AUSTIN | Misc. Discussions - No Politics

[the Genral]

Tearing down the old Travis County Courthouse was a shame, for whatever reason. It could have been restored and turned into a museum like you see in many small towns. Mixing the old with the new makes downtowns more interesting, preserves our heritage, and most certainly adds character. In my hometown, there were quite a few preserved structures dating back to the 1700s. Once they are gone, its forever.

[enragedcamel]

Originally Posted by the Genral

Tearing down the old Travis County Courthouse was a shame, for whatever reason. It could have been restored and turned into a museum like you see in many small towns. Mixing the old with the new makes downtowns more interesting, preserves our heritage, and most certainly adds character. In my hometown, there were quite a few preserved structures dating back to the 1700s. Once they are gone, its forever.

Speaking of which, any news on that skyscraper that was proposed to be built on stilts on top of the old masonic lodge?

[the Genral]

Was watching a segment on Fox News's Tucker Carlson tonight just now subtitled 'U.S. Is Full Of Hideous & Depressing Buildings'. Buildings cited were mostly federal buildings including the J Edgar FBI, John Weld Peck in Cincinnati, Bureau of Alcohol and Tobacco in DC, Wayne Lyman Morse US Federal Courthouse, San Francisco Federal Building, Hubert H Humphrey HHS Building, Dept of Labor Francis Perkins Building, James V Forrestal Dept of Energy Building, and wait for it...JJ Pickle Federal Building made the list. Most of the offenders are in DC. Tucker used words like disgusting, disgraceful, especially to the people these buildings are named after. Now, putting politics aside for a moment, this segment was purely about architecture. I appreciate architecture and was pleasantly surprised to see, on the news, a report on it, and the disdain and contempt for crappy building designs, especially the low stylistic designs on Public buildings mostly Federal, which should be uplifting, inspiring, and beautiful. I agree because the lack of such creates eyesores in cities where most of the architecture is the opposite. An executive order promoting beauty in architecture for Federal buildings was made today by the POTUS. Per the order, " New buildings should uplift and beautify public spaces and inspire the human spirit". What we have now in many cases looks like flack houses in Germany during WWII according to Tucker's guest Chris Bedford, a senior Editor at The Federalist. The architects who designed these buildings dub the style "Brutalism".
Anyway, it was so refreshing to break away from the usual horseshit on the news to see a report on something I can finally get on board with without being political. Its too late for the awful JJ Pickle Fed Bldg, but maybe there's hope for the future. They didn't get into the Executive Order word for word, and I'd like to personally read it, but the building nerd in me is grateful that this is being addressed. I do wonder how our new Federal Courthouse would measure up. The general consensus is traditional is preferred. A courthouse should look like one. I don't hate the design so much, but it does not look like a courthouse to me.

[H2O]

Originally Posted by the Genral

Was watching a segment on Fox News's Tucker Carlson tonight just now subtitled 'U.S. Is Full Of Hideous & Depressing Buildings'. Buildings cited were mostly federal buildings including the J Edgar FBI, John Weld Peck in Cincinnati, Bureau of Alcohol and Tobacco in DC, Wayne Lyman Morse US Federal Courthouse, San Francisco Federal Building, Hubert H Humphrey HHS Building, Dept of Labor Francis Perkins Building, James V Forrestal Dept of Energy Building, and wait for it...JJ Pickle Federal Building made the list. Most of the offenders are in DC. Tucker used words like disgusting, disgraceful, especially to the people these buildings are named after. Now, putting politics aside for a moment, this segment was purely about architecture. I appreciate architecture and was pleasantly surprised to see, on the news, a report on it, and the disdain and contempt for crappy building designs, especially the low stylistic designs on Public buildings mostly Federal, which should be uplifting, inspiring, and beautiful. I agree because the lack of such creates eyesores in cities where most of the architecture is the opposite. An executive order promoting beauty in architecture for Federal buildings was made today by the POTUS. Per the order, " New buildings should uplift and beautify public spaces and inspire the human spirit". What we have now in many cases looks like flack houses in Germany during WWII according to Tucker's guest Chris Bedford, a senior Editor at The Federalist. The architects who designed these buildings dub the style "Brutalism".
Anyway, it was so refreshing to break away from the usual horseshit on the news to see a report on something I can finally get on board with without being political. Its too late for the awful JJ Pickle Fed Bldg, but maybe there's hope for the future. They didn't get into the Executive Order word for word, and I'd like to personally read it, but the building nerd in me is grateful that this is being addressed. I do wonder how our new Federal Courthouse would measure up. The general consensus is traditional is preferred. A courthouse should look like one. I don't hate the design so much, but it does not look like a courthouse to me.

