Modern architecture

[michael]

I think there’s been a program on the TV recently that looks at how architecture affects people i.e. how it affects the occupants.
It got me thinking about my long standing dislike for a lot of modern architecture, particularly those constructed of glass and steel. It seems to me that modern day architects have got it in for people like me who suffer to some degree from vertigo. Glass panels on the side of escalators or on safety rails overlooking large atriums make a lot of these buildings no go areas for me as I feel constantly uncomfortable. Does anybody have similar thoughts?

 

[Flyfisher]

This chap seems comfortable with such things . . .

 

[JoceAndChris]

:shock:
I so agree Michael. Whilst I've visited cities such as Kuala Lumpur and New York with a great deal of admiration and respect, I think it's hard to go against our animal instinct - which is a cave. I think the home, and maybe even office should be cosy, smallish, cocooning - preferably with lots of thick carpets or rugs, and curtains, and warm, tactile materials like wood, wool, stone, slate, thatch.
Large expanses of glass, cold metal, whiteness, heights - no thanks.

 

[Gareth Hughes]

It was a very good series - The Secret Life of Buildings - but it wasn't really about the obvious Prince Charlesy "isn't concrete horrid?" reaction to modern architecture, but about how, for example, our volume housebuilders' products (marketed by number of bedrooms rather than by floorspace) are pokier, darker, less well-planned and less good for our mental and physical health than pretty much everywhere else.
Unfortunatley, being Channel 4, it's a bit loaded with advertisements, but here's the first one in the series:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkrhDUPbDw8

 

[LadyArowana]

I think there’s been a program on the TV recently that looks at how architecture affects people i.e. how it affects the occupants.
It got me thinking about my long standing dislike for a lot of modern architecture, particularly those constructed of glass and steel. It seems to me that modern day architects have got it in for people like me who suffer to some degree from vertigo. Glass panels on the side of escalators or on safety rails overlooking large atriums make a lot of these buildings no go areas for me as I feel constantly uncomfortable. Does anybody have similar thoughts?

No, not really, to be honest. The highest I have ever lived is 20th floor, full length glass windows. Much nicer than grubbing about at street level! My other half would have more sympathy with you though as he has some issues with heights. He did accompany me on a climb up the Sydney harbour bridge but was not a very happy camper, I told him it would cure him as nothing would be as bad as that in the future, but he remains unconvinced :lol:

 

[Penners]

In The Spinnaker Tower, Portsmouth, there's a glass panel set in the floor. Fair makes your stomach lurch, it does.

 

[Penners]

how architecture affects people

My sister is the Principal of the Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture, in San Diego, California. That question is their entire raison d'etre.

http://www.anfarch.org/

 

[MdB]

Last weekend I spent a morning hanging around at Go Ape in the Forest of Dean. Great fun it was too.

 

[88v8]

:shock:
I think the home, and maybe even office should be cosy, smallish, cocooning - preferably with lots of thick carpets or rugs, and curtains, and warm, tactile materials like wood, wool, stone, slate, thatch.
Large expanses of glass, cold metal, whiteness, heights - no thanks.

Hear hear.
Modern architecture, lacks detailing, no human scale, cold, antiseptic, nasty. Modern houses - grotty little breeding boxes.
And it makes me furious/sad to see people destroying the 'oldness' of old houses, eBay full of doors, stained glass, all pulled out by half-wits.
Better go and lie down for a while. :evil:

Fortunately, I have no problem with height or glass-floored lifts, the wife and I once walked down the metal external stairs from the 2nd level of the Eiffel tower ,and given the opportunity she happily climbs on the roof of our house.

Ivor

 

[MdB]

(this is very probably fake)

 

[Gareth Hughes]

how architecture affects people

My sister is the Principal of the Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture, in San Diego, California. That question is their entire raison d'etre.

http://www.anfarch.org/

That organisation appears in the C4 programme, though I couldn't see a typical English rose who might be the former Miss P among the staff.

 

[Gareth Hughes]

Hear hear.
Modern architecture, lacks detailing, no human scale, cold, antiseptic, nasty. Modern houses - grotty little breeding boxes.
Ivor

No, no, no!
Please watch the programme (and no, I don't personally much like the all-black "Lost House" which is shown near the start and gives a rather misleading impression of what the thrust of the argument is going to be). Modern architecture, like much that is unfamiliar to start with, does repay study and while you may not end up loving the stuff, you eventually learn to differentiate good from bad and perhaps appreciate or at least understand the qualities that make the best Modern buildings as good as the best of any previous age - which is, as with most good architecture of any period, not often because it looks like something with which one is already over-familiar, but because it succeeds on its own terms.
Sweeping generalisations such as the ones above are not uniquely criticism of Modern architecture but can be applied to a lot that pre-dates the 20th century, and they aren't necessarily valid as criticisms - the lack of human scale in a mediaeval cathedral or vast Georgian mansion we find impressive, the cold logic and lack of ornament found in the Pyramids or a mediaeval castle is rarely dwelt on as a reason not to admire them.
Contemporary volume-builders' houses are indeed grotty little breeding boxes, but they are almost never examples of Modern architecture, being dressed up instead with lots of sub-Victorian detailing, and built at a twee "human scale"
There are two different things to object to here and they are being confused - 1. Modern architecture, which doesn't (taken as a whole) deserve its lazy knee-jerk bad press, and 2. Bad architecture, which has been with us since the first bloke wondered what might happen if he and Mrs Ugg moved out of the cave and tied a few branches together instead.

 

[Penners]

the former Miss P

Now the Mrs Whitelaw. As well as being the Principal of Anfarch she also has her own architecture practice in San Diego, so she's not on Anfarch's permanent staff.

 

[michael]

Yes Gareth I agree there are some good examples of modern architecture but there are two things that really bug me about a lot of it. (a) The materials used such as the cold overgrown glass and steel ‘bus shelters’ that now proliferate our city skylines, materials which just don’t age gracefully and are incapable of gaining a nice patina over the years. On a lesser scale, just look at some of the grubby glass and steel entrance canopies at the front of some of the larger supermarkets. The green algae dirt and mould which would look great on an old flint wall just doesn’t fit well here. (b) My original complaint regarding inconsiderate architects who insist on incorporating high open platforms within their buildings. Yes old cathedrals had vast open spaces and high ceilings and if you look up you will often see high level walk ways near the upper windows or around the dome but the general public weren’t expected to get up there.

 

[LadyArowana]

My original complaint regarding inconsiderate architects who insist on incorporating high open platforms within their buildings.

The best shops are usually on the ground or first floors though :lol: