> Hudson Yards is a private space masquerading as a public one ... In reality it is an enclave, a high-end corporate park buoyed by six billion dollars in tax breaks—an amount that dwarfs the subsidies offered to Amazon for its scuttled Queens headquarters—and designed as a kind of amenity-stuffed Hotel California that its residents never have to leave ... The only thing that Hudson Yards is missing is its own weather ... what Hudson Yards really feels like is a nice airport terminal, with the High Line as its moving walkway"
> an amount that dwarfs the subsidies offered to Amazon
one thing I really love about NYC is how easy it is to deflect attention and get what you want
exhibit A: "tech workers" make the same amount in NYC as they do in the Bay Area, they fly completely under the radar and the inequality warriors point fingers at finance instead, serving to highlight the fickle nature of an unorganized protest where the cause/perpetuator of inequality is so easily interchangeable to whoever is the richest. Granted, these cities don't really know much about each other's struggles, so you see a lot of the same arguments rehashed and evolve in different ways ie: Austin recently dealt with a cultural appropriation uproar over a "Bodega", and not cultural appropriation from NYC lol, its just whoever is the loudest.
exhibit B: Walmart is practically banned from NYC in an effort to save/protect local businesses, while every major, minor, and luxury retailer enjoys larger than life flagship versions of their stores positioned in space constrained Manhattan.
exhibit C: The way tax breaks are made relevant news at all. Hudson Yards isn't the only place getting it.
> "tech workers" make the same amount in NYC as they do in the Bay Area, they fly completely under the radar and the inequality warriors point fingers at finance instead
As someone in both (my day job is keeping OpenStack working at a hedge fund) and who's been in both job markets: this is because finance actually is the richest. There's literally no point in fixing tech worker salaries in NYC if you're not going to fix finance salaries in NYC. Why is it surprising that the target is the richest? Why do you see that as fickle instead of constant and principled? It would be unprincipled and ideological if people complained about tech salaries in NYC simply because tech is widely disliked, even when there's a bigger target to go after.
> Walmart is practically banned from NYC in an effort to save/protect local businesses, while every major, minor, and luxury retailer enjoys larger than life flagship versions of their stores positioned in space constrained Manhattan.
I am confused by the juxtaposition of these two claims. Walmart competes with local businesses. Gucci does not. If you want to protect local businesses, not having a Gucci flagship has a qualitatively different effect from not having Walmart. (A place like Uniqlo does compete with local businesses, but I would certainly not call any of the Uniqlo stores in Manhattan "larger than life" - they're barely big enough for purpose, and they're all much smaller than the Walmart in my parents' suburb.)
> Walmart competes with local businesses. Gucci does not.
Sure, lets go down this rabbit hole separately.
What about the Target locations, the massive multi-story Home Depot on 23rd st taking up half a block, Bed Bath & Beyond, Ikea... I was certainly lost on the actual distinction people were making and that extends to you.
Whatever permitting process was involved flew right past anyone that cares passionately about this topic in support of local.
> It would be unprincipled and ideological if people complained about tech salaries in NYC simply because tech is widely disliked, even when there's a bigger target to go after.
Target bingo is uncoordinated and dilutive.
> this is because finance actually is the richest
Exactly. This would really be making fun of the bay area's or anywhere else's ease switching the disdain.
It makes it harder to subscribe to one locality's issues masqueraded as the unique behavior of a particular industry.
That the bonds are tax-free is a choice by the municipal issuer (because it’s to their advantage to do so). They could issue commercial taxable bonds, but why would they? It would only increase their borrowing costs.
The housing is cheaper currently, the food is/can be cheaper. More transportation options exist. Taxes are mostly the same. Activities within city limits are much more numerous, varied, and unique than SF or any city in the bay area. The greater area having attractions too.
...but this piece doesn't seem to make any coherent argument. Nowhere does she explain why she dislikes it aesthetically.
She simply seems to dislike that it was designed to be Instagrammable (is that so bad for art/sculpture which is inherently visual?), has some bizarre thoughts on climbing staircases (she's against climbing the Eiffel Tower as well, does she hate exercise?) and using elevators, and was unhappy with an attempted policy on photo usage that has now been changed.
(one of) the other layers is that its only purpose is to inflate real estate values of luxury apartments that already were built only to be sold to the criminally-wealthy international investor class that uses luxury US real estate as a form of international banking/money laundering, while masquerading in the press as a "community" and the Vessel itself as a "public space," when in reality it is anything but.
The comparison to the Eiffel Tower is to say at least that structure has a restaurant and a shop at the top, so there's a reason to go up there.
