I've decided I actually like Le Corbusier. Sometimes

his idea of having 'internal streets' in apartment buildings is good, actually. It's not useful with proper zoning reform tho as its a poor imitation of how dynamic a real street should be. I also appreciate his toilets, dedication to timber framing and timber in general, and 'featurist' buildings made for the soviets and indian local governments.

oh and his architectural color swatches

Yet by far, when it comes to modernism I prefer just about everybody else.

@kernow look this fool

@WandererUber bad architects use ornamentation to hide their mistakes. Le Corbusier uses a LOT of ornamentation.

@kernow you have much to learn

@WandererUber you like tradslop. Tell me why ornamentation is important in architecture without relying on unexplained visual comparison

@WandererUber the easy answer here is 'branding' btw. But that's also reaaaaly lazy. Good architects will tell you who they are without shoving it in your face.

@kernow >Good architects will tell you who they are without shoving it in your face.
Who comes to mind here?

@WandererUber Adolf Loos

@kernow @WandererUber rofl this is retarded

@f0x @WandererUber tell me what you think of the exterior of Hill House

@kernow >unexplained visual comparison
what does this mean?

ornamentation is only one aspect of beauty in architecture. Enhancing the beauty of a building is important because it makes people want to live in it. It makes whoever built it proud. It makes whoever inherits it not want to demolish it.

@WandererUber normal tradsloppers post PAST GOOD PRESENT BAD and compare the Roman Baths in Bath (very nice btw) with Frank Gehryslop INSTEAD of addressing the disgusting romanesque blocks of the period the modernists were complaining about.

@kernow @WandererUber it's disgusting.

@f0x @WandererUber and how do you feel about the Van Allen Building?

@kernow @f0x @WandererUber it looks like a barn

@kernow @WandererUber feels out of place, very confused about what it wants to be.

@kernow I'm not too familiar with him but all of these seem to feature significant flourishes and "ornamentations", if one could call them that, that call attention to it.
I think this is very "in your face". Especially the archetypal modern LOOK AT ME, LOOK HOW I DON'T FIT IN exteriors.
I like the last one because it does fit, and because it is pleasing to look at, though it pales in comparison to its neighbors

@WandererUber that's the thing, 'flourishes' or exaggerated massing is not ornamentation. It's the little feebly bits (eg cornices) you place around the structure to draw the eye or show off how wealthy the owner is. Usually the latter.

@f0x @WandererUber how do you feel it's confused?

@kernow Well, unfortunately we can't expect the average normoid to do the legwork of understanding what actually DOES make a building good to look at and use. Those are two orthogonal axes btw, look at the new "eco quarters" popping up (e.g. Culdesac in Tempe). Very modernist layout, so at times ugly to look at, but pleasing to be around because they are human-scale

@WandererUber I see what you mean about tempe, the ratios between the buildings, negative space and people are pleasing. I can't call it ugly. It's bland and featurist: because it's been built cheaply + has to bend over backwards to conform to the ridiculous standards fire departments impose on architects.

@kernow Yes, I think at this point it's barely possible to separate deliberate modernist style from regulations entirely.
But for our purposes the distinction doesn't matter. it would look better if they were able to use proper ratios within the corpus of the building itself, properly proportion everything, use tried and true shape language, use established climate-complimenting structures like column-lined walkways, and so on.

Naturally, that would in some cases (not all) mean higher upfront costs. It's hard to argue that this is the only reason people don't do it though. They don't know how. The architects lack the skills. They're not allowed to. And so on.

@kernow well, definitions pilpul aside, I suppose the solid stone cladding around the archway in the third picture is there for structural reasons?
And on the ground floor in building 4 as well?

Be that as it may, I take it that Loos' (or your) argument is that the cornices etc are an issue? Why would they be? They look good.

@WandererUber the argument uninformed tradsloppers make (very different from you) is that ornamentation make a building beautiful, rather than the ratios between volumes of space relative to the massing of the building (shit definition, but you get what I mean). Ornamentation can be used to create this, but was more often not. See the old chicago commercial buildings and federal 'neoclassical' buildings made in the FDR era

@kernow @WandererUber with how the windows interact with the building and with how the material changes in attempt to compliment but the form-factor is blocky, poorly placed, and offputting, even for a square building.

@f0x @WandererUber can you guess when both of these buildings were constructed?

@WandererUber >Yes, I think at this point it's barely possible to separate deliberate modernist style from regulations entirely.
It does matter because this isn't modernist. The modern era ended a long time ago, this is something new.

@kernow @WandererUber
I like brutalism and the neo-classical style you see in dystopian literally 1984 movies.
Oh and also Art Deco and some bauhaus stuff

@kernow @f0x @WandererUber the architect was relegated to the basement as a child and maximized glass surface as a revenge against his parents

@kernow @WandererUber
also stalinist soviet neo-classicism is severely underrated

@kernow @WandererUber the cheap as fuck to the detriment of everything else era

@kernow @WandererUber the price efficiency era

@kernow Can you show some examples of how the absence of this ornamentation makes it better?
I wasn't able to find any.

To me, it sounds like the FDR era was defined by something called "Stripped Classicism", which seems like the opposite of what you're talking about here, so I can't find good images.

