# Are Some Buildings Too Ugly to Survive? [discussion from NY Times]



## Suburbanist (Dec 25, 2009)

_This is the title of a Room For Debate page on New York Times. I found the articles quite interesting. The tone is usually anger against brutalism, a style I obviously love and would like to see revived at expense of rococo or neoclassicism-era buildings_



> *Are Some Buildings Too Ugly to Survive?*
> 
> *The Orange County government building in Goshen, N.Y., has a leaky roof, faulty ventilation and mold and, in the eyes of many, is just plain ugly. Officials shut it down last year and would like to demolish and replace it. But it is a prime example of Brutalism, from the noted architect Paul Rudolph, and many want to preserve it. Do even ugly, unpopular buildings deserve to be saved if they are significant? Or should a community, or owner, be allowed to eliminate architectural mistakes?*


_Here are some of the qualified replies (all available on that same very page)_

*Atrocities Should Be Eliminated*, by Anthony M. Daniels is a frequent contributor to New Criterion


> Buildings should be preserved for one of two reasons: they were the site of events of great historic importance, or they are of aesthetic merit. Buildings in the Brutalist style [...] are certainly aesthetically outstanding: unfortunately, in an entirely negative sense. A single such building can ruin an entire townscape, and it is often difficult to believe that such ruination was not the intention of the architect.
> 
> There is [...] a third possible reason to preserve a building: to ensure that at least one example of its genre should survive. Thus it would be worth preserving one of Le Corbusier’s concrete monstrosities just to remind everyone of his astonishing and arrogant incompetence.
> 
> But buildings cannot be better than they look, for architecture is a public art that imposes itself on its surroundings. It fell to the Brutalists to devise a style that cannot age but only deteriorate further.


*Art Deco Once Faced the Wrecker’s Ball*, by David J. Brown is executive vice president and chief preservation officer at the National Trust for Historic Preservation.


> Tourists visiting the neon-lit, celebrity-studded Art Deco district of Florida’s South Beach might be surprised to learn that, just over a generation ago, the area was a shabby neighborhood developers were lining up to demolish. [...]
> 
> These days, of course, South Beach’s Modernist treasures draw throngs of crowds, but the anecdote underscores one of historic preservation’s key challenges: Tastes change, styles come and go, and assessments of particular buildings and architectural styles fluctuate. For example, many Americans in the early decades of the last century loathed Victorian architecture. [...]
> 
> While the simple elegance of Modernist architecture can be breathtaking [...] it is also true that some Modernist buildings are hard to love. Brutalist edifices like Boston City Hall may never bask in the kind of widespread adulation enjoyed by, say, New York’s Grand Central Terminal. Rather than simple aesthetics or stylistic currency, then, we should consider the innovation and architectural significance of these places and the ways in which they advance our understanding of building design.


*The Value of Finding Value in What’s Unusual*, by Allison Arieff. She is editor of the urban planning and policy magazine, The Urbanist and the former editor in chief of Dwell magazine.


> This country’s tolerance for all but the most familiar architecture is frustratingly low. For that reason Modernist buildings, like those of an architect as bold and unique as Paul Rudolph, have been particularly hard hit. [...]
> 
> Modernism is still too relatively young to be either comfortably familiar or considered “historic” — yet. As a result a long list of incredible buildings have been under threat or lost [...]



*Cost Matters, but So Does History*, by Aaron M. Renn edits the Urbanophile blog.


> Modernist buildings are now in the same architectural danger zone that late 19th century commercial buildings were in the '50s: old enough to be functionally obsolete, out of fashion, and in need of significant repair, but not yet considered historically valuable.
> 
> It’s harder still to engage the public and politicians to save Brutalist structures. Even the best Modernist architectural works are often austere. They are frequently more respected than loved. But Brutalist buildings in particular can be challenging for the public at large.


*Weighing Costs of Demolition or Preservation*, by Raksha Vasudevan is the Sustainability Associate at the National League of Cities’ Center for Research and Innovation. 


> Each morning as I wait to catch my train in Washington D.C., my eyes wander to the waffle slab ceiling that has become a symbol of the city's metro stations. The simple, repetitive form continues to reveal to me the possibilities and limitations of concrete.
> 
> Not everyone feels as I do about the stations’ Brutalist design. And there is no telling how the next generation will feel or what they will find beautiful. Beauty is so personal, so intertwined with the ways in which we relate to and inhabit a particular space, that aesthetics becomes a moot point in discussions of architectural preservation.


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## garum0 (Jul 26, 2010)

Atrocities Should Be Eliminated!


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## Galro (Aug 9, 2010)

garum0 said:


> Atrocities Should Be Eliminated!


+1


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## billiam (Nov 18, 2010)

Ugliness as you have pointed out before suburbanist is subjective. In my opinion, the problem with many brutalist buildings isn't the school of architecture they group themselves in but rather that they are designed without consideration for the people who use them. That the building is designed to mold people to suit its function rather than people molding the building to suit their function. This placing of function over form tended lead to building that at best could be described as aesthetically challenging and quite often just plain ugly. 

Having said that not every piece of brutalist architecture is an abomination. Some like trelick tower in London even become protected for their architectural merit so it would be unfair to say that every brutalist building should be demolished just as it would be as misguided as saying every gothic revival building should be demolished, or that every building over 30 years old should be demolished.

