(but again that's a 4-volume, 2500-page book that will cost you $350 and take you a year to read)
new buildings that are "good in the old way"—at least ones he didn't build—are harder to come by because of the dictates of the economic process that gets them built
Conversation
Replying to
Again if it had been my theory… I’d have gone out of my way to find other good things to say about modern stuff. But that’s because I’m sensitive to having views attributed to me that I don’t hold, so I tend to invest in active counterprogramming of misreadings I can anticipate.
2
1
Replying to
honestly i think the job was too big for that; it took him a lifetime just to get where he got
1
3
Replying to
Perhaps. If so, it’s probably a proportionately big task to reclaim his legacy from the misreading you appear to be countering. Like an essay applying his theories to the design of space stations or something.
2
2
Incidentally my first intro to him was quite future-oriented via the Stewart Brand crowd. Straightforward design exercises. Then I found mostly trads getting into it, and I was like “huh, okay, not my scene.”
The patterns on the software side never appealed to me.
1
1
Replying to
2
2
1
1
So… what are actual modern examples of his thinking driving the “synthesis of form”? If architects reject him and the software version failed, who’s actually using his ideas for design as opposed to design criticism? Or is it reduced now to a purely analytical/critical frame?
6
2
but seriously though, the design pattern stuff (according to ) was primarily a failure to transmit the important aspects of patterns to the software dev community, but imo to paraphrase gretzky, they were "skating to where the puck was, not where it was going"
1
1
The designs he did himself were mostly utilitarian, somewhat trad looking buildings right? I recall you shared photos of the campus of a school or something.
Replying to
yeah though the fact that it looks trad is a red herring; ask yourself instead why contemporary architects have to use wacky materials and dangerous-looking cantilevers etc
1
Show replies

