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Originally Posted by Nowhereman1280
First of all, I never said that these buildings should not be built, I don't know why you people are trying to string a noose around my neck for defending my opinion of the design, I think cities need all different types of design, but that 90% of it is not "good" design... My comments merely reflect the fact that this is a symbol of backward movement in thinking, its a bunch of people who want to have their own little slice of empire, they want to be a little emperor and rule a kingdom, they are really imperialists in that sense...
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And what is wrong with that? If that is how people want to feel, then why shouldn't their architecture reflect that? Every renaissance palace was built to oppress and express control, does that make them bad buildings? The problem you continuously have is that you keep allowing the concept to govern your evaluation of the building. If you do that then you had better be prepared to discredit entire eras of architecture based solely on what they were thinking at that time.
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Originally Posted by Nowhereman1280
No, because 50% of the seems are fake grooves pressed into the surface and reflect no function at all...
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Once again, form and function together is all good and dandy, i subscribe to that much myself but why must form follow function? Again, whole eras of architecture had little concern for form following function. I know those modernists wrote some good theory, but they also designed some bad buildings.
Also, the skin of the building is ingenious. If you've ever worked with precast (or any cemeotious material) you know how difficult it is to design proper moisture protection and structural support. Any joe blow can design and build a steel and glass building. You better know what you're doing if you're using brick or stone. Imagine designing the lintels to carry 3-4 stories of 4" thick precast at a time and then making sure it never takes in water, okay now make sure wind doesn't blow the precast right off the building. Better flash the heck out of that window.
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Originally Posted by Nowhereman1280
That's not even close to true, it becomes quite clear that when philosophy, not theory, is separated from design, it quickly becomes crude and loses all quality. Look at the second wave modernist buildings from the 70's where architects basically just began ripping off the LMVDR's and Bruce Grahms of the world instead of basing their designs off of an original thought or idea. Eventually this led to lots of buildings that were shoddy rip offs of the light and airy early modernism which is what led to the reaction that is PoMo...
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All the pages of theory in the world can't make an ugly building better and a beautiful building needs no theoretical support. Theory (formalized opinions) are integral in the design process but have very little to do with the building once complete. Who is to say that the architects of this building don't have a deeply introspective justification for the way the designed it? Again, we may be heading into another classicizing era, thus making this building visionary. I doubt it, but it has happened more than a few times before.
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Originally Posted by Nowhereman1280
No they aren't, beauty is some that is much deeper than simple opinion, there are instincts, socialized behaviors, and other more primal things than just mere opinion that surface in beauty.
It is not just "opinion"...
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Who says opinions are simple? You and i have nothing more than differing opinions and there exists pages and pages of this banter. It is easy to fool oneself into thinking that the process of looking at something and deciding it is beautiful is inconsequential and arbitrary. When you look at a beautiful person or building, you can come to that conclusion in a near instant. But when you actually reflect as to why you think something is beautiful it is quite complicated. (hence the millions of pages of art & architecture theory) In the end, it all comes down to one particular person's sensibilities and perceptions.
Keep in mind that architecture is not only an aesthetic game. While 90% of the buildings out there are probably pretty ugly, many ugly buildings exist beautifully. Presidential towers is quite possibly the ugliest building out there. Ditto vision on state, allure and a whole host of others. But they all are fine pieces of architecture for various reasons, economic, social etc... Elysian is at least ten times more beautiful than those buildings and is at least as high of quality construction as a trump or 300 n. lasalle. As long as one can stand on the site and say "This building is a better use of the land than had we just planted some trees" is enough justification for it's existence.