Do you ever spend a day in a urban center, surrounded by modern, newly-built architecture, and then when you get home you're just like...
Good news: You're not crazy. Here's a great thread from everybody's favorite Cultural Critic explaining why you feel that way (and why it matters).
The Critic by way of example notes Frankfurt, Germany, "a modern city of glass and steel - it looks like it could be anywhere in the world."
But it wasn't always that way. Frankfurt "was of course once very different," although "a devastating amount of its traditional architecture was lost in the war, like the wonderful Salzhaus:"
It was truly not very long ago at all that local architecture was the universal norm (and with really pleasing results, we might add):
Why is that? According to the Critic:
That's because of "vernacular architecture", which:
• Used local, natural materials and techniques
• Didn't adhere to academic or technical styles
• Expressed its environmental and historical context
This architecture told the stories of its origins...
It sure did:
The "iconic stave churches of Norway," for instance, tell the story of the "Christian conquest of the Norse world:"
When missionaries carried Christianity north, they brought with them memories of the Romanesque basilicas of the Mediterranean.
The churches they built were imprinted with Norse traditions: pillared wooden interiors and doors carved with intricate knots and swirls.
Or what about the fachwerk, or half-timbered houses that for so long have been an iconic symbol of German architecture?
Medieval German builders learned to make timber skeletons, then filled them with whatever material they had - mostly clay and sand. Clay was unpopular with nobles, so they added on white plaster to hide the cheap material.
The buildings "were surprisingly stable: enough to support more stories than before (so builders stacked up high-rising townhouses) and able to bear the weight of turrets and spires." The results range from the merely pleasant to the downright mesmerizing:
"Vernacular architecture," the Critic notes, is "kind of cultural memory. It encapsulates the collective wisdom and worldview of prior generations." Not so with modern architecture, which has "reduced [a building] to something to be merely used:"
Gross.
But the distinction becomes even clearer, and more heartbreaking, when comparing, say, European towns pre- and post-war:
The Critic explains that this hideous and formless new construction was a deliberate policy of postwar architectural thought:
Partly due to efficiency, but also the new idea that "form follows function". Architectural schools merged new materials with the idea that aesthetics are secondary to utility.
The "international style" soon emerged, "fitting for one which comes from nowhere but exists everywhere:"
Say it again:
The Critic notes that "the scientific evidence for this is inescapable: ugly, impersonal environments make us feel depressed and isolated. Humans are made for human-scale homes and streets, not to be piled into tower blocks."
Though the outlook is not great, "some old towns [in Europe] are starting to heal:"
Overall, a bleak era of architectural history. Let's hope it's coming to a close.
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