A New Deal for architecture
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https://www.compactmag.com/article/how-trump-can-make-architecture-great-again/
A pitch for the aesthetic of the federal government buildings of the 1930s-40s and a return to that for new public buildings.
Big Al
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Interesting article. What we think of as appropriate civic architecture somehow seems to have its own style.
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I don’t think it necessarily has to be grand, but have the signifiers of authority, good balance, appropriate scale and weight. Stuff like that.
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"The opportunity should be taken." Absolutely not. The government should not be dictating artistic content.
From the beginning of the article I wondered if the author would be able to define "ordinary American" and "beauty". I doubt it.
I find myself completely at odds with the author's examples. I think the Griffith Observatory is ugly, looking like it's been injection molded in one piece, like an oversized Lego block. It's flat and uninteresting. Ditto the courthouse he offers up as an example: flat and uninteresting, little more than a huge block of concrete. The San Francisco Federal Building, on the other hand, is visually exciting (as is Boston's City Hall, BTW). These buildings work in their locations, they wouldn't work anywhere, but that's not a problem in my book. At least they're something to look at, not something that looks as barren (dystopian almost) as unadorned flat surfaces.
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That San Francisco building made think, mosque.
Not that our gothic parliamentary building by 23 year old Pugin is any better than Speer's 3rd Reich Chancellory statement.Is not competition best, the mature winner needing to demonstrate all the mature talents of a Cesar Pelli?
And somebody would still call the result a carbuncle. -
Beware any government that would establish itself as the one who will define a single, officially recognized "good" form of architecture - or painting, or sculpture, or music, or literature, or religion, or morals, or newscasting, or clothing, or housing, or - well, you get the idea.
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Quote--
"In some sense this self-negation is a valid and even fitting expression of American postwar culture, which fled from communal expressions of anything."
Yes, "...fled from communal expressions of anything." is a good way of saying it.
I think this is lamentable, but putting aside whether it is or not, does anyone doubt this trend accelerated and is still accelerating?
Leaders from both political parties have now famously dismissed half of the American people. First, Hillary Clinton, in effect, publicly saying half of Americans are deplorable, and next, Joe Biden, in effect, publicly saying half of the American people are garbage.
It's not difficult to conclude these comments were intended to 'divide and conquer.'
In spite of the lack of subtlety, Americans seem to be be unable to develop and retain any sense of shared identity and common interest.
I think it is impractical to harken back to the time the New Deal with the intent to interpret a "populist" standard.
Still, I thought this was an interesting and thought provoking article.
