More classical misdirection
More on the Trump architecture "order".

Sumantra Maitra often makes tremendous sense and usually gets it. In this case, as with Dalrymple's article on the same subject, he is precisely correct about the violent nastiness of modernism.

Leave aside the fakeness of Trump, who has no fucking idea what he's talking about.

Dalrymple and Maitra are right about the bad side of this choice and wrong about the good side. Both specifically want Greco-Roman architecture with columns and arches.

Classic architecture is just as useless and wrong as modernism. Both arise from theories, not the reality of human shelter.

Symmetry and structure are important, as I've been emphasizing in art and music and grammar. But symmetry and structure should be formed on patient buildings that take care of natural enemies and human needs without excessive technology. Patient buildings are local by necessity. Snowy places and sunny places and rainy places and quaky places and floody places have distinct requirements, which must be solved experimentally. Greece is a sunny and stable place, so its forms aren't suited for other places.

Time for a reprint.

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In the deep of winter I observed that the Cape Cod with heated attic is UNQUESTIONABLY the best house for snow. Not really surprising, since it was designed by experiment in a snowy place.

The modern idea that roofs should remain uniformly cold to avoid ice dams has been definitively disproved. Roofs should be steep and warm.

I started 'making' a tribute to Cape Cods, and it's pretty much finished now. Got carried away as usual, expanded the project to a nice 1930s neighborhood. Not quite ready for release; I like to do a little testing and usage before release, and these pictures are part of the testing. (The store interior was used here.)

First the winter version, since snow was the whole purpose of the project:


A different view in summer:


Continuing in '30s mode, I decided to tackle a pure Streamline Moderne, a THEORY-BASED style that has NOT held up over the years. Very few Modernes survive unless they're forcibly maintained by Historical Preservation laws.


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Article in local paper features a museum exhibit on Mid-century Modern in Spokane. They detail one house that supposedly represents subtle functionality.

“In a way, it’s sort of Zen-like, with no unnecessary movements, no unnecessary notes if it were music – only what’s necessary to accomplish the program, whatever that happens to be. There’s a very simple beauty in that.”

Well, let's look at the featured house, 723 W. Sumner. It's in one of the best neighborhoods, and the landscaping is unquestionably beautiful. Google gets a nice view of the featured house (left) with its older "non-Zen-like" neighbor.



Which is more functional? Old non-Zen-like. It has a sloped roof and wide overhangs on all sides. Snow and rain can flow naturally off the roof; sun reaches the windows more in winter but less in summer; the foundation is protected from water (and thus somewhat protected from termites.)

The Zen-like modern house has a flat roof and no overhangs at all. It is highly vulnerable to snowload and leaks, it has no shelter from the sun, and its walls and foundation have no protection from water. That's not functional, it's just dumb.

Most of the dull ticky-tacky '50s houses in Spokane are more practical (i.e. less Zen-like) than this highly architected raw rectangle, which is why they have held up with very little maintenance. (Sidenote: The Google Street front view of the raw Zen-like rectangle was blocked by a maintenance truck parked in the driveway!... which is why I had to slide over to this side view. Probably unfair to draw conclusions from a single-day sample, but nevertheless it was there.)

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Labels: defensible spaces, malign misattribution, Patient things

  ¶ 4:25 AM