The author does not seem to have special hate for elevators, only that an elevator for a sixteen-floor staircase that doesn't actually have anything at the top further reinforces the cynicism behind the design, which is in fact the major thrust of the article.
The author is: "Kate Wagner is the creator of the viral blog McMansionHell, which roasts the world’s ugliest houses from top to bottom, all while teaching about architecture and design."
Judging by http://mcmansionhell.com/101 she has strong opinions which are not immediately understandable, to me, anyway. (It seems like she would believe most of the parts of Europe I've seen and all those houses in the US that have been lived in and built on for decades to be architectural shitshows. But I can't confirm that.)
After reading the article under discussion, I expected the blog to be similarly awful — but I find it thoughtful and educational, despite its intentionally abrasive style. I hope to read more of it, since the writer is skilled at explaining aesthetic concepts clearly.
The houses she lambaste are almost exclusively upper-middle class and high-class houses. I think she is railing against lazy/incompetent architects more than the owners of the properties.
Architects build what their clients specify. Those terrible parking garages at the bottom of square high rise towers? Architects hate them, too. But they're what the developers want because they maximize revenue.
With the exception of Frank Lloyd Wright, Mies Van Der Rohe, and a very few others, no architect gets to hear the words "Build what you like."
They aren't. They are from people who are stretching themselves into mortgages and those McMansions in the middle of nowhere are 250k-300k tops. They aren't three million dollar houses.
Yes but in the "middle of nowhere" these houses are owned by the middle-of-nowhere gentry. Saying something that is 300k is not expensive shows a lack of perspective I see a lot in this corner of the internet. Growing up in a rural town, my friends parents rented an apartment multiple towns over because they couldn't afford to live in my town (pop. 5k, surrounded by corn fields). All the problems we think are unique to cities or that we think are more important because there is more money involved really aren't. Everyone has the same problems at different scales.
The problem is that we have a class of intelligentsia such as the author of this piece who thinks she knows better how the rest should live. It is a typical elitist attitude.
300k is not an expensive house. It is 6x 50k/year salary, which is the current not really even stretching for mortgage. In NYC 5k square feet house would cost ~4M if it is in Brooklyn or Queens and it would be much worse than McMansion but I'm sure the OP would be thinking it is wonderful because it is located in NYC.
The fact that you don't even recognize that 50k/year is significantly higher than the median income in many of these places (e.g. 38k in much of Green Bay WI https://www.incomebyzipcode.com/wisconsin/54303) and the fact that you use 6x income when investopedia say that most people can only afford 2-2.5x (https://www.investopedia.com/articles/pf/05/030905.asp) their income shows just how completely out of touch you are.
I visited Hudson Yards and the Vessel on the opening day. I don't find the Vessel itself to be as architecturally offensive as others, I think it's a fine idea. A seven story mall, however, is a preposterous idea. In a day and age when malls are dying. Especially in a city! Malls were made to emulate city centers, and Manhattan already is great to wander around.
The whole experience is just so very clearly synthetic. There's no unifying theme or feel, other than that of "we spent a whole lot of money making this place, it can't fail".
I imagine I'll continue to see lots of marketing about it over the next 10 years, desperately trying to make it a tourist attraction. Maybe they'll succeed.
I work at WTC and this is exactly how I feel about the area under the Oculus connecting the Brookfield Mall. It's like a scene out of Gattaca, a massive dizzyling underground mall/complex with no natural light filled with luxury shops that no one appears to actually shop at. Everyone walks through in a daze, seemingly impressed by the magnitude of the cavern but at the same I can't help to think they feel as equally empty and drained by it as me.
Developments like Hudson Yards seem to be cargo culturing culture. If we build a public arts space, offices, restaurants, shops, and a playground then surely people will arrive, right?! Feels very weird.
Exactly, I think of them as exhibits. I've looked at brick and mortar as museums for a long time and I'm not the only one.
My wonderment and praise for the gallery curator shattered by the clerk trying to upsell me on a store credit card or data mining loyalty program.
"Why are you talking?"
Must be the quizzical expression my face makes as I take slightly too long to reply.
For actually purchasing something going into a retail store is basically a game of "how is the sales person going to lie to me today". It should come with a laugh track streamed live on twitch.
> filled with luxury shops that no one appears to actually shop at
This [1] Reddit thread from the other day was interesting reading. Those empty luxury shops are definitely to a large extent ads for high-end companies who just want to have a New York presence. Same thing on 5th avenue and in airports.
