Pointless but it makes me go "Ooh look at that!"

sufi

lala
pointful 🔫

It's fun to identify the computer generated environment while you're in it & pretend to be in virtual reality, and then try and spot the odd logic gaps in spaces which have been architected on screens, sometimes you can catch a dodgy cut'n'paste transposed onto reality.
These cityscapes resemble computer renderings cos that's what they are, i suppose, just in the medium of bricks and mortar (or flatpack or whatever).

Is there something about Mexico city that makes it amazingly photogenic from the air though??
a06ddd5ac0e243678553578119885475.jpg
 

Woebot

Well-known member
These cityscapes resemble computer renderings cos that's what they are, i suppose, just in the medium of bricks and mortar (or flatpack or whatever).

interesting point sufi.

in a similar vein i'm always intrigued to notice shapes in car design which are a function of software tools. and as a historical flourish i should add that the "bezier" tool for defining curves was designed by monsieur bezier to help him specify the curves of the renault cars he was designing

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bézier_curve
 

sufi

lala
interesting point sufi.

in a similar vein i'm always intrigued to notice shapes in car design which are a function of software tools. and as a historical flourish i should add that the "bezier" tool for defining curves was designed by monsieur bezier to help him specify the curves of the renault cars he was designing

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bézier_curve
I've long thought that all design is merging into a single shape: phones, cars, trainers, even buildings all looking more and more the same
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
I saw somewhere the other day photos of London in lockdown. The angle was "you can (despite the terrible... etc.) now see the amazing architecture unimpeded".

But it confirmed what I already believed about central London, which is that all the beautiful architecture is now dwarved by hideous glass/metal towers.

Controversially, I find The Shard (from a distance, at least) a beautiful building. The way it changes colour according to the light. These things always look better from a distance. From up close, they might give you a pleasing frisson, imagining them toppling over onto you, but generally are emotionless objects, as emotionless as a pinstripe suit.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
I totally understand if people hate it, as much for what it symbolises as what it is, but I really think it looks like some sort of sci-fi pyramid.

Just try to forget about all the twats having champagne halfway up it.

I think what makes it more aesthetically pleasing than a lot of those other skyscrapers is that it stands alone. The financial district looks like a total fucking mess now because there's about 12 of them jammed together.

But like all the rest of those buildings, it certainly lacks charm. It feels inhuman - beyond human. Which probably appeals to me cos I like dystopian sci fi and so on...
 

entertainment

Well-known member
London is kind of a mess isn't it? No rigid geometrical plans and axes framing the city. You could argue that its layout reflects neoliberalism, decentralised and pluralist but ultimately run by business.
 

version

Well-known member
catalog recently posted a John Higgs newsletter which mentioned this,

Although the great modernist works appeared after the First World War, all the key ideas behind those works had been developed before it. The war removed the cold dead hands of inertia and tradition, and suddenly all these new ideas and values were free to run wild. I wonder if we will see a similar thing now? Will those previously existing but resisted ideas become mainstream after the pandemic?

Is this likely? After the Great Fire of London in 1666, there were grand schemes to rebuild the city in a smarter, saner, more elegant fashion...

These fine-minded plans came to nothing. Londoners couldn't wait for the planners to design this improved city and immediately rebuilt roads and buildings in the chaotic way they were before, more or less.
 

entertainment

Well-known member
it's just gonna be more glass cubey brutal with a curve style buildings but with some green trees on top of them: the vision of a sustainable future.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
It's interesting at this time to speculate on if high rise office buildings are going to be an anachronistic idea soon. I mean there's actually no speculation needed. They will be.

People can work from their bedrooms now. And ultimately the majority of those people will be replaced with AI or whatever. Who's going to want to pay for a central London office that costs a bomb?
 

woops

is not like other people
isn't it quite difficult to fill these buildings anyway? centre point and docklands were empty for years, shard was so empty there was a suggestion to move parliament there at one time.

anyway wren wanted to put a classical european street plan in place

P623_Christopher_Wren's_Plan_for_Rebuilding_London_after_Great_Fire_of_1666.jpg

more silly ideas here

but ultimately ownership of land won out
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
isn't it quite difficult to fill these buildings anyway? centre point and docklands were empty for years, shard was so empty there was a suggestion to move parliament there at one time.

anyway wren wanted to put a classical european street plan in place

View attachment 3387

more silly ideas here

but ultimately ownership of land won out

I'm glad London was rebuilt on the same old higgeldy-piggeldy street plan after the Great Fire. It's a source of great character.
 

RWY

Well-known member
London is kind of a mess isn't it? No rigid geometrical plans and axes framing the city. You could argue that its layout reflects neoliberalism, decentralised and pluralist but ultimately run by business.

London was the capital of a worldwide empire, but you couldn't tell that by looking at the city itself. Paris, well, now there was a capital. A number of other European cities had modernised themselves in similar fashion. But London was an affront to the self-esteem of many Britons. Their capital was almost devoid of beautiful squares or elegant boulevards, the traffic snarled, the streets were split by puffing steam trains on viaducts, one neighbourhood after another was destroyed for the construction of railway stations and Underground lines, the city's centre was encircled by endless slums.

All this was largely due to the medieval manner in which the city was run. Strictly speaking, London itself consisted of only one little town, the City of London, with around it a series of 'parishes' responsible for running the metropolis at large. Government after government ran into a brick wall of fiercely defended parish rights. Central planning, indispensable for any metropolis for the construction of roads, water systems, sewage and rail connections, was almost impossible in London.

For some, however, the chaos of London, this piling up of wayward building styles without much in the way of planning, constituted a political statement: an act of defiance against the absolute power of a ruler, against a bureaucracy, against a Haussmann. Many British subjects - then and now - attached great importance to their own domain. They were willing to conform to the rigours of a tightly run public life, but as compensation they demanded great freedom in their own, private realm. Within those private boundaries they could behave as eccentrically as they liked. 'My home is my castle': the government was expected to rein itself in, the planners could only go so far, chaos was simply the price one paid. According to the urban historian Michiel Wagenaar, it was in this way that there arose 'the urban landscape of the free market'.


Geert Mak - In Europe: Travels Through The Twentieth Century
 

entertainment

Well-known member
All top down city plans are momuments to rational administration and I tend to hate them all. With the exception of those blank, brutal concrete structures that can be conquered by life - vines and grafitti and colorful laundry hangings declaring it's sovereignity.

These wholesome cute housing designs come with an implanted vision - an imposition on the future.
 
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