Modern and Post Modern architecture. What happens to design after WWII.

Part 4 of 4 from our recent Buildings and Brew. This is an introduction to Modernism. Why Modern design happens and how it changes architecture. The final stage happens after WWII and leads to post-modernism. Come learn more about modernism. Also, where is classical design at this time?

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Brent Hull
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[BronsonDorsey]

Brent, I appreciate all that you are doing to elevate the discussion on residential design. Most of the houses built during the last 60+ years are cookie-cutter crap. That said, it has always been the more affluent clients who could afford “good design” and well-crafted homes. That’s just as true of the beautiful classically-designed homes in Ft. Worth that you work on as it was for Frank Lloyd Wright’s clients and their houses. The average homeowner, for whom most houses are built, doesn’t understand design and isn’t willing to pay for it even if he could understand it.

I’m speaking as an architect and son-in-law of Tom Seymour, who’s company built some of the most iconic and architecturally-significant buildings in Ft. Worth.

[HomesteadingAlaskatoMaine]

I've spent over 40 years as a builder/project manager. Just now as I enter into my retirement years I came across Brent Hull Videos. It was like, Yes, Yes, Yes... has videos was like a bomb going off in my head. Wish i had this information 40 years ago. Great Stuff.

[jelsner]

Another great vid. I know you love reference books and this is one of my favorites --'The Old Way of Seeing: How Architecture Lost it's Magic and How to Get it Back' by Jonathan Hale. It touches on a lot of the ideas you're sharing here.

[tariktalhatonbul]

I was just thinking about how desing of everything changed from cars to fashion to arcitecture. Your video is magnificent. Thanks

[willblasingame]

I love how you point out that the early modern architects understood classical architecture and could therefore use it.. I think that’s the same way in modern art as well

[stevemiller]

Brent, check out the YouTube stuff by Ann Sussman where she explains the value of symmetrical buildings. Basically we are hardwired to seek "safe faces" (meaning non predator) as a survival instinct. Therefore symmetrical facades which parallel a facial structure feel safe and correct. I was pretty dumbfounded when I heard this. She also says the pioneers of modern architecture all suffered trauma during WW1, which caused them to promote environments and buildings that function and "read" in "non normative" ways. Hardly an approach that can benefit the majority of society.

[pointnemo]

Somebody had to say it. Very well present very well done B.H. Build Ugly, it's the future... now!

[willbass]

*IIT* & van der Rohe (from Wikipedia):
" Mies settled in Chicago, Illinois, where he was appointed head of the architecture school at Chicago's Armour Institute of Technology (later renamed *Illinois Institute of Technology* ).

[Slippedndipped]

All styles of buildings can be well or terribly designed. Modern architecture done by Schindler, Neutra Lautner and Kappe are fantastic. I agree that bad builders seeing a design and copying it poorly can ruin a design aesthetic. I see tons of poorly done colonial revival homes, tutor homes, etc. but I can still see and understand the ones that are well designed and built, as an example I love your design and channel but prefer and live in a 50s modern home.

Loved the video, would really dig for you to talk about well-built 50s 60s modern homes that we are slowly losing, due to design misunderstandings of the aesthetics of the modernism.

[Bobzez]

Great talk very informative, I like your passion for architecture with quality workmanship. I think we are now in Mixed Modern period, materials and costs have changed, builders and architects have adapted.

[debb]

I love your discussions and am a fan of the classical ideals, details, proportion and the rest. At the same time I do think the Farnsworth House and Gropius' house are well designed modernist houses. Those guys were trained in the classics so it was their jumping off point and they did want to do things different. The world changed. I think Venturi was awful, Phillip Johnson's broken pediment is a joke--an example of of an architect without an idea. Not crazy about the office block --no I wouldn't want to live there but it was an office building not a home. I appreciate the discussion. I do have that Eames chair you pictured. And I like it. On the whole I love what you are doing because it is about scale proportion, being human--that's what's important. There is another book you might want to look at--by Chris Alexander --Pattern Language. There are timeless ways of building but I also like that Gropius House.

[rweems]

Your comment on the role of the automobile in mid-20th century ‘design’ - you should (if haven’t already) explore the role of the late 1930’s to early 1950’s General Motors Streetcar Conspiracy. During this period GM colluded with urban bus line operators (who bought GM buses), Mack Truck, Firestone, Phillips Petroleum and SOCal to destroy the existing streetcar-mass transit systems & infrastructure and many small-gauge local rail systems that fed national rail connectivity within and around 25 large American cities, including St. Louis, Baltimore, DC, LA, & Oakland. Just consider the house designs you discussed in your video, and we all can take a look around our ‘exceptional‘ nation and observe the extreme impact that corporate collusion and greed had on our cities and the connectivity/relationship between the urban core and surrounding rural communities. Yes, in 1949 the companies were prosecuted for conspiracy to monopolize interstate commerce, but the damage had been done, stripping cities of a core public service and citizens of the accessible, affordable and familiar ability to get around town and forcing them to buy cars or pay Privately owned bus companies for what had been mostly publicly owned. The resulting impact today, on top of your criticism of residential ‘design’, is destroyed urban fabric for bigger roads, parking lots and cursed cross-city highways that were deliberately built through African-American neighborhoods (because ‘they could’ and Eisenhower sure liked the new American Autobahn). Add to this is increased siloing of various demographic groups, workers spending hours each week stuck in traffic, the increased power of Petroleum in the global economy and associated increase in power of certain Middle eastern countries, as well as resentment-driven terrorism. And let is not forget the elephant in the room - the burgeoning levels of internal combustion engine-generated CO2 and its role in global climate instability. I’d say that is an amazing level of accomplishment for a few corporate white guys in the 1940’s. I’m sure those guys are quite proud of their accomplishments. In my view there is a special place in hell reserved for those men, their companies and others like them.

[CheeseBae]

Brent, I'm not sure if you've read, "Ornament and Crime, " but if not you should because it was very influential among modernists in the early 20th century. Essentially, Adolph Loos shockingly argues that the more "civilized" you are, the less ornament you put on things. The opposite of civilized, to Loos, were the indigenous people of Papua New Guinea, and he talks about their tattoos, alleged cannibalism, and their tendency to ornament their belongings. Loos essentially says tattoos are ornament on the human body, and goes on to say anyone with tattoos is "a criminal or a degenerate." I find it strange that modernists reject ornament without even realizing the reason they stopped putting ornament on buildings was at least partially due to the racism, elitism, and Eurocentrism of a prejudiced Austrian guy who lived over 100 years ago. In fact, few of Loos' arguments are relevant nor make sense in the 21st century. His arguments about ornament appear to at least influenced the Nazis, as there is little to no ornament on Nazi architecture. In my opinion, it's past time to bring ornament back!

[cmusard]

The New Urbanists convene each year in a different American city. This year they are meeting in Charlotte

[slickmcCool]

You didn't have to do 7/11 so dirty, comparing it to that chapel.

[DesignEcologies]

Frank Gerry does Frank Gerry. He doesn’t do architecture