If it is demolished and replaced, it is likely that rather than being replaced with something as innovative and risky as it is, it will be replaced with a generic low rise glass box will take its place which would be a shame in my own opinion. So I stay the wrecking ball repair the roof sort out the ventilation and refurbish it and its grounds and give it a chance and if its still ugly and dysfunctional in 30 years...smashy smashy


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## mhays (Sep 12, 2002)

Protection for "architectural merit" could reflect merit, or could reflect an activist or gullible protection agency. London is full of horrific brutalist shit that the public treats like shit or avoids entirely but that some people praise.


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## El_Greco (Apr 1, 2005)

Its all about aesthetics. Brutalism has none and as such should be destroyed. The problem is, though, that contemporary architecture, for the most part, is ugly and the replacement would almost certainly be just as ugly.


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## Galro (Aug 9, 2010)

billiam said:


> Ugliness as you have pointed out before suburbanist is subjective.


Which is exactly why we shouldn't have a small elite deciding how our cities should look like. It's not a matter of facts and their opinions aren't any more right than the peoples that how live with the shit they preserve.


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## Piltup Man (May 21, 2010)

> The Orange County government building in Goshen, N.Y., has a leaky roof, faulty ventilation and mold and, in the eyes of many, is just plain ugly.


Seems that ugliness is just one of its faults. The building is poorly built/designed as well.


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## billiam (Nov 18, 2010)

Piltup Man said:


> Seems that ugliness is just one of its faults. The building is poorly built/designed as well.


Maybe but that could just as easily be poor maintenance.


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## italystf (Aug 2, 2011)

I think no building should be destroyed just because today we would have built it in a different aestethical style. It's part of architecture history. Only if is structurally dangerous, decayed, economically unprofitable to refurbish or built in a really wrong environment for a building of its kind (like Punta Perrotti huge concrete blocks covering the view on the seaside of Bari) it should be tear down. Is unthinkable rebuilt the entire world with 2012 aesthetical standards and it would result very boring.


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## bayviews (Mar 3, 2006)

italystf said:


> I think no building should be destroyed just because today we would have built it in a different aestethical style. It's part of architecture history. Only if is structurally dangerous, decayed, economically unprofitable to refurbish or built in a really wrong environment for a building of its kind (like Punta Perrotti huge concrete blocks covering the view on the seaside of Bari) it should be tear down. Is unthinkable rebuilt the entire world with 2012 aesthetical standards and it would result very boring.



Agree, we must live with what we've built. 

Which of course means we've got to design for the long-term. 

Not just the latest in architectual fads.


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## kaligraffi (Aug 20, 2011)

There are few things that crack me up more than lovers of modernism crying in their beer because their favorite buildings are now targeted for demolition. They seem to forget that theirs is a style and a philosophy that long ago lost any conceivable basis with which to argue for preservation for the sake of preservation: such buildings were predicated on the idea that everything old was bad and that everything new was good, and that anything old should be knocked down. Now that they're being forced to dance to their own tune, I just sit back and laugh because it's exactly what they deserve. Brutalism being brutalized, its just deserts served on ice.

It also gives me a good chuckle that those who loudly claim to hate nostalgia are now clamoring to save modernist buildings that no one else likes...*out of pure nostalgia*. Thus, in this one issue, modernism's chickens come home to roost _and_ modernists get exposed as the bankrupt hypocrites that they so clearly are. Delicious.

On a slightly different note, this often-peddled idea that beauty is entirely subjective is a sophistic side-step: no one is going to seriously argue that Eva Mendes is no more beautiful and no less beautiful than Angela Merkel, and so obviously there are agreeable standards of beauty when it comes to people. As there are standards of beauty when it comes to people, there are standards of beauty when it comes to other aesthetic issues, including architecture. It's time we trust our senses instead of pretending to see the Emperor's New Clothes of bad architecture.


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## Mr Bricks (May 6, 2005)

Of course!


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## George W. Bush (Mar 18, 2005)

kaligraffi said:


> On a slightly different note, this often-peddled idea that beauty is entirely subjective is a sophistic side-step: no one is going to seriously argue that Eva Mendes is no more beautiful and no less beautiful than Angela Merkel, and so obviously there are agreeable standards of beauty when it comes to people. As there are standards of beauty when it comes to people, there are standards of beauty when it comes to other aesthetic issues, including architecture.


I don't think so. Prefering Eva Mendes over Merkel is a matter of hormones. Buildings neither have shapely asses nor tits.


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## mhays (Sep 12, 2002)

kaligraffi said:


> There are few things that crack me up more than lovers of modernism crying in their beer because their favorite buildings are now targeted for demolition. They seem to forget that theirs is a style and a philosophy that long ago lost any conceivable basis with which to argue for preservation for the sake of preservation: such buildings were predicated on the idea that everything old was bad and that everything new was good, and that anything old should be knocked down. Now that they're being forced to dance to their own tune, I just sit back and laugh because it's exactly what they deserve. Brutalism being brutalized, its just deserts served on ice.
> 
> It also gives me a good chuckle that those who loudly claim to hate nostalgia are now clamoring to save modernist buildings that no one else likes...*out of pure nostalgia*. Thus, in this one issue, modernism's chickens come home to roost _and_ modernists get exposed as the bankrupt hypocrites that they so clearly are. Delicious.
> 
> On a slightly different note, this often-peddled idea that beauty is entirely subjective is a sophistic side-step: no one is going to seriously argue that Eva Mendes is no more beautiful and no less beautiful than Angela Merkel, and so obviously there are agreeable standards of beauty when it comes to people. As there are standards of beauty when it comes to people, there are standards of beauty when it comes to other aesthetic issues, including architecture. It's time we trust our senses instead of pretending to see the Emperor's New Clothes of bad architecture.


This is worth repeating.


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