So many fabulous and easily maintained buildings have been demolished because of short-sightedness. We shouldn't be vandals of architecture. We should preserve the Penn stations and the Russian cathedrals of the world, and not just demolish our monuments.
We should rebuild some of them as well. People don't just have utilitarian needs and need a "spiritual" or imaginative side which is opposed to efficiency but which startles you.
https://youtu.be/09gsVlroH3A>>4673An obsession with the ruins of antiquity is precisely what modernist architects (many of whom were socialist, if not influenced by them) sought to reject. They looked at the neoclassical styles that preceded them and saw nothing but gaudy, decadent reflections of bourgeois life. Indeed, any so-called "spiritual" qualities that emerge from them (even through their preservation) came only as a farce. Your "monuments" represent a copy a of a copy.
>>4673I'll gladly take a "utilitarian brutalist hellscape" over tall glass skyscrapers and little boxes made of ticky tacky.
>>4681Thesis: classical buildings.
Antithesis: brutalism.
Synthesis: ?????
>>4700Solarpunk.
Look into your heart, you know it to be true.
But seriously, I agree that historic buildings should be protected but we shouldn't try to rebuild ones that were already razed, that's just revanchism, build bold and inspiring new buildings that will be considered 'historic' in the future instead.
This seems a fitting thread for monument discussion as well.
This statue is actually highly controversial in Senegal where it stands.
It is by some seen as a symbol of the failures of the president at the time, and by some seen as the exact opposite of an African renaissance.
Amongst some of the criticism it has received is the cost of the project, nearly 27 million dollars (about 1% of the national budget). The opposition called it an "economic monster and a financial scandal in the context of the current [economic] crisis".
It has also received harsh criticism for its style with art critics calling it Stalinist and pointing out the cartoonish shape and its supposed idolizing of the macho sexism that has accompanied many African authoritarian regimes. Given that it was built by the North Korean Mansudae company as a piece of socialist realism, this only gives such anti-communists/liberals more weight. Internationally the statue has also been criticized for the fact that it’s not really Senegalese in its origin. Having been made by a Romanian architect and built on contract by a North Korean company using North Korean workers (because fuck internationalism, right?). One can only point out that Senegal lacks the workforce currently capable of actually building such a statue themselves.
Locally the projects criticism has been centred on two points. The first is that the internationally recognized Senegalese sculpturer Ousmane Sow was not chosen to design it. The second point of criticism focuses on president Abdoulaye Wade who demands 35% of the revenue made from the statue after making claims for the intellectual property rights of the statue since he was in office when it was built. He also had to make an official apology for comparing the statue to Jesus Christ.
Despite these criticisms, (valid and invalid) it is still a well made work and certainly something to look up to, as an example of an ideal to strive for, even if the current government does not uphold them properly.
PS, in regards to the image, a correction
Apparently this statue is 160 feet tall. The Statue of Liberty is 305 feet tall, 46 meters of which is the actual statue (151 ft 1 inch). The Eiffel Tower is 986 feet tall.
>>4673Looks pretty good to me.
I always like to go to the capital of my country and marvel at the brutality of the buildings compared to the basic archtecture, as with some ancient palace.
>>6504So is Senegal an "M-L" country in the same sense that Mozambique and Angola are? (i.e. totally revisionist and authoritarian Capitalists like most African countries anyway)
Being that they're actually willing to do token things like work with Based Koreans.
Anyway, I think the statue is a fine piece of socialist realism, but you shouldn't be building pretty statues when your country suffers from severe underdevelopment and wealth inequality.
Out of 189 indexed countries, Senegal ranks 166 for human development thus putting it in the lowest tier.
IMF colonial horseshit of course keeps them down in many ways, but leadership that builds a nice fucking statue (that I'm sure won't be maintained) over literally anything else is shooting yourself in the foot.
>>4900exactly it's not so much that modern architecture or modern construction is shit its more like porky wants to extract as much value as possible with yogurt carton luxury condos and office buildings, that and a lot of rich people just have shitty taste.
>>6504Despite being very click-bait brutalism the spomenik monuments to commemorate victims of fascism are legit siq. They were mostly locally commissioned from living yugoslavian/baltic artists and I think did a good job in reimagining what a "war monument" looks like but still being relatable and striking.
So many classical/ western culture concern-trolls forget that there are a lot of "classic" structures/ architecture that are just nostalgic fakes - confederate statues, neo-classical architecture, entire "medieval" towns built for the Worlds Fair etc
>>4681it doesnt matter how "original" it is, on one gives a shit but academics trying to be anti-original and trad idiots. The reason people don't like brutalism is cause it's usually anti-human in its scale and structure, looming over people, being bland and devoid of life, etc. No one said shit about "preserving bourgeois and aristocratic architecture", the point is just to have shit that doesnt fall over in 50 years or catch fire easily, and that we can actually be proud of to live around.
Something a history-hating ultra prolly wouldnt get, but trust me it's important for non-stuck up academic leftoid nerds. Buildings can be re-defined by their contexts. The world will not be razed and re-built by socialism. Thats capitalism's job.
