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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 23, 2024

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I generally think that both nice, harmonious and disturbing, disharmonious works of art can be appreciated. Some people like classical music, some like punk rock. Some watch My Little Pony, some watch Chernobyl.

With texts (now that I am out of school), audio, video, paintings, theater, opera, sculptures, video games I can mostly decide what I want to consume.

Not so with architecture, in most cases. I mean, if I don't like Disney castles, I can stay away from Disneyland. Perhaps it is even feasible to stay away from a shopping mall if I think it is a crime on good taste.

But most of the buildings I visit are not this way. Picking a school and employer uses complex scoring functions, and 'do I like the building?' is not gonna be in the top ten deciding factors. For living accommodations in cities, there is even less slack to spend on architectural taste: if by some miracle I find a place which fits my other criteria, I will not care if the facade is raw concrete or if some sick fuck decided that the outer walls should weep blood like in some horror movie.

So in my point of view, most big buildings should not strive to be expressive in the same way as literature or video games are. Making them extra ugly is uncalled for, but making them extra nice from the outside is also not necessarily: schools are places were we store kids so they don't distract their parents from working, making them super nice looking would simply sugar-coat that fact. The kid getting thrown in the trash can by some bullies will not be very appreciative of the scenery. Nobody visits the DMV because they really like it there. Of course, buildings should be comfortable from the inside, have good light, short walking distances etc, but this is a rather straightforward optimization problem.

So my gist is, if it is not a new art museum or opera house or villa for some rich guy, you probably don't want a fancy artsy architect who has read Heidegger, just tell some civil engineer what your constraints are and let them optimize.