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PaperclipPerfector  12d ago (text post)   27727 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 23, 2024

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How do you understand the words "harmony" and "disharmony"?

Also, when he says "And I’m not convinced that that is something I should have to live with all my life, just because the majority of people feel comfortable with it." how does that not straightforwardly say he wants to make people uncomfortable?

I primarily understand harmony and disharmony in terms of cleaving to notions of geometric proportionality, e.g. as formalised by Palladio. You could probably extend that to congruity in style and materials, both internally and in context. Personally, I can see deviations from this as well-executed or ill-considered, but it'd be an exceptional case I'd consider to be psychically harmful.

In the second case, he's saying he wouldn't like it if the entirety of his aesthetic experience was like Mantovani, who he regards as popular, but a bit vapid, saccharine, and unchallenging. I'd agree that some buildings, such as his Berlin memorial, succeed by being more challenging and this is appropriate for it's purpose. Conversely, most people wouldn't style their own house en brut, but it still appeals to some people.

But here you're softening the original statement to make it sound plausible. If he really wanted to "maximize the amount of discomfort and pain" his buildings have an unambitious amount of rusty syringes and razored door handles.

I primarily understand harmony and disharmony in terms of cleaving to notions of geometric proportionality, e.g. as formalised by Palladio. You could probably extend that to congruity in style and materials, both internally and in context. Personally, I can see deviations from this as well-executed or ill-considered, but it'd be an exceptional case I'd consider to be psychically harmful.

I feel like something is being left out by such a technical definition. You can define harmony in music in terms of mathematics too, but I don't think it's wise to completely leave out of the defintion, the effect being constantly bombarded by disharmonious chords would have on a person. And I'm pretty sure Eismann is aware of that, given all the talk of "comfort".

In the second case, he's saying he wouldn't like it if the entirety of his aesthetic experience was like Mantovani, who he regards as popular, but a bit vapid, saccharine, and unchallenging.

What is supposed to be the difference between "challenging" and "deliberately causing discomfort" in your opinion.

But here you're softening the original statement to make it sound plausible.

No, you're doing the opposite. For example OP was explicitly talking about "psychic" discomfort and pain, and you deliberately left that out to make him look ridiculous.

Also, an architect will be limited by building safety codes, and the threat of having his license taken away and/or going to prison, which will prevent him from fully leaning into his sadism.

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