579 I couldn't agree more. I want art to advance and new styles to flourish. Give me new things, I don't want us to be stuck with what we had a hundred years ago.

[@3rdalbum]

My local public transport authority released 3D renders of a beautiful modern train station. Wow. Then later, quietly released renders of what the actual station would look like - it looked like a platform underneath a plastic trestle table. After community uproar they redesigned it to look less like a piece of temporary weatherproof furniture and more like a basic train station.

[@Bilbsyy1]

I feel like the point that good looking buildings last, so we look back at the good looking old buildings and think why don't we build those anymore, but do because there are good buildings out there. Where as there's always been majority bad looking buildings, they just simply aren't around anymore by war or demolishing them, plus then there's an aspect of nostalgia of looking back at older buildings and thinking they look cool and different, but are often just as badly built.

[@Peorhum]

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Many considerations go into the designing of buildings from function, practical needs, costs, image of users, needs of the tenants, location, weather/climate, desire to fit into it's surroundings or to stand out, building material and labour force. Many of these factors are outside the control of the architect, and limits their designs. That said, some architect are like artist, who throw paint into a plane's prop wash, which sprays the paint on a canvas and they call it art while drinking champagne. Or who paint pure white on a canvas and calls it art. These architects see their buildings they design as nothing more as attention seeking art. The rest of the world's architects want to design buildings that work, that are safe, that last, that interact well with humans and the when possible the environment. Often they make multiple designs for their client and it is the client who decide which is picked and made. They local governments decide if said design fits into their vision for their community. As i said, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Some like simple things,and others like more fancy detailed things. it is like looking at a Trillium and a Rose, one is a simple 3 petalled flower, the other is a more complex flower. As to which is more beautiful, that is determined by the beholder. Either way, most will find both beautiful and if all flowers were roses, they would become boring. Same is true with buildings. That said, yeah, there is many fugly buildings made but someone liked it enough to pay to have it built.

[@Raisinlyfouny]

I hear a lot of people talk about ornament but to make a beautiful building this is not necessary. Because you just need depth in buildings like deeper windows for more protection from the rain and slanted roofs to make rain and snow not as heavy as it is on flat roofs. We also need to use local building materials because that is what makes a city stand out. For example in the black forest region in Germany you can see a lot of old buildings built with a red coloured stone that is locally dug out or in northern belgium where clay is in abundance you can see that everything is made of brick. The city I am from Antwerp used to have It's own style (bricks mixed with sandstone) which I think is so beautiful and it is super durable. But today all the new buildings are tall ugly white and break apart so easily that you can take bites of the buildings.

[@larskaiser8131]

Seeing a picture of my German hometown (not Berlin) being used as a positive example makes me quite happy! 😍

[@glennmartin6492]

One of the first things to develop in modernist architecture was the concentration of density into tall buildings than was the standard and freeing up the land in between into parkland. The populace didn't live in masonry canyons where practically the only view was across the street. The popular parks were now universally accessible just outside the door. And everyone had access to central plumbing, water and heating. Then what happened? The car. Mass transit got gutted and all of a sudden a lot of what would have been greenspace became parking and very little was accessible by other means. Greenspace may look good but you only see it from a distance.

[@redheat465]

I literally visited the Altstadt in Dresden 3 weeks ago and I've never been so mesmerized by buildings in my entire life

[@Pariahala]

One major problem with building new houses with "retro, human friendly ornamental brick style facades" is that they are facades, tacked on hanging structures that bring on a new point of failure. If you want to build new structures that look like old ones you have to build them like old ones and that costs more, and architects know this, and no one wants to spend the money. If you want to build modern buildings that look like the things people built hundred years ago you are building mold nests that last twenty years, and that's not very sustainable.

[@dorianleakey]

Yo say that like it's necessarily true rather than a risk, it's a risk, yes, but not inevitable.

