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Comment by voisin | Hacker News Reader

Architects’ first commandment: always prioritize function over form.

Function over form is a false equivalency, a modernist fetish.

Architect's first commandment should be to strive to a perfect integration of beauty, usefulness and durability. There are many real world examples, so it's not a trade-off.

Plus, that "strong focus on aesthetics" seem to be a throwaway comment in the report, and it is disputed by the design studio who built the bridge.

It presupposes a false _dichotomy_, one that misunderstands the nature of beauty. A building's beauty will in large part be a matter of its _function_. It it not just a matter of decoration, which is important, but does not exhaust the aesthetic concerns of an architect.

The Pantheon in Rome is an especially nice sign of contradiction, but it is hardly alone.

We are human beings, not some consumerist homo economicus that exists merely to eat, shit, drink, and copulate and in a bestial manner. Let us care about the beauty of our environment. This can be done even within means. Beauty is a transcendental. Those who attack it, or insult it, who denigrate it, who dismiss it are misanthropes and enemies of the entire human race.

right on!

"prioritizing function over form" is not a dichotomy, merely a statement that when the two are in conflict, function should win.

That does not strictly mean that the two are always in conflict.

I am more than a machine without feeling, but I prefer my bridges to not collapse when I drive on them, no matter how pretty they are.

Unsurprisingly, this is Wurster Hall, home of the Architecture School (aka "College of Environmental Design") at UC Berkeley: https://www.sosbrutalism.org/cms/15892267

Horrific, but salvageable. Put on a wide overhang flat roof, so rain no longer streaks down the wall, and wash/paint it. Then, it will just be a large no frills classroom building. Not great, but no longer offensive either.

Ive never understood why this style of architecture is seen as "horrific" and "offensive". It looks nice. I like to see the materials a building is made of. I am so sick stucco and paneling trying to hide the material a building is made of. If you want to paint it paint a mural. Why must everything be sterilized and flattened.

Because they didnt bother to put a roof on it for ideological reasons (postwar architects were obsessed with cubes, purely because it made a statement), so rain streaks down and those skidmarks looks awful on big concrete slabs.

So they at least need to wash it and put on a roof that prevents it from happening again.

Apart from that, this building is fine overall.

It's odd though, because I would call this building sterilized and flattened as well!

The rain streaks look great to me as well! Its kind of like a pair of well worn leather shoes has creases and lines where the foot bends or how a well worn pair of jeans fades on the knees and wrinkles. Not that I am against a roof for this building, or even adding some materials like brick or maybe timber could be interesting.

I think this about lots of 'brutalist' buildings: theyre gorgeous as is and might be improved a bit and receive less hate if they used more materials than just concrete and glass. Brick, Timber, and stone even after all people love all the Frank Loyd Wright stuff and he used plenty of raw materials.

Yeah, for sure, buildings in nice materials with nice details, would be nice! But I dont think that's what brutality buildings generally are.

But the streaks, oh no, that's just foul lol. Weathering is nice on a buildings, but not grotesquely like that

I'm with you in that I don't hate all brutalist architecture, but Wurster is generally acknowledged to be ugly in real life.

Legitimately makes some prisons look inviting. The bare concrete, which the dirt makes it look like it is rotting away, gives it the charm of an uninhibited ruin. Even on the brightest days the shadows of the building will make you inexplicably cold, while the oppressive outside has cut many conversations short.

Its beautiful! I will never understand the hate for this type of building?

Wurster? Wurstest .

Is this a maximum security architecture school?

Any good design is a collaboration of art and engineering, where the end result accomplishes the technical requirements and integrates itself into the world around it in an appropriate way. Neither of these can be considered alone, function has a form of its own, just like form has a function of it's own.

Architects aren't structural engineers and only in dialogue good infrastructure can be created.

I’m fairly certain good ‘infrastructure’ can be engineered. If you want something pretty that integrates into the world around it’s not solely infrastructure any more.

Bad architecture is harmful to the people who have to interact with it.

What is considered good architecture these days is also harmful to the people that need to work in it.

So many new buildings seem to think that all space needs to be given over to being impressive, instead of dedicated to the people that work in it.

Nah. Have you seen the Sydney Opera House?

Something can be beautiful without sacrificing function. It isn’t “function only”; it’s “function over form”.

Have you ever HEARD it? The acoustics are famously terrible. That's sacrificing function.

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