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Comment by egypturnash | Hacker News Reader

So very yes, so much modern construction is these ultra-brutalist boxes that, if they have any thought given to visual interest, is entirely at the scale of what's visible from several blocks away. And most of that is "we painted this big boring box in three different colors".

Deco buildings - as well as older stuff like the Classical Revivalist stuff that's so many public buildings in the place I live in now - have thought given to aesthetic variety at a scale only visible from the sidewalk. Allegorical sculptures? Decorative reliefs? Faces peering out here and there? Noveau-flavored ironwork? Yes please.

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Brutalism is a distinct architectural style, and is not the same thing as modernism, or the international style, or whatever you call those horrendous boxes with mismatched facades.

> or whatever you call those horrendous boxes with mismatched facades

"Minimum fucks given" style?

The “I’m not talented enough to design detail” aesthetic. As we frequently see in modern flat software design.

I think of it as "age amplification style": those minimalistic shapes look maximally shiny when new and maximally gross when not. More ornamental styles change appearance as well as they are, but they are far more successful at earning patina as a quality.

> or whatever you call those horrendous boxes with mismatched facades

It's called the "most affordable design compliant with the city's design requirements". It's always the planning department. Architects don't want to build ugly buildings, but it's the only thing that's legal.

Many cities mandate at least 4 different facade materials and that the massing be broken up. So we end up with a mishmash of materials and colors and an undulating blocky facade.

> Architects don't want to build ugly buildings, but it's the only thing that's legal.

The Museum of Pop Culture in Seattle would beg to differ.

Right. Architects don't want to build boring ugly buildings :).

The funniest scene of the Fountainhead film is about this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlIIx4Zq2Lc

Rationally, the design of the building was chosen for its cost-efficiency. In an ideal world, we should have both aesthetics and cost-efficiency.

In places where skyscrapers are economically viable (aka very dense areas with high land values), I'd have a strong preference for cost-efficiency over aesthetics to lower the cost of operating a business/living in the area.

Albeit the aesthetics should have a non-zero priority.

I sure am a lot happier now that I live in a place with a lot of human-scaled architecture. But that’s an emotional thing that “rational” people typically want to avoid measuring or considering.

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