Veritas et Venustas
A very distinguished architect named John happened upon my photos of England and left a great comment about England and its attitude towards suburban sprawl. In another life I think I would love to be an architect because beautiful buildings and spaces spark this deep yearning inside of me that I can't quite explain.
His site is very interesting -- his blog is here and thought provoking, and wow I feel honored to have such a obviously bright person appreciating my pictures. I'm a pretty confident person, but this counts as some nice validation. I love the internet, because it makes such previously impossible connections common.
I wanted to see more of his work, and I found his professional site -- Massengale.com, and he is in my opinion outstanding. I've often wondered why in the world new contruction has to be so seemingly random and spread apart and impersonal -- why can't we build villages and towns that look like communities, that have nice rows of grand houses, where people can walk to the stores, the parks, the events, their neighbors. Why don't they build towns like Williamsburg and Strasburg, PA, and the towns that you see in Europe. The very cool thing about John's work is that this is exactly what it appears that he does! So then you have many more people living per mile in a quaint beautiful town, and the countryside can be preserved as well. It makes so much sense to me.
I was told by some of the English people (I haven't verified the stats), that in populated areas England has 200 people per square mile, while the US has 6. These particular people said that they lived in a flat and had no real yard. I asked them if they would want one, and they said of course they would, but if they and all 60 million people living in England had a yard then they'd lose the unspoiled countryside that they love. I'm not bashing America at all, but I just don't see this being the attitude of Americans, and I think that's our definite loss.
12 Comments:
One of the best if not the best example of the political philosophy behind "the Shire" is that of Edmund Burke. He's almost the founder of conservatism. Jefferson tried to pick up on the notion of local communities living in harmony with Nature that were more agragrian, etc. Hamilton was the American Founder who more represented conglomeration. Jeffersonians became the Republican Party and Hamilton's supporters became the Federalist party. You might say that America looks the way it does because Hamilton won. Burke's conservatism carried the day in most of England. It was not polluted and so weakened by slavery as it was in America. The Jeffersonian/agrarian South lost and the Hamiltonian/industrialized North won in America. I'm pretty sure that Burke's conservatism carried the day.
My knowledge is rusty though. There are some answers somewhere in a five hundred page book: The Conservative Mind: From Burke to Elliot, by Russell Kirk. ;-) It's actually a good book. Just have a dictionary handy....
At any rate, it's interesting to contrast postmodernist architecture with architecture that admits to the conservative Burkean notions of Providence, veneration (respect, resulting in that which is venerable, aged goodness, etc.) and prescription. (A slow process of tradition finding that which is worth venerating and venerating it which results in things that are venerable like a shire.) Veneration/prescription is a summary of traditional conservatism. Applied today, Bush probably fits more with Hamilton and "neoconservatives" where there is a schism between conservatives and the greens. It's also probably that greens now have the tendency towards pagan primitivism, "Let's worship Nature. This isn't desolation, it's mommy Nature, it's all good." Rather than the conservative perspective of gardening it, etc.
All conservatism contrasts with postmodernism which simply denies veneration altogether, therefore its architectural manifestation (sheesh, big words, big words... well, sorry) is not very venerable. I find postmodernist architecture annoying and pretentious because it's like, "Look at me, there is no truth, so I can't be lying. There is no beauty, so I can't be ugly." Well, it is ugly and we all know it is. But anyway, sorry for the big words, they're pretty big issues. All I meant to say was that if you like the notion of the shire you might like the political philosophy of Edmund Burke and that type of conservatism. As I recall Burke actually supported the American Revolution as well as movements towards independence in India because of his philosophy.
Cut that down to about 1/3 it's size and I'll read it.
I love different building styles. I recently spent time in Chicago where there is pleanty of interesting beauty to be seen in the various structural styles as well as the layout of the city.
One thing that I do like in postmodern architecture is the renewed value placed in aesthetics. I had a professor who taught that modernism was represented by utilitarian boxes while postmodernism can be seen as decorated boxes.
After the depression and the war (WW2) America was focused to a large degree on functionality. I like to see the changes that are taking place in building and landscape design as we become more prosperous and comfortable as a nation.
Postmodern design accomplishes the same purposes as modern design, plus they do so in an exciting way by taking elements of different periods (gothic etc...) and adding those to buildings. When I was in Chicago I spent a long time appreciating the creativity invested in those designs.
I love it that there is a big enough variety of people that so many different parts of our world end up sporting someone's creative ideas.
I think that Ayn Rand's philosophy of "everything seen should serve a function, lest you be dishonest" greatly effected "modern" design -- some of which looks nice, but most of it needs to be razed and rebuilt. I think that what they overlooked is that attractiveness and aestitic DOES serve a function. In and of itself.
While I do love traditional designs of many culture, I also like when people take chances and reimagine what a building can look like, and how it can interact with the space around it, like the new Disney Concert Hall in LA and the the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia.
"I had a professor who taught that modernism was represented by utilitarian boxes while postmodernism can be seen as decorated boxes."
