Roger Scruton In The City Journal: Cities For Living–Is Modernism Dead?

Full article here.

Paris has something that Scruton admires.  It’s not just an aversion to central planning (and perhaps the political and social philosophies associated with it) that makes Paris special, but also a resistance to modernism, and even postmodernist architecture.  Visitors will:

“…quickly see that Paris is miraculous in no small measure because modern architects have not been able to get their hands on it.”

Modernism may even have a lot to do with a certain aesthetic totalitarianism, a desire to grant the architect the ability to see all in his vision, and plan other peoples’ lives accordingly.

“…a later generation rebelled against the totalitarian mind-set of the modernists, rejecting socialist planning, and with it the collectivist approach to urban renewal. They associated the alienating architecture of the postwar period with the statist politics of socialism, and for good reasons.”

In modernism’s place (souless airports, blank modern facades speaking only to themselves) Scruton suggests Leon Krier’s New Urbanism and a return to more Classical architecture. New England towns might not be a bad place to start, but also:

“The plan should conform to Krier’s “ten-minute rule,” meaning that it should be possible for any resident to walk within ten minutes to the places that are the real reason for his living among strangers.”

Well, minus the car anyways.  Are you persuaded?

First National Bank of Houlton, Maine

Some of Le Corbusier’s work here, examples of Modern Architecture here.

See Also: Brasilia: A Planned City and Review Of Britain’s “Lost Cities” In The Guardian

 

Re-Repost-Brasilia

I don’t know much about Brasilia.  It is the capital of Brazil.  It is, unlike the other major population centers in Brazil…inland. I’ve never been there. 

It is an entirely designed city, and resembles an airplane from above, the curves of the city echoing the large lake beside (or in front of) it.  It is a work still in progress, begun in 1957.

“Oscar Niemeyer, today one of the most famous world’s architects, combined straight and rounded shapes to create innovative architectural masterpieces. Lucio Costa, reknowned Brazilian urbanist, devised a lay-out combining beautiness, simplicity and functionality.”

It has cool buildings, some of which look bureaucratic/socialist and dated,  some of which seem to transcend their time and place.

I’ve never seen anything quite like it.

Addition:  A photo from inside the cathedral.

Review of Britain’s “Lost Cities” In The Guardian

There is a book by Englishman Gavin Stamp chronicling the change of 13 British cities from the 1930’s until now.  The Guardian reviews it.  In particular, Stamp argues that many plans to ”modernize” Britian were particulary short-sighted and wasteful.  

“Stamp’s thesis is familiar, but it has rarely been so combatively expressed.”

There really were some beautiful, grand old buildings; there’s even an American Chapter of the Victorian Society as well.   Too much preservationism, however,  can be a bad sign.  A little pride is good, ennui…maybe not so good.

“City after city was blighted with modernist buildings that, in an almost totalitarian way were obsessed with function and efficiency and often looked like multistorey car parks, even when they weren’t.“

Yes, some of the buildings are ugly, but I also smell a little Robert Moses-is-the-devil kind of thinking here. 

“The frontispiece of Stamp’s book shows Darley Street, Bradford, where the Kirkgate Market, with its welcoming human scale, was demolished in 1973…” “…Its replacement is a shopping mall of awesome brutalism.”

Awesome brutalism?

I just like the pictures.