I work for a government bureaucracy, and for years have been listening to people wail and moan that Philistines who don't understand the programs or the needs are coming in and savagely cutting or changing what we do. My response has been the same for decades.
"If those with skill and knowledge do not fix things on their own, eventually someone unskilled will come in and solve things with a hatchet. They will have only themselves to blame."
Architecture has given us evils at great expense. Not all of it, or even most of it. But the awards are given to ugly. Only once have I had to deal with a first-rank architectural design firm in NY, and it wasn't pretty. They weren't that smart, but they were sure we hicks in NH were stupid. Long ago I had a friend who was an architect for a top Boston firm. He had disdain for those who only got to design the local libraries and courthouses. He eventually left the rest of us behind, including his wife.
I am sure there is a great deal that I do not understand about the difficulty and the design. Yet I think I could have been taught, if anyone had made the public case for it. Instead, I see ugly buildings. I do think they are better know than they were in mid-century. That's something. Trump is likely responding years too late to fads that have already died. So what?
I'm on a particular fence, which has to do with the incompatibility of two propositions I each hold separately.
1) Glorious architecture for government buildings entails taking even more money than is necessary from the taxpayers for the sole purpose of glorifying the thieving institutions levying the taxes. As such, it is immoral; the expense of glorious architecture should either be borne by donations or reserved for religious and similar projects that are more worthy of glory than is government.
2) Beauty is a true good, and beauty in public spaces is therefore a true good. Insofar as a project is necessary to be built, it should therefore be built beautifully in order to ensure that the public receives both the good of the project, and at minimum the good of their public space not being made uglier; or, perhaps, even having the beauty of the public space increased.
There's a real problem with ugly and expensive architecture, which violates both of the principles. There is a place in which the principles come into conflict, though, and I haven't worked out how to resolve them.
There are some sublime Art Deco and Modernist buildings out there, and a host of ugly as a prison post-modern abortions. Like post -modern "art", the success of them has been to convince the buyers that they had a elevated ,cutting edge knowledge or insight, when in fact they are dumb as a post with the artistic sense of the glop on a San Francisco sidewalk. Selfies of the age, attention seeking blowhards, like the guy with a mask who proclaimed on a plane he was fresh in from Wuhan and had the flu. Hey hey look at me. Oh we are SO special....Suckers are what they are, supplied by grifters. BTW, Wanna buy some tulip stocks?
Here- wash your eyes. https://www.artrenewal.org/
Be sure to read the statement of purpose. They slap the post modernist silly.
3 comments:
I work for a government bureaucracy, and for years have been listening to people wail and moan that Philistines who don't understand the programs or the needs are coming in and savagely cutting or changing what we do. My response has been the same for decades.
"If those with skill and knowledge do not fix things on their own, eventually someone unskilled will come in and solve things with a hatchet. They will have only themselves to blame."
Architecture has given us evils at great expense. Not all of it, or even most of it. But the awards are given to ugly. Only once have I had to deal with a first-rank architectural design firm in NY, and it wasn't pretty. They weren't that smart, but they were sure we hicks in NH were stupid. Long ago I had a friend who was an architect for a top Boston firm. He had disdain for those who only got to design the local libraries and courthouses. He eventually left the rest of us behind, including his wife.
I am sure there is a great deal that I do not understand about the difficulty and the design. Yet I think I could have been taught, if anyone had made the public case for it. Instead, I see ugly buildings. I do think they are better know than they were in mid-century. That's something. Trump is likely responding years too late to fads that have already died. So what?
I'm on a particular fence, which has to do with the incompatibility of two propositions I each hold separately.
1) Glorious architecture for government buildings entails taking even more money than is necessary from the taxpayers for the sole purpose of glorifying the thieving institutions levying the taxes. As such, it is immoral; the expense of glorious architecture should either be borne by donations or reserved for religious and similar projects that are more worthy of glory than is government.
2) Beauty is a true good, and beauty in public spaces is therefore a true good. Insofar as a project is necessary to be built, it should therefore be built beautifully in order to ensure that the public receives both the good of the project, and at minimum the good of their public space not being made uglier; or, perhaps, even having the beauty of the public space increased.
There's a real problem with ugly and expensive architecture, which violates both of the principles. There is a place in which the principles come into conflict, though, and I haven't worked out how to resolve them.
There are some sublime Art Deco and Modernist buildings out there,
and a host of ugly as a prison post-modern abortions.
Like post -modern "art", the success of them has been to convince the buyers that they had a elevated ,cutting edge knowledge or insight, when in fact they are dumb as a post with the artistic sense of the glop on a San Francisco sidewalk. Selfies of the age, attention seeking blowhards, like the guy with a mask who proclaimed on a plane he was fresh in from Wuhan and had the flu. Hey hey look at me.
Oh we are SO special....Suckers are what they are, supplied by grifters. BTW, Wanna buy some tulip stocks?
Here- wash your eyes. https://www.artrenewal.org/
Be sure to read the statement of purpose. They slap the post modernist silly.
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