The examples above could be labeled successful examples of contemporary classicism for the sole fact they don't appear to be covered with dryvit.
The Nashville building (of the american examples) is the best executed in terms of scale of the elements to each other. I'd like to get a closer look at some of the details. The others are quite ungainly, the white plains building looks like stack of slices taken from completely different buildings, with the brick mid section pulled from some unremarkable 1900's apartment building. I'm a student of traditional architecture, but damnit it you can't even be bothered to look through any of the rich heritage of american pattern books and architecture treatises to get the basics right, don't bother. Classical architecture can be devoid of most ornament (see many institutional greek revival structures from the 1840's) and retain an austere beauty if the proportions are maintained, but if the building requirements mean using fibreglass columns lacking entasis, I'd much rather see a second rate modern or even entirely pomo building. The dresden buildings are quite cool. The london ones (quinlan terry?) seem to suffer the fate of many revival style redevelopments with the facades looking pasted on. I'm sure time will tell if the current crop of classical buildings will age into something appearing like it has been around forever, or if aging alternate materials turn into a maintanence nightmare with poorly spec'd masonry ties or whatever. |
again, let me reiterate:
from dictionary.com pastiche - 1. an incongruous combination of materials, forms, motifs, etc., taken from different sources; hodgepodge. ex. "In . . . a city of splendid Victorian architecture . . . there is a rather pointless pastiche of Dickensian London down on the waterfront" (Economist). |
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Nowadays it doesn't look nice. It's a total bore.
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so who's rockin' who here? i bet a few ancient greeks visited ancient rome and said (quietly): "so fuckin' derivitve. can't they do anything original. kitsch. bah humbug...cheesy corinthian columns everywhere. parthenon can't be beat. find some new style, dirty rotten romans." let nashville have its thingie in peace. it's very nice. |
Hey buddy, you brought up the idea of 'looking nice,' not me. I already stated the real reasons I object to decorative pastiche. Read my other posts.
But here, I'll restate : It is inherently fake. Not just stylistically but constructionally. Ancient Greek temples were stone. The Romans used stones and load-bearing masonry. We, on the other hand (even in the Parthenon in Nashville) use steel and clad it with thin stone and try to pretend it's a real stone building. Your 'beautiful' facade is only a few millimeters thick, and requires expansion joints so that it doesnt crack and fall off. This is a major contradiction of Neo-Classicism, the laws of which were specifically created to suit the construction requirements of load-bearing trabeated and arcuated construction. Furthermore, the Neo-Classicist temples of antiquity were built to hold very simple programs. Their programs are unsuitable for modern buildings. Modern programs are richly complex. A project for an opera house will include hundreds of service rooms, offices, electrical rooms, bathrooms, storage areas, meeting rooms, dressing rooms, loading docks, rehearsal spaces, etc. All of these 'back-of-house' activities require networking in an efficient manner. A good architect spends a bulk of his time trying to figure out how to organize them so they operate cohesively and smoothly. There are two approaches architects take to solve this problem. 1. You can create the envelope of the building first and cram everything into it or 2. You can design the building to suit the optimal program arrangement. These pseudo-Classicist buildings obviously take the first approach, which is absolutely a retrogressive way to make buildings. If you design a building this way your first concern is to make a facade, not to ensure that all rooms get the proper amount of light or that the adjacency of rooms is optimal. And it certainly means you dont concern yourself with the invention of new ideas about buildings and space or with increased variety in the role buildings play in our lives. |
Neo-classicism to me represents a complete lack of creativity on the part of the architect. They barely deserve the title. It is the flimsiest of "ism"s. An embarrassing exercise that is neither environmentally responsible, or artistically valid.
