One exercise I regularly like to perform whenever I’m driving or walking around town is to look at the landscape around me with fresh eyes and ask myself which of the manmade objects and structures are ugly and which of them are beautiful.
Loved this one. I am also in the middle of a plastic purge. In the UK the pre and post WW2 divide can be really stark because of the bombing and I agree the pre-WW2 stuff is so much better. But there must be beautiful new architecture out there. I also wonder if people found steam trains ugly at the time too, and if things can be seen as more beautiful later, but another part of me feels a steam train can never have been anything but beautiful.
The beautiful new architecture is rare but of course exists. I think one part of the problem is that new architecture is usually trying to express difference and uniqueness, where almost everything beautiful is made within the continuation of a tradition. That's why some of those most beautiful villages in Europe have houses that are unique when compared to every other in the village, but nonetheless feel in communion with the tradition of the rest of the village. The best book on this I've read is "The Pattern Way of Building" by Christopher Alexander.
The steam train is an interesting example because it's right on the boundary line of beauty and ugliness for me. There's still that mechanistic, industrial, greasy aspect to the wheels and the engine, but I agree that it can still be beautiful. I think the steam punk aesthetic really plays with this boundary. You notice in those types of worlds that trains and airships still work, but usually cars don't.
You have captured in words some of the feelings and questions I have felt and asked myself. Like most really important questions, there are no "quick and easy" answers. Thank you for your thoughts.
Loved this one. I am also in the middle of a plastic purge. In the UK the pre and post WW2 divide can be really stark because of the bombing and I agree the pre-WW2 stuff is so much better. But there must be beautiful new architecture out there. I also wonder if people found steam trains ugly at the time too, and if things can be seen as more beautiful later, but another part of me feels a steam train can never have been anything but beautiful.
The beautiful new architecture is rare but of course exists. I think one part of the problem is that new architecture is usually trying to express difference and uniqueness, where almost everything beautiful is made within the continuation of a tradition. That's why some of those most beautiful villages in Europe have houses that are unique when compared to every other in the village, but nonetheless feel in communion with the tradition of the rest of the village. The best book on this I've read is "The Pattern Way of Building" by Christopher Alexander.
The steam train is an interesting example because it's right on the boundary line of beauty and ugliness for me. There's still that mechanistic, industrial, greasy aspect to the wheels and the engine, but I agree that it can still be beautiful. I think the steam punk aesthetic really plays with this boundary. You notice in those types of worlds that trains and airships still work, but usually cars don't.
You have captured in words some of the feelings and questions I have felt and asked myself. Like most really important questions, there are no "quick and easy" answers. Thank you for your thoughts.
Appreciate this very much. It's a question that continues to need to be asked.