Hmmm, as I recall, modernism is/was pragmatic, utilitarian and utopian. It's symbolic of totalitarianism because it is based on a totalizing philosophy. But postmodernism has a little more depth to it as a philosophy than just a modification to modernism. It's not really like it at all. Postmodernism is much more favorable to artists and artists tend to like it much more because it values Neitzchean creativity as an end in itself. In some ways it is better than modernism because artists tend to have knowledge of beauty by osmosis and so their creativity can result in creations that become venerable. But because mere creativity is not really a good standard in itself the opposite can also be true. Bohemian artists never have much liked standards, though....nor slow change by conservative prescription and veneration. That's why they're generally not conservatives, after all. Perhaps the desire to make a name for oneself by being radical instead of conservative is too strong.
"Cut that down to about 1/3 it's size and I'll read it."
I think you will find it boring. It's probably not something you'll be interested in. Hehe...but you could think of it this way. Modernism is similar to Jet-Skiing, technology offering immediate results and conservatism is similar to windsurfing, something that is built up over time that is more in harmony with Nature. ;-)
I suppose I originally implied that postmodernism with its treatment of creativity as the highest value is all bad. It isn't. For that matter modernism with its rational planning and its attempted mathematization isn't all bad either. It could be that neither really represents a Christian philosophy though.
Yeah, well I live in a wigwam. Good to see you back, MyNym. The comments lagged a little when you weren't posting.
"...and I said, 'WHAT?'"
I got to the bottom of the comments and realized that I hadn't read any of the others.
But hey, I'm not going to let a small thing like not knowing what you people are talking about to prevent me from posting.
"Ba Da ba ba ba" - Collin needs to stop putting things in my head.
Hi Ian, I wasn't planning on posting but all the comments here dealing with philosophy draw me into it. Sheesh, most bands don't deal with the what makes us human, the nature of beauty, architecture, politics, etc. ;-)
Unfortunately, the average man on the street has some notions about these things but lacks the words to really deal with their complexity. And there is the simple fact that people have different gifts and talents and have sharpened up different abilities. Some patterns of word usage are about as harmonious as me picking up a guitar... Of course, as a nice guy you would listen and perhaps offer some guidance but you would know that I was playing incorrectly and you would know that it would take a lot of practice for me to play correctly and with precision. You would also have a deeper appreciation for those who do play correctly. I.e. where all is closer to being as it should be. Philosophy and morality are similar, "Art, like morality, consists of drawing the line somewhere." (G.K. Chesterton) There's a lot of philosophy on your site and I haven't kept up, just to pick one thing, you said something about "dangerous stereotypes." What did you mean?
The architect who said this:
"Truth, Goodness and Beauty" in the outer, manifested world are only made possible through the inner, invisible pattern — the unmanifested archetype."
Note that it is anti-postmodernism which is mere rebellion against modernism based on the selfish assumption of narcissus: "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder." But it is not as if people are not tending to narcissism now so it is logical that it will be manifested in the arts. Yeah, I know that most people might have no idea what I just said because of the word postmodernism, etc. Oh well, the reason for "big words" is so that you don't have to spend paragraph after paragraph defining everything and you can simply name things for what they are. But then if you use big words and don't write and write in order to define things people get lost because you only named things using words which they do not know. The benefit of civilization is moving to higher complexity and civilization's main characteristic is the advent of the written word. This is part of the reason why people judge how civilized you are by the words you use, the way you speak and your patterns of speech. It's sometimes funny, what creatures of history we might be...e.g., Americans still seem to assume that a British accent is indicative of being more civilized. This is getting long but it could be shortened up by using bigger words/patterns. Ah well...the little drummer boy is probably lost, can you see what I see?
Anyway, "dangerous stereotypes," can you tell me of them? Nicely, of course... be sure to be nice...
Dangerous stereotypes... I was referring to the ways you clumped people together and treated them all the same. Such as "artists look for cake in dumpsters" and the rest of the people you mentioned way back when in our cake eating discussion.
It's my opinion that you should give people a chance to show who they are, regardless of what group they are in. Don't expect artists, or construction workers, or buiseness men to be certain ways. That's all.
"It's my opinion that you should give people a chance to show who they are,"
Ah, but people did show and I did observe. I tend to try observe "who people are," in fact. Now, of course on a blog you can only see what people say and how they say it and perhaps speech patterns and the like. So some observations may only be correct about what is said but not correct in general, etc.
Note that in reality, perhaps the greatest obstacle to people to having a chance to show who they are is that no one is looking. Often, everyone is too concerned with themselves and how they look to really see others. Ironic, that often no one sees each other while at the same time all are quite concerned with how they look. Part of seeing who other people are is observing their patterns, type and form. You seem to tend to call sight dangerous and blindness safe. Are you planning on marrying just any girl or do you have some type and form in mind? ;-) If you do have something in mind, is it a dangerous stereotype?
"...regardless of what group they are in. Don't expect artists, or construction workers, or buiseness men to be certain ways. That's all."
It's my opinion that you should give people noting patterns a chance to show who they are, regardless if they are in that group. Don't expect them to be "dangerous," that's prejudiced don't you know? ;-)
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