Archivist
Senior Member
I'm surprised to hear you rail at computers and their impact on buildings. Building have always been affected by technological innovation. Spire wouldn't exist without innovations like elevators and steel frame construction, and, really, what is Spire but a paean to these technologies? Surely the abandonment of load-bearing masonry walls for all buildings was regretted by some at the time, but we've all gotten used to it and just look at the beauty, transparency (and height!) it's given us.
All buildings constructed now seem self-evidently to me to be built by computer. At any rate, given that this is so, what you really seem to be calling for is to use new technologies, but to limit their use to mimicking what was possible before. How odd! How unnecessary!
And when I first saw the Guggenheim at the end of a dullish Spanish street, on a sunny day, with a hill beyond and cows dotted over it - a perfect vessel for modern art - I wept at the sight. And not because it was gimmicky, but because it was so damned beautiful. Your call for computers to be used, but only insofar as their use is consistent in creating a building that looks like it might have been constructed, say, during the 1960's, is unfortunate.
All buildings constructed now seem self-evidently to me to be built by computer. At any rate, given that this is so, what you really seem to be calling for is to use new technologies, but to limit their use to mimicking what was possible before. How odd! How unnecessary!
And when I first saw the Guggenheim at the end of a dullish Spanish street, on a sunny day, with a hill beyond and cows dotted over it - a perfect vessel for modern art - I wept at the sight. And not because it was gimmicky, but because it was so damned beautiful. Your call for computers to be used, but only insofar as their use is consistent in creating a building that looks like it might have been constructed, say, during the 1960's, is unfortunate.