Comments on: Cities Need Aesthetic Harmony

By: Mark Citadel

Mark Citadel — Thu, 07 May 2015 12:44:58 +0000

Highly interesting musings here. I have to say Post-Anathema really takes my breath away sometimes with the architecture, both historic and potential. Married, these aesthetic qualities can make for a truly inspiring environment. Alas, we are stuck with an increasingly soviet-looking landscape. Practically all forms of public ‘art’ are vile. I’m just waiting to see them put up an inflatable genitalia in Central Park.

Note how Singapore has a better aesthetic harmony than the USA, primarily because it doesn’t tolerate certain peoples who destroy it. My kind of town.

By: Neil Dunn

Neil Dunn — Wed, 06 May 2015 18:32:03 +0000

The new world trade center skyscraper picture for your article is the perfect example of the problems you enumerated in your article. Look how many years of input from so many sources with many different agendas it has taken with several mockup models and different builders presenting B4 the WTC complex finally got under way. And it still is not finished after almost 14 years. I wonder who will step forward and be capable of preserving your “remaining” cities. Also, there are many cities like Detroit and Baltimore that may need areas to be rebuilt in the near future. That should involve a glorious gathering of gabblers and gobblers.

By: SydneyTrads Editors

SydneyTrads Editors — Wed, 06 May 2015 15:14:40 +0000

Also of interest will be the work of the neotraditionalists Roger Scruton and Léon Krier. Scruton's article in City Journal (Spring, 2008) is a good introduction to their philosophy: "Cities for Living".

By: AntiDem

AntiDem — Wed, 06 May 2015 03:25:19 +0000

Anyone interested in this topic should really read some of James Howard Kunstler’s work. Here’s a good place to start:

http://kunstler.com/other-stuff/articles/jhks-essay-on-harvards-landscape-urbanism-program/

By: Truth

Truth — Tue, 05 May 2015 18:39:50 +0000

The end of restrictive covenants caused the loss of irreplaceable historic architecture in countless American cities. Detroit is the most blatant example where we see thousands of amazing Victorian homes and buildings completey destroyed. This photo series illustrates a few examples. It breaks my heart.

http://www.100abandonedhouses.com

By: Henry Dampier

Henry Dampier — Tue, 05 May 2015 13:57:32 +0000

I’ve read some of his essays and now have some of his books (but haven’t read them yet).

Building codes are a bit like the attempts to hand over grammar codes to overcentralized institutions, with similar results.

By: jay

jay — Tue, 05 May 2015 13:51:40 +0000

Architects have lost the ability to create beauty. They no longer know how to create beauty as evidenced by many modernist monstrosities of our modern cities.

I see scarcely any beautiful building except for the local art museum and the Sydney operahouse. Vandalisms of glass and metal and misshapen dull square rocks that constitute apartments the city just doesn’t wow me when viewed up close.

By: August

August — Tue, 05 May 2015 13:28:02 +0000

Christopher Alexander has some interesting ideas in this space. Most recently he wrote a series of books called the Nature of Order. In the 70s he wrote three books, one of which was A Pattern Language, in which he wrote about various architectural patterns he felt had some empirical evidence for working. The analogy was how people learn a language, learn grammar, and construct sentences people understand rather than blabber complete gibberish no one understands. Similarly, someone understanding architecture in a pattern language style would be able to build in harmony with his neighbors without the need for a lot of top down rules. I think Alexander would probably say he was too hopeful- at the very least he has noticed not very many people get it, do it correctly, and pass the knowledge on to the next generation.