The beauty of concrete

Works in Progress ^ | 05/17/2024 | Samuel Hughes

[TexasKamaAina]

Why are buildings today simple and austere, while buildings of the past were ornate and elaborately ornamented? The answer is not the cost of labor.

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

Because Socialist hate beauty.

[DFG]

[Steely Tom]

Probably the most famous concrete building on the planet, the Roman Pantheon.

The words on the architrave are essentially an advertisement.

[OldHarbor]

The Norfolk Scope.

The arena was designed by Italian architect/engineer Pier Luigi Nervi

Featuring the world's largest reinforced thinshell concrete dome (though eclipsed by the Seattle Kingdome from 1976 to 2000)

[mikey_hates_everything]

If you suffer from depression, stay away from Montreal in the winter. You may not make it out alive.

[left that other site]

The “New” City Hall in Boston is a prime example of Bruralism at its ugliest. It has not aged well.

[left that other site]

Brutalism.

[DeplorablePaul]

We Romans invented concrete.

You’re welcome.

[Rurudyne]

Frankly, Modernism itself needs to be given the heave ho.

[pax_et_bonum]

Well, at least the trees are beautiful.

[RoosterRedux]

Trump Tower on 5th Ave NYC is made of concrete (with a glass exterior). It is very well made BTW.

[Mr. Blond]

No architect should take inspiration from that book.

[Bullish]

Democrats want us to go back to Adobe I’ll bet.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

“Beats tent encampments”

Maybe not. “Urban Renewal” tore down slums and moved millions of the urban poor into buildings like those in St. Louis, Chicago, New York, LA and many other cities. It was a total disaster and they were all torn down.

[Bullish]

Jeeze, that looks like a whacked out missile silo. Abysmal, just like Obama's pretend presidency.

[Larry Lucido]

I spent a week in April 1993 staying at the Olympic Village (or what was left of it) in Moscow. Pretty much all concrete. This was after the 1991 coup attempt but before the 1993 Yeltsin coup.

Spent another week in Aktau, Kazakhstan at a form sanitarium on the Caspian sea. Again, all concrete and a beach made up of concrete blocks. Oh, and the malls and stores, such as they were - all concrete. Spent a few nights getting liquored up by the locals and their families. Wasn’t all bad. Camel yogurt is actually pretty good.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Reminds me of the drop-dead gorgeous Federal Building in San Francisco...

[Kudsman]

Nope. Tell everyone you know. Something so innocuous is subject to attack.

You almost can't believe it. Except it's happening as they tear down and spray paint our art.

[Rurudyne]

There is a reason why I refer to it as soul crushing.

[GOPJ]

The only standing building left after Hiroshima was A-bombed wasn’t really a building - - it was a bank vault build with concrete and rebar... reinforced concrete.

That’s a good use for concrete. Bank vaults near World War III targets.

And swimming pools. And bridges. And some parking garages... that’s about it. Everything else is like painting with ugly.