Hitler had similar opinions about architecture.

[eguidry]

I'm not opposed to requiring more local input but steering design to be Classical "Neoclassical, Georgian, Federal, Greek Revival, Beaux-Arts, and Art Deco" seems unduly limiting. I'll use the example of the Austin Federal Courthouse which was called out explicitly as bad design but IMHO fits well with the city and modern nature of the space it's in, even though not being a traditional "courthouse". We are a discordant country and the appropriate thing, in my mind, is to take local aesthetic to count and design that which fits there. That what makes sense in NYC probably wouldn't make sense in Salt lake city, the order doesn't explicitly ban alternate styles but it will make the process to integrate to more modern communities more challenging. Based on my inexperienced reading of the order there are enough ways to get out of it, and an executive order isn't law so how tightly it'll be adhered will be interesting.

Plus there is something I personally like about using government funds to push large scale design forward in interesting ways that private sectors often don't.

https://www.core77.com/posts/103785/Trum...to-Design-Criticism-with-Executive-Order

[the Genral]

Originally Posted by eguidry

I'm not opposed to requiring more local input but steering design to be Classical "Neoclassical, Georgian, Federal, Greek Revival, Beaux-Arts, and Art Deco" seems unduly limiting. I'll use the example of the Austin Federal Courthouse which was called out explicitly as bad design but IMHO fits well with the city and modern nature of the space it's in, even though not being a traditional "courthouse". We are a discordant country and the appropriate thing, in my mind, is to take local aesthetic to count and design that which fits there. That what makes sense in NYC probably wouldn't make sense in Salt lake city, the order doesn't explicitly ban alternate styles but it will make the process to integrate to more modern communities more challenging. Based on my inexperienced reading of the order there are enough ways to get out of it, and an executive order isn't law so how tightly it'll be adhered will be interesting.

Plus there is something I personally like about using government funds to push large scale design forward in interesting ways that private sectors often don't.

https://www.core77.com/posts/103785/Trum...to-Design-Criticism-with-Executive-Order

Thank you for posting that link.

[We vs us]

Boy. It's so hard to sidestep the politics on this one. Considering who issued it, when, and why, it's almost impossible to separate it out from the culture war. And Tucker certainly knows the score by using words like disgusting and disgraceful to describe what is a lightly controversial (and now decades old) style shift in mostly DC building trends. It's another attempt to find enemies amongst the arts community and the Fed bureaucracy, and it sucks. Anyway. Sorry, Genral, I had to get that off my chest.

THAT SAID. I don't disagree that we get the occasional ugly building out of the GSA system as it stands. So if the EO consisted of the following guiding principles only, I'd be 100% for it.

"New Federal building designs should, like America’s beloved landmark buildings, uplift and beautify public spaces, inspire the human spirit, ennoble the United States, command respect from the general public, and, as appropriate, respect the architectural heritage of a region. They should also be visibly identifiable as civic buildings and should be selected with input from the local community."

I can't tell you how much these guidelines match the GSA's current process (so many of the Brutalist buildings are 50/60 years old, long-completed), but these are good guidelines.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-...ng-beautiful-federal-civic-architecture/

[atxsnail]

time to start a fascist architecture thread...

jokes aside, while I think we can all agree that brutalist architecture is pretty polarizing, I believe it is at least an intellectually honest representation of the age and climate in which they were developed. Same goes for the modern architecture of some of the other targets on that list (some of which I happen to think are beautiful).

Both styles were still a nice contrast to the excessive nostalgia/fetishization of classical architecture - none of which is actually authentic to this country. I guess to the extent that any new federal buildings got started during the last few years they will be a physical manifestation of the political extremism of the last 4 years.

Also the old Travis County Courthouse was pretty nice - it's too bad that it was torn down.

[N90]

You guys buying that KFC video game console?

