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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 24, 2023

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I don’t know why there has to be a single word, nor if there can be a single word, that encompasses this and this and this. And if there is a single word, "Brutalist" isn't it.

Moreover, none of those are boxes. OTOH, if, as you say, "concrete box" includes steel and glass boxes, then this counts, yet I dare say that most who complain about post-WWII architecture would find that more attractive than the examples above.

Moreover, most of these are better described as concrete boxes than any of the examples at the top. As is this. Heck, the Empire State Building is essentially a box with spire stuck on top.

And, frankly, if someone said, "I hate Rem Koolhaas because I hate concrete boxes," I would have a hard time taking him seriously.

Upon further reflection, I believe the term I'm looking for is 'inhuman.' To me, those three buildings feel inhuman, ugly, and unnatural. They seem like the creations of a lotus eater who began with a peculiar shape, and then attempted to transform that design into a functional building after the fact, rather than starting with human-friendly, functional spaces and adding aesthetic elements later to enhance their beauty.

These buildings remind me of high-fashion that seldom leaves the runway, worn perhaps only by the designers themselves, or the avant-garde in gastronomy featuring frozen bubbles of crab purée crowned with sea water-infused foam. The objective there isn't to create good clothes or delicious food, rather to create 'art', and in doing so, the primary purpose, and an ineffable authenticity is lost.

When you couple this with the degradation of fine art more generally, I think everything comes together. Modern architects, it seems, are crafting ugly art installations that begrudgingly take on the role of 'buildings' out of necessity.

Yes, that is probably a better term. Though it doesn't capture why. But no single term could.

Though I would take issue with your assumptions about lack of functionality. The first one, as far as I can tell, is perfectly functional. It appears to be, essentially, a set of rectangular boxes stacked on top of one another, just like a regular building. The boxes are just stacked very differently. The Seattle Central Library building is pretty much a standard big library inside. Also, I can attest that when this was used as an art museum, it was highly functional, and clearly designed to facilitate patron flow between galleries. The Walt Disney Concert Hall is renowned for its acoustics and this article by a professional musician says, "I am always speechless when architec­ture manages to support the purpose of the space so congenially."

Finally, as for aesthetics, the first link above evokes a treehouse to me, which is a nod both to nature and childhood. The last, to me, evokes flight or a sense of soaring, which for many people is emotionally resonant. So I am not sure that inhuman or unnatural are entirety fair descriptors; at the very least, reasonable minds can differ.

Heck, the Empire State Building is essentially a box with spire stuck on top.

Oh come now.

The point is that it is no less a "concrete box" than most of what dude is calling a "concrete box." Ie, it is a bunch of boxes glued together. His terminology doesn’t work.

More specifically, I personally think that the Empire State Building is more attractive than the Bilbao Guggenheim, but obviously not because it is less of a "concrete box" as he defines it. Ditto re this building versus Bilbao

Again, his terminology doesn’t capture the relevant differences.

And, I like the Empire State Building more than whatever they are calling the Sears Tower these days, despite having them having same essential form of a bunch of rectangles glued together. The differences lie elsewhere.