Comments by "alex smith" (@alexsmith-ob3lu) on "The Aesthetic City" channel.

Here in America, I would love to see a renaissance of Richardsonian Romanesque, Art Deco and Neo Classical architecture!
103
Bravo to the students! The students designed a far superior city block than the so called “professional planners” who designed the block like a two year old toddler.
48
In France and Italy, many traditional forms of craftsmanship are still preserved but in America; these types of old crafts have been lost to history.
13
The end of WW2 brought about all this “quick and cheap” short sighted ideas of reinforced concrete. So much needed to be rebuilt as fast as possible for little cost, so most countries went the short sighted route that is now having disastrous consequences on us.
7
@ Lol, I love the cheap excuses all you modernists make up. “The craftsman labor isn’t there! It’s too expensive to design using classical proportions! We have population targets to reach.” Lol Not everything is about “numbers.” You can get that same figure of 6k or higher with old school architecture and designs.
6
Modernist architects also tend to blur the lines between urban and rural, which all turns into an ugly mess that nobody likes.
4
Garden beds, wooded areas in cities, public parks, preserving of natural water ways, spacious sidewalks and bike lanes are all good starters to work with. I hate seeing everything so cemented up into dull, ugly places where nobody wants to be.
4
Most Americans have abandoned suburbia to live in pre-WW2 era cities or small towns. America no longer has the money to prop up such dysfunctional car infrastructure anymore. Rural American folks hate the city politics and all the nonsense that happens in American cities. All being said, it’s about time we dissolve the American Empire.
3
@ligametis So you want a nature band-aid to make up for the ugly and shoddy modernist architecture design?
3
@ligametis Old towns are a bad example of planning? Have you forgotten that Central Park exists in New York City? Have you forgotten about the roadside trees, bushes, potted flowers and the grassy small parks of the streetcar suburbs?
3
@MadLadsAnonymous You also have to take into account the initial financial costs and long term cost of maintenance. If we (Americans) can't even find the money to properly maintain freeways built in the 1960s; then what makes you think we'll maintain these newer structures with reinforced fiberglass instead of steel rebar?
2
@DigitalBenny America has a track record for doing improper maintenance, regardless of what engineering or materials we employ. Just look at our freeway system and you'll understand.
2
The more complicated and the more high level engineering involved; the greater the expenses for long term maintenance. If you live in America and you drive a car around; you can easily see the complete lack of endurance these modernist structures have.
2
@marcusantoninus1838 Modernist architects represent the decline of technical-creative skillsets all over the West.
2
Not surprised by how bad reinforces concrete is from an artistic and technical point of view. Most freeways in the USA were built in the 1950s/60s using reinforced concrete. Many have been torn down and many more are costing billions of dollars in borrowed (not taxpayer!) money just to maintain because of how little endurance these structures have.
1
You can thank both political parties for destroying our passenger trains, streetcar networks, and small towns after WW2.
1
There are many alternative solutions that exist, but they are not used because of short term monetary/economic pressures or slow policy changes that create such disasterous and ugly buildings.
1
@DigitalBenny Last longer? By how much? Another 50 years? People will not maintain or make a building endure if they do not have the LOVE for such a building. Its why you still see centuries old castles still standing, while Soviet style block apartments are being torn down or abandoned.
1
@DigitalBenny Yeah, you got nothing to prove your point. You should also take into account the decline of technical-creative skillsets all over America; so you're "miracle material" won't make a difference in the overall problems.
1
@steveperreira5850 No kidding, buddy! Everyone laughs at American engineering and admires German engineering. Who invented the combustion engine? Who invented freeways? Germany! The main argument that I was also trying to make above is how every country today has embraced American engineering degrees and American style of doing design work. Not German.
1
Why don’t we see more art deco? Art deco is modern architecture that makes effective use of modern materials to make buildings beautiful/unique. It’s not like you need to hire craftsmen with 15+ years experience to build art deco structures. Art deco is simply the use of horizontal/vertical lines, trapezoids, hexagons, rhombus, rectangles and other basic ornamentation that are easily to produced without much difficulty or increase in cost. Personally, I think most architects have become too lazy and too sloppy to produce anything valuable.
1
@highlorddarkstar wow, thank you! I’m gonna check that channel out! God bless!
1
@ajkandy I’ll be sure to check them out! Thank you!
1
@bobtaylor170 Thank you for telling me! I’ll go and check their website! I’m not an architect or artist myself. I work as an electrician, but I’m always amazed by the older styles of work that previous generations built.
1
@CharlesKruger1942 With fewer people going to university, more will focus on apprenticeships, community colleges and small business operations.
1
@pin65371 America suburbia tries to incorporate both rural and urban all into once place and it fails to do both. Most Americans don’t even have a proper grasp of what the federals classify as urban and rural. A small muddy road leading into a wooded area is considered rural, but anything with asphalt paving, stop signs, traffic lights etc. is considered urban by the federals.
1
@garyjackson3531 America became a highly federalized empire after the Civil War. The northern states handed over every Republic to the Federals in Washington DC. We’ve been an empire since then, not a republic.
1
@garyjackson3531 That’s great we’re seeing more “small town” developments. Just don’t go asking the Federal government for money when the maintenance bills come due in 15 years.
1
@ Lol, the excuses you make for the so called “professionals” is laughable.
1
@Redzwan Oh really? How did America go from the architecture of Neo-classical facades and Art Deco designs to the architecture of parking lots? You really think you can lie to me about wanting to spend time hanging around an empty parking lot?
1
@Redzwan How much do they pay an astroturfer like you?
1
@ If you want to enjoy more nature, then go live on a farm or a log cabin in the wilderness. If you want to live in a big metropolis like New York, you’d better have the high income to pay for a location like Central Park. Otherwise, you can enjoy small town life.
1
@ Why are you asking me? I’m not a resident of New York City. Every society has its own needs and wants. I’m simply expressing how the majority of Americans feel and think of their urban areas.
1
@ Most Americans cannot afford to live in Manhattan or downtown Chicago. You folks tend to confuse medium density streetcar suburbs, farm land, and small towns with very low density car dependent suburban sprawl. As time goes on, suburbia is becoming less and less common in the states.
1
@ Utrecht is in the Netherlands, not America. The Netherlands is a tiny country and not a flop house for the world problems.
1
@ Europe came up the idea of large city gardens, green houses and other beautiful architectural aesthetics to make their cities lively, unique and fabulous. Unfortunately right now, Europe political and financial class of people no longer relate with the ordinary European citizen. They’re as short sighted as the political class here in America.
1
The modernist plan uses reinforced concrete and PVC materials. None of those materials can last more than 100 years and is not environmentally friendly to produce and dispose of.
1