The Off Topic Topic

[Ed Anger]

It's socially realist.

It has a Riefenstahl tinge.

[Ideologue]

I mean, I prefer art deco, but hey.

[CountDeMoney]

I mean, I prefer art deco, but hey.

There ya go.  That and Victorian-Edwardian-Queen Anne need to come back in style.

[Sheilbh]

As will all brutalist architecture it's an inhuman, totalitarian, spiritual void.

Beautiful things are often inhuman. The sublime is entirely inuman and, to an extent, a void hence why it unsettles. Architecture's the only art that people demand is pretty.

The biggest totalitarianism in architecture is fashion. The Georgians wanted to tear down St. Pauls. The Victorians hated Georgian architecture and, like the moderns who loathed Victoriana, often did pull those buildings down. There's always an aesthetic element of ugliness but also a moral criticism. Wren's Baroque is insufficiently rational; that Georgian rationality isn't terribly far from Georgian immorality to the Victorians; while the Gothic revival oozes a vengeful God and Victorian hypocrisy. It's the same here. Brutalism isn't just ugly it's inhuman, anti-human. It's responsible for crime and family breakdown. We might as well blame it for the ending of Seinfeld while we're at it.

We'll weep for the lost classics of Brutalism pulled down by critics, and we'll do it among inferior buildings that refuse to offend.

I walked passed the slow demolition of the Morris A. Mechanic Theater downtown not too long ago.  Buh bye, you Stalinist lunar space station, you.

The Stalinist building's in the background. It's the one that looks like a prototype Palace of the Soviets, or smaller Ukraina.

[Sheilbh]

I mean, I prefer art deco, but hey.

Art Deco's great

[CountDeMoney]

The Stalinist building's in the background. It's the one that looks like a prototype Palace of the Soviets, or smaller Ukraina.

I know you're not busting on the Baltimore Trust Building, erected 1929, the very epitome of North American Late Art Deco with its elegant copper roofing, exquisite exterior statues and reliefs.  You'd probably blanche at the Chrysler Building, too.


Here's a pic of the Hindenburg about to buzz it on the right in 19366.

[Ideologue]

I mean, I prefer art deco, but hey.

Art Deco's great

Yeah, but you'll be mad when you learn that my ideal is underground pods wired for video and sound.

The interiors can be deco.

[Sheilbh]

No, it's lovely - so's the theatre, except for the ugly pictures they've decided to put on it

Just quibbling over which building looks more Stalinist:



Tim's right. Brutalism's a void. It's unsettling. Stalinist style ain't. It's totalitarian. It's didactic. There's only one interpretation.

[Sheilbh]

Yeah, but you'll be mad when you learn that my ideal is underground pods wired for video and sound.

The interiors can be deco.

Nowt wrong with that, except your dislike of Metropolis

[Josquius]

Brutalism is horrific. All the more so when you consider how often perfectly nice 19tg century buildings were knocked down to make way for it

[KRonn]

It's a disgrace a building this beautiful is being shut down
http://www.architectmagazine.com/architecture/berkeley-art-museum-closes-in-brutalist-building-by-mario-ciampi_o.aspx?dfpzone=home

OMG, that thing looks like it was modeled on the Fuehrer bunker. Good thing such an ugly, concrete slab of a work camp looking building is being replaced.

[Sheilbh]

This government's catastrophically inept about defence and foreign affairs
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/dec/24/bbc-wrong-broadcasting-russia-world-service-john-tusa

[mongers]

Lots of little Monos just trying to keep the streets clean and the traffic moving:

Hong Kong crash sparks money grab

Hong Kong police have appealed to the public to return millions of dollars taken after a van transporting HK$525m ($68m; £44m) crashed on a major road.

About HK$35m ($4.5m; £3m) worth of banknotes were left strewn across the tarmac after the road accident.

Witnesses said dozens of people rushed to pocket the cash before armed police arrived to secure the area.

Some HK$20m was retrieved and police warned that failure to return the rest would be "a very serious crime".

The incident happened at lunchtime on one of Hong Kong's busiest roads in the Wan Chai district on Hong Kong Island, causing major disruption as people abandoned their cars to collect the notes.

......

Full article here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-30598832

[CountDeMoney]

The individuals in question are described as having dark hair, dark eyes, and of asian descent.  Please call authorities if you see this individuals.

[Ed Anger]

The individuals in question are described as having dark hair, dark eyes, and of asian descent.  Please call authorities if you see this individuals.

UPDATE: they all had Moe Howard haircuts