Posted on 10/17/2020 11:25:29 AM PDT by Kaslin
Since the overwhelming majority of Americans have proven time and time again that they prefer traditional architecture, why do government agencies force ugly buildings on the American people?
A new study finds 72 percent of Americans prefer traditional architecture for U.S. courthouses and federal office buildings, including majorities across political, racial, sex, and socioeconomic categories. The survey was conducted by The Harris Poll on behalf of National Civic Art Society and polled more than 2,000 U.S. adults.
These findings come in light of the possibility of a Trump administration executive order, appropriately named Make Federal Buildings Beautiful Again, that would require that new office buildings in Washington, D.C. be classical in design. Among other things, the order would revise the 1962 Guiding Principles for Federal Architecture, which forced modernism to be the official government building style. In response to the leak of the potential order, a bill entitled the Democracy in Design Act was proposed by House Democrats to overturn it.
However, based on the study, it appears Trumps potential executive order would be happily received by a majority of Americans, with traditional architecture the clear winner for all demographic groups, including sex, age, geographic region, household income, education, race/ethnicity, and political party affiliations.
The study showed participants seven pairs of images depicting U.S. courthouses and federal office buildings. Each pair presented one building in a traditional style and one building in a modern style. For each pair, the survey question was: Which of these two buildings would you prefer for a U.S. courthouse or federal office building?
The selected images were edited to ensure fair comparisons. Factors such as sky color, angle of photo, light conditions, distance from building, weather conditions, and the like were all controlled either perfectly (e.g., sky color) or as perfect as possible via careful photo selection and editing.
Below is an example of one of the surveys image pairings:
The resounding preference for traditional design was soundly bipartisan, being favored by 73 percent of Republicans, 70 percent of Democrats, and 73 percent of independents.
Preference for traditional architecture is shared across generations, being the top choice of 77 percent of those aged 65 or older, and 68 percent of those aged 18-34.
Both men and women prefer traditional architecture, but women are more likely than men to want U.S. courthouses and federal office buildings to be traditional, at 77 percent versus 67 percent, respectively.
I like that philosophy and it works really well with that style. He also used some really old time features like having the foundation let water flow through it. He also didn’t want buildings on a summit but rather to be part of the landscape.
Sometimes though being at the top works. The Parthenon in at the summit of the Acropolis. It looks right there.
The people responsible for selecting that design and allowing it to be built in Boston should have been shot.
LOL.
It’s also about an hour outside of the Flight 93 Memorial in Shanksville, so most people combine the two in one day.
I don’t think it’s just the property. You could transport that design to many settings. I like Arts and Crafts design so the furniture thing doesn’t bother me.
Did not know that. Thanks!
GU’s Lauinger Library was designed by architect John Carl Warnecke of San Francisco.
Boston City Hall was designed by two Boston architectural firms, Kallmann McKinnell & Knowles and Campbell, Aldrich & Nulty.
Both buildings are designated brutalist, however. I remember when art schools in the 60s were forcing everyone who wanted to work with corporate or government clients to use the stark Helvetica typeface on everything.
I had to go into that building to get my Marriage License. Even though I had once been a Tour Guide in City Hall, I got lost. The Marriage License Bureau was down in the basement, at the end of a long corridor of unfinished concrete. A lonely, bored, cranky, clerk peered out of the darkness at me, took my money, and stamped some papers. Then she told me to get on the train and go to Boston City Hospital’s STD Clinic to get a free blood test.
Perhaps they thought it was “Progressive” to discourage such an antiquated institution as MARRIAGE. In any case, it wasn’t very “festive” at all. I was made to feel as though I was doing something clandestine and shameful.
Of course, I was dressed like a hippy, so there was that.
Absolutely!!!!!!
Never heard of Rembrandt having the locals "filling in".
There is an entire movie about Helvetica. I knew about Kallmann McKinnell & Knowles and Campbell, Aldrich & Nulty, because I was a tour guide when the New City Hall opened. I was still a Junior in High School, but was in an Art program, which is how I got the job.
GU’s Library looked so similar that I figured it was the same guys.
But the Brutalist disease spread all around the world!
You could not pay me $850K to live in that concrete house, especially in the north. Brrr! And achoo! (damp mold)
1970s building are “Brutalist”. I actually like it. DC Metro is the best example of that architecture.
Nothing at all human scale at the Boston City Hall, not the plaza nor the building.
Walking on the plaza on a cold, heavy overcast windy day in the middle of winter is a soul deadening experience. The monstrosity sits like a gargantuan tumor on the oversized sterile alien plaza. The net effect of which isolates the building from all others in the vicinity, a dead zone.
I have contended in the past that the winter heating of the B level of Regenstein was assisted by the buried atomic pile from Stagg Field. What say you?
Regenstein is definitely one of the ugliest and least useful buildings I have ever seen.
Nearly everything old are better or at least look better, like buildings, homes etc. Take motorcycles for instance. The older bikes and their simplistic engines are a thing of beauty. Same with many cars.
I call it falling in the water, since it was designed by an artist not an engineer. Every construction foreman told Wrght to reinforce the cantilever. He ignored them like the ass he was. And, of course, it had to be redone.
It is also so damp it is unlivable. And you have to be less than 5’5” to walk there. Frank Lloyd Wrong.
Been there! Done That! It is an accurate description, FRiend.
Yep. Its not even good for rollerblading.
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