It is a sign of how old this stuff makes me feel that I remember when Prince Charles delivered That Speech when he denounced plans for the extension to the National Gallery off London’s Trafalgar Square. I remember the stir that this speech caused, and how it prompted some people to suggest that Prince Chuck had no business opining on such matters and should shut up and focus on trying to make Princess Di happy, etc. But for all its flaws, the speech did highlight the frustrations that many folk felt, and still feel, at the sheer ugliness of some – not all – modern buildings. Being an ardent free marketeer, I object to state – not private – planning laws to enforce a notion of beauty, which after all is in the eye of the beholder; but unlike perhaps some classical liberals, I do get the point that a lot of modern, or even supposedly traditional buildings, are insensitively designed, ugly, and in many cases, they don’t actually function as buildings very well. My worry is that the “cure” of planning laws and listed building rules can be sometimes often worse than the disease. A listed building law can prevent a crumbling building from being intelligently refurbished, for example. And it is worth observing that left to itself, urban landscapes can develop, without planning of many kinds, a kind of “spontaneous order” (a la Hayek) that while it may not have the top-down planned elegance of some cities, has its own beauty and vigor. As I say, this stuff is subjective.
My thoughts on these matters were prompted by watching the BBC news this morning. A very angry, bearded guy who apparently speaks for the modern architecture profession is denouncing the Prince for his views, for apparently frightening off architects, for pandering to “public opinion”, etc. (I have no idea who this character is, nor greatly care). Even if this guy has a point, every time I watch an obnoxious performance like this, it is easy to see why Prince Charles’ views on architecture get so much attention. We live in an ugly world – is it no surprise that so many people would like something a bit nicer?
Related thoughts by Roger Scruton.
Well, if the people want modern architecture- the people, that is who are commissioning and paying for buildings to be built, then let them have it.
Prince Charles, on the other hand, is a complete tit, and every time I see him I get the urge to beat him with a large wet fish until no life remains in his nasty body. He objects to modern architecture because he’s a greenie cranky anti-industrial anti-modernity rural romanticist of the worst type, who years for the days when wise rich bastards like him built little villages for their besmocked and straw-chewing yeoman serfs, and told them how to live in them. He’s a patrician socialist of the very, very worst kind. Hey, Charles, can we “the people” have all that fucking land of yours back that you make so much money out of with your overpriced marmalade for cranks? You fucking stole it, you total bastard.
The view is not public property, and people really need to get their fucking heads around this. There is no more a tangible thing called “the skyline” than there is “society” in the sense Maggie used it all them years ago. There is no such thing as the skyline, there are individual buildings and, erm, families. Collective nouns do not have a distinct existence, and are not the collective property of the collective public. If I want to build an eyesore on my private land, that’s my business. If I want to knock down some worm-eaten wattle and daub pile of crap to do that, that’s my business as well, and if somebody else wants to preserve it because Shakespeare’s cousins’s, best friend’s sister in law once used its privy, let them make me an offer and buy the damned thing off me. Otherwise, let them shut the fuck up.
Anyway, modern architects with beards are probably dangerous communo-fascists, as modernism was an expression of 20th century communisty fascism type stuff. They’re still nowhere near as awful as Prince Charles, because nothing else in the universe is that awful.
I hate to think what you are like when you lose your temper, Ian. I recommend deep breathing.
I am sure all those folk put up in the hideous public housing projects in various parts of the world (think the environs of Paris, the projects in the Bronx, etc,) would agree with your view about bearded modernists, or even clean-shaven ones.
If I am a private landlord, and I want to enforce a certain building code in my proper zone, then that is my business. The problem here, as you say, is that one cannot “own” a view; but if a view gets destroyed by a crap piece of building, whether old, modern or post-modernist kitsch, that will affect the property value, maybe, of the neighbouring, previously build places. Or it may not. If someone build a skyscraper right next to my house and it killed the sunlight, I guess that would be a possible tort.