>>4844based.
>>24725>The reason people don't like brutalism is cause it's usually anti-human in its scale and structure, looming over people, being bland and devoid of life, etc. Yes, the specific legacy of modernism embodied in Brutalism was adopted by western capitalist countries in competition for the style of its social housing and government buildings. In America, the latter clearly won out though; which hasn't done much to counter the perception that anything resembling Brutalism today is 'anti-human', 'bland' and 'devoid of life'—most of the remaining structures here today are simply monuments to the capitalist state which I think is very unfortunate, as it's served to engender confusion around the radical origins of said legacy.
>No one said shit about "preserving bourgeois and aristocratic architecture", the point is just to have shit that doesnt fall over in 50 years or catch fire easily, and that we can actually be proud of to live around.OP did; again, the idea that 'buildings should last' is as old as capitalism itself and that should be scrutinized when discussing a socialist approach to architecture. European monarchs used to send artists to Greco-Roman ruins (which have lasted for centuries) to draw and paint them, all so they could reproduce gaudy facsimiles for their bourgeois peers. Why do you think some of the oldest banks in the world look like temples? There's nothing 'holy' going on inside of them, I assure you. The closer we get to the 'modern' era with mass adoption of steel frame construction (arguably beginning with French 'Second Empire' architecture), the more of a complete sham this idea became. Penn Station is a great example: when it was demolished in the 1960s its steel base was exposed for everyone to see. The so-called 'American Renaissance' for which it symbolized—a hangover from the Gilded Age, was entirely surface level. For me, it just reminds me of Disney World. Why on earth they would compare that to Orthodox cathedrals (buildings that were themselves 're-defined' by the capital relation thanks to the church's collaboration with the Tsarist state, as well as its renewal beginning with the canonization of the Romanovs in 1981 to the construction of new cathedrals from the post-Soviet era up to now) is beyond me..
>Something a history-hating ultra prolly wouldnt get, but trust me it's important for non-stuck up academic leftoid nerds. It's cute that you think I'm an ultra. What I'm saying are just regurgitations of some of the most elementary Marxist architectural criticisms written over the past century.
>The world will not be razed and re-built by socialism. Thats capitalism's job.If it's capitalism's job to build a new world, then needless to say it's been pretty fucking bad at it lmao. You're interested in redefining existing 'contexts'—I'm interested in changing the very built environment that produces them to begin with. We are not the same.
>>24744the built environment isnt the source of contexts, it's the way we organize society. I don't buy these fringe academic theories about how architecture is really important to our psychology, and when we have the pillars it's aristocratic and makes us feudal, and when there's highways it makes us cogs in the machine, and when there's banks that look like temples better bring out the wrecking ball because its heavily heavily tainted. I dont buy it. We aren't the same. I appreciate your care about this stuff though. I'm not saying an interest in architecture or critiques of it are bad, but i dont think we have to literally remove all of what exists or it will taint society. Also i guess i misread the OP, ur right. Whatever.
Tho i'll still contest two more things, that steal beams with facade are bad - i dont like disneyland looking places either, but i think the positive side is actually that they try to have a whimsical and lush aesthetic at lower cost. This is bringing fun shit to the masses. So i dont contest that. I get pissed off that they put social looking things in areas not meant for social use. Like in shopping centers. That's annoying. But i dont see what's wrong with steal beams and plaster. I think it's metal. It's nice to be around a vibrant environment.
And the second thing is that capitalism has been good at building a new world, its all it does. Our architecture has changed drastically, much new shit is being built all the time, in an objectively verifiable way capitalism is building a new world in the place of the old (the old also being capitalism).
(also ur an ultra fuck you)
>>24747>I dont buy it.Even if you don't the bourgeoisie certainly does, albeit from an inverse and mostly uncritical manner. One only needs to look at the federal government's reaction to Jan 6, specifically Biden's 'Temple of Democracy' remark to see how widely accepted these supposedly fringe theories pertaining to the 'lasting', 'idealized' and 'eternal' are. Or hell, even Trump being all retvrn for the Jeffersonian architecture that has characterized Washington DC since at least the 1850s. In their eyes, the most heretical thing you
can do is desecrate these 'temples'—and what's especially disappointing is that the maggots who stormed the Capitol building couldn't even be bothered to fully commit.
>i dont think we have to literally remove all of what exists or it will taint society.I never said that; but again, to the bourgeoisie (and their allies) that's what establishing socialism has often looked like in practice. I find it difficult to imagine them
not foaming at the mouth after realizing their precious monuments are no longer sacred.