Picture 4 is Eisenhower building in DC, apparently considered very ugly, but we probably both agree that its uneven shape is what makes it ugly

@WandererUber Good God fig. 4 is so ugly. It's a mismash of French 2nd empire, greek revival and italianate styles.
Fig. 1 is a post-soviet ruin so you must take into account scrappers (the turrets of Russian Imperial Buildings were rarely preserved), fig. 2 is ugly with or without. Fig. 3 is Beautiful with or without because it preserves the ratios of space.

@benis_redux @WandererUber "you'd best start believing in overengineered houses, you're living in one"

@kernow definitions definitions.
I use "modern" vs "classical"
there were styles that, while innovating, kept within the grammar of classical architecture, from the Greeks and Romans forward. Over the millennia this has resulted in a very distinct grammar of architecture, and this is what capital M "Modernism" deliberately broke with.
Naturally, you can't count every loggers cot as a classical building, that's "vernacular" at best.

I am aware that since the first modernists (Le Corbusier etc.) broke with tradition there have been more movements that then adapted and modified that style. I know that these were different enough that they felt like they could give it a new name, but its of no use to me, because that's not at the zoom level I judge them at.
Not a week goes by without a modern building being erected that has grave interior climate, storage, or utilization issues.

@dagda @kernow post any good one from these styles

@kernow >Fig. 3 is Beautiful with or without
oh brother

>Fig 4 is ugly because [not ornament]
right. That's what I'm saying though. You took the opposite position, remember?

I guess you're now saying ornament is neutral? Because you mentioned Loos, I thought you disliked it, like he did.

@WandererUber fig. 4 does not get any better ornamentation or not. My argument was ornamentation is used in an attempt to hide bad work, and this is a bad use of ornamentation hiding a bad work. This is a textbook example of what the modernists were reacting against.

@kernow @WandererUber y'think it's a trick and it really isn't. You made a generalization and I went "that generalization is retarded".

@f0x @WandererUber I'm not trying to trick you I find your reactions interesting and I genuinely want to know

@WandererUber @kernow
Russian Army Theatre, Moscow
Russian Army Theatre, Moscow Ne…
Russian Army Theatre, Moscow fr…
(Red) Army Theatre, Moscow Blac…

@kernow I see. Disagree though. Loos examples above are also not well-proportioned. Modern buildings in general have shape and mass issues, chief amongst them Corbusier's idiotic pilotis idea to "make the building look as if it was floating"
It's a building bro, buildings do not float.

>This is a textbook example of what the modernists were reacting against.
This is all well and good in the abstract, but their intellectualizing doesn't help the fact that everything they build looks like ass, and it gets worse the harder they apply their theories.
You kinda preempted people posting bad modern buildings to illustrate, but since you also don't really give any good examples for this, it's tough for anyone reading to see any merit in the argument.

From "they have to use ornament to hide the broken fundamentals" naturally follows "so here is what good fundamentals look like"
and I haven't seen a single example of them succeeding. In fact, the modern buildings that more people actually like are all one-offs deep in the wilderness, like Fallingwater (literally falling in the water pretty soon hopefully) because any comparison to classical neighbors makes them look amateurish

@kernow and that's beside the fact that the vast majority sneaks flourishes and other eye-guiding elements back in, while still claiming Bauhaus or other modern heritage.
Bauhaus building itself in Dessau is good example. Ridiculous to call it "form follows function"

@WandererUber This is true. The Bauhaus movement rarely practiced what it preached.

@dagda @kernow yeah that one is good
I was hoping I could bait you into posting a brutalist or bauhaus building you think looks good

@WandererUber I mean I can dump my C&O coaling tower folder; and Louis Sullivan folder if you like. He's a modernist through and through. There's also a gaggle of Brutalists I adore. I can't stand Frank Lloyd Wright's works.

@kernow The point was that they have lots of theories and explanations about lots of things but can never back it up.

In this particular case, I would prefer if you had examples on hand for the specific arguments you're making.

@kernow >Louis Sullivan
💀 🥀

@WandererUber LOOK AT THE SHAPE OF THE BUILDING MORON

@WandererUber I will after my exam. Wish me luck kthxbaiiiiii :3

@kernow no thanks, the point was that ornamentation is unnecessary if the shape is good.
In this case the shape is good and the ornament is also good. That's my position. I win. No take backsies

@WandererUber >we have been arguing the same point at each other for an hour
I am going to kill myself. Kill me if attempt this again

@WandererUber kiss me then kill the both of us for being faggots

@WandererUber @kernow
When I was in Berlin there was a district which was made of old soviet-style housing blocs and newer buildings were Bauhaus, also the Alexanderplatz is very much an eastern berlin vibe
Alexanderplatz Berlin Large gre…
Soviet Housing bloc in Berlin S…
Newer Bauhaus-style buildings i…

@dagda @kernow good heavens

@kernow @WandererUber

@kernow @WandererUber charm

@kernow @WandererUber As a craftsman, I'd argue that ornamentation is the icing on the cake. When was the last time you ate just plain cake without icing? If you feel a sense of honor in your work, if you are passionate about it, you want it to be as good as possible, not just utilitarian. The ornamentation is very often the parts that require some of the most time, effort, and skill to make, and it's the parts that will most readily convey all of that to the end user, who generally won't be looking inside walls to see how the thing was built. Of course, it's important to make sure you're not just putting lipstick on a pig, which mass-production (muh industrial revolution) has heavily enabled and which has become the norm in modern day.

@kernow @f0x @WandererUber nuke

@WoodshopHandman @kernow @WandererUber "Charm"? How unsophisticated. The French have a words for that. It's "je ne sais quoi"