Not as much has changed in Europe. These cultural values of beautifying your surroundings never went away. It's America that is incredibly utilitarian in contrast. It is amazing the ugliness we are used to.
With regard to the GP’s remark, I noticed this with fast food places in the United States. McDonalds there seem to have a much lower level of cleanliness than in parts of Europe. I assumed that running a McDonalds franchise is completely systematized: corporate gives you a series of three-ring binders that tells you exactly how clean everything must be, but if that is so, then enforcement still differs from country to country.
Furthermore, US McDonalds were often staffed by unattractive people (the disturbingly obese or the merely unphotogenic), while in Eastern Europe – whether due to lax laws or the specifics of the labor market – McDonalds often hires fairly nubile young women.
Some McDonalds I have been to in Europe were a whole dirtier than the ones I have frequented at home in New Zealand, but I put that down to frequenting the extremely high traffic tourist mcds rather than the normal traffic suburban restaurants.
The problem of some American architecture is not that they are too utilitarian - it's that they stopped being utilitarian in search of some nebulous artistic merit.
The same thing applies to the aqueducts, by the way. Sure, they were engineering projects, but they were constructed with an eye towards elegance and beauty.
Want to see a purely utilitarian aqueduct? Look up the Acqua Felice, built to restore Rome's water supply in the 16th century after a thousand years of interruption. Sure, it did the job, but it's much uglier than the old Roman aqueduct right next to it.
Now, modern buildings aren't just ugly because they focus entirely on function (like the Acqua Felice) -- they're intentionally and deliberately ugly and inhuman. Modern architecture is awful.
I agree. There's a community of us who feel this way! https://twitter.com/Arch_Revival_
A bit broad, surely?
It’s worth noting that when you look at 2000 year old buildings, you’re generally looking at stuff that both lasted 2000 years, so was probably of fairly high end construction, and that survived 2000 years without someone saying “we should pull that down and build an office block”. A lot of the stuff that didn’t survive mightn’t be so inspiring, and after the stuff around at the moment goes through the same filter, in the 40th century people may marvel at how amazing 20th century architecture was!
I wonder how granular people will look at this period of history in 2000 years. Just like how we tend to lump a period of half a millennium together as “roman times” people in 4000 ad might consider a 17th century cathedral and a 21st century court house to be from the same era.
It’s not An Invasion per se...America was colonized. The impact of invasions are different in history’s timeline.
Regardess, those who reached American shores were the Puritans and their ilk anyways.
Genuinely curious.
For example, India was a colony of Britain. All trade was diverted to Britain to benefit them. The great famine of bengal for example was because farmers had to grow and send cotton to England rather than grow food for Indians. The economic activities were controlled by the colonizers armed forces.
The British colonized India. The Moghals invaded India. Alexander, The Great...for example..tried to invade India, but had to retreat. It’s usually done with armies vs colonizations that is through trade.
An invasion is when a military moved in and took over the government. The invaded country became the de facto territory of the invaders. And the invaded people have to live by the rule of the invaders. Example: Georgia was invaded by mongols and the Turks and then Russia. Each time, it became part of the other’s empire.
Usually invaders, like Alexander the Great, Tariq ibn Ziyad , Kublai Kan, Hernán Cortés or Napoleon will kill opposition(mostly males) but leave women and children and men who don't oppose them.
That means most of the society remains the same after the invaders take control of power, and grant special privileges to themselves, like owning the best land or having sex with the local women.
In the US, they never mixed with local population, they just expelled them of fertile soil until they died from starvation, illnesses or fights.
Likely the origins of: “Make Love, Not War.”
Kill the men..keep the children and women around.
Invasions strive to strengthen and diversify gene pools while colonists dont mingle genetics as all and all about racial purity.
Mexico and Central/South America instead starting as a military venture with mostly men raping/“marrying” the native women and having children that way.