I was going to comment on this, but really couldn’t say it much better than Ian B. Both Charles’ socialist twee traditionalism and the local government communist modernism use the state to try and enforce their worldview. I think the interesting thing about Corbusier is that his individual houses were quite sensitive and pleasant compared to his megalomaniacal schemes for cities, which rather proves Ian’s point that we shouldn’t let anyone make decisions for the good of ‘society’ or the ‘built environment’.
“because he’s a greenie cranky anti-industrial anti-modernity rural romanticist of the worst type”
Ian B thank you for exposing the too-infrequently exposed link between environmentalists and anti-industrialism. Personally, in theory I’m sympathetic to some environmentalism. But the greens anti-industrialism gives away their snobbery. I always feel that when they’re telling us not to fly on holiday, part of the motivation is their horror at places such as Torremolinos or Lanzarote.
Slightly off topic, but in case anybody wants to tell me, are Libertarians in principle anti- monarchy?
…are Libertarians in principle anti- monarchy?
Whenever I see a question like this, a “what is the libertarian viewpoint” inquiry, am I alone in thinking that the fundamental principle of libertarianism has been mislaid somewhere?
” am I alone in thinking that the fundamental principle of libertarianism has been mislaid somewhere?”
Er no, Moriarty, I’m sure you’re not. And I take your point. Apologies if it seems a crass question.
I’m not a libertarian but I find reading the discussions in this forum a hundred times more interesting and stimulating than those on most other political sites, and sometimes ask questions which might seem gormless. My question about monarchy assumes that said monarchy receives support from the taxpayer, so perhaps you see my thinking there.
What is it with bearded guys(Link) these days? Are they the new bete noir?
Without state planning you get Edinburgh New Town, The Royal Crescent in Bath, Lavenham, Chatsworth, and The Bodlean Library.
With state planning you get Basildon, Harlow, Cumbernauld, East Kilbride, and Becontree.
‘Nuff said?
Well at some level that’s what some people don’t get about living in a free society. The set of things that shouldn’t do (eg constructing ugly buildings) is much, much bigger than the set of things that they shouldn’t be allowd to do (eg constructing unsafe and hazardous buildings). Of course Prince Charles should certainly feel free to criticise buildings that he feels are ugly, but we are rightfully offended when the government tries to legislate monotonous mediocrity in the name of “taste.”
Ian, that was magesterial about Chuckles. So good that I’m stealing it.
He really is a weapons grade cock-end.
On planning. This has come up several times on Sami and never with anything like a consensus. I don’t think there is an answer. I think we’re just gonna have to muddle through as best we can somewhere between Ian’s “Anything goes” and some sort of rights for the neighbouring land-owners. It’s a tricky bugger all right. Especially as some neighbours always object to *anything* out of sheer gittishness or envy for for the pure hell of it.
Obviously that’s “Nick M” Oops!
That’s another username and not one I chose for myself either.
Nick, with planning versus free-for-all, the key issue is property rights. So if a landlord like the Duke of Bufton-Tufton decides that all buildings on his patch are going to be ultra modern, or Georgian, or Mock-Tudor, or Miami style, or Noddy Houses, or whatnot, then it is his/her patch, end of. In a hopefully liberal country, we would get this sort of local building coding as defined by the owners, not by the state. As someone mentioned above about Edinburgh New Town, Bath, etc, a lot of these places were put together by big landlords.
I agree absolutely with IanB about the inanity of trying to enforce codes by some sort of democratic/state system, and I hope my article made it clear that was not the case. But – and it is a but – I think that even a tweedy twerp like Chuck was talking some sense when he had a go at the ugliness of certain buildings.
A good analogy, I think, is with dress codes. People are far less formal than they used to be, and it is absurd to have state rules decreeing what people must wear. With private clubs, churches, firms, bars, hotels, restaurants, etc, however, such private organisations can require a certain dress code, ranging all the way from white tie and tails through to jeans/T-shirts, and everything in between.
