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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   28316 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 23, 2024

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The use of the term "Lovecraftian," as described by the original comment you were replying to.

Here's the fullest quote I could find.

Lovecraft uses language to imply the existence of an architecture that is curious, strange, and challenges notions of the architectural norm. To try to design such a Cyclopean city or to draw an acute angle that behaves obtusely would be a lost cause, but to imagine architecture that similarly alludes to a deeper or alternate view of reality is an appealing opportunity that runs counter to the simplification of big singular ideas through reductive diagrams. Perhaps instead of accurately representing the shallow, architecture might now be called upon to provide a sketchy, rough outline of something deeper.

Read plainly, this suggests that the author would like to create "curious and strange" architecture, not "madness-inciting" architecture. "But it says Lovecraft therefore they must mean they want to replicate the worst aspects of Lovecraftian" is an extremely motivated reading.

Note also, Lovecraft's opinion on what is madness-inciting seems to be a lot wider than median.

Lovecraft uses language to imply the existence of an architecture that is curious, strange, and challenges notions of the architectural norm.

Again, this is doublespeak. Cthulhu rising from the sea can also be "curious" or "strange." Speaking of Cthulhu, here's an excerpt from "The Call of Cthulhu" describing the drowned city of R'lyeh: "Then, driven ahead by curiosity in their captured yacht under Johansen’s command, the men sight a great stone pillar sticking out of the sea, and in S. Latitude 47° 9′, W. Longitude 126° 43′ come upon a coast-line of mingled mud, ooze, and weedy Cyclopean masonry which can be nothing less than the tangible substance of earth’s supreme terror—the nightmare corpse-city of R’lyeh, that was built in measureless aeons behind history by the vast, loathsome shapes that seeped down from the dark stars."

Here's a description of the architecture of The Elder Things from "At the Mountains of Madness": "The effect was that of a Cyclopean city of no architecture known to man or to human imagination, with vast aggregations of night-black masonry embodying monstrous perversions of geometrical laws and attaining the most grotesque extremes of sinister bizarrerie".

If your reading of those passages is that these places simply "[challenge] notions of the architectural norm," then I don't know what else to say.

But it says Lovecraft therefore they must mean they want to replicate the worst aspects of Lovecraftian

"Lovecraftian" specifically refers to a type of dread, terror, awe, and hopelessness associated with the knowledge of humanity's utter insignificance when compared to the alien creatures, gods, and beings within the unknown universe. This knowledge, in Lovecraft's stories, generally drives normal people to insanity. So when an architect invokes a "Lovecraftian" design in his or her architecture, you'll have to excuse me if I don't believe that he or she is trying to produce something that stops at "curious and strange."

If I'm being the best faith possible, it can be the case that the architect had merely misread Lovecraft and had invoked him to merely tie his or her works to something recognizable, but if that's the case, the architect would still merely be inept.

I don't think our understanding of what "doublespeak" means is the same.

When someone refers to Lovecraftian architecture as "curious and strange", but does not mention the "driving normal people to insanity" part, there can be two primary readings of that.

  1. They're a supervillain who is plainly stating that they want to drive people insane, except that for some reason their plain statement did not mention the insanity part except for by association with Lovecraft.
  2. They disagree with Lovecraft on the mood his architecture must evoke, and believe it is (for example) very cool rather than maddening.

If I'm being the best faith possible, I'm going to assume 2. You might interpret it as "misreading" Lovecraft, but I do not hold the man in such high authority as to be indisputable.

They disagree with Lovecraft on the mood his architecture must evoke, and believe it is (for example) very cool rather than maddening.

If you read both of the descriptions that I posted, you'll notice that the descriptions don't actually describe the buildings in any real detail. Instead they describe how you're supposed to feel about them, and let you do your own imagination about what they are supposed to look like. So if I'm imagining something that's a "tangible substance of earth’s supreme terror," "nightmare corpse-city," or "monstrous perversions of geometrical laws and attaining the most grotesque extremes of sinister bizarrerie," and the architect in question expresses an interest in bringing these to real life, it's not an easy sell to then downgrade them into "curious" or "strange."

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