This article is so long and I feel like it has absolutely nothing to say; constantly reiterating itself, with no actual analysis about why the world is like this today. No real hypothesis about...
This article is so long and I feel like it has absolutely nothing to say; constantly reiterating itself, with no actual analysis about why the world is like this today. No real hypothesis about why this might be, just droning on and on; yes, we know everything looks samey and bland, what about it?
Maybe I'm being too harsh, but I feel like we could have at least suggested a reason for this. Like, maybe everything is so bland and boring because Corporatists are afraid to alienate a potential source of income, so they dumb everything down and bland everything up in the hopes it might appeal to everyone.
What's our solution to this? I feel like we can still find unique and interesting things that haven't been researched and data-driven to death, but you have to get out of your comfort zone and actually go look for them. I feel like the author of this article says that they want the grit and grime of the city and I get that, but have they actually gone and looked for it or are they part of the problem and just stick to what they know because it's comfortable?
All around my city we have strange, gritty places to go, even just a restaurant that's not a Qdoba; I can go to a cramped, maximalist Ramen restaurant, a sparsely decorated, smelly Korean dumpling place, a dimly lit, family style Ethiopian restaurant and grocery store and on and on. I can hit up the thrift store that obviously used to be a Safeway, the Korean grocery store with grimy floors and a stinky, fresh seafood counter, with live lobsters, crabs, geoduck and on.
Again, maybe I'm being too harsh and I welcome a new perspective, as perhaps I've misread (and I've been notoriously crabby this week...), but I feel the author rants on and on for six pages which could have been a few paragraphs, saying nothing new or interesting.
To be honest, my first reaction to the article was similar -- it seemed to be all complaint with no takeaway. Something about the writing, though, stuck with me. I think it's because the author...
To be honest, my first reaction to the article was similar -- it seemed to be all complaint with no takeaway.
Something about the writing, though, stuck with me. I think it's because the author made me feel something about the space I live in that I hadn't really put my finger on in a while. Like, yes, of course, gentrification bad, but it's like the clothes you wear -- you stop noticing them after a while. The writing is fairly poetic, I think.
I'm kind of impressed to see a lot of the comments on this post, though (and perhaps yours as well!) coming from people who seem to have really spent time with these ideas already. If you're habitually paying attention, maybe all that writing is just beating a horse that died for you a while back.
At any rate, I value your perspective; the idea that
you have to get out of your comfort zone and actually go look for them
is probably the real moral of the story, and I kind of wish, now, that the authors had taken us there.
A vivid portrayal of the "cardboard modernism" of modern city life and consumer goods. The article can perhaps be faulted for selling its point too hard, but the writing has enough color in it to...
A vivid portrayal of the "cardboard modernism" of modern city life and consumer goods. The article can perhaps be faulted for selling its point too hard, but the writing has enough color in it to make up for its drab subject:
The Josh’s steel railings are gray, and its plastic window sashes are a slightly clashing shade of gray. Inside, the floors are made of gray TimberCore, and the walls are painted an abject post-beige that interior designers call greige but is in fact just gray. Gray suffuses life beyond architecture: television, corporate logos, product packaging, clothes for babies, direct-to-consumer toothbrushes.
Economic, social, and aesthetic forces all seem allied in the quest toward visual blandness and disposable mediocrity:
It occurs to us, strolling past a pair of broken BuzzFeed Shopping–approved AirPods, that the new ugliness has beset us from both above and below. Many of the aesthetic qualities pioneered by low-interest-rate-era construction — genericism, non-ornamentation, shoddy reproducibility — have trickled down into other realms, even as other principles, unleashed concurrently by Apple’s slick industrial-design hegemon, have trickled up. In the middle, all that is solid melts into sameness, such that smart home devices resemble the buildings they surveil, which in turn look like the computers on which they were algorithmically engineered, which resemble the desks on which they sit, which, like the sofas at the coworking space around the corner, put the mid in fake midcentury modern.
As a recent transplant to a gentrified area of an American city, I feel this article viscerally. I'm wondering if anyone in a similar situation has managed to find an oasis in the desert?
There aren’t any pictures in this article are there? Or maybe they aren’t loading so apologies if I’m off base - I’m definitely not an interior design person but I’m a bit confused by the headline...
There aren’t any pictures in this article are there? Or maybe they aren’t loading so apologies if I’m off base - I’m definitely not an interior design person but I’m a bit confused by the headline using mid century modern and then describing so many grays, cold, stale, dull etc items.