Well at the very least one thing it has in common with the Eiffel Tower is that both were initially met with universal derision. The Eiffel Tower is now one of the most iconic and beloved landmarks in Paris...time will tell if the "Vessel" gets the same treatment.
The things met by universal derision then kept that reputation is by far the larger set.
Additionally, the Eiffel tower mostly drew criticism during its construction[0], not once it was finished. If the vessel could muster the "it's not finished" defence, then that would probably settle people down. It does look like a cool start on something impressive, but the vacuousness that Wagner objects to shows: the thing looks unfinished, a cool 3d printed prototype you made to look at and then put on a shelf after 10 minutes.
Frankly the pictures form the actual construction were more impressive than the finished things, just because before completion you could always try to imagine it completed as something more.
It's not that I think this building (or attraction or whatever) is beautiful and worthwhile. It's just that I don't care that much and I'm a bit skeptical of people who do. I don't think it would matter what kind of sculpture/attraction/landmark/etc was built here -- people would still be criticizing it because there are a lot of people who pour derision onto everything the ultra-rich do. It's like a hobby.
I think the two main motivators of this behavior are 1. jealousy and 2. a way for middle class people to distract themselves from the emptiness of their own lives: "Look at those rich people, their lives are so empty! They are so tasteless and they don't understand what really matters." Little do they know that rich people are distracting themselves from the emptiness of their lives by building this kind of stuff in the first place.
Me personally, I find it hard to criticize people who are building things. I wonder what the thousands of people who built these buildings think of them. I'm all ears if someone wants to make a serious case about what should have been built here instead and who should have paid for it. But this isn't that.
> I'm all ears if someone wants to make a serious case about what should have been built here instead and who should have paid for it.
One of her main points is that this discussion should have been had before The Vessel was constructed. The article as a whole is more of a criticism of the whole system that spawned it than of the construction itself.
Classism works both ways. I can’t fucking stand poor people who have nothing more to hate on rich people about than that they have money. And the converse is true, rich people who think poverty is some moral failing. This article is riddled with, fuck people who have more than me. Ugh, get the fuck over yourself, no matter what social position you may have happened to find yourself in. Not ‘Fuck The Vessel’ just ‘Fuck You’.
> no matter what social position you may have happened to find yourself in
People don't "find themselves" in a social position. It isn't like they wandered into the wrong part of town. People suffering poverty are angry about wealth because it represents something withheld from them by an opaque and unfair system (how opaque and how unfair is the only thing under debate). Rich people who think poverty is a moral failing are afraid of losing what they have and in need of a feeling of intrinsic superiority because their greatest anxiety is that they don't deserve what they have.
“Find themselves” is intentionally passive, without implying any cause... the alternatives would be “got themselves into” or “were placed by someone else”
The phrase was used to stay out of the debate about the cause, not to imply there was no cause.
But you can't separate the cause from the issue. It's like seeing some people admiring a trophy and saying "so what, I could make one myself in a few hours".
The trophy is a symbol for something more, and so is having hundreds of millions of dollars.
I think there is potentially merit in the idea of the idea that the cause and the issue are related; in that the same system makes some people rich and some poor. However, I don't think that's relevant to whether it is okay to hate an individual unless they actively wronged someone.
I'm not sure how this contradicts, or even has anything to do with the parent post. It seems like you're reading excessively far into a turn-of-phrase.
It is relevant to the parent post because there's legitimate reason for the poor to have animus against the rich, and not vice versa. The parent post is attempting to treat "poor" and "rich" as something like rival sports teams that are on equal footing, because that's required to criticize the poor mad at the rich in the same way you'd criticize the rich mad at the poor.
>It is relevant to the parent post because there's legitimate reason for the poor to have animus against the rich, and not vice versa
The parent poster is specifically referring to a specific type of unfounded animus. Namely: having no argument other than "they have more money than me" to justify said animus.
The parent poster wrote "poor people who have nothing more to hate on rich people about than that they have money", which sounds like well-founded animus to me.
Here's a way to think about it - what is the corresponding thing for the rich to hate on the poor for? Are the rich jealous of not having money? Are they envious of those who cannot pay more for housing simply because a building of questionable merit faces it (one of the examples given in the article)? How is that founded? The rich can easily get themselves into that position, should they be desirous of it.
There is an arguable parallel in the rich who see the poor as being a moral failure for merely not having money and the poor who see the rich as being a moral failure for merely having money, but a) I think the poor have a better claim to well-foundedness there, even if it is slight, in that the rich quite clearly have the ability to stop having money with a snap of their fingers where the poor do not obviously have the ability to start having money, and b) the article does not seem to say that merely having money is a moral failure - at best it says that misusing money is a moral failure.
