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PaperclipPerfector  3d ago (text post)   16945 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 27, 2025

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our best and most beautiful buildings are usually survivors from the late middle ages, or baroque, and you can't exactly build that way anymore

Oh, come on. Gründerzeit architecture looks fine.

Chronologically, Jugendstil was next, and it's German form is also far better than the atrocities they built after. But yes, others did it better, particularly the Spanish.

"Fine" as in tolerable? Alright, I'll bite that bullet. It's a style I can live with, though not one I actively desire. A little too overdecorated and playful to my taste.

Fachwerk though. Mhmhmmm.

A little too overdecorated and playful

Wait, I thought you liked baroque!?

But yeah, I know what you mean. I mostly wish they would build Gründerzeit apartment blocks lining entire streets again. The bombastic staircases; the gigantic ceiling height; hardwood double doors through thick, solid walls; beautiful, tall, overdecorated windows... they built entire cities like that.

I don't really like baroque, no. What I meant earlier was that baroque, like Gründerzeit, produced tolerable buildings - not necessarily what I like, but something that I can pass by without cursing - unlike the abominations that are being built since the war. I was very unprecise about that up there.

I really do prefer the late medieval buildings. Towns that actually preserved their fortifications and integrated walls and castles rather than bulldoze them are especially pretty. Of course they're rare and impractical and impossible to build from scratch, but that's what I grew up with and everything else looks fake and gay by comparison.

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