Comments on: When Do Ugly Buildings Make Great Architecture? http://www.lewism.org/2006/10/09/when-do-ugly-buildings-make-great-architecture/ A Tectonic Notebook Tue, 06 Jan 2009 09:19:10 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.7 hourly 1 By: lewism http://www.lewism.org/2006/10/09/when-do-ugly-buildings-make-great-architecture/comment-page-1/#comment-159 lewism Fri, 27 Oct 2006 05:30:49 +0000 http://www.lewism.org/2006/10/09/when-do-ugly-buildings-make-great-architecture/#comment-159 Dave, <strong>Dave</strong> said: <blockquote>..its a hideous looking house..give the same materials to some bloke from a (take your pick) vernacular culture and quite possibly, the result would be clever..AND cheap… </blockquote> That's the point really.. a vernacular builder and polyurethane cladding wouldn't have gone together. They would never have even thought of it let alone build something with it. It took the ideas of the architect to do this. You are right that beauty is important and is worthy of being an end in itself just not the onlt one, and certainly not at the expense of everything else. Sometimes to explore new forms and materials you have not to be afraid of designing something 'ugly'. Dave,

Dave said:

..its a hideous looking house..give the same materials to some bloke from a (take your pick) vernacular culture and quite possibly, the result would be clever..AND cheap…

That’s the point really.. a vernacular builder and polyurethane cladding wouldn’t have gone together. They would never have even thought of it let alone build something with it. It took the ideas of the architect to do this. You are right that beauty is important and is worthy of being an end in itself just not the onlt one, and certainly not at the expense of everything else. Sometimes to explore new forms and materials you have not to be afraid of designing something ‘ugly’.

]]> By: Dave http://www.lewism.org/2006/10/09/when-do-ugly-buildings-make-great-architecture/comment-page-1/#comment-142 Dave Tue, 24 Oct 2006 19:20:30 +0000 http://www.lewism.org/2006/10/09/when-do-ugly-buildings-make-great-architecture/#comment-142 ..but what the heck...its like the scene from The Fountainhead, when by elevating bad taste, good taste is rendered meaningless.. ..its a hideous looking house..give the same materials to some bloke from a (take your pick) vernacular culture and quite possibly, the result would be clever..AND cheap... ..ugly is to be taken at face value....you can start with ugly (take some of FAT's work in London) but its not where you want to end up.. ..but what the heck…its like the scene from The Fountainhead, when by elevating bad taste, good taste is rendered meaningless..

..its a hideous looking house..give the same materials to some bloke from a (take your pick) vernacular culture and quite possibly, the result would be clever..AND cheap…

..ugly is to be taken at face value….you can start with ugly (take some of FAT’s work in London) but its not where you want to end up..

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