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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 24, 2023

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I often think this. Who is building beautiful things these days in the public realm? Beautiful schools, libraries, railroad stations, hospitals, parks, museums, even apartment buildings? Yes, there are always a handful of examples, sandwiched between generic shitty modern buildings or awful pastiche. But not enough. No one’s thinking big. You have to inspire people.

I was watching some shitty talk show appearance by the astronauts who are supposed to be going to the moon again with NASA next year. The commenters on the YouTube video (who I presume watch a lot of talkshow clips) were saying it was the most applause they’d ever seen on the show, the audience were standing up and hollering and cheering and so on. People want to believe in something real. Yes, a return to religiosity would be a good thing, but there also has to be real progress, real improvement, something in the kingdom of earth or whatever the biblical term is that inspires and drives people, that suggests some kind of civilizational progress. ChatGPT is good, but right now it’s unclear how it’s going to improve most people’s lives and if anything most people who look into LLMs get panicked about becoming permanently unemployed.

If I was president I’d organize a huge World’s Fair for the 250th anniversary of America’s founding in 2026. Host it in New York, in Flushing Meadows park where the last big one was, around that giant sphere that once symbolized all the possibility of the late 20th century. Invite all the great corporations, every state, other countries, to come and present their vision of the future. Make it free to visit. Hire Robert Stern to design it in a vaguely mid-century Americana style. Have all the classics - the house of the future, the car of the future, the plane of the future etc. It wouldn’t solve the country’s problems (“the controversy over drag queen story hour in the California state pavilion continues…”), but I think it would be mostly fun and hopeful.

In my darker (and less sober) moments, I wonder if there's an active campaign against beauty itself. On my local city sub-Reddits I often see people complaining about "wasteful" government spending on a modicum of ornamentation on anything. Faux stone veneers on highway support columns? Wasteful. Planting trees along the highway? Wasteful. Apparently brutalism ugly-ass concrete boxes is the only acceptable architectural form these days.

Edited for Gdanning's pedantry

Brutalism hasn't been in vogue for 40+ years. See recent Pritzger winners.

Edit: No, concrete boxes are not the only acceptable architectural form. Frank Gehry does not design concrete boxes. Nor does Rem Koolhaas. Nor does Santiago Calatrava. Nor does Renzo Piano. Nor does Daniel Libeskind.

And of course there is a wide variety of styles represented here

2020 and 2021 both look pretty brutalist -- although that's perhaps overly charitable to 2020, which kind of looks more like a Mexican parking garage, and is a School of Architecture so should get some sort of bonus points.

2020 is Brutalistesque, but 2021 is not Brutalist at all. The point is that "Apparently brutalism is the only acceptable architectural form these days" is clearly incorrect.

  • -11

In the spirit of conciliation, perhaps "Apparently brutalism is the only institutionally-acceptable architectural form these days" is closer to the spirit of the original statement?

But, were that true, wouldn't that be reflected in the Pritzker prize awards? What reflects the institution of the architecture profession better than that?

  • -12

I was unclear. Acceptable to the customer-institutions who are deciding on what to have built; not to the institution of the architectural profession. Apologies for that.

Ah, I see, I misunderstood.

But I am skeptical that that is the case. Eg: Los Angeles replaced a number of library buildings not too long ago, and they are built in a variety of styles: https://www.lapl.org/branches/northridge https://www.lapl.org/branches/sylmar https://www.lapl.org/branches/harbor-city https://www.lapl.org/branches/encino-tarzana https://www.lapl.org/branches/mid-valley https://www.lapl.org/branches/sun-valley

But it is possible that it might be different in redder areas, where people might be less willing to spend tax money on attractive public buildings.