[@masterplusmargarita]

The "you're too uneducated to see how beautiful it is!" argument drives me up the wall, because I do think there exists art that can only be appreciated by a trained eye, but buildings are no place for that - they're something everyone has to deal with. We're not blasting math rock everywhere in public spaces and expecting everyone to have refined music palettes, why should we expect people to need to have a university education to be able to be able to think the place they live is beautiful?

[@RealCodreX]

The problem is that modern architecture, and brutalism in particular, is the only form of architecture that is honest with us! Every other form of architecture tells us nothing but lies! They put on a mask and act as if they, and we, were something completely different. They must lie so that we do nott choke on the terrible truth we so desperately try to deny: A building is its people! And people are his heart! If the people are happy and live happy lives and respect each other as much as themselves, then modern architecture will reflect our happiness! But if people are misserable and live miserable lives and hate others almost as much as they hate themselves, then modern architecture will have absolutely no qualms about hiding that too. And so modern architecture is nothing but a mirror of the society and the misery that we impose on ourselves, and instead of swallowing our ego and our pride, we flee from the reality that we have made and into the fantasy of romanticism and self-destructive illusion!

[@samthelima]

​​@@RealCodreX I would strongly disagree that modernist architecture is the only sort that is "honest". Even brutalism, which could not possibly stand up without tons of completely concealed steel rebar, and roofs that hide their methods for shedding water, etc. What about the simple form of a home made of load bearing brick or stone walls, compressive masonry arches for openings, a cornice that sheds water away from the walls and foundation, a roof and gutters that, by their outwardly visible form, are completely honest and practical, but also nice to look at. Many vernacular architectural forms/details came about as responses to real practical problems, and were then embellished to make them more fun to look at, or more meaningful to the people who inhabit them.

[@backwardsbandit8094]

What that actually means, is that more often than not, you're reacting to a rage-bait picture on the internet of what appears to be an ugly building, but you're not actually there looking at it. The colour-grading could make it look unappealing. The sky being grey in the picture, for some reason, often causes a massive shift in opinion. The angle could be obfuscating the majority of the building itself, and you're left with assumptions about how the building looks, feels and functions. Most importantly, you have absolutely no idea how safe that building is, and whether or not it partly looks that way because of modern building safety codes. We don't usually have city-wide fires, that are still in the history books centuries later because we build safer buildings now. There's a reason the earthquake in Turkey and Syria royally fucked the place and it's because that area struck by the quake, especially in Turkey, had not been updating their buildings for generations. More people died and it made international news. You're not actually there looking at it in real life, where it could be a completely different experience. The people who live there or work there could easily tell you it's a wonderful, people-friendly, clean and cosy building with just the right balance of comfort and luxury, and you'd have no idea because all you're doing is looking at a photo on the internet.

[@masterplusmargarita]

@@backwardsbandit8094 Believe it or not, I do actually go outside and see buildings in person sometimes.

[@mihnealazar7039]

​@@RealCodreX true. Take bucharest for example. In the worst neighbourhood (Ferentari) they look horrible. If you went to some better neighbourhoods even before renovations they were not looking so bad.

[@jurresino]

A good example of this is the new building at Leidseplein, Amsterdam called the "Heineken hoek".

[@mindzazelva5996]

Hello Adam, as an architect I`d like to add up one thing. I think main problem with this soulless feeling of contemporary architecture is the funding of new projects. Most of the buildings you have showed in the video are private developements, where the architects are working with the idea of average individual for massive real estate developer company which has single purpose. And that`s profit. Meanwhile the building from the past which you have showed as an correct approach is funded usually by much smaller financial subject (such as a family, baugruppe etc...) built for them selves. So it is absolutely logical for those who pay care much more about the final outcome. This hegemony of absolutely overpriced real estates and building plot generates this idea of exclusivity but since there is not any contrary to the new developement. It is still accepted to built by many people. I start to sound same as the alt-right man in the video, but on the opposite spectre of political views :D But I think this is the only reason why contemporary architecture in Switzerland is so appreciated by both architects and so called "untrained eye" is their scale of financing and scale in general. My best regards!