>i think the positive side is actually that they try to have a whimsical and lush aesthetic at lower cost. This is bringing fun shit to the masses.A lot of the architectural output from the Gilded Age was intellectually grounded by a fusion of the City Beautiful movement, complaints over the end of Manifest Destiny and a growing obsession with vulgar Darwinian 'race science'. The ruling class at the time thought this was just so
fun and
delightful~! Everyone focuses on the first part because that's all flâneurs and bourgeois dilettantes care about. Why should any socialist worth their salt want to preserve that? If you're gonna bring back a 'lush' and 'whimsical' aesthetic to the built environment then I think it ought to be downstream from its
use. Believe it or not, it is possible! Louis Sullivan famously said, "form follows function" but he also went into the 20th century as the biggest lover of ornament to ever exist, so of course he died penniless.
>Our architecture has changed drastically, much new shit is being built all the time, in an objectively verifiable way capitalism is building a new world in the place of the oldThe cultivation of new materials is yet another indication of the ostensibly progressive force of the capitalist mode of production; this is true. In America, over the last 30 or so years, this has also found its 'highest' expression in the construction of suburban McMansions and 5-over-1 apartment complexes (the latter being very prone to fires). What would a prospective socialist architecture with access to the same materials look like? I'll go ahead and wager that it probably still won't be as 'built to last' in the sense OP desires. So you're gonna have to cultivate new
new materials no matter what.
>>4653There's nothing bourgeoisie about the culture and beauty appreciated by the common people. In fact I can imagine nothing more bourgeoisie than
>>4673 it was literally made by and for bourgeois technocrats who could use the proletariat to fulfill their most degenerate egotistical fantasies it had nothing to do with the wants of the people, who when left to their own devices create beauty and complexity, marking their presence everywhere they can. Or is that simple desire to exist within their own architecture a bourgeoisie deviation.
>>25858>degenerate>the peopleyou're not a marxist, kill yourself
also nothing wrong with this
>>4673 looks comfy as hell actually
>>25868>>degenerate>>the people Nice conflation… except the "degenerate" refers to "bourgeois technocrats" that "use the proletariat"
Improve your reading comprehension.
>>33091I always love how they just HAVE to make photos of appartment buildings, especially from soviet times, black and white to make them look less pretty and colorfull.
Fuck eoclassical kitsch. Constructivism and functionalism forever.
>>33093>>33091This is describing a housing complex in Paris, not the Soviet Union
Also nothing wrong with beautifying something that was originally built with constrained resources and time
>We should preserve the Penn stations That would require ending finance imperialist real estate grifting, btw did you know they now want to move Madison Square Garden and rebuild a new Penn Station again? Classic capitalism lol
>>4858>human habitat the human species needs "spirituality" and enrichment activities in their zoo cage
>>24725> it's usually anti-human in its scale and structure, looming over peopleNo that would be the Christian hive cathedrals. You know these buildings are so large so that lots of people can live in them right?
>>24747>I don't buy these fringe academic theories about how architecture is really important to our psychology, <"It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but on the contrary their social existence determines their consciousness." - Karl Marx>We aren't the sameI'm not like those other girls, I'm not affected by historical materialist modes of production
>>33114honestly eco-brutalism the new wave
apartment blocks could look downright cozy if you put some plants there and let the residents paint/draw/decorate the blocks however they pls
>>4652All architecture is "functional"
Dumbasses marvel at some sort of "beauty" in Doric/Ionic columns and Gothic flying buttresses nowadays, but they were originally devised purely for structural purposes using the materials available back then
>>33109Reject modernity
Return to tradition
>>4652The thing unspoken about "muh architecture" is that people obsess about what the building looks like on the outside.
What about the INSIDE? How useful is the building for its intended purpose? How do the people who use the building feel about it? If a building looks plain on the outside but has a high efficiency and quality of life on the inside, that's good. We shouldn't get too tied up in impractical aesthetics, that's reactionary.
I can't help but be reminded of liberals who whine about apartment complexes being ugly and then complain about homeless camps in the same breath.
>>45291Most people think about the outsides of buildings because that's the part they see. I'd be willing to bet money that, on average, people only enter 1% of the buildings they look at. And from that perspective, it makes sense to want the outside to look good.
Architecture people will fucking hate me for this, but I really do think Vegas casinos have the right idea; start with a raw functional box that's been designed from the inside out for function, and then add a decorative facade and roofline. Yeah yeah it's "tacky", but people clearly like it, and it does what it needs to in terms of utility,
>>4653Why shouldn’t proles enjoy architecture that was once reserved to to upper classes only? The aristocracy and bourgeoisie are human with human tastes, what looks beautiful to their eyes and the comfort they enjoyed should be accessible to proles, including their mansions. Tearing architecture to replace ugly things just makes the movement like spiteful contrarians that doesn’t even understand that everything Marx and Engeld wrote about was about a historical process that could be forced earlier to achieve a new means of production earlier instead of waiting and suffering through centuries of capitalist exploitation.
In the samr way the Pyramids shouldn’t be torn so shouldn’t bourgeoisie villas be torn down. It should be conserved so that future generations will be able to learn and understand, for some day full communism will be achieved, and after that another newer means of production will arrive, so alien to us as the industrialization is alien to the slave based economies of the Bronze Age.
Don’t destroy that shit, retard.
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