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I'm with Coleman,
"Overspecification was necessary and understandable, given past builders' limited knowledge of materials/statics, but hardly anything to celebrate. To marvel at, perhaps, but not a virtue. Someone had to pay for all that additional structure."

No offense, but this statement is nuts. If you want to say that today's average builder has better knowledge of materials than Roman builders considering all the other issues today's builders need to be knowledge about, not buying it. I think slavery was probably useful in trimming the bottom line what with all that extra concrete thay had trouble inventing. And overbuilding is a virtue if it allows the building to last generations.

"Again, what does this have to do with modernism per se that it doesn't have more to do with making irrelevant, non-functional architectural statements independent of style? "

It has everyting to do with modernism because modernism made a virtue of building within an inch of it's life.

Again, what does this have to do with modernism per se that it doesn't have more to do with making irrelevant, non-functional architectural statements independent of style?

It's this topic of effort that irritates me most. The suggestion that we should not exert effort to improve or widen the freedom with which we express the built form.

One camp favors form as defined by preconceived precepts, while the other sees expression as a product of individual (rather than cultural) genesis.

"The suggestion that we should not exert effort to improve or widen the freedom with which we express the built form"

Who in the world is trying to supress your freedom to build shoddy and disposable buildings? People are just coming to terms with the waste implicit in built-in obsolescence. Maybe if cladding is the problem, we should go back to load bearing walls? Just kidding, even the Romans clad they're fancy buildings. Imagine the mighty Romans hidding their heroic concrete behind a veneer of marble? Why, they sound down right human!

by Thayer-D on Dec 14, 2009 7:53 am • link • report