This tweet is killing me, I have officially been hashtag Triggered, WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT DO YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT MODERNISM IS PLEASE PLEASE READ A BOOK

@ reactionary right Twitter: I admit freely that it's not the main hill to die on here but please understand that "modernism" refers to a specific architectural period characterised mainly by use of steel, glass and concrete, and includes everything from deco to bauhaus

What you're beefing with specifically is a combination of everything from brutalism, Bauhaus, humanism, Ziggurat, structuralism, Soviet modernism, constructivism, and (a lot of) postmodern deconstructivism and a grab bag of postmodern sculptural architecture

but mostly what they seem to be objecting to is the forwards motion of architecture (and the existence of low-income brutalist housing built by postwar governments to meet need) which is why posting this picture of New York is fucking hilarious

I can't think of a city that more encapsulates the drive for forward motion in architecture than 1930s New York, which was in a fervour of new energised ideas to build taller, more modern, more exciting paeans to modernity. New York IS modernism.

If we followed this blog's ideal, which is that architecture should never change and should always look to the great buildings of the past, we wouldn't HAVE those buildings. So many of the "great buildings" were built at the bleeding edge of new styles, that's WHY THEY'RE FAMOUS.

I also want to beef with this tweet, not just because I personally find this building hideous (sorry Hungary but it's just...too much. it's so fussy yet bland I hate it) but also because it's just historically nonsensical.

When my parents were young, big dramatic neogothic Victorian buildings like St Pancras were widely considered an anachronistic eyesore, and many were demolished. Now with the passage of time, Victorian neogothic is considered by most to be uncontroversially beautiful.

If beauty is objective, why does the definition of beauty change? Why do different people in different times find different aesthetics appealing? Why did the modernist architects of 1930s NY plough down some beautiful 19th century facades to build these beautiful deco towers?

This isn't a fight I could win, because this is an Objectivist mindset and Objectivism is both entirely irrational and extremely well-armoured against criticism (if what you believe is Objectively Right it doesn't matter how good the argument against is bc it's Objectively Wrong)

One last one, I'm sorry but I'm screaming: MODERNISM DIDN'T DO THIS AND THAT'S KIND OF THE POINT

THE REASON THE FACE OF EUROPEAN CITIES CHANGED SO DRASTICALLY

IS BECAUSE

OF ALL

THE BOMBINGS

YOU CAN'T "UNDO THE DAMAGE MODERNISM CAUSED TO COLOGNE"

BECAUSE IF THOSE BUILDINGS WEREN'T THERE

THERE WOULD NOT BE BUILDINGS THERE

BECAUSE OF A FUCKING WAR, GERALD

like my guy you cannot be this historically illiterate

modern European cities don't look like this because of a sinister plan to destroy beauty, they look like this because after the war there were a lot of homeless people and institutions without venues

styles like brutalism and other midcentury modernisms used affordable materials, met the available space and acknowledged the postwar feeling of existing in a new world with new rules. There was neither the money or inclination to build an exact replica of what came before.

Although even in an imaginary world where nobody had bombed Germany these building would not have survived because you know what 20th century fascists we extremely, famously into?

FUCKING MODERNISM

Here are some big Fascist architectural flairs. You'll notice they're still VERY modernist (unadorned, geometric, clean bare surfaces, blocky shapes) but they like columns a lot more, on account of the fetishizing classical architecture thing.

This is why it's weird that this account explicitly tries to impose a left/right that splits neatly into Modernist (leftwing, Bad) and Traditional (rightwing, Good and Beautiful)

A lot of Modernist styles are very right wing in ideology (American Modern, Stripped Neoclassicism) and a lot of older styles are dominated by socialist and humanist ideologies (Art Nouveau, for example). Modernism as a whole is a product of era not political affiliation.

INDIVIDUAL MODERNIST STYLES are highly informed by politics - Soviet buildings are inextricable from Soviet ideology, Art Deco is informed by a belief in opulence, capital, forward momentum and untouchability - but modernism is simply too big an umbrella term.

You can't just rage against modernism. Forward motion and change are an inevitable part of art. You can perfectly reasonably say you don't like the direction of 20th century architecture - good news! Architecture continues to grow and change!

guh I just. It's totally legit to not like brutalism, Bauhaus or postmodernism! it's also totally fine to not know much about architecture (I'm for sure not an architect!) just maybe if you don't know what modernism is don't make 3000000 posts about how it's Inherently The Worst.

well that's my Hour Long Twitter Rant for the day, back to work with me!