[@Redrally]

I am so happy you highlighted the Culdesac in Tempe, Arizona. It is an excellent example of a properly modern neighbourhood with modernist aesthetics and approaches to building while keeping it human-scaled and car-free. I'm sure as it gets more lived in more flourishes will be added to distinguish the doors and front facades from each other. You also showed the photos of the not-so-straight alleys that run between the homes. That's a very old trick of ensuring streets always look welcoming and interesting to humans.

[@herebejamz]

Brutalist architecture is some of my favorite, the problem is nobody decorates them. Big colorful banners, nice murals, trees, flowers, art installations, all that good jazz. Particularly with people sized fun stuff in between.

[@RealCodreX]

The problem is that modern architecture, and brutalism in particular, is the only form of architecture that is honest with us! Every other form of architecture tells us nothing but lies! They put on a mask and act as if they, and we, were something completely different. They must lie so that we do nott choke on the terrible truth we so desperately try to deny: A building is its people! And people are his heart! If the people are happy and live happy lives and respect each other as much as themselves, then modern architecture will reflect our happiness! But if people are misserable and live miserable lives and hate others almost as much as they hate themselves, then modern architecture will have absolutely no qualms about hiding that too. And so modern architecture is nothing but a mirror of the society and the misery that we impose on ourselves, and instead of swallowing our ego and our pride, we flee from the reality that we have made and into the fantasy of romanticism and self-destructive illusion!

[@resiknoiro7506]

@@RealCodreX 1. this "fantasy" isn't a bad thing. if anything, it's good when a building represents happiness (even if it does so wrongfully), because this makes people looking at it happy. Being "honest" is not always the best option 2. This almost philosophical approach is really interesting, but not helpful here at all. It is exactly the kind of approach that "uneducated" non-architects will not understand and not be able to appreciate. It is completely overthinking the problem at hand: building buildings that are appealing. They don't have to be "cleverly representing the state of society", they just have to be appealing.

[@mishynaofficial]

Brutalism isn't supposed to be decorated, it's soul-sucking by definition.

[@RADkate]

le Corbusiers work is a nice litmus test imo

[@kalla103]

​@@mishynaofficial untrue. their purpose is to be affordable and livable. don't be fooled by the name - it just means concrete.

[@H1kari_1]

@AdamSomething what do you say about colors on buildings? In Berlin I could threw up seing how all buildings are: white, bright grey, normal grey, darker grey, or - when the owner felt very bold - a slight hint of yellow or gold. If I owned a multi flat house in here I would paint it pink, teal, bright orange, blue - whatever color actually livens up the place. I can't fathom why people always say that big cities are depressing but those people are the ones who turn cities into a grey blob of cement in the first place :(.

[@ReelK77]

it really depends on where u were born and where you live for example i was born in a very old town from the 16th sentury and there are no modern buildings daily i see an old castle, extremely large church, many small churches, old buildings but it doesnt seem so nice to me anymore because i see it every day but when i visit a big city like vienna and i see the modern huge skyscrapers, i fall in love with them and i start wanting to live there

[@ladymorwendaebrethil-feani4031]

2:56 Meanwhile, here in Brazil, post-war modernist architecture was generally applied to luxury buildings, with "azulejos" (lapiz lazuli tiles on the walls), edgy metal statues and geometric carp fountains (like the architecture in the movie "The Incredibiles"). So here modernism is not associated with poverty (as the poor live in favelas), but rather with artists such as soap opera actors, bossa nova musicians and all kinds of people who could buy a penthouse with a swimming pool in Copacana in 1955 (and the The 50s in Brazil were not conservative, they were progressive: the first era of real democracy, female suffrage, hedonism and appreciation of African heritage by the intellectual class and the adoption of several of its elements in national identity). Obviously the 1950s were buried by the brutal dictatorship that began in the 1960s and all that social democratic impulse was buried for almost three decades, only to be able to exist to a limited extent in a neoliberal era. Nowadays the old modernist buildings in the downtowns are decaying and precarious (they are becoming a Latin American version of kwoloon), however, they still survive in good condition in rich residential neighborhoods.

