When I think about the problem today, I think the problem today is actually around how modern architecture has become ubiquitous and therefore lost many of its original principles. Examples of this are seen in newly constructed apartment and high-rise buildings. it has lead to what some architects might see as ideal; white, boxy and sterilized. Whereas others may now feel like we have lost a sense of warmth, balance, and where we came from essentially. As luxury modern homes still cost the most in real estate, the original homes and buildings of the pre-modern era are seen as more valuable in that they’re unaffected by our clean slate. Nowadays, it even comes in the form of educated peoples, one may see the value in real estate from the 1920s of a Victorian home for its originality, understanding the value in homes pre-modern has become valuable in itself because without this we no longer have any point of reference for where we have arrived.
I keep thinking about how design is based on finding the problem and creating a solution, and so therefore, I have been contemplating the problems and at first some were smaller on the scale, like how to effectively use the space of an acute angle like an A-frame and the corners which we cannot fit in, how Can we design something to make that space productive? On a larger scale, I see the problem is now the commercialized use of modern architecture in some cases like apartment buildings it has become just as obscene as a McMansion leaving the McMansion to seem even more like a home…
These days people who cherish pre-modern era architecture tend to be the ones who actually know about architectural history. Whereas the people who moved into these large boxes have little choice as the most desirable apartments these days in Los Angeles are either studio lofts, which may or may not be modern, and the Old Hollywood apartments from the 1920’s, but even those are now sought after.
I find it funny how many architects of the modern movement who built in rectangles and boxes tend to make the claim that they’re building is integrated with the nature around it, as if it had manifested itself, I find this terribly funny or amusing. Because at first glance, it is the very thing that differentiate us from the natural world . It’s perpendicular, angles and straight lines. The only thing which looks like this is a high right cube that is very rare. So I find it really interesting when architects have spent years of their life, studying landscaping shape structures appearance aesthetic to claim that they’re building of concrete, which is also a man-made material looks as if it came out of the ground.
What we’re lacking here ultimately is the quality in these new constructions. Modern can easily be understood as minimalistic and therefore simplified in terms of ornament. Without ornament its materials are industrial. But what reveals its frugality is how easily the metal door handle lock breaks , or the painted wood chips. The rent for these apartments may not even be cheaper but claim to present the elegance of modernity without truly earning its name. Maybe the form does follow the function but the whole phrase shatters when the materials break simply by using them.
The problem now is industrialization…