>The parent poster wrote "poor people who have nothing more to hate on rich people about than that they have money", which sounds like well-founded animus to me.
Let me make sure I understand, because I fear we may be talking past each other.
Are you suggesting that the simple fact that one has more money than you is sufficient to justify animus?
(I'm happy to discuss the rest of your post once we clear up this particular point; it seems fundamental.)
I think it counts as logically reasoned animus, certainly much more so than animus towards fans of an opposing sports team. Whether it's justified is a question of one's particular moral worldview, but there are coherent ways to justify it, especially if you change it from merely having more money than the opinion-haver to having money past a certain point, usually correlated in some way to one's practical needs. It gets even stronger if you change it to those who keep money for the sake of keeping money or spend it in vain ways instead of putting it to good use, where there are lots of possible definitions of "good."
(I'm not totally sure where my own worldview lies, for what it's worth. Almost certainly the strongest form, and almost certainly not the one you stated. But I think it is defensible that some worldviews believe all of these and they are not the worldviews of people too irrational to be worth understanding.)
> Are you suggesting that the simple fact that one has more money than you is sufficient to justify animus?
Not if the difference is trivial, but absolutely when it is as enormous and as unmotivated as it often is. Why would it be strange that obviously unfair inequality would be a source of animus?
Saying "I hate you for having more than me and I want your stuff" is just straight up jealousy, and it should be easy to understand why wealthy people respond with hostility to this, creating a negative feedback loop.
Your quote is a straw man, but what does it matter if jealousy is involved or not? You can disregard any animosity stemming from social injustices with that logic. Women are just straight up jealous because men are paid more. Blacks are just straight up jealous because whites have longer life expectancy. LGBTs are just straight up jealous because straight cis people don’t have to conceal a central part of who they are.
I think my interpretation of the thread was that anger towards people with money just for having money was legitimate. If your thought is that those people are actively retarding the ability of the poor to improve their situation, then I think you have some ground to stand on, but otherwise I don't think it is reasonable. I think it's ok to wish things were different; I think it's ok to be angry at a system; I think it's ok to be angry at people who have personally done you wrong; but I don't think it's ok to be angry at people who haven't personally done you wrong just because they have something you don't. I actually happen to fall into one of those minority groups that you mentioned, and I don't hate the other people that can do things that I can't; I hate the system and the people perpetuating the stupidity. That may predominantly be composed of people in that other group, but it is certainly not anywhere near all of them, and I have the ability to make that distinction and avoid prejudgements. That being said, all of that nuance went unstated in my original post, so my bad.
When (enough of) the people who benefit most from a system that's already biased in their favor unironically tell the folks on the far end of that benefit curve that they just need to work harder, they had the same opportunities as anyone else, it's their own fault, or whatever, I don't think it's terribly unreasonable for the people on the receiving end of that "wisdom" to develop a general sort of resentment for their "betters."
"Of all the preposterous assumptions of humanity over humanity, nothing exceeds most of the criticisms made on the habits of the poor by the well-housed, well-warmed, and well-fed." — Herman Melville
> I don't think it's ok to be angry at people who haven't personally done you wrong just because they have something you don't
The difference with wealth is that you can choose to become unwealthy on a moment's notice. So each day you remain wealthy is, itself, a choice. And the process of becoming unwealthy itself has direct benefits for the poor.
A white person cannot choose to become black and thereby remove oppression. A straight person who does not marry does not thereby yield the ability to marry to a gay couple. Even someone assigned male at birth who decides to present as female does not get to transfer her former male privilege to anyone in the process.
But someone who can afford a $10M condo that is as functional as (being generous) a $1M condo could directly transfer that $9M to people who don't have a place to live at all. So their choice not to do that—their choice to merely have money—is a decision we can justly evaluate morally, in a way we cannot evaluate merely having white skin or male presentation morally.
In my religious tradition, in our ritual confession of our faults, we apologize "for what I have done and for what I have failed to do." There is a story of a rich man who dutifully kept the ancient laws but refused to sell his possessions to the poor, and chose his possessions over the way of the religion. To remain rich (at least beyond one's needs and beyond the needs of one's credible plans to help the world) is an active choice, and can be criticized as any other choice.
I've noticed that a lot of the animus that the more-fortunate of us humans have against the less-fortunate is based in a very deeply-hidden, but very present understanding that it could have easily been you. Like, you have to distance yourself from unfortunate circumstances, lest you become victim to them.
