Haute Baroque Capitalism (2017)
subpixel.space
subpixel.space
But rather than nitpick, I just wanted to say that I find the current “style maximalism” to be quite fascinating. That was always the promise of globalization to me: the juxtaposition and mixing of aesthetic and cultural traditions. Of course you will sometimes get Trump’s gaudy excess, but that’s more of a comment on his lack of taste than an argument against the baroque in itself.
Edit: For an everyday example of what I'm referring to: compare the original Blade Runner (1982) to the sequel (2017). The first film is far more baroque, dusty, maximalist, and messy - and it lends the film a real sense of atmosphere and authenticity. This scene is a good example [1]: it's raining, there are neon lights everywhere, the characters are speaking in a hodgepodge of numerous languages including Hungarian, Japanese, and German. Later in the movie, you have a variety of bizarre characters, androids, robot dolls, and city environments.
Then, compare a similar scene in the new film, 2049.[2] Its style and atmosphere are far more minimal, modernist, and simplified. It feels a little too sterile, too clean for a post-apocalyptic city with hundreds of millions of people. The rest of the film follows suit: the abandoned locations don't seem that abandoned and the characters are all pretty straightforward. It is nowhere near as strange of a film as the first one is.
In 2049 the cities are somewhat sterile and you don't feel the masses of people living in it, but it's like that already today. In a city with 10+ million people you don't fall over each other when walking down the street. Usually the city is just big enough to compensate for high population. Sure you can have slums, but that wasn't explored in the movie, as far as I can remember.
And this likeness to today's cities is what left the biggest impression with me. That you can have the planet dead in some meaningful way and have a lifestyle so much like ours now. It reminds me of fact that most of our current ways of living in a metropolis are alredy geared towards being independent of non-city eco-systems.
I guess you haven't visited Tokyo. The streets are teeming with (non-tourist) people.
When I visited it was remarkable how even a few blocks from a train station it felt small and cozy like a small suburban outpost.
It does have smaller "cuns" sort of villages within the city, with narrow streets and more people, they seem to be knocking down the densest ones (and building upwards)
And I am also reminded of the theory presented by Mark Thornton in The Skyscraper Curse: https://mises.org/library/skyscraper-curse-2 - Yet another harbinger?
But also I wouldn't call blade runner steam punk. I think it was more influenced by the actual urban blight in the 1980s. The gentrification white return trends were not foreseen, so it was assumed there would be more hollowing out.
Then again, that the big pyramids are downtown, and not in Anaheim or something, defies that explanation. Contrast is abhored both by suburbs / white flight / gated communities which seek to flee and hide wealth, and the modern trends of urban neighborhoods being uniformly more wealthy than they appear.
Blade Runner's architectural aesthetics are art deco and brutalism.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayan_Revival_architecture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ennis_House
Walking around the Dubai airport terminal, for example, is an assault of this "maximalist", silver/gold style. Modern Chinese buildings sometimes feel the same way. It's like the whole world is turning into a Las Vegas casino.
https://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review-g294013-d507156-Rev...
Say, a cathedral or similar with a bunch of non-functional ostentation?
The short version is that at certain times, ornamentation has been seen as gaudy and excessive, while at other times it was perceived as richer and less boring than more functional or minimal architecture.
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicism_(art)
[1] https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universit%C3%A4tsbibliothek_...
[0] http://blog.barcelonaguidebureau.com/wp-content/uploads/2018...
The point is to hit people with jaw-dropping opulence to get them into a frame of mind where they are small and they are dealing with something large. It is easier to convince them to do things they would not ordinarily do, and it makes them much more likely to see their host as important and able to provide unforeseeable opportunities.
Showing off is fun, but billionaires are canny and strategic people or they don't get to stay as billionaires. There are probably a few layers of thinking beyond being crass when pictures of their homes are pushed out into the public sphere.
In fact, I'd say that much 18th century baroque is too human scale: when you zoom out all the tiny ornaments blur together. I was immediately impressed by Saint Peter's basilica in the Vatican when I entered it for being a baroque building that defied this problem: the massive columns balance the small details and keep it interesting at all scales.
Trump is another matter of course.
Under Fussell’s analysis Trump’s displayed taste in decor and clothes are about as Middle as could be, thought not a small amount of Fussell’s Proles’ taste creeps in in his clothes and food. Imitating the baroque and “living large” while wearing expensive clothes that don’t fit is what one might expect from a high-dollar lottery winner who used to hold some middle position at a bank branch.
Coating your cities in a large cloth of meaningful idea is art that lives and effects the world. Dead art ends up in museums. The symbols and ideas put into these buildings will be a beacon for thinking about the future and what the shape of the world will be. You will feel new feelings in these forms and find a different place to install a hierarchy of competence around a central idea.
Building a maxamilist tower around citigroup or the avengers creates a tree of floors that can be imbued with productive action around that idea, company and collective set of people.
Reducing architecture to showing off is hot right now and misses most of architecture's effect on a human.
No this is not true. Once you are billionaire you get so much interest its rather difficult to not stay one.
I totally agree that the projection of wealth is not always sign of weakness, but lets not kid ourselves about the economics.
Trump’s aesthetic is if you pumped tens, if not hundreds of millions into one of those structures.