https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paulinum_%28University_of_Leip...
But I heard it gets really hot inside, which sucks if you have to study there. In my opinion, functionality should always be prioritized higher than aesthetics.
It's also ironic for the author to claim that a style which peaked 100-130 years after the beginning of the Industrial Revolution is somehow the fault of global capitalism, as if global capitalism hadn't been a thing for 100+ years by the 1950s.
And of course even though the author is claiming that the left has flaws in their approach to architecture, they still have to make the obligatory supplication about the right's alleged "ulterior motives."
For all the severe flaws in Modernist architecture, this article seems a bit of a hash, honestly. The author seems trapped inside their own ideological bubble.
Edit:
> It should be obvious to anyone that skyscrapers should be abolished. After all, they embody nearly every bad tendency in contemporary architecture: they are not part of nature, they are monolithic, they are boring, they have no intricacy, and they have no democracy. Besides, there is plenty of space left on earth to spread out horizontally; the only reasons to spread vertically are phallic and Freudian.
Oh, good effing grief.
Lol. I agree.
OTOH... An over the top, ideological take on art is kind of traditional in architecture. I could easily imagine a reincarnated Ayn Rand argueing for skyscrapers for these exact reasons. Phalic inspiration representing the taming of nature and challenge to God.
In 2024, a slapfight between Andy Warhol and a local dress designer about the colour orange... That was the kind of conflict avante garde artists had to have so the rest of us could benefit from a stream of new artistic ideas. A sacrifice.
These days... everyone gets dragged in.
I kind of like brutalism, personally. It took some bad turns, but I'm hoping for a comeback. Maybe we should do paint this time though.
For crying out loud, form follows function and sometimes a cigar is just a freaking cigar.
Also, it's a cosmic balance for all the triangle engineering of ancient times.