Johnathan, I’m not quite clear why you seem to be proactively in favour of Lord Torking-Downe building ten thousand houses in the Quainte Rural Stylee. I’m rather more of a “buy a plot of land, build what the frot you like on it” person myself. It seems you’re rather hoping somebody will enforce taste and decency in architecture, but not the state. Why? What’s wrong with eclectic individualism? Are you saying there are objectively tasteful standards, in architecture, or in clothing? Is a penguin suit in some way actually better than jeans and a tee shirt? Is Mock Georgian better than some more recent style? Why? Are you claiming that there is an objective definition of what an ugly building is? Isn’t it human nature to all like different things?
Is this my most question-beggingy comment ever?
Ian, I think we are arguing past each other here. I am all in favour of as much architectural individualism as possible; but for those folk who want to live in a place where the styles are all harmonious, then the example of those places where whole streets were laid out by a private landlord provide the answer. Take the case of Edinburgh – it works precisely because whole streets were laid out in a certain way; ditto places such as Bath, some of the French and Italian cities, and so on. To put it in another way, it gives people who want to “shop around” for the style of landscape that they want to live in the chance to do that if that is what they want.
Of course, given the changes to land laws, the imposition of death duties, planning regulations and the rest, we have fewer examples of landlords or just plain rich eccentrics able to try out new ideas.
JP,
Of course there have been some bloody awful buildings and some quite lovely ones throughout history. Just as there has been great music and drivel throughout history. I don’t see what you’re getting at there. Although I get your point about private individuals laking the capacity these days to build at the grand level like in Edinburgh for example.
But I do see a problem with causing harm to others by what you build on your patch. If someone bought up a load of property next to you and then built a hog-rendering plant you’d not be happy. How exactly are these sort of situations resolved.
I know you live in central London so that ain’t gonna happen to you personally bu you see the principle. Oh I dunno… I do still think it’s tricky.
IanB your rant about Charlie is priceless and said everything that I wanted to and more. I did wonder if Charles becoming King would finish off the Monarchy but I think that there is a reasonable chance that Liz will outlive him.
Not all modern architecture is awful, there is a multi-story carpark in York that I think deserves some kind of award for its sensitive design. A multi-story carpark is almost by definition an eyesore and yet this one has been very thoughtfully designed to fit in with its surroundings and although it couldn’t by any stretch of the imagination be called beautiful it certainly isn’t ugly.
Listing buildings is a cure that isn’t even a cure as before you know it horrible buildings are being listed, a case in point being the Austin Robinson building in Cambridge in which I work, an ugly concrete gorgon of a building. As it’s exterior is listed we can’t install air conditioners so that some rooms heat up to an unbearable temperature during summer time.
The Cripps Court at St. John’s College (also Cambridge) has just been given listed status, even though on a walk through John’s (overall one of the most beautiful little trips through central Cambridge) it stands out jarringly like a hideous grey jenga tower.
Jonathan Pearce:
Here’s where it gets sticky.
Let’s say you buy a copy of Five Acres and Independence and decide to plant your vine and fig tree and about three acres of apples and oak scrub in the middle of London and live what a US reader who named himself ‘bait’ would consider the good life.
Then, next door (on the upwind side), some guy decides that his version of the good life requires him to open a paper mill.
How to resolve this?
Nick-
In the US, there’s a feature of civil law relating to a person having a right of ‘quiet enjoyment’ of his property. In truth, I think we inherited it as part of the common law. Although I’m not sure how far it goes. I’ve heard of the general principle but don’t know it well enough to apply it to a given factual situation.
What this does is dumps any dispute in front of a judge and jury. I’d call that the ‘least bad’ method of resolving problems, rather than the ‘best’ method, if the distinction makes any sense. Most of the time judges and juries will rule according to the facts and the law, but every now and then they have one of those “What the hell were they thinking?” moments.
(Which will not be improved by Barry the Kenyan’s initiative to appoint ‘compassionate’ judges who will look beyond the law. I’m all for empathy and compassion, by a trial court, at sentencing. But the task of appellate courts is to resolve questions of law in order to guide trial courts. I want them all to be Vulcans rather than golden retrievers. But that’s a thread for some other time.)
