Less is more – Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
Less is more – Robert Venturi
In a recent post, Alex Tabarrok Alex discussed the problem of modern architecture: why architects no longer create beautiful old buildings like those seen in many European cities. Alex cites an article by Samuel Hughes in which he rejects the common explanation that lavish decoration is becoming increasingly expensive because there are fewer craftsmen trained to create beautiful sculptural details. fuse This explanation doesn’t hold up, arguing that modern technology allows decorative objects to be produced at relatively low cost, and instead he develops a kind of “market failure” argument: ugly, boring, inorganic buildings were forced on the masses by a group of elite intellectuals in the 1920s.
To put it a little dramatically, it really happened that every government and every corporation on earth was persuaded by the outlandish architectural theories of a Swiss watchmaker and a group of German socialists to want something different from what they had wanted in all previous eras. You could say this is mysterious. But this mystery is real, and we must face it if we want to understand it.
In this post, I argue that there is no such thing as market failure: in some sense, modernism is what people actually want, not just in architecture but in almost every aspect of life.
Hughes’ theory is not new: Tom Wolfe made a similar argument in 1981. From the Bauhaus to our homeUnfortunately for Woolf, the “problem” was not limited to architecture, so he had to write a separate book (Painted words) explains why the old beautiful style of realistic painting was replaced by abstract art. Here are some examples from the Netherlands.
In terms of architecture, tourists generally prefer Amsterdam’s more lavishly decorated older buildings to Rotterdam’s modernist architecture, which replaced buildings destroyed in World War II, but the buildings are not built for tourists, but for residents and workers.
Two Tom Wolfe books aren’t enough to fully explain the modernism that has influenced (infected?) nearly every area of contemporary life. Even someone with no prior training in art theory can easily tell the difference between the more complex and decorative traditional styles and the simpler and more streamlined modern styles. Now consider how Coca-Cola bottles have evolved over time.
The name was also simplified to “Cork”. I will show you how similar changes have taken place in almost every area of life. But first we need to clarify some concepts. People often contrast “modern” style with “classical” style, where classical means “from the past”. However, art historians tend to use the term classical to describe simple, elegant, symmetrical structures, while romanticism describes various forms of complex, asymmetrical, highly decorated structures.
The British Houses of Parliament was built in the mid-1800s, while the Jefferson Memorial was built in the 1940s. However, the Jefferson Memorial is classical, whereas the Houses of Parliament is a type of Romanticism (specifically Neo-Gothic). In fact, Brazil’s ultra-modern government buildings (see below) are much more “classical” than Pugin’s 19th-century buildings.Number A masterpiece of the century.
Tabarrok and Hughes are right that, at least in some ways, people prefer more traditional architectural styles — think of San Francisco’s famous “Painted Women.”
But traditionalists underestimate the influence that modern style has had on consumer housing choices: Over 100 years ago, Frank Lloyd Wright revolutionized architecture by replacing boxy homes with rigidly separated rooms with a more free-flowing horizontal style in which public rooms seamlessly connect. Martin House In Buffalo, Wright’s approach influenced the postwar preference for “ranch houses” with large windows and open floor plans.
The phrase “painted women” reminds us that modernism also influenced women’s fashion. Around 1900, wealthy women wore very flamboyant clothes. By the 1920s (Le Corbusier’s time), women’s fashion had become significantly simplified and more “modern.” As he writes in his memoirs “Yesterday’s WorldStefan Zweig saw this evolution as a positive change, linking it to a healthy cultural shift that allowed young men and women to socialize in a more natural and free way: the outdated corsets and bulky dresses were a kind of metaphor for painfully restrictive social conventions.
If it is true that in architecture, old is beautiful and modern is ugly, why doesn’t it also apply to women’s fashion? Did Le Corbusier force women to abandon their richly decorated clothes and change into simple black dresses? It is true that in some ways, fin de siècle fashion in Paris was more beautiful than modern clothing. But is this what modern women want? I don’t think so. Women want to be modern. “That’s style.”
What about cars? Why do people go for the simpler, more streamlined styles? Glamorous Style One could argue that this is partly a reflection of fuel economy regulations from the 1940s, but there are far too many similar examples to account for.
I suggest you go into an antique furniture store and look at all the richly decorated (and often overly decorated) pieces on display. See the huge oak tables with carved cat legs and the massive dark wood cabinets. Then walk out and visit a furniture store that carries lighter Scandinavian teak designs. The furniture will immediately seem “modern” and more appealing to many people. Did Le Corbusier force modern furniture on the general public? Was his streamlined furniture style enforced by federal regulators? Clearly not. Why did consumers stop buying furniture? Decorative silver teapot Switch Sleek, modern teapotThe examples of modern man’s love for simplicity are almost endless.
The man who said “Less is a wolf” also wrote the following book: Learning from Las VegasBut one of the lessons of Las Vegas is that adapting traditional style to modern needs is no easy task. Very ugly cityBut surprisingly, when it’s most modern it’s also the least ugly. The ugliest parts of the Strip are the traditional styles clumsily pasted onto the huge 3,000-room hotels, while the least offensive buildings in Las Vegas are the Aria HotelThat’s not to say that buildings like the Bellagio aren’t interesting — as a tourist I much prefer walking through the lobby of the Bellagio to a drab modern building — but as architecture it doesn’t function — it’s too big for its neo-Italian style.
That doesn’t mean traditional styles don’t work. Epic Systems’ headquarters outside Madison Fantastic Building Based on various fairy tales. apple Its Silicon Valley headquarters is a sleek, circular building that closely resembles the company’s consumer products. Aesthetically, Apple’s building is the more successful, but Epic’s campus is probably more fun. To be honest, it’s up to you. Companies have an incentive to use architecture to attract the right talent.
Nor is it true that more recent things are always better. I prefer the best paintings from 1600-1670 or 1850-1925 to the best works of the last 100 years. I prefer midcentury modern architecture to postmodern architecture from the 1970s and 1980s. I prefer pop music from 1965-1972 to music from the last seven years. I prefer movies from 1950-1980 to movies from the last 30 years. Tastes vary and choices may vary from person to person.
But the fact that modernism has caught on so widely shows that it’s not a market failure imposed by an anachronistic architectural elite in the 1920s. It’s the style that’s best suited to the modern world. And that’s true even if many older buildings are in some sense “superior.” You don’t want Gerhard Richter or Anselm Kiefer to imitate the style of Velázquez or Vermeer. You don’t want David Mamet to imitate the style of Shakespeare. You don’t want Beyoncé or Taylor Swift to imitate the Beatles or Bob Dylan. Each generation is trying to find its own style. That’s how the market works.
