Brutalism may not be the most aesthetically pleasing architecture style but, damn, did it house a lot of people who would’ve died.
I will stand ten toes down to defend that brutalism, as the philosophy of being honest with your material usage, is the most Beautiful form of architecture.
Most people will agree that mid century architecture is one of America’s most beautiful designs. The school of thought behind all famous mid century architecture is always that of honest material usage.
Now what does honest materials mean? It means when you’re using wood, you emphasize the grain. If you’re using metals, you embrace it’s utility. Stainless steel conveys surgical levels of cleanliness. When using brass or copper, the patina is expected. Stonework, isn’t used as a façade. The inclusion of masonry is obviously structural, and it’s implementation is deliberate and planned out like a painting.
I mean sure but philosophical honesty in architecture ≠ aesthetically pleasing
All the recent major condo/apartment builds near me in Florida has been quite dishonest while appearing brutalist. They build huge wood frame buildings the plaster it like its solid block. Everyone I know talks about how they expect devastation in a hurricane for those structures. Also, firewalls are apparently a thing of the past. And none of these cost cutting homes are for working people. They are for 55+ communities or high price condos.
Yes, this infuriates me to no end. The whole “modern” aesthetic is dishonesty. And they have the gall to call their glorified tinder boxes luxury too. The word completely lost it’s meaning.
It’s also always a picture from mid-winter times. Never one from summer or springs
Not like those soviet blocks didnt look depressing in summer. It is much better nowadays tho, be it plenty are still depressive all year round.
“Communism bad because [thing that happens in capitalism]*”, vol. 69
Meanwhile, in God’s Own Chosen Land, all apartment complexes are one of two shitty design options and we get fleeced for the “privilege” of living there. Fuck it all, dammit
Don’t forget that they’re marketed as “Luxury Apartments” because the appliances were made in the last 10 years.
Here I thought it was cause you have the luxury of paying rent on them
“Don’t forget to tip your landlord”
I ordered a replacement part for an electronic device I have that was on the fritz… Online… And there was a tip field at the end. As of there will even be a human involved in any of the order processing up until a person moves out from the van to my doorstep
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So American Homelessness…
A further “bonus” is that once you get a conviction on record it makes it even harder to get out of homelessness by not only making it incredibly difficult to get a job but also any place you might rent that does a background check.
It’s a vicious cycle of worse and worse outcomes.
I was homeless for 8 years (January actually marked 8 years being in my apartment) and I saw that cycle constantly.
the first fallacy is that this was “left-wing” architecture.
It was just boring architecture from Russia, built rapidly during a time of extreme homelessness. And it addressed that problem more than fatcat hate.
Everything they don’t like is left wing. Their brain doesn’t function beyond that.
I would rather have a few boring tall buildings and lots of nature than lots of single family homes and way less nature.
People of that opinion should really read Brian Goldstone’s “There is No Place for Us: Working and Homeless in America.” Compared to other G7 countries, US is, indeed, a shithole country.
🇺🇸But it’s the greatest shithole nation! 🇺🇸
Of all the shithole countries it’s certainly exceptional in its shittyness
Gonna check it out thanks for the suggestion!
Investment vehicle. Buy and keep it empty, in a few years, use the value increase as collateral to buy more.
Go to the poor neighborhood in any city in America and its just as sad. Go to a poor rural area and it’s worse.
Alterlaa in Vienna from the 70s
Spoiler
Here a more recent project: Reininghaus in Graz, Austria
It’s not completed yet, but it’s coming along nicely:
And to top it off, here some photos from thr “Wohnausanlage Sandleiten” consisting of around 1500 housing units that was built for the common folk in the 1920 (and has been brought up to modern standards since - all electrical work redone, refitted elevators, all windows and doors replaced, thermally brought up to code):
Thats the fountain in front of the library, a very nice place with lots of shadow on hot summer days (the trees have grown a lot since that photo was taken)
I’m pretty sure a lot of the people mocking socialist architecture became really quiet when a data center was dropped next to their suburb.
I would rather have a shitty roof over my head than no roof.
Those things were created as alternative to substandard housing. My problem is, we dont see them as wellfare housing but the “new normal”. Industry relies too hard on ppl living in those and paying too low wages.
Also, i dont care about visuals here but growing up in one of those, there’s too little free space for human worthy life. Playgrounds covered in trash, srynges, dogpoop. Anything with grass covered in dogpoop. Sketchy people trying to snatch children being a daily occurance.
Its just too many people in one place. Not a left/right problem though.
Also, i dont care about visuals here but growing up in one of those, there’s too little free space for human worthy life. Playgrounds covered in trash, srynges, dogpoop. Anything with grass covered in dogpoop. Sketchy people trying to snatch children being a daily occurance.
This sounds like a maintenance/cops issue. Especially when people are crammed in and there’s so little green space, ya can’t cut corners on things like cops and firemen and ambulances.
Especially when people are crammed in and there’s so little green space, ya can’t cut corners on things like cops and firemen and ambulances.
And add social workers and spaces to consume drugs to take care of the srynges, and Karens to take care of the bad dog owners. The wrong people profit from a war on drugs.
Making sure that the area isn’t just a single social group helps, and there are a lot of architectural and design features that can also help - just because it is low income housing doesn’t mean it has to be “bottom of the barrel”-housing. In my area (Sandleitenhof in Vienna, added a few pictures in a reply) there is a near permanent presence - not by cops, but by city workers doing housekeeping, maintenance and they have deescalation teams who act as mediators for neighborly disputes.
I would kill to live in a brezhnevka.
Any new housing is still helpful for alleviating the crunch. If a rich people see a fancy new apartment and move in, that leaves the old places they had occupied available to be rented or bought and they have to be offered at a relative discount to what they would have been otherwise because the rich people prefer the fancy new place. (Note: if people in that area are snapping up housing at a faster rate than housing is being made available, that would still manifest as rising prices but with the prices rising at a slower rate than they would have otherwise.) That’s an opportunity for the less rich people to secure a spot where the rich people used to be, so they move out of their older and less nice places and so on to relocate. Within five years or so that propagates down the vacancy chain and opens up low income housing as well.
Also many times any kind of new apartment is called “luxury” as a marketing gimmick since it’s not really a controlled term and it makes people think of it as a more attractive place to live.
More housing needs to be built to alleviate the housing crisis. Unfortunately with housing also doubling for many as their largest investment and a retirement vehicle all rolled in one, people get absolutely furious if anything is done that would appreciably reduce the price of housing. Because homeowners make up so much of society and particularly politically influential society those interests are very politically difficult to take on.
i’d argue that’s there’s nothing depressing about homelessness if you divorce it from cultural ideas about the housed, the houseless, comfort and class and laws.
what are you lacking if you have no home? no netflix? no bed? people survived without those things for thousands of years. what they’re lacking is dignity and freedom.
you have no agency as a living being when you’re ‘homeless’–you can’t hunt here because it’s owned land; you can’t park here because it’s owned land, you can’t build a shelter because it’s owned land, etc.
without those restrictions plenty of people would choose to be homeless.