Jonny N wrote:
Reminds me of Helsinki’s sausage building. You have to love the architecture of the late 1950s and the 1960s….
Seems to me the question is: who decides what sort of public buildings the public is forced to pay for?
This is the Denver Art Museum. This is the Denver Convention Center; here is a close up on the bear. Here is the Denver International Airport.
At the cost of hundreds of millions of dollars, these buildings were commissioned by the city government, probably aided by the State and Federal governments too.
With relatively few exceptions of some eccentric personal homes, modern “art” buildings are public expenditures. The only personal property rights in question are the ones of “Whose house must we acquire and destroy to build this abortion?” and “Whose neighborhood and private businesses will our standing Cthuluesque temple overshadow and ruin?”
I disagree with Ian B. There is such a thing as a skyline. It is quite obvious that it exists. There is also such a thing as society. It is quite obvious that society exists. For proof, travel. I assure you, both skylines and societies will change.
Neither of which matter. If the public finances the building, the public should A) get the option of a less radical, less expensive building than a concrete swiss army knife, and B) get at least a vote.
The larger question is whether the state should fund art at all. I say absolutely not.
Private institutions, such as colleges and collectors, would preserve the masterpieces of antiquity in much more accessible form and would place a brake on purchasing for tax-paid millions the latest riff of vagina-on-paint or concrete that is making the rounds through all the ‘right’ crowds.
Er no, Moriarty, I’m sure you’re not. And I take your point. Apologies if it seems a crass question.
I’m not a libertarian but I find reading the discussions in this forum a hundred times more interesting and stimulating than those on most other political sites, and sometimes ask questions which might seem gormless. My question about monarchy assumes that said monarchy receives support from the taxpayer, so perhaps you see my thinking there.
Certainly not a crass question. Really I wasn’t commenting specificly on your post, I’ve seen similar questions asked even by contributers to Samizdata on a number of occasions. I was wondering what anyone else thought.
(For the record, I’m not a card carrying libertarian either)
Prince Charles does pay for buildings Ian B. – so the “tit” is you.
Like Mrs Thatcher (anther person you know nothing about) Prince Charles has his good and bad side – but his view of so called “modern architecture” is part of his good side.
Since before World War Two the public have been told that “every new style faces resistance” and “you will grow to love” the bland glass, steek and concrete boxes produced first in Germany and then in the rest of the world.
Well most people do not love them – and they think that the university “educated” architects who have produced them are “tits”. “Modern materials are here to stay” says Brian M. (and I think he is correct) – but that does not mean the “Modern Movement” used these materials well.
The only thing about the “Modern Movement” that I can think of is the series of cattoons produced by Yale students about the “Yale box” (the bland modernist design produced for every different building requested).
Titles include “The Yale Box meets Winne the Poo” (the box up a tree with an arm held out to shake hands with the fictional charactor).
And “The Yale Box in combat with Captain Nemo” (the box under the sea engaged in conflict with a the submarine of the character).
Of course there is another good thing about the Modern Movement
Their buildings tend to fall down fairly quickly.
Change happens in building, but as Hayek was fond of pointing out, change has unintended consequences becasue no one mind can grasp the full amount of information.
That is why there is such a thing as tradtion – over time what works and what what does not work is discovered, and change is made over time (based on the discoveries of people long dead as well as people alive today).
Of course there is a role for individual genus – but the best architects have never worked as if no one had ever built anything before. As if they were starting from a clean sheet of paper and could solve all problems themselves without reference to past experience.
Nor is there anything “mock” about liking (or working with) a particular style.
To think that there a building most not be “mock” but most be “part of the spirit of the age” is part of the philosophy of Hegel – although most of the people who follow it do not seem to know that.
Sadly with World War Two (and the passing of such architects as Lutyens and Kettering’s own Thomas Gotch) such ideas took over the English speaking world and gained even more power than they have in the German speaking world.
