Prince Charles Was Right: Modern Architecture is Still All Glass Stumps and Carbuncles
Concept, photos, videos, examples, construction
Filmed at the Royal Geographical Society on 30th June 2008.
Comments
those Nagasaki Dutch-style buildings mocked by the philosopher look ok to me. What's so wrong with Japan importing such architecture if they can pull it off. What a snob. The anti side is all about politics, social engineering, elitism. Prince Charles was right!
how pathetic! Why can't the audience of web can see the slides?
That question at 51:52 about "the exteriors matching the brilliance of the technology on the interiors" is a horrendous indication of the thought processes of modernists.
It inherently assumes that classical architecture isn't brilliant, and that technological progress is somehow the opposite of beautiful design. Rather than embracing the fusion of classicism and technology, it insists that we simply accept these modernist monstrosities because of a concerted effort to attach them to the idea of progress.
A classical building can easily have high-tech interiors, it simply requires a modicum of effort to integrate it into the interior - the end result is both seamless and timeless.
The difference between modern architecture and new age non sense, although it is the same nonsensial philosophy, is that modern architecture is stuck in the Stone Age...
My God, Stephen Bayley is an insufferable intellectually-dishonest elitist.
Ooh look, he's screwing up the paper as he goes along. So edgy! What an iconoclast! He's an intellectual, darling, like Laurence Llewelyn Bowen or Nick Rhodes from Duran Duran.
Of course architecture must embrace new materials, construction techniques, and cost efficiency, but the traditionalists voice the concern that lingers on our minds:
Architecture is of the greatest reflections of our shared cultural heritage. It has been, and ought to be, distinguished geographically. It should look dignified, not abstract and inhumane. Art and architecture take discipline. It's not about lazily "expressing yourself." And not about narcissistically pursuing novelty for the sake of novelty (or the starchitect's self-inflated legacy). The opposing side confuses this with creating nothing new, at all.
I'm from Chicago, the birthplace of the skyscraper and modernism; I don't need Europeans telling me what's "creative" because they they envy the bold, industrious, look of American cities. Don't throw out your heritage. The modern buildings in Chicago are nice because our construction is the highest standard, world-wide (Chicago firms are building these mega-talls abroad). But Roger Scruton is right. All the old, soulfully designed buildings are finding a lot of success in their redevelopments in Chicago.
20:57 noe georgian, neo tudor and neo ...... . What was the last neo style he mentioned? "neo creonian" sounding one.
Did the cameraman fall asleep in the middle of the presentation and forget zooming out and back in?
Why oh why does the Royal Geographical Society make such a hash of filming this lecture ? We don't see half the slides which are referred to.
True to form the defenders of modernism pull the elitist "you are too stupid to understand it" routine. They also outright LIE and say that corbusier is considered a genius and that his works are venerated. The only people who consider Corbusier a genius are the elitists. Crosiers buildings are NOT loved buy the public and many of them have been so despised that they were neglected to the point of becoming derelict and abandoned. IT has only been because of elitists willing to put money into his supposed "gems" to rehabilitate them that they still exist.
Modern architecture is dull, soul less, boring. It has been a colossal failure. The only people,l as one of the speakers pointed out, who actually buy the grotesque monstrosities call business towers, and government and businesses that buy them for self aggrandizement. Business districts of cities are ghost towns once people go home. No one wants to be there unless they are getting paid to be there.
"Architecture is frozen music" Geothe. Some studies have indicated that in places where people generally perceive their surroundings as asthetically pleasing, then there is less vandalism.
To reply to Feliks_k (what's the point in putting forward a question if you don't enable replies)... vernacular in architecture refers to direct functionality, but as Scruton points out in the classical style, not coming at the expense of ugliness, and actually then becoming adaptive. As opposed to modern vernacular which never escapes the direct purpose for which the building is originally built.
thought of a split-screen/cutaway for your next visual-centric debate? so that we can see what people are discussing?
Anna Ford kind of looks like Hillary Clinton.
+ Alain De Botton Those Dutch buildings in Nagasaki are one part of theme park:Huis Ten Bosch, because Nagasaki was the only port which was opened during Japan's period of isolation (1612-1854). At that time Holland was the only european country which could carry on commerce with Japan.
Can we please stop this modernist nonsense and return to making real buildings with passion, soul and effort.
Thankfully, I don't think anything that terrifically ugly and boring would past muster these days. So, as one of the panelists arguing against the motion suggested, the debate is a bit anachronistic.
Awful camera work. We don't get to see most of what Alain de Botton is talking about.