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com...mes-console-chicken-scli-intl/index.html

[the Genral]

delete

[Maximusx1]

Originally Posted by the Genral

Was watching a segment on Fox News's Tucker Carlson tonight just now subtitled 'U.S. Is Full Of Hideous & Depressing Buildings'. Buildings cited were mostly federal buildings including the J Edgar FBI, John Weld Peck in Cincinnati, Bureau of Alcohol and Tobacco in DC, Wayne Lyman Morse US Federal Courthouse, San Francisco Federal Building, Hubert H Humphrey HHS Building, Dept of Labor Francis Perkins Building, James V Forrestal Dept of Energy Building, and wait for it...JJ Pickle Federal Building made the list. Most of the offenders are in DC. Tucker used words like disgusting, disgraceful, especially to the people these buildings are named after. Now, putting politics aside for a moment, this segment was purely about architecture. I appreciate architecture and was pleasantly surprised to see, on the news, a report on it, and the disdain and contempt for crappy building designs, especially the low stylistic designs on Public buildings mostly Federal, which should be uplifting, inspiring, and beautiful. I agree because the lack of such creates eyesores in cities where most of the architecture is the opposite. An executive order promoting beauty in architecture for Federal buildings was made today by the POTUS. Per the order, " New buildings should uplift and beautify public spaces and inspire the human spirit". What we have now in many cases looks like flack houses in Germany during WWII according to Tucker's guest Chris Bedford, a senior Editor at The Federalist. The architects who designed these buildings dub the style "Brutalism".
Anyway, it was so refreshing to break away from the usual horseshit on the news to see a report on something I can finally get on board with without being political. Its too late for the awful JJ Pickle Fed Bldg, but maybe there's hope for the future. They didn't get into the Executive Order word for word, and I'd like to personally read it, but the building nerd in me is grateful that this is being addressed. I do wonder how our new Federal Courthouse would measure up. The general consensus is traditional is preferred. A courthouse should look like one. I don't hate the design so much, but it does not look like a courthouse to me.

100% agree on the architecture. However for me the worst part of the existence of that JJ Pickle building is that it permanently blocks the eastbound traffic movement of 9th street, forcing all that traffic to turn and clog southbound San Jacinto and then turn again to clog eastbound seventh street. And for what? For a post office drive thru that doesn't exist anymore? Tear it down and give us out street/grid back!

There are not enough ingress/egress routes in downtown and that building pointlessly ruins one.

[austlar1]

Originally Posted by Maximusx1

100% agree on the architecture. However for me the worst part of the existence of that JJ Pickle building is that it permanently blocks the eastbound traffic movement of 9th street, forcing all that traffic to turn and clog southbound San Jacinto and then turn again to clog eastbound seventh street. And for what? For a post office drive thru that doesn't exist anymore? Tear it down and give us out street/grid back!

There are not enough ingress/egress routes in downtown and that building pointlessly ruins one.

9th Street used to go under the building extension. It was closed to traffic in the aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombing as a security measure.

[Nickelplate]

Despite all the gripping in this sub forum and the crap we have all endured this year... Let's all enjoy life and have a Merry Christmas. Physical touch is the key to mental and emotional calm. Do it with care but don't forget to do it. Let's build big skyscrapers this coming year!

[KevinFromTexas]

I like the Pickle Building. It's just too bad there are crazy people in the world to justify closing streets. 8th Street was open under it until 9/11.

[Armybrat]

Originally Posted by KevinFromTexas

I like the Pickle Building. It's just too bad there are crazy people in the world to justify closing streets. 8th Street was open under it until 9/11.

That uninspiring building blocked the full view of the Capitol from what had been the “grand entrance to Austin” driving northbound on I-35 at the curve just south of the Riverside overpass.

[deerhoof]

Merry Christmas, everyone! This forum is filled with great people and I enjoy following along year after year! Have a wonderful day!

[Jdawgboy]

Merry Christmas to everyone!!!

[H2O]

Happy Boxing Day and Happy Holidays to all however you may celebrate the season.

[austlar1]

Originally Posted by KevinFromTexas

I like the Pickle Building. It's just too bad there are crazy people in the world to justify closing streets. 8th Street was open under it until 9/11.

Are you sure? I thought it was after the Oklahoma City bombing of the federal building?

[KevinFromTexas]

Originally Posted by austlar1

Are you sure? I thought it was after the Oklahoma City bombing of the federal building?

Maybe, but I'm not sure. I do distinctly remember us having to drop off a letter at a mailbox there in the spring of '94. That, of course, was before the OKC bombing. You may be right, and I can't find any articles talking about it at the moment.