This is just a denial of the reality that no one is really given a choice about the circumstances of their lives. That goes for abilities and outcomes. It should be self-evident, that all men are created equal - not in ability or outcome, but in the fact that no one has a choice in the hand they are dealt.
The less-fortunate you are, the more grievances you have - legitimate grievances. My original post wasn't meant to de-legitimize anyone's founded grievances. I'm just starting to see this in these types of discussions, both online and irl, that the more we rail against members of difference classes, the more rigid those class structures become. Of course this is a slippery slope to telling people to pull themselves up by the bootstraps. That's not what I mean either.
edit: I got a little (ok, a lot) carried away with the language, and it definitely detracted from my point, and added nothing to the conversation.
Whatever point you were trying to make could perfectly well have been made without "some graduate student bourgeoisie cunt".
Seriously, what does that add here? It was already perfectly unambiguous you find her and her perspective abhorrent. Such hateful vulgarity actually detracts from your argument, IMO; you come across as rageful, not rational.
EDIT: Parent comment was edited to remove the quoted bit, and also significantly for tone, before being flagged to death.
> Plenty of underprivileged people in the world would literally kill for the chance to live in a mcmansion. I wouldn't, but that's me. I won't begrudge someone who does.
So this gets complicated. Plenty of underprivileged people would kill for the change to have a decent and fair shot at life with a reliable roof over their heads, and certainly I wouldn't begrudge them that. But there are also plenty of people who are stably renting a small apartment or own a small one-family house in the suburbs who would also kill for a McMansion, and I think the unfortunate but fair judgment of those people is that, were they rich, they'd behave in the ways we stereotypically dislike the rich for. The fact that they do not because they cannot is not, I think, itself a reason to avoid making that judgment.
That turn of phrase is the key indicator in the original comment. It means they think of poverty and wealth as unrelated phenomena. Generally it is our most casual statements that say the most about our underlying assumptions.
Sure, and many rich do say, “I hate the poor.” The difference is that the rich are actually able to fuck over the poor. And, they often blatantly do so.
Has any rich person ever actually said that? Have many rich people said that: "I hate the poor"? They might act like it, sure, but actually said that...? And the actions are more about contempt than hatred. Contempt tends to go down, and hatred up, on the social scale.
I'm trying to think of actual instances...
Beggars should be abolished: it is irritating to give to them and it is irritating not to. --Nietzsche.
an old person without money is pathetic --Anon. from "Bookends" album, Simon and Garfunkel.
Maybe you travel in different circles? I sure don't love the poor, but I used to be really poor, so I feel I have the right.
Yeah, they do. It's shitty. Things like, 'Rich people are just better' and so on. Things I've actually heard come out of people's mouths.
Have also seen people who played too many video games and ten years into their adult lives have absolutely nothing to show for it other than some min wage job say 'fuck the rich'. Equally shitty.
In both cases, a healthy does of get-the-fuck-over-yourself is due.
"Kate Wagner holds a master's degree in audio science with a specialty in architectural acoustics from Johns Hopkins University's Peabody Conservatory." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McMansion_Hell)
This article is a perfect encapsulation of our current culture of contempt. It is no longer sufficient, or even possible, to just disagree or have different tastes.
"I'm personally not a big fan of that building's aesthetics, but maybe there are others who do like it."
That would have been a reasonable opinion to hold... instead we have: "Designed by Thomas Heatherwick, one of architecture’s premier grifters... The depth of architectural thinking at work here makes a kiddie-pool seem oceanic"
I hope to God I never have to work with someone like the author.
Great writers have a firmly defined opinion, and make it well known through prose. There’s nothing worse than reading some milquetoast overview of an issue in the name of “fairness”. Not all problems have multiple valid points of view. Some things are either right or wrong, and it’s left to critics to pick a side.
Some things are indeed objective, and the author has failed utterly in pointing out any of the building's objective flaws.
Meanwhile, other things are inherently subjective, which means that by definition, there is no right or wrong answer. Treating an architect with contempt for purely subjective reasons, is not a mark of a "great writer" in any way.
Have a look at heatherwick's buildings. Tell me what you think.
Nobody does architectural criticism anymore. In the industry it is all breathless, feint praise. Like the Hollywood cliché.
I for one, enjoy hearing someone's critical thinking about the architecture underneath the skin of a building. As in, the systems and processes that structure space and movement and interaction and emotion and society. What is the fucking point of architecture if all it does is pretty.
> I for one, enjoy hearing someone's critical thinking about the architecture underneath the skin of a building. As in, the systems and processes that structure space and movement and interaction and emotion and society
The article contains none of that. As another commenter perfectly described: this piece doesn't seem to make any coherent argument. Nowhere does she explain why she dislikes it aesthetically.
