The reasonable ugly
When people, especially the architects, talking about the urban. The most popular topic of judgment criteria is from aesthetics.
It is hard to find a famous book to talk about the small town in the US or in other countries. But it is very easy to get the book talking about New York or other big cities. The popular standpoints are always negative. Compere with the small beautiful town, the big city is always considered ugly or sick.
If we stand back, the "ugly" is very reasonable. The city grows very fast that cause the design was not thinking very carefully. But sometimes the design probably is the best solution in that time period. The assumption design for "ugly city" by architects is much more beautiful. But the design accident in urban still keep happening.
The New York City in the US became "Delirious" much earlier than Shanghai in China. But the two cities became to a similar outlook. That because the city needs the delirious to grow up. The more building in there, the more people can work and live there, the more job opportunity is there.
people keep complaining about it but keep move into the city. That is the reasonable ugly.
It is hard to find a famous book to talk about the small town in the US or in other countries. But it is very easy to get the book talking about New York or other big cities. The popular standpoints are always negative. Compere with the small beautiful town, the big city is always considered ugly or sick.
If we stand back, the "ugly" is very reasonable. The city grows very fast that cause the design was not thinking very carefully. But sometimes the design probably is the best solution in that time period. The assumption design for "ugly city" by architects is much more beautiful. But the design accident in urban still keep happening.
The New York City in the US became "Delirious" much earlier than Shanghai in China. But the two cities became to a similar outlook. That because the city needs the delirious to grow up. The more building in there, the more people can work and live there, the more job opportunity is there.
people keep complaining about it but keep move into the city. That is the reasonable ugly.
I completely agree, the "ugly" is reasonable. Necessity and density cause these fast growth spurts to happen and somehow, we make it work, even living in these absurd ways that would be unthinkable in small towns.
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ReplyDeleteThis is a very good prase for any architect/scholar to remember! This contributes to the discussion about Soviet modern living districts during last class. Scholars keep thinking about things as “ideal” and “ugly”, diminishing the impact, real usage, and history sometimes. Even though it seems like it was overpassed at a time when Koolhaas was writing “Delirious New York” or “Learning from Pop” was written. I believe that there is no such thing as “ugly” or “fail” in urban design or architecture, as it is never one-sided. Only “reasonable”.
ReplyDeleteI am so glad you wrote this. Many of these posts lean towards the opinion that the evolution of the cities and technology killed the natural environment and created a monster. However, there is an essence to cities that attract people like moths to light; humans are intrigued by the possibilities of the city. And while the “concrete jungle” is so far removed from the natural landscape, people still flock to cities. Even with the known congestion, they willingly move towards it, thus creating environments based on need. Sometimes, these can be the most beautiful and rich in culture.
ReplyDeleteI sort of agree with Ksenia, but I would argue that in some cases, such as Pruitt-Igoe was a failure. True that is is never-one sided but the architecture of it definitely allow for a lot of the failure to happen so it should carry with it some sort of responsability for it other than just "reasonable" (and I reaaally like Modernism! but I still think it was a major factor).
ReplyDeleteAnd Yibo.... beautiful. The organic growth of cities is always fascinating, especially the way they end up being almost always different N to S and E to W. Loved your post!
Katie, although I agree with you that people are attracted to the city like moths to light (loved that!) I would say that not everyone there is happy. Currently, there is actually a very interesting thing happening within our generation that a lot of people don't want to live in the city (because of "congestion", commutes, odor, etc.) or if they do, they actually can't afford it so they are actually looking for places not too far out from the cities (15-25min) where they can enjoy the city yet not have to "deal" with the city. Obviously, transportation is a huge topic for this but i just find it interesting because in my perspective this is a "new way" in which the city is weirdly "growing."