Comment by TheOtherHobbes

Comment by TheOtherHobbes 2 days ago

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Cheaper lighting costs across an entire city are a very good reason.

"Ugly architecture" is subjective. A lot of architects care very much, but they follow the academic line and lack the imagination and empathy to understand why elements of that aesthetic are unpopular and impractical - a completely different problem, even if it causes related outcomes.

Bugs are easy to write and hard to fix. MBA culture as a whole is fixated on quick extractive shareholder returns, not on celebrating supreme engineering quality. MBAs care very much too, but not about the things the author (and probably most of us) care about.

Some people do care but are simply not good at their jobs.

Even if you do care, people will assume you don't. Anyone who's done direct customer facing work or even just sold stuff online will know that people love to nitpick.

And so on.

The problem is narcissism vs empathy. Caring means trying to have some insight the experience of others. Narcissism is on a scale from blank unawareness of others to outright hostility, whether overt or covert.

There's a lot more of the latter than the former around at the moment, and corporate and economic values provide some conveniently expedient justifications for it.

gizmo 2 days ago

The problem, essentially, is that you can't rage against the dying of the light all by yourself. If you're an architect and badly want to build great housing your goals are frustrated every step of the way. By people who don't care enough to do all the little things that are necessary to make a building 5% better in 20 subtle ways. You can only fight indifference for so long before you're empty.

What is the point of lighting being cheap if it produces a city where people don't want to live? Good lighting isn't unaffordable either. Cities with good lighting actually exist! And yet people will insist shitty lighting is somehow necessary. It isn't.

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ericmay 2 days ago

> "Ugly architecture" is subjective.

I think this actually illustrates the author's point and gets at the heart of the cultural malaise we are experiencing. If everything is subjective, nothing can be improved because nothing can be better than something else.

But this isn't the case.

The Mona Lisa is objectively better than anything I have ever painted.

Architecture is no different.

Some buildings quite literally are better than others and we can scientifically study this [1]. We can recognize that all opinions are valid, but that some are better than others. We do this in daily life too, if you are in the ER and the trauma team comes and tells you their opinion on your condition, you will value that opinion over the opinion of the person outside waiting for a ride. Art, music, architecture - no different.

Tens of millions of people visit the Notre Dame Cathedral.

Why?

Religious reasons of course, but many visit simply to marvel at the wonderful architecture. Contrast that with Rocky City Church [2] here in Columbus where I live. A big, bland, gray "modern" building that as our standards have dropped to nothing (remember everything is subjective so nothing can be better than anything else) we have come to accept as the norm.

This is the Nobody Cares phase of not just architecture but society as well.

  [1] https://annsussman.com 
  [2]https://rockcitychurch.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/1.png
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  • bccdee 2 days ago

    > The Mona Lisa is objectively better than anything I have ever painted.

    No it isn't. If I saw one of your paintings and liked it better, there would be no way for you to prove me wrong. My opinion might be highly unpopular, but that wouldn't make it objectively incorrect.

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    • SamPatt a day ago

      Some elements of beauty are objective. As in, they are hardwired into our brains.

      Some cities are more beautiful than others. Prague is more beautiful than Detroit.

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      • Cthulhu_ a day ago

        And yet, it's not as clear cut as that. There is some hardwired stuff in our brains (see e.g. the "bouba / kiki" effect [0]) but most people will agree that what is considered pretty, good, etc is cultural, not to mention changing over time - like architecture trends as mentioned elsewhere in this thread, but also painting styles.

        That said, a few posts back a commenter mentioned that the Mona Lisa is "objectively better" than anything they made; while I won't comment on aesthetics and appreciation, the assertion that the artist is more skilled in the arts than the poster is something definitely objectively true, simply because of education and experience. That's no guarantee that the outcome is better, but still.

        [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bouba/kiki_effect

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        • ericmay 18 hours ago

          To your point, though, I think as you look around at McMansions and Wal-Mart there's nothing architecturally redeeming about those structures besides efficiency in building and internal climate control. We know the architectural styles are bad and there are (again to your point about skill) scientific ways we can measure this (Ann Sussman's work).

          If you look at historical architecture patterns (mostly pre-WWI) they mirror how art has changed over time.

          It's not that Impressionism came about and Renaissance became shit, it's that both are good and important stylistic contributions.

          It's not that Gothic architecture came about then all the Romanesque stuff sucked. Both were good and unique.

          We run into the same problem as "all art is equal" when we tend to express the belief that because we live in the time period we're complaining about that if only we waited a few hundred years we would recognize that our current building patterns are actually really good. That's just not the case.

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    • mcswell 2 days ago

      Then substitute one of my drawings (or paintings, if I painted) of a person. There's no way in the world that anyone--anyone!--would think mine were better. That's because mine are truly awful.

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