[@oneofus6924]

in the contractor side of working with architects, i can tell you most of the architectural firms are imploding. every set of plans issued is less and less complete. The firms themselves are becoming an even greater joke than they were previously. every contractor just sees them as overpaid idiots.

[@Rynewulf]

Sounds like the contractors are correct

[@mankepoot9440]

The architect firms are changing into the PR-branch of developer companys. This is not due to the architects wish but due to the shift of planning power from local authorities to commercial developers. The architects are seen as costs and are paid less, so they can no longer work as they used to. The main function of architects is to convince the local counsel that the developer has good intentions by making nice 3d pictures full of happy shiny people. When there is green light, the architect is no longer needed. They too often want to maintain quality and that is just a nuisance for the developers.

[@pax6833]

Working as a middle man between contractors and architects (I take plans and slap data on them so people can understand the ground underneath the building plan) I have noticed that architectural firms are by far the laziest people to work with. Their plans are typically produced only with their own use in mind (unhelpful scale, lack of directional information, lack of topographic features, etc). Engineering firms that employ architects > architect firms 1000%. Engineers appreciate "can anyone else use this thing I made" way more than architects.

[@KaritKtana]

Why & how are they imploding? Can you elaborate?

[@unphase.]

@@mankepoot9440finally someone who actually understands what they’re talking about.

[@darynvoss7883]

The modern buildings are much more practical generally: more accessible, better use of internal space. Making buildings that are practical, beautiful and affordable is the tricky part.

[@TheExileFox]

11:01 that buiding in Växjö Sweden is part "city hall" and part train station and it only cost a whopping 600 million SEK or 55 million USD which is insane for a "greenhouse" as us locals call it.

[@stefanoblascetta7907]

I'm learning to become a metalworker, and as part of our training, we did sam actual forging and had some time to try make some forged metalpieces. First of all it was really hard and we all came to appreciate all of the beautiful metalworking that was made in medieval times and onwords. At that point we asked our trainer why today we dont make such beatiful things any longer. Our trainer then pointed out, that in ancient times, the cost of making something, was the material cost. The cost of labour in medieval time for example was second to nothing, confronted to the cost of the material. And thats precisely the reason why today, where the cost of labour makes up the majority of the expenses you dont have much time to make beautiful things anymore.

[@CitiesForTheFuture2030]

There's lots we can do with "ugly" buildings (beauty is in the eye of the beholder) - use paint (see TED talk by Edi Rama) - use a building envelope (like they do in Japan) - add a new fascade - build a beautiful green wall made with colourful moss & other light- weight plants - or perhaps part green wall part paint Modern buildings also seem to have a stark public space in front of it - these can be converted into pocket gardens or vibrant public spaces with a fountain, coffee shop, street food, places for kids to play etc. Cities need vibrant & inviting public spaces. Many urbanists say "cities are for people not cars" but smilarly we could say "cities are for people not buildings" by which I mean cities should be people-centric not car or building centric. Cars, or rather other forms of affordable urban mobility, get people to / from places people want to go - sometimes that's in a building but also outside activities, places of importance or interest, entertainment, learning, relaxing, destressing, helping others, being of service etc

[@eliscanfield3913]

They actually removed a facade in one of the buildings in my downtown; it'd been built before WWII but was "upgraded" mid century with a boring new facade. Fortunately, they hadn't removed the original front, just covered it. I think they had to repair or replace some of the detailing, but it does look so much more interesting now

[@Izithel]

- add a new fascade I don't know if it's just me, but it always feels very obvious when a fake brick facade has been plastered over what's clearly just a concrete structure, and I find it almost as ugly as the uncovered concrete would likely be.

[@lonestarr1490]

"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder" has always been a dumb argument in my opinion. It tries to imply that those beholders cannot possibly agree, without making any point whatsoever to back up that claim. When it comes to architecture, most beholders do actually agree (many studies show that). So while the beauty may lie in their eyes, it's basically the same sense of beauty for each pair of eyes. And even if there are some weirdos out there who prefer brutalist monstrosities: why on earth should we design our cities to please an absurdly small number of people compared to those we alienate by doing so?