For those who doubt what I have written – llook how bomb damage in British cities was not restored (vile boxes were put up on the site once occupied by fine buidlings).
The damage was far worse in Germany – but there was a least sometimes some effort to build something of value in the ruins.
In Britain the destruction was not only not restored – but it went on, indeed more damage has been done since World War Two than during it.
I repeat that there is a vital role for individual genius and innovation (for example Gotch created ventalation systems that were remarkable – sadly destroyed by ignorant people who have adapted such buildings as the Kettering Council offices), but there is no role for thinking that people in the past discovered nothign – or that all of building can be created by one man’s mind.
After all even Frank Lloyd Wright was proved wrong in the debate with the tradtional builder – waterfall house was unsound in just the respects that the builder said it was (not something that is included in Ayn Rand’s fictionalized account of the debate in the Fountainhead).
The point is nto that F.L.W. was without merit (far from it – unlike the Modern Movement – he had great merit) but that he was a victim of thinking that what went before did not matter – and that building was like painting (traditional tacit knowledge of what will stand the test of time did not matter to him as much as it should have).
Finally I should make clear what I meant about Prince Charles and Mrs Thatcher – in relation to Ian B.
They both have a bad side (Ian B. is right in that), but the bad side is exaggerated, and the good side is distored or ignored (for example in Dr Gabb’s work on Mrs Thatcher).
This is bad history – and, therefore, irritates me.
Paul, I think you’re thinking of John Alfred Gotch. Thomas, his brother, was a pre-raphaelite artist. I don’t know anything specific about the Kettering Council Offices, but I do know quite a lot about ventilation systems, and considering Gotch died in 1942, however remarkable his designs were for the time, they would now be long outdated. I’d imagine they were replaced with proper modern air conditioning.
Prince Charles doesn’t have a good side. Really. It just isn’t there.
Oh, sorry, I only saw your second comment Paul, not your first reply to me.
Firstly, as you say, the Mad Prince does pay for buildings. Twee little romantic villages based on his rural romanticism. That’s up to him. But what we’re discussing here is his constant pronouncements about other peoples’ buildings. So while I might be a tit as well, the difference is my views don’t get published in the media, I don’t own vast swathes of land due to hereditary state privelege, and I’m not going to be King Ian, so there’s a bit of a difference, isn’t there?
I am no fan of modernism either, as my original comment made clear. However Mad Charles’ opposition is a reflection of his mad beliefs, which is what my comment referred to. He is no better- worse in fact- than those he criticises. He likes the old not because of some intrinsic betterness, but because he despises change and modernity. There are some fabulous modern buildings in the City- it was one of the reasons I used to like working there, amongst all those great looking glass skyscrapers- and I have worked in the fabric of those buildings themselves so the literal physical nature of them resonates with me. Some of them are dull of course, but a lot are not. Thank God we aren’t stuck building endless Victoriana as Charlie would have us do. You might criticise “mock” as Hegelian, but you might remember all the piffle about man and the land and the primeval forest and back to nature and all the statist intervention Mad Charles is so in favour of came out of that swirling cesspool of germanic philosophy too. Blood and soil, indeed.
And for god’s sake man, please learn the difference between a sentence and a paragraph.
I have to disagree with Paul Marks on the matter of Frank Lloyd Wright — he is without merit (or, at best, is vastly over-rated). If you ever visit any of his buildings you’ll see that he valued his personal conception of modernity for its own sake, not because of any intrinsic merit or improvement over previous styles. Furthermore, many of his designs were fundamentally flawed, and he cared absolutely nothing for the wishes of his clients.
Take Fallingwater, for example (although there are many others which would serve). The poured concrete of its construction isn’t waterproof, so over time water has seeped through and ruined much of the electrical work, which cannot be repaired because it it physically inaccessible. As a result much of the lighting no longer works. He designed and built windows which wrapped around corners, which vastly increased the cost to absolutely no benefit (he could simply have had two sides meet at the corner, rather than constructing L-shaped window panels). Ceilings are low (he was physically short and didn’t care about anyone else’s comfort), rooms are dark, closets and storage areas are nonexistent, his furniture is uncomfortable.