And I hope to God I never have to live or work in one of those abhorrent bare steel&glass modernist (postmodernist? whatever the style is called) neighborhoods, yet every major city is turning into one. This style of architecture, which appears to be the only one allowed (certainly the only one being built) deserves far worse than contempt.
It started life as a style called internationalist. It is brought to you by the same people that champion open plan offices. They are cheaper to build than traditional style buildings, by an order of magnitude. But critically allow for maximising flexible floor space for optimum returns.
Architects don't really have much power in the design of these kind of buildings beyond window dressing.
Edit. Also, refer to the author's blog for what happens when contemporary architects try to do traditional buildings. The fact is, each historical style of building existed in a larger process of building craft and materials and use. Without this process, the architecture becomes mere pastiche, stuck on, and shoehorned in. Frankensteined architecture.
> They are cheaper to build than traditional style buildings, by an order of magnitude.
Are they? According to [1,2 (especially last post)] (better sources welcome) traditional style is cheaper, and according to [3], there's bias against traditional architecture.
Besides, it's the "window dressing", that architects supposedly have power over, that's the ugliest part of modern architecture.
Yes, they can be.. providing you are comparing apples with apples. According to [0].
But that is not really satisfying without numbers is it?
So lets take the first example linked in your reddit post. The Potsdamer Palace. It is the most interesting example as they went to some effort [1] to reconstruct the facade as closely to the original design as possible, including the brickwork skin and hand finished stonework. Of course internally it is all concrete and steel, but you would never know that from looking at it.
Built for €120m [2], 35,000sqm GFA, 19,000sqm utilities (a wopping 35%) and only 390 offices. About €2500/sqm for the construction price, but at about €200,000 per office. A standard low rise office in germany seems to be close to the €1500/sqm range. But you would expect more like 20-25% utilities floor area and lets say 1 person/10sqm (ie. open plan office seat) for occupation. So for the same size office built with standard construction techniques, this floor area would be about €70m including utilities, but only €15,000 per office. (if you calculate out the €200k /office of the example with the 3500 offices of the standard office, that is a €1,076m price, ie. at least an order of magnitude).
Ok, so we are not talking about a typical office building here. It is also very significant that the examples chosen were all institutional, rather than commercial ie.the symbol was more important than the return. The point is that the original construction techniques required significant additional human labour, additional area for structure, but also light, servicing, and ventilation, and additional costly materials. All with a reduced usable internal floor area.
But sure, just stick something on the façade and call it a day right? But, if you already have a working façade system which gives you more saleable floor area, as a developer, you would sack the architect that proposes something else. So yeah, we have some power over the façade, but not that much.
So I guess the resistance to 'traditional' is mostly in the ''s. But also in that contemporary architects often care about process and user experience over formal traditions.
The other funny thing about this argument, is that the very same objections were held towards modern architecture in the time of the original construction of the Potsdamer. It was broadly in the style of the late Roccoco (in particular, a Prussian variant), which the Neo-classicists thought was ugly and modern. The Neo-classicists looked back, copying the original renaissance classicists of course, who were copying the styles of the ancient Romans, who had migrated a good deal from the ancient Egyptians via the Greeks. Taste is an old argument.
I don't follow - you say the Potsdamer Palace cost €2500/sqm, while a standard office is €1500/sqm. And the higher cost/office comes mostly from the smaller offices in newer buildings? Does the traditional facade somehow prevent smaller offices?
Though I have to say, it would be refreshing to hear architects defend their work with "Yes it's ugly but it's cheap" instead of whatever claims of artistic vision we currently get.
> which the Neo-classicists thought was ugly and modern
According to polls, pretty much everyone dislikes modern architecture, not just members of traditionalist architectural schools.
>Does the traditional facade somehow prevent smaller offices?
Well, yes. Light, servicing, ventilation. A modern floor plate is up to 40m usable depth. A historic floor plate 8-10m usable depth, and only half of that with a window.
>Neo-classicists
Read some history from wikipedia..
>The term "Neoclassical" was not invented until the mid-19th century, and at the time the style was described by such terms as "the true style", "reformed" and "revival"; what was regarded as being revived varying considerably.
The point was, this is just about people, as they always did, preferring the historicity, the status, the symbols of earlier times (and lets be honest, wealth). It has always been the same argument. Which traditional style are you going to pick? the cave or the tree house?
> A modern floor plate is up to 40m usable depth. A historic floor plate 8-10m usable depth, and only half of that with a window.