[@CitiesForTheFuture2030]

@@lonestarr1490 "Beauty" sometimes has a context in space & time where architecture reflects what's happening in a particular place at a particular time, awa who is influencing who. One generation looks at a building and says "that's ugly" & chages it, and then the next generation looks at the changes and thinks "that's ugly", tears it down and we're back to the original structure. Just look how we build houses throughout the ages, especially in the 1970s & 80s when cities expanded into the burbs. Today all the classic buildings that were abandoned in favour of modern houses in the burbs are now much sought after and cost millions (often pushing original poorer residents from homes & neighbourhoods). People even convert horrendous looking factories & other buildings into stylish & expensive accommodation. I wonder what the next generation will find "beautiful"? But I do agree with you that some modern monstrosities are very hard on the eyes. So how do we fix it? Tear them down at great cost that's also wasteful on resources awa filling up landfill space? Can these huge eye sores be made beautiful with some cosmetic surgery & a touch of make-up?

[@CitiesForTheFuture2030]

@@Izithel Cost will always be a factor awa how well the structure itself can bear the weight of any alteration. Also, today many modern buildings are made cheaply to only last a few years, eg big box stores. Big business is not interesting in creating an archtectural marvel that will last centuries. Rather a cheap building that will last a few years by which time the store may be out of business or have moved on. The modern way is impermanence (planned obsolescence), cost effectiveness and the bottom line.

[@anonymousanonymous2649]

Playing Glory to Arstotzka when talking about the palace of the republic got me rolling on the floor.

[@raufowaty2]

5:15 Could've been a good moment for a World of Warships ad, if they were the sponsor

[@maximhalas809]

Usually im on the side of Adam,but i think that today you miss some things.1)The nice old architecture is an examples of wealthy architecture of that times,cuz the lower class ones was shitass log barracs that just didnt survived. 2)Nice architecture are usually hella expencive architecture,and with todays housing and construction pricing building victorian aestetic buildings doesnt going to help(or more likely,they are just financially unrealistic dreams) 3)A lot of buildings built today go beyond your usual housing,shoping and eating and sometimes require huge floor plans and a lot of ligtning for their specific needs,classy 18th century style just doesn provide that(Chicago has some amount of buildings,that look like offices,but feature stuff thats usually put in a big warehouse,cuz u dont put large warehouse in middle of dowtown obviously) 4)Commie blocks are not that bad in their nature,they just are cheaply build and poorly maintained plus they were additionaly overrun by A LOT OF CARS they just werent designed for and a lot of sidewalks and grass areas a just places to park cars now(im actually living in one right now and know what im talking about) 5)I really want more residential like Culdesac Temple,but it just not universal,and sometimes just doesnt fit amount of people that live in certain area(sometimes you just need bits of Manhattan types of dencity) 6)Architectual gigantism are quite bad thing,and building BIG THING JUST CUZ U CAN shoud be stopped,but today you really need SOME amount of BIG buildings,just execute them better than obviosly fucked up examples from Sweden

[@mariuslauer9937]

THANK YOU!!!

[@afterhourscinema782]

1:44 My man summarized the show *"Breaking Points"* in the best way possible 🤣

[@burnttoast9890]

Hey at least they don't have the opinion that saying the N word is okay because freedom of speech (yes Adam did say that)

[@antonioscendrategattico2302]

@@burnttoast9890 I'm pretty sure Saagar absolutely does believe that shit.

[@burnttoast9890]

@@antonioscendrategattico2302 there's a difference between actually saying the N word is okay in a discord server and being a free speech absolutist , that is basic human decency, anarcho communists like Adam don't know that.