Furthermore (although this has nothing to do with the merits of his work) from all his biographers it appears that he was a truly nasty person, and an inveterate leech on the few friends he had. Sort of the Mahler of architecture.
FLW was a small man in every sense of that word. His hagiographers thoroughly tick me off.
End of rant.
This is bad news. The Cripps Building really and truly is a hideous carbuncle. You’ll be telling me next the Seeley History Library has been listed. I hated that fucking building so much I once shot it, but sadly it did not die.
Did anyone see a recent TV programme on English Heritage, about the listing of a hideous block of brutalist flats in Sheffield? Urban Splash were trying to renovate them for private sale, but were hampered by a ponce from EH called Giles (I’m not kidding) who would not let them repair the concrete unless it matched the original concrete exactly. I mean, it’s concrete mate, it’s not the fucking Parthenon.
Obviously, we also had to pay for the EH boys to go to Marseilles, where they stayed at l’Unite d’Habitation and had a solemn modernist circle jerk to the memory of le Maitre.
Anyway, the upshot was EH messed them about so much the project was overtaken by the housing slump, and the vast carcase of this brutalist hulk still looms over Sheffield, empty and rotting. In its way, it provides a perfect monument to “modern architecture.”
“Without merit” is indeed going too far, Laird. I’ll go for “overrated”, although not “vastly”. Architecture is applied art in that it is supposed to bring together aesthetics and practicality. FLR was notoriously slack on practicality and apparently a nasty character, but there is no question as to his merit as a groundbreaking artist, who’s innovations became classics. Fallingwater, for all it’s many serious practical flaws, is the epitome of visually organic architecture. If only he had the humility to hire a good engineer:-)
Um, FLW. It’s English now, Alisa…
Architecture as performance art, huh? Sort of a primitive Karen Finley(Link), only working in concrete? Sorry, I’m not buying it. I’ll grant you that the cantilevered design of Fallingwater is attractive, but most of his creations are squat, ugly things. I’ll consider withdrawing the “without merit” comment, but I’m definitely sticking with “vastly”.
How did you get to performance art and that weird Finley person? Not that I care all that much about this whole topic, I just don’t follow.
You used the term “applied art”; I just extrapolated.
Oh, it’s could be a misunderstanding then. I wrote “Architecture is applied art in that it is supposed to bring together aesthetics and practicality”, which is more or less the definition of applied art. All visual art is about aesthetics, (possibly notwithstanding Ms. Finley’s performances), but the applied and the performance have nothing in common in the way of practicality. Apples and oranges.
Anyway, I can certainly see why you find FLW’s persona (both public and private) irritating, you wouldn’t be the first either.
Ian B.
You are quite right about Alfred Gotch – and as I have given talks about both men it was very bad of me.
“Learn the difference between a sentance and a paragraph”.
No, I refuse to do so.
“I assume they were replaced with proper modern air conditioning”.
That is a new one Ian B. – even the Ludwig Von Mises Institute does not do a priori travel guides.
You are telling me (who has lived in this town all my life) that a building is not hot – because it has “proper moden air conditioning” rather than the old fashioned design of Gotch.
A building you have never been inside of (as far as I know) in a town you have never visited (again as far as I know).
It you think about it I think you will agree with me that your position is untenable.
By the way the hotness of the building is one of the excuses trotted out for why need to raid the taxpayers (I mean “invest”) by building new out of town offices.
And it is worth observing that left to itself, urban landscapes can develop, without planning of many kinds, a kind of “spontaneous order” (a la Hayek) that while it may not have the top-down planned elegance of some cities, has its own beauty and vigor.
Check out Steven Johnson’s book Emergence, you will find therein a photograph of the human brain and a map of a German walled city of the sixteenth century, you will be amazed at the similarity.
As we used to say at univeristy (more than one university).
“It is easy to spot the buildings that have design awards – the roof leaks”.