Sorry, you'll have to explain more. Why is a historic floor plate smaller? And why does a window on the facade make it smaller still? How does the facade affect the floor plate?
Like all things, Architecture is a rabbit hole. Every decision has a knock on effect.
The floor plate depth is directly related to the amount of light and heat required. The ceiling heights need to be taller to allow ventilation (not feeling too stuffy). The windows need to be taller to let enough light and heat in, the taller the windows the more structure required between them to function (without steel of course). The unobstructed open area of the floor plate is limited to around 6m because you are using timber or stone arches to support the upper floor or roof.
And sure, you can paste on a façade and use modern structure and servicing to get you halfway there, but then all of a sudden, the proportions of you Neoclassical, revivalist building are all out of whack. The inside of your building (arguably the part that matters to the inhabitants) still looks like a modern office, with a paper thin layer of stone stuck to the front obscuring your view. That, to be honest, is how we got McMansions.
Does this apply to all styles except the steel-and-glass Modern style? E.g. what about the Chrysler and Empire State buildings? And new residential buildings look very different from office buildings, but presumably don't cost an order of magnitude more per usable m^2 - is there something about office/commercial building requirements that tilts the preference towards Modern style?
I can see you are trying to find evidence to support your assumption. No problem, but respectfully, not really interested in playing that endless question and answer game.
Yes, as I suggested before, lettable floor area is king. That is why commercial buildings are made from glass. There are other major differences, and also minor differences with large knock on effects. And no, not every traditional style building is an order of magnitude more expensive than every other style building. And yes, you can fake the stylistic appliqué. And yes, architects have thrashed that dead horse to death time and again over the last 600 years or so.
The truth of it is that architecture is beholden to the same arcane and Byzantine cost structures that effect any other large scale, one off projects. Like those that make software engineering expensive (when programming is so cheap!). Or why don't they just make good movies these days?. The forces acting on architecture are strongly market driven, and if the forces pushed toward traditional methods, then those buildings would be built.
They are not. And, I think architecture would be much easier to understand (and even be effected positively) if people, such as yourself could enumerate their actual requirements of buildings, internally, externally, publicly, privately, phenomenologically, metaphysically, and give some thought to the prioritisation of such requirements, and the deceptive complexity of satisfying them.
If I could make this into a generalisation.. a product is its specification. If you just want a cheaper building (or car, website, or apple) you will get something that resembles that.
This woman probably got this gig due to her long-running blog, in which she goes on at great length about why "McMansions" are bad architecture. I think the Patreon for it pays a lot of her bills now.
Having contempt for buildings has kind of become her entire public persona. I don't think I envy that life.
I mean, that's kind of the Baffler's entire shtick. That style of hyperbolic acerbic criticism is very popular in many online publications. Sometimes people enjoy having a good punching bag.
I think you missed the crux of the argument which is that it’s very proletariat. It does nothing for the community and is designed to benifit the criminally wealthy.
Also it’s ugly af. I hope I never have to work with someone with your tastes if you think that’s what beauty is.
To be fair, I'd say that that is is better than any of the 1960s-1990s "Brutalist" style stuff that reminds me of Communist-style nonsense. That being said, given that that the average inhabitant isn't working class but a professional, why? Aren't there better alternatives at your price level?
Whatever can be said about the Soviet Bloc architecture, those projects were always either utilitarian or served some propaganda purpose, and a staircase to nowhere would be neither.
This article is a criticism of capital, which is what The Baffler does.
The fact that comments here are pearl clutching over "tone" or "author's apparent empty life" is kind of amusing to watch. Partly because HN commenters and hackers would presumably agree with the article's criticism of something like IP-selfie ownership for the sole purpose of advertising and inflating value of nearby condos. But I think most folks here are triggered by the whiff of marxist tone.
Hudson yards is a project by real estate developers targeting other speculators, so it's not as bad as say gentrifying incumbent locals, or it's not necessarily about the opportunity cost of having a green park there instead.
It's just a fish-bowl example of how capital can work in its own world and feel so out of touch with the rest of the city. If you've ever walked around new CBD's in China in the 00's, you'd often find similar high rises flanked with empty luxury stores and it was just really obvious what the point of it was. Only there, there's no false pretense of high art or design, just money.
“Fuck the vessel” can be taken more than one way. But that aside, I think is is great to have something weird in a city you can go visit. Something unusual that isn’t a business or a residence or a road. I think people stuck in a city all the time are missing out on nature, but something like the Vessel is an opportubity to escape and do something pointless for a few minutes.