[@dirrdevil]

Gonna need more context for that one before I think anything of it. ​@@burnttoast9890

[@martinhaas7241]

​@@burnttoast9890 in sense of society that values freedom of speech or any freedom its okay to say n-word or be facist. Cause in society that value freedom are people ok to represent their ideas and are teach and encourage to critical thinking and healthy discusion so there gonna be opposition. Opposition that can use "bad behavior" and explain why its wrong. Its In modern "western" era but truly just its never ending battle that we tend not to built healthy societies in favor of prize and comformity and we take freedom as granted and nobody is willing to teach how to live and navigate in society that values freedom. So "everybody" has their truth and "no one" wants to be exposed to critical discusion cause thats how we can find we are maybe wrong. And thats how (at the end) opressive regimes and society are made. You can have freedom and healthy society or society thats ban and punish an n-word saying (or being jew). And that oppresion after time lead to freedom... Its very hard, rather impossible due to historical expierience, to make large stable and healthy society that exist forever.

[@tyler9703]

5:37 The absolute LAST place I expected to see this meme was in an AdamSomething video

[@Njrocks00]

Adam is cooking with the Krystal and Saagar skit thats literally every episode.

[@Shiroiji]

The main problem with modern architecture isn't aestethics, but that they are not build to last. They are like monuments of consumerism, they're build cheaply to serve for few decades, degrade and become ugly just to be demolished and replaced with another. We don't bother to renovate these ugly buildings because you can just replace it with new shiny one.

[@shitlordflytrap1078]

Survivorship bias rearing its head here

[@_jpg]

​@@shitlordflytrap1078 Not really. As someone, who studies architecture, I can tell you with certainty that "modern" buildings are planned with a lifetime of around 50 years.

[@JohnFromAccounting]

@@shitlordflytrap1078 A structural brick house will last for hundreds of years. A wood frame house need to be taken down between 30-50 years after it was first built.

[@MidoriLeaf-sr5fy]

Modern buildings are basicaly modern fashion: You buy it, wear it once and then throw it away.

[@MidoriLeaf-sr5fy]

​@@_jpgOnly 50 years?

[@OmniSzron]

Interesting video. I've studied architecture and I definitely fall more into the "architect/nerd" camp on this one, so it's interesting to hear the other side. A couple of observations: 1. The truly "ugly" buildings are really not that common. They're usually experimental and are trying to achieve some specific goal. Architecture enthusiasts like them, because they're case studies for novel material use or an experiment in interior lighting, etc. It's not something that the general public would ever appreciate and the buildings themselves are not meant to appeal to the general public. Even if you disagree with this approach, we should have the capability of erecting a small percentage of building with more experimental qualities, to push the envelope of building design. 2. Ornamentation is a good way to make a building appear more human-scaled, but what's even better is actually designing human-scaled buildings. A good example of this is the Palace of Culture and Science in Warsaw - a building so ornamental, that it's nicknamed the "drunk confectioner's dream". Yet, it's completely inhuman scale and the way it fits into the surrounding area make it stick out like a sore thumb. On the flip side - that residential complex in Phoenix that was in the video works on a human scale despite not being ornamental at all. Because it doesn't need to be - it's already human-scale with smaller buildings and tighter walking areas. 3. A lot of the video is putting the blame on architects, but architects are not usually responsible for the general idea of the building - just the execution. If a developer hires an architect to build something, they tell the architects what they want to build. They'll say: "I want a 300m tower on this plot." The architect can do what they can to make the tower look good or for it to blend into the surrounding urban fabric, but they can't realistically tell the developer: "yo, this would work better if it were a brick, 4-story max, terraced housing." I mean, they can, but they would be fired. 4. A lot of discourse about "ugly" buildings are focused on a picture someone found on the internet. It's very shallow. People are very opinionated about buildings they've never seen with their own eyes, never touched them, never went inside them and only seen them from one angle in specific lighting conditions. They get angry about buildings, that people who actually live in or use them, consider to be great, functional and well thought-out. This is where a lot of the "you're too stupid to understand this" sentiment comes from. 5. Truth is that the feeling of architecture being more relatable and human-scaled comes more from the way it's integrated into the urban fabric, than from it's ornamentation, material choice or architectural style. Old buildings look pleasant because they were erected before the advent of the car and the elevator, so they couldn't be too big and they used narrow and walkable streets. That's how the classic, pleasant urban fabric was organically formed. There is a lot of fantastic modern architecture that achieves sublime levels of urban integration and today's urbanists and architects are more knowledgable about the issue than ever before. The problem is that these successful projects are not highlighted enough, because they don't generate as much attention as rage-baiting with "ugly" buildings and failed urbanism.

