plenty to quibble with here, i am sure (i don't hate every giant weird concrete building, or want all architecture to avoid weirdness, or whatever, and there are obviously problems with the idea of just building more horizontally), but this was a good read for where i'm at with understanding architecture:
https://www.currentaffairs.org/2017/10/why-you-hate-contemporary-architecture
@brennen those are more than quibbles, though! "We should never build a tall building" is not just an old-fashioned, unworkable architectural preference, but also the motivation that drives both sprawl and the urban housing crises we face.
Worse, I think, the tone is apparently just extra insulting to try to sound like critique. I think there's an important, interesting history to explain brutalism and this papers over it.
@npd yeah, that's probably fair. even from my very limited perspective i can tell it's kind of a cartoonish version of the history it contains, and i've spent time with some pro-brutalist / pro-modernist perspectives that do have interesting things to say.
i guess it's just kind of pleasant to bask in something that says "you are not a simpleton for disliking terrible designs like (local example) the denver art museum".
i should really try to learn about architecture in a serious way.
I am quite late to this discussion, but there are things I liked a lot about this piece, despite its occasional lapses into hot takery
"But architecture is very different from other forms of art... The physical environment in which we live and work, however, is ubiquitous and inescapable; when it comes to architecture, it is nigh-impossible for people to simply avoid the things they hate and seek out the things they like."
