[HN Gopher] Where Are the Beautiful Cities?
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Where Are the Beautiful Cities?
Author : lleims
Score : 12 points
Date : 2025-12-30 20:24 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (twitter.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (twitter.com)
| qkeast wrote:
| There's a similar post that I can't find that relates to
| ornamentation and detail in infrastructure as simple as a pole on
| a sidewalk - an ornate and designed pole replaced with a simple
| round post. Perhaps someone else remembers the source.
| tom_ wrote:
| I was wondering just the other day whether those Statue Head
| Twitter accounts were still going.
| mc32 wrote:
| I think the reason they replaced the anchor-chain like fence with
| generic fencing is twofold: one economic, and the other to
| protect against idiots. When you have king tides, you still have
| people going down there taking pictures --but it can be risky if
| the waves crash high, if not careful, someone could be swept on
| to the rocks and cold bay waters. The chains were ornamental and
| strong, but they would not stop someone from falling over as they
| slung low.
|
| SJ St James Street PO is one of those very nice POs with
| elaborate masonry, hardwood counters and brass knobs, ornate and
| wrought metalwork and such.
| kelseyfrog wrote:
| Adolph Loos[1] and the post-WW2 minimalists won; that's what
| happened.
|
| We took Louis Sullivan's maxim, "a rationally designed structure
| may not necessarily be beautiful but no building can be beautiful
| that does not have a rationally designed structure" to its
| logical conclusion, "form follows function". Rather than being
| the starting point for beauty, it became the end of it and we
| trained generations of architects to prioritize one aesthetic.
|
| 1. Ornament and Crime (1908)
| https://www2.gwu.edu/~art/Temporary_SL/177/pdfs/Loos.pdf
| like_any_other wrote:
| That's what most of the usual reasons given (excuses and lies,
| really) ignore. They'll blame economics (despite us getting
| richer by nearly every metric, and extra funding only getting
| us more aggressively ugly buildings [1]), or the lack of
| craftsmen to carve gargoyles (as if there weren't countless
| beautiful buildings without anything so intricate), changing
| tastes (despite overwhelming public consensus older buildings
| looked better), or most hilariously, some kind of "survival of
| the prettiest", where supposedly buildings used to be just as
| ugly in general, but most were demolished, and only the best
| looking kept (yet e.g. old photos of Manhattan will show nearly
| every building being beautiful, at least compared to today).
|
| Meanwhile they turn a blind eye to the dominant schools of
| thought in architecture, Loos and Bauhaus and modernism, that
| basically outright require ugliness and generic sterility.
|
| [1] https://www.thehideawayexperience.co.uk/blog-
| post/scottish-d...
| yesfitz wrote:
| I'd venture a guess that a lot of the examples were part of the
| Works Progress Administration[1], which employed laborers,
| craftsmen, engineers, artists, and more as a response to the
| Great Depression. While it ended during World War II, the humans
| that worked in it would have continued in the labor force.
|
| There's also the improvements in building techniques like curtain
| walls in commercial buildings, and truss connector plates and
| aluminum/vinyl siding in residential allowed for laborers to
| replace craftsmen like masons and carpenters. While you'd think
| that would free up more money for beautification, the economic
| preference for many individual shareholders and taxpayers doesn't
| seem to support that.
|
| Add in car-centric development and the advent of television, the
| internet, and smartphones, and what's the point of making things
| beautiful anymore? You won't appreciate the finials on a lamppost
| from the inside of your car, and if the world is ugly, you can
| look at your phone.
|
| But it's not fully explained by the unwillingness to spend money
| either. I think the postmodern movement's impact on public
| beautification turned a lot of people off the idea. Eschewing
| traditional beauty is fine for museums and galleries, but there
| are a lot of murals out there that ruined perfectly good walls.
| Chicago's Cloud Gate, Philadelphia's LOVE Park, Minneapolis's
| Spoonbridge and Cherry, and I'm sure a large number of other
| instances of public art since the postmodern era can be fun,
| visually striking, and iconic. But I'd hesitate to call them
| beautiful from an aesthetic standpoint, especially when compared
| to their cities' existing monuments and statues. However, that's
| a matter of taste. And as we've grown more divided almost all
| matters of life, both literally and figuratively, even if we all
| agreed to spend $X on public beautification, I doubt we'd be able
| to meaningfully agree on what's beautiful.
|
| 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Works_Progress_Administration
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