[@kalla103]

this. i feel like in this video adam just cherry picked a few ugly/bad buildings and used them to 'prove' that modern architecture & brutalism as a whole is bad. well probably not cherry picked, but certainly didn't do enough research on modern buildings. sure, most old buildings look nicer on the outside and are engaging to the eyes, but there is so much more to a building. 100+ year old houses are often super hard & expensive to live in thanks to their layout & proportions bc how we live our lives has changed so much since. certainly there are concerning trends in architecture but that is caused by economic incentives and the way stuff works in the industry nowadays. the issue is with capitalism (as always) and not with modern materials or architectural principles. and the sentiment that we should design new buildings to resemble old ones is just nonsense. there are many great architects who work with modern materials and design unique, beautiful, cozy buildings that don't try to appear as something else.

[@user8361]

Great comment, responding so hopefully more people see.

[@onurbschrednei4569]

cool insight, but I find your conclusion pretty lacking. You say that today's urbanists and architects are more knowledgeable about the issue of lack of human scale than ever before. That just seems completely untrue, since the overall trend STILL seems to be to build as inhuman as possible. Almost all major new city quarters planned today still suffer extremely from buildings that are way too large and monotone, usually with one building spanning an entire city block, streets being planned way to big, no harmony between the different buildings intended, etc. Good examples are the Hafencity in Hamburg, the biggest European construction project built in the last 10 years, and which looks terrible and is completely dead. Or the Navy Yard in Washington DC. Or Europacity in Berlin. Architects and city planners especially are failing miserably at their job, so they clearly DONT have that knowledge.

[@bruxodomorro]

Exactly, having studied architecture i was bewildered of his weak lukewarm take on this delicate matter.

[@OmniSzron]

@@onurbschrednei4569 If you observe any such failure, it would more likely be the fault of the city planners. They're the ones that determine the characteristics of buildings and spaces in their jurisdiction. And yes, unfortunately a lot of cities don't have good planners or don't have them at all, which results in no coherent urbanisation strategy. That's where you usually get the truly awful buildings and spaces. Like I said, the architects themselves don't really have that much to say about the purpose and the programme of the building. That's on the developer and what they want to do with their plot. They in turn will always try to maximise profit, because that's how they stay in business. So it's the job of the city planners to curtail the developers and make them build something that will fit within the urban fabric. I'm not trying to say that it's never the architects' fault. There are plenty of mid to bad architects. Even good ones can sometimes create sub-par work. I'm just saying that usually when you see some fuck-off huge tower or massive out-of-scale building complex, it's not the architect's fault, but the city planners who allowed it to be built, and the developers who wanted it made that way.

[@robertlovlie5194]

The Stockholm KTH Architecture building a a good example to start on. Now to ruin it just slightly with "context": The brutal grey facades were not intended to be the final product. They originally wanted the whole building covered in ivy, but the plants wouldn't take to the walls. I've never been inside, but apparently it's a lot friendlier than the outside (arguably, it's impossible not to be). This building still stands, but the Architecture school has moved into a new one, perhaps not a beauty itself, but at least designed specifically to not be flat and grey.