Facadism is meant to appeal to the LCD, so I guess it has it's place. A shame that place is necessary. |
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ancient buildings looked like that because they were made of solid stone...today that facade is 4" thick stone...its wall paper glued on to make it look like something that it isnt......which is why today it is kitsch and why it wasnt in 300AD when the romans borrowed the aesthetics from the greeks.... |
Well, I thought people were going to post examples of GOOD classicism here, so held back this offering. But when I saw that White Plains monstrosity, I figured what the heck. I give you San Francisco's New Main Library:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...nch_Facade.jpg Here's the old Main (a Carnegie library)--it forms a pair of bookends with the new building on Civic Center Plaza: http://www.asianart.org/images/newasian/exterior2.jpg |
Some people like it and some don't, just like everything in this world. whether it's a new idea or an old idea is really irrelevant as long as it works and it looks nice. I really don't see why it's should be a big deal either way. People have argued over this subject way too many times, and I still don't see why really, because it all comes down to subjective opinions. I like anything as long as it appeals to my eyes.
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No, this isn't the point. The basic presumption is that we stay true to our time and try to respond to the era in which we live. Architecture must respond to the problems and situations of modern life, else it loses all validity and social meaning. Architecture is so much more than forms. It is actually a place-giver for daily life. It is the venue in which exchange, experience, and activity occur. Architecture has a great unseen impact on our lives and this is reflected by what types of experiences it renders possible. A thoroughly modern architecture will try its best to enhance life and make new types of living arrangements possible, and also increase interaction between groups of people and encourage greater openness in society. Since you chose to bring up the bungalow I'll illustrate how it reflects exactly what I'm talking about. Back in the day of the bungalows (1900-30) Modernism was just getting started in Europe. American practitioners of the style were technically being OVERTLY MODERN for their day. The bungalow, in fact, changed the American lifestyle in that it made things much more casual. Instead of having the ground floor be home to formal entertaining areas all the rooms were situated in close adjacency to one another on one level, promoting greater interaction of the public and private realms of the home. Instead of intricate Victorian detailing, simplified natural wood became the choice. This is at once both aesthetic and pragmatic. Since these homes were often, yes, mail-order, they were planed and cut in a huge factory. This actually eliminated the ability to replicate the complex detail work of the previous era. The individual master craftsman who could do fine plasterwork was no longer a quintessential part of the construction of the home. Furthermore, though the bungalow has many vague precedents in architectural history (its most recent and greatest influence being the English 19th century Arts and Crafts movement), it was a uniquely American building type that originated out of changes in lifestyle, technical production, and a need for abundant houses to suit the middle and worker classes. Though it may have 'borrowed from the past', it wasnt about mimicry and it didn't try to be anything more than what it was. 100 years later it's ludicrous to think we need to turn back to antiquity and cheaply and poorly try to identify our time with their architecture. It is an attitude that considers architecture to be only a facade and nothing more, when, instead, architecture really has no such more meaning that is often mistook. |
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We're not going to agree, so I'm going to leave it at that. |
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I have thought about architecture every day of my life for 14 years and I guarantee you that I consider it from far more angles than you. I realize for you it is a much more secondary interest but if you're going to be so adamant about it you just gotta back yourself up better. Otherwise you might try lightening up and realizing you don't know everything you think you do. Really, I wish you had more to throw out because then our conversation could at least get somewhere. Contrary to your idea about what architecture is really like, debates like this go on all the time. And when both parties have enlightened perspectives it can really be stimulating. |
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but there are many other styles romans could have chosen, egyptian, persian or just created themselves. but they didn't. they 'borrowed' the greek gods as well. lock, stock and bachus. i just don't think rome is a good reference for the argument. rome had plenty of innovations...like that roman arch! but classicism in building design wasn't one of them. in fact rome derived a lot of its power from 'borrowing' much as america has or any other successful culture. so i'll give you that they should use better materials if they wish to 'borrow' from rome which 'borrowed' from greece. other than that, have at it nashville! |
I think that it is important that architects continue to be original and innovative whenever possible, but I don't mind a well designed and executed revivalist building, given the situation is appropriate, ie Harold Washington Library in Chicago.
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