Comment by vel0city | Hacker News Reader

Comment by vel0city | Hacker News Reader

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Almost all the buildings in those postcards look old, plain, and boring to me. Some look decent. The Radio City Music Hall building, while definitely impressive for 1932, just looks old and worn out and it's and old postcard. Ooh wow another government building in the classical revival style with big tall roman pillars making up a Portico made from white stone, how original, never seen that before. And are you really telling me the building on the left here actually looks good? That's the kind of building you'd love to walk past every day, the kind of building you'd want to spend all day inside? These buildings look like they're covered in tons of nasty soot and gunk and generally don't seem like clean places to be.

https://stuffnobodycaresabout.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01...

Personally I'd prefer to spend my time in and around a building like this than any of those:

https://labs.utdallas.edu/mems/files/2021/08/nserloutside.jp...

To me a building like this looks a lot more interesting. Lots of mixtures in materials, textures, and colors. And as mentioned before, this building lets in a lot of natural lighting. It lets you see outside instead of just constantly feeling like you're trapped in a jail cell.

Its not even like I really hate old architecture, I just think a lot of these examples given suck. I like this, for example (although it is getting close to overstylized for my taste):

https://www.adventuresofacarryon.com/wordpress/wp-content/up...

Buildings like this as well, although definitely not as much natural light. Notice its actually nice, clean, and maintained compared to the other examples given. Still kind of old and boring though in the end.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/14/Dallas_C...

> how original, never seen that before.

If you're defending modern architecture, you have NO place complaining about originality, when 99% of it is steel & glass basic geometric shapes.

> you have NO place complaining about originality,

I can definitely complain about a lack of originality for works which lack originality.

Modern designs can often lack originality, I agree. Classical designs can lack originality as well. A lack of originality can make things boring. Don't let your personal choices get in the way of objectively analyzing things. Its not good to put yourself in a camp and act like everything in group A is good without question, everything in camp B is bad without question.

You can't honestly say the modern building I linked above lacks originality. How many other buildings have anodized scales on the outside which change colors based on the lighting? Are you really saying you'd prefer to actually be in and use one of the buildings in that postcard image I pointed out?

Buildings like this have way more originality than all those brick buildings in the postcard I linked, other than the one featured center in that postcard. Or yet another white stone government building with roman columns in front and endless small windows. And I don't even consider it that original.

https://img.imageboss.me/concrete-assets/width/3072/format:a...

I'm not saying all modern designs are good. I'm also not saying all older designs are bad. I'm not even saying those classical revival government buildings are inherently bad, they're consistent and unoriginal for a reason. I am saying I am a human being and like to have some sunlight and see trees and the horizon from time to time, and that's more important to me for a building than some little intricate stonework that I can't even really make out because its three stories up and the whole exterior facade is covered with black gunk because its too expensive and fragile to actually maintain.

>A lack of originality can make things boring. Don't let your personal choices get in the way of objectively analyzing things.

It can but originality is not the end of aesthetics. What's more the modernist architecture is globalised so the "unique" building's style gets recreated and seen in every single corner of the world where they all try to be avant garde in the exact same ways. There's no vernacular architecture elements anymore which give a sense of place. Not even much of ones that make sense due to origin in environmental factors such as rain/snow in the nordics or heat in gulfstates.

>You can't honestly say the modern building I linked above lacks originality. How many other buildings have anodized scales on the outside which change colors based on the lighting?

I'll plainly say it. It lacks originality. I'd rather it have a painting on it than a trying to be the equivalent of a shiny TCG card the novelty of which will wear of very quick.

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