[@ihspan6892]

I do agree with you on that, but for an intellectual exercise I will become a devil's advocate for a moment. 100 years ago, when Bauhaus was just starting, it was a revolutionarily new aesthetics. Most people lived in terrible conditions, not unlike animals, in muddy, stinking villages, with no running water or electricity, barefoot and illiterate. Suddenly someone comes about and says: we have a new concept for the masses, which will be easy to execute and its aesthetics will be out of this world! We will have clean geometric shapes, gas, electricity, toilets, garages, big parking spaces for cars (which were a rare luxury), we conquered the chaotic nature and give it regular orderly shapes. The idea wasn't exactly to demolish everything that existed thus far, and I imagine a single radical building here or there was fine (like AWF complex in Warsaw). Before world war 2, cities were dense, upbuilt and for many parts beautiful, but also dirty and claustrophobic, fires were common and most people lived very poorly (vide Zola's Germinal). If a radical architect erected something that looked as if a UFO landed in a middle of the fields, I'd say it was acceptable - like Villa Savoye - please look at it from a perspective of an illiterate Russian peasant. Crazy! Almost as if you were teleported to the Jetsons cartoon. And also how else would you convey the message of living in the future? Modernism addressed that need. And also the new architecture conveyed the message that we are building a completely new society as well (Tel-Aviv's White City). Then the war happened and there was no going back - in film and literature as well as in architecture, and Europe was terribly poor, especially in the east. There had to be a way to mass-produce new dwellings for rebuilding societies and there have already been tried experimental models from the interwar period. There was a great shortage of skilled labor, transportation and materials. I am pretty sure that if the designs were better executed and used materials that the designers chose, these buildings could be quite nice. People complained about the present all the time. There were complains about how cities and buildings looked, people in the middle ages hated gothic cathedrals. Cities were sources of disease, the air was rotten, horse and human faces were everywhere. Eclecticism that characterizes modern cities like Vienna or Budapest was also called "ugly", because it was a mixture of different styles in no special order, taken from catalogues of architectural details, with very repetitive patterns. Everything looked the same, no matter if you are in Warsaw or Zagreb. I think the problem with modernism became huge later, as more and more people accepted that experiments in design are the mainstream. I imagine that it was fine when students played with form in Gropius classes, the played with ideas and materials not really imagining anyone living in these spaces. Another dimension is sanitation and heating - modernism is still trying to answer problems that had been solved. Today we could all live in medieval, crammed cities, because we know how to supply homes with running water, electricity, heating, and we have clean modes of transportation and people are generally gentler and know not to empty their potties through the window. Modernist architecture didn't realized that it is still fighting a war that is no longer a problem. There is plenty of examples or really excellent modernist buildings that are both humane in scale and practical, modern and cozy - there are plenty of examples in Denmark and the Netherlands and Israel. And I am sure that in some time what you find batshit ugly will become normal, familiar and accepted, and maybe even protected, and in the future there will be a present that people will complain about.

[@ruben4447]

As a major traditionalist architecture fan it might sound unexpected but no we shouldnt go back to previous architecture.What we should do is what everyone else did in history. Build buildings by the classical proportions and improve the previous architecture styles. Architecture should keep advancing as we discover new materials and building methods. But modern architecture was never a continuation of the previous style. It follows no design rules and it basically reinvented architecture from scratch which wasnt necessary. What we should do is follow the classical proportions, study the previous architecture style and update it with new building techniques and materials.

[@Filon2137Potocki]

On point

[@JohnFromAccounting]

Styles can change but the principles need to remain. Proportions are the most important thing.

[@samlee86421]

We should build what people want not what architects think is edgy

[@Eterna7Forms]

That’s a reasonable take/

[@name4601]

However, I feel like if someone wants to build in a revivalist style it should be accepted instead of shunned. Styles are not a one time thing, they can come and go as they have before.

[@ceruleangolem4936]

Talking about architecture without mentioning the financial aspect of why developers will try to build as high as possible within the smallest plot of land and how this leads to ugly cities with standouts...

[@XiaoXiaoMan1123]

Stronghold theme from Heroes of Might and Magic 3 as you're describing the Berlin Castle... and the Palace of the Republic gets the Papers, Please motif. I see what you did there. And then the Rampart theme for talking about areas for human habitation. Your music cues are spot on. As for the subject matter, it's no coincidence that some of my favorite places to be have some some fantastic architectural setpieces. I just wish those setpieces were the rule rather than the exception.