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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   3039 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for August 11, 2024

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Seven million people visit the Parthenon every year. People like looking at it. If you told them the fluted columns were a stylistic holdover from earlier building techniques, they would not say, "Wow, that's pathetic and unoriginal and ruins the whole thing for me." They'd say, "Oh, how interesting!" They do not care if the building is "a copy of a copy of a copy" with minor variations, any more than they disdain their children for being copies of copies of copies with minor variations.

Hundreds of thousands of people wander through New Orleans' Garden District every year. They love this shit. They take pictures from the sidewalk. They're still inspired to write semi-erotic vampire fiction set behind doors like this.

I'm increasingly convinced that beauty is local and specific. The forms we find loveliest are recognizably from somewhere. A climate-controlled box of concrete, glass, and steel can plop down anywhere.

New Orleans' architectural vernacular evolved under certain environmental constraints, like 76% humidity on an alluvial floodplain. It evolved under the quirks of particular governments, like long narrow lots measured in arpents rather than feet. Its ornamentation draws from recognizable traditions - "cargo cult ornamentation," as you say. (The gingerbread on the shotguns resulted from the sudden availability of machined rather than handmade spindles and corbels. Shotguns were working class housing, and their residents were excited to have a little fancy-fancy.) Roofs had to shed rainwater like a boss. Prior to widespread AC, high ceilings were necessary for airflow, and shaded courtyards or galleries were desirable for livable space out in the breeze.

The most classic designs - shotguns, Creole cottages, and double gallery townhouses - are fairly straightforward. They are symmetrical rectangles plus some decorative trim. And yet, they are shockingly easy to mess up. Cheap, widely available blueprints tend to use modern dimensions, with lower ceilings and shorter doors and windows. These adapted dimensions reduce building costs, but the proportions look subtly wrong. Bad proportions can have practical consequences. On one street in Irish Channel, an old double gallery was recently renovated to stick on a parapet and Greek Revival it up. The parapet is too big for the house, which not only looks goofy, it may have created a corner for rainwater to gather, work its way in, and eventually compromise the roof.

At least they tried! In contrast, here are designs by the world's most prestigious architects, intended as an homage to the local shotgun house. Here's your inspired "positive vision of the future." If any element were out of proportion, who the fuck would know?

Worse by far, these minimalist houses, specially designed to be eco-conscious and energy efficient, flubbed the waterproofing. They started to decay within a decade and triggered a massive lawsuit.

I don't want or need a "positive vision of the future" for my clothing. Sure, let's take advantage of new technologies in material and construction - but even that can go too far, can't it? One mulberry silk nightgown feels better on my skin than all my slick synthetics. No, in my clothing I want time-tested designs that would be perfectly familiar in many historical eras, with decorative elements in the idiom of my people. A woman's belt is a holdover from the time before stretchy fabric, when it was the easiest way to hold up a skirt or define the waist. A modern woman wearing one over her dress is not an uninspired rube aping the conventions of her ancestors. She's pulling her outfit together.

High fashion might be "innovative" or whatever, but it is also frequently ugly and alienating. It doesn't flatter women of average proportions, who need tailoring and structure to best show their shape. Yet somehow, every time I shop for a dress, the market offers me a sack with sleeves.

Every time I've shopped for real estate in this beautiful European city established in the 12th century, the market offers me a fucking concrete box.

So, uh, why was it removed? Did the author ask to be vaporized?

Raggedy_anthem went off the mod team and either set their account private or deleted it about three months back, “personal reasons”

Dang, that wasn't it. I'm sorry for my outburst.

Maybe search has the post I was thinking of. It was really fascinating and I regret that my friends missed it.

Is this the post you're looking for? https://www.themotte.org/post/963/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/205067?context=8#context

It is! Yay! Thank you very much.

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