
Devil’s Haircut - prismatic
https://nplusonemag.com/online-only/online-only/devils-haircut/
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vearwhershuh
The article isn't bad but it beats around the bush quite a bit.

The reality is that the architectual establishment is largely responsible for
destroying the aesthetic inheritance in the west. Kunstler lays this out for
the layman in "Geography of Nowhere".

It was a confluence of events: the architectual establishments hatred of
traditionalism and regional forms, combined with the corporate elites love of
the inexpensive, anti-skilled labor, massed man internationalist style.

As the article mentions, we will continue to cycle around in various
modernisms that reject one another in a simulacrum of progress while, to the
layman, offering nothing of aesthetic merit. What will not be considered,
until after the revolution, is a return to the forms that created the towns
and cities we all love.

Meanwhile, any remaining charming old neighborhoods are bid to the moon, and
Christopher Alexander is read mostly by software designers.

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ebg13
> _The article isn 't bad but it beats around the bush quite a bit._

It doesn't respect its readers? I think that does make it bad?

I'm more bothered that it's ostensibly a review of a visual exhibit without
any visuals. Without flying to New York I don't have any idea what this is
describing. And of course the Guggenheim's video producers are so full of
themselves that you can't really get an honest take on the exhibit from the
intro video on their website either.

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Turing_Machine
> I'm more bothered that it's ostensibly a review of a visual exhibit without
> any visuals.

Writing about architecture is like dancing about cooking.

(paraphrase of a famous quote that I can't place at the moment -- cite,
anyone?)

~~~
InvisibleCities
Writing about music is like dancing about architecture. ~Frank Zappa

~~~
Turing_Machine
Thanks! That's it.

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aazaa
This is AI-generated, right?

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quacked
After I saw this SMBC comic about this subject, I never really kept looking
for more critical takes on modern architecture.

[https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2014-11-16](https://www.smbc-
comics.com/comic/2014-11-16)

~~~
slowmovintarget
Frank Lloyd Wright sought to elevate the environment workers or occupants had
to spend their time in. He was designing buildings for people, not as snarky
societal commentary.

Maybe we should return to that idea that people are valuable and ought to be
treated well, and hire architects to design that way.

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throwsprtsdy
> The Koolhaasian moment in design began to fade, as one might expect, with
> the coming of the 2008 global economic crisis; since everything in
> architecture takes longer than in any other field, the full-on rejection is
> only getting underway now, but already the accelerationist paradigm has been
> replaced by another: a meliorist one, eco-conscious and modest,
> international in outlook but more focused on firms working within their
> communities, especially those in developing countries.

What is this writing style?

~~~
ChainOfFools
I don't mind it, the use of commas and semicolons to accumulate layers of
meaning without resorting to parenthetical interruptions comes across as both
deliberative and spontaneous.

It sort of feels like I am reading the author's thoughts as they organically
map the domain of their argument, but with all the backtracking pruned out.

But if you want a cute term for this style, how about "run-on sentience?"

