Here’s a piece at Modern Thinker which revisits Modernism:
The forerunners of modernism were a mixture of eccentrics and revolutionaries. They agreed on the break with tradition — and the abominated institutions of the bourgeoisie, including classical architecture. Regrettably, several of the rebellious architects were also willing to renounce their integrity and enter the service of the totalitarians.
Several? Try “almost all” and you’ll be closer to the truth.
Longtime — and maybe even Recent — Readers will know all about my opinion of Modernist architecture (just follow this link if memories need refreshing).
So while the above article is an interesting read, the executive summary is that modernism sucks, sucks green donkey dicks in fact, and is a blight on the landscape everywhere it is perpetrated.
As the title of this post suggests, there is no need to “revisit” modernism, unless it is to be used as a guideline which says, “Not that. Anything but that.”
Shaker furniture is rather plain and functional yet does have beauty in its simplicity. Modern architecture looks sterile and boring. I heard that to build the set of one of the Batman films, the set designers went to an architecture school and got drawings of their failed projects. Nowadays I think the creators of those hideous buildings would be the class’s valedictorian.
My late mother was an armature Architectural Historian, and ended up writing a book on landmark architecture of Cleveland. So I grew up with this in my head. The ‘modern’ architects are like ‘modern’ artists in that they don’t listen to the people who will pay for their work; they attempt to dictate. That goes about as well as you would expect.
Mother told the story of an architect who won the competition to design a new Arts building for a college campus (I’m tempted to say Southern Mass., but can’t check with mom and it doesn’t matter). The architect was given a list of requirements that he totally ignored. No good safe storage for volatile paints. Stage with no wing of fly space for sets. Stairs too cramped to get big canvases up. The Art Department coped, somehow, until a very few years later when the thing burned to the ground. And the only people in the entire state who didn’t think it was arson, were the arson investigators. Basically, the building was so badly designed, for a space where large amounts of paint, turpentine etc were going to be used, that it was not a question of IF it would burn spontaneously, but WHEN.
Everything that needs to be said about ‘modern’ architecture can be found in Tom Wolfe’s FROM BAUHAUS TO OUR HOUSE. If you haven’t read it already, I heartily recommend it.
I believe that such things were highly prized in the Soviet Union.
Sorry, Kim, but I’m all for revisiting these monstrous carbuncles – with a bulldozer.
C4 & Detcord would be a lot more fun.
give me the date, time and place. I’ll bring beer, spinach and artichoke dip, pimento cheese, etc
It can always be worse. Here in Boston, Boston University recently completed their new Computer Science building. It certainly stands out from most of the other Collage building that line the Charles River. It supposed to look like a stack of Books haphazardly stacked and off set from each other. I can’t tell if they succeeded because all I see is a structural engineer’s nightmare on how to build it without using the proverbial “Sky Hook” during most of the construction phase.
https://boston.curbed.com/boston-development/2019/12/6/20998757/boston-university-center-computing-data
That’s an architect yelling “Hey, please notice me, I’m a needy asshole. Fuck you.”
I don’t see any of that “stacked books” nonsense, but structurally there is nothing unique in the simple cantilever conditions.
Usually there is no ONE person that comes up with the design, but rather a “team”.
Long ago I was involved in some teams and I didn’t like the dynamic of the whole thing.
I’ve been a solo player since 1986 and prefer it that way.
I have to disagree. That Bauhaus is a fine design for a prison. Nice secure windows, and walkways, and …
What? A school? Oh…
Never mind.
Are public schools much different in execution than prisions? Confinement, supervision, authority?