> I think is is great to have something weird in a city you can go visit. Something unusual that isn’t a business or a residence or a road
In my experience of walking around cities I visit, you find this kind of thing just as soon as you stop(!) following your tourist map and/or blog post listing "20 best things to see in Florence/London/Paris/Berlin/$wherever".
"Weird" things are - and have always been - there just waiting to be found. We really don't need Heatherwick to build them.
I agree. I used to follow the “Lonely Planet” guides but now I’d rather plan as little as possible. You’ll bump into people to recommend stuff. There are exceptions e.g. long hikes need some planning.
Taleb in Antifragile makes almost the exact opposite point - that you should be flaneur, rather than a tourist. A flaneur enjoys viewing and being part of the natural rhythms of the city, whereas the tourist just goes to the showpieces with the other tourists. While I'm not convinced by Taleb in general, I think he gets this point right.
Personally, I like the look of it and the idea of walking around it whilst taking pictures. I can appreciate the argument that it may descriminate against people with disabilities due to lack of elevators (if that is true). To be fair I also think it looks somewhat shwarmaish, but really what is wrong with that? After all its in the "Big Apple"!
NYC has failed to cultivate and maintain public spaces. Its' parks sucks, its subway is dirty and old, it has tons of poor and homeless people. I'm certainly comparing to other cities (like London or HongKong) for its size and importance.
Hong Kong has much nicer public spaces. This means the public go to these public spaces and people socialize. That's not possible in NYC. Because the city public shared space is a piece of junk. People avoid it and segregate in select clubs/bars/restaurant. That means they don't go alone but with friends. So NYC is very circle based.
As the city public services gets shittier, the city becomes more like Paris and so are the people: Rude. The massive inflow of tourists doesn't help either. The article is just symptom: It just shows how frustrated Yankees are.
The city needs more spaces like the Hudson Yards. Spaces that integrate with the subway. Enable easy transfer, offer nice sitting areas, and let people socialize.
>It is a Vessel for the depths of architectural cynicism, of form without ideology and without substance: an architectural practice that puts the commodifiable image above all else, including the social good, aesthetic expression, and meaningful public space
I get all my NY news from the "gothamist" (I miss NY snark sometimes). They've had good "Vessel" coverage: Including that the name might change: And the controversy over who owns the images you take of the sculpture (or whatever it is).
The phrase "criminally wealthy" used by the author is a dog whistle for class supremacy, a destructive ideology that we need to be talking about a lot more.
It's about as helpful an ideology as white supremacy, just with different variables: instead of wanting to destroy other people along racial boundaries, the class supremacist wants to destroy people who aren't members of the sanctioned economic class.
Fuck class supremacy. Let's collectively ignore this kind of hateful screed so we can focus on reducing suffering for all, not just for members of some arbitrary group.
I can't make heads or tails of this. The author clearly has an ax to grind, that much is clear. But since she dislikes—no, hates—everything about this project, it's kinda hard to tell what the actual issue is.
It feels tribal. This thing is associated with a group I hate, so it's ugly, shallow, stupid, pointless, corrupt, and in every way unclean.
Or, the author could do something about it other than whine. Make an ADA case regarding the limited floors accessible by elevators for instance - that's a freebie.
Yes, and so is My Little Pony fanfiction in the library of congress [1]. It's not exactly a very exclusive library, nor does the criteria for getting media into their catalog have anything to do with the subjective quality or meaningfulness of the piece.
The author has still to come to terms with the meaninglessness, contrivance and absurdity of her own life and of everything around her, and has been pushed by a meaningless, contrived and absurd building to write a similarly meaningless and contrived article. Oblivious to this, she is pushes herself even further into the void of meaninglessness, contrivance and absurdity. The capitalist pigs score yet another goal against Kate, her thoughts enslaved within the confines of The Vessel.
The thing that you and also Kate miss is that things like "classist", "ugly" and "aesthetic" are simply terms which define nothing objective and which reside in your head alone. You see a building and call it "classist", allowing the capitalist pigs to get your knickers in a twist once more. I see the same building, either call it "aesthetic" or "non-aesthetic" and move on.
> Hudson Yards is a private space masquerading as a public one ... In reality it is an enclave, a high-end corporate park buoyed by six billion dollars in tax breaks—an amount that dwarfs the subsidies offered to Amazon for its scuttled Queens headquarters—and designed as a kind of amenity-stuffed Hotel California that its residents never have to leave ... The only thing that Hudson Yards is missing is its own weather ... what Hudson Yards really feels like is a nice airport terminal, with the High Line as its moving walkway"