Midcentury modern is more focused on earthy tones mixed with pops of color, natural fibers, etc. I don’t picture gray at all when someone says it and would say it leaned more warm than cold. Maybe that’s just me though.
Brutalism, specifically the Tropicalism variation, is my preferred panacea. All the joys of sleek concrete and modernism, softened by verdure and the disruption of uniformity by integrated...
Brutalism, specifically the Tropicalism variation, is my preferred panacea. All the joys of sleek concrete and modernism, softened by verdure and the disruption of uniformity by integrated greenery, but I'm partial as it's something of the national style in Brazil. Here's an article in English with some pictures, and you can find more by searching google or such for arquitetura tropical.
I personally enjoy decorating in the 'maximalism' style as an answer to bland, disposable looking everything. It's a great (albeit over-the-top) way to incorporate thrifted, gifted, and cheap...
I personally enjoy decorating in the 'maximalism' style as an answer to bland, disposable looking everything. It's a great (albeit over-the-top) way to incorporate thrifted, gifted, and cheap necessity furnishings into a cohesive and wildly personal living space.
My wife decorates our home in a maximalist style and I really do love it. Vibrant colors in our living room, bookshelves with irregular books, heaps of art and photos, weird paint colors on every...
My wife decorates our home in a maximalist style and I really do love it. Vibrant colors in our living room, bookshelves with irregular books, heaps of art and photos, weird paint colors on every wall. I do very much love it.
She sounds talented! I love living surrounded by my interests. I have stained glass lamps, scifi posters, a sheep-shaped ottoman and too much leopard print. It feels comfortable and exciting at...
She sounds talented! I love living surrounded by my interests. I have stained glass lamps, scifi posters, a sheep-shaped ottoman and too much leopard print. It feels comfortable and exciting at the same time, i love it haha
E- im not, like, THAT interested in sheep.. theyre just very cute. Reread and thought id clarify lol
I haven't read through the entire article yet but I'm really feeling it so far too. I had shared some thoughts on minimalism in general a while back that I think apply particularly to my taste in...
I haven't read through the entire article yet but I'm really feeling it so far too. I had shared some thoughts on minimalism in general a while back that I think apply particularly to my taste in design. I'm glad that I am not the only one who feels that it reflects some degree of temporariness and relates it to the fact that fewer and fewer people actually own the places in which they live.
This is just a layman observation and a feeling, not something I can really back up, but across many cultures and eras it seems to me that the most valued stuff was generally intricate and colourful. To me going the opposite way feels more imposed by 'practicality' or circumstance at this point. Of course, I realize everyone has different sensibilities, but more visible buildings and spaces really are becoming dominated by fewer people and wouldn't that lead to some degree of inescapable homogeneity?
For me the antidote to this is to get out into nature, which... is not super ideal, I think, because the problem is a human problem and it'd be nicer to fix it in-place than feel the need to escape it. Still, just seeing something other than straight lines everywhere can lift the cloud a bit.
This article is so long and I feel like it has absolutely nothing to say; constantly reiterating itself, with no actual analysis about why the world is like this today. No real hypothesis about why this might be, just droning on and on; yes, we know everything looks samey and bland, what about it?
Maybe I'm being too harsh, but I feel like we could have at least suggested a reason for this. Like, maybe everything is so bland and boring because Corporatists are afraid to alienate a potential source of income, so they dumb everything down and bland everything up in the hopes it might appeal to everyone.
What's our solution to this? I feel like we can still find unique and interesting things that haven't been researched and data-driven to death, but you have to get out of your comfort zone and actually go look for them. I feel like the author of this article says that they want the grit and grime of the city and I get that, but have they actually gone and looked for it or are they part of the problem and just stick to what they know because it's comfortable?
All around my city we have strange, gritty places to go, even just a restaurant that's not a Qdoba; I can go to a cramped, maximalist Ramen restaurant, a sparsely decorated, smelly Korean dumpling place, a dimly lit, family style Ethiopian restaurant and grocery store and on and on. I can hit up the thrift store that obviously used to be a Safeway, the Korean grocery store with grimy floors and a stinky, fresh seafood counter, with live lobsters, crabs, geoduck and on.
Again, maybe I'm being too harsh and I welcome a new perspective, as perhaps I've misread (and I've been notoriously crabby this week...), but I feel the author rants on and on for six pages which could have been a few paragraphs, saying nothing new or interesting.
To be honest, my first reaction to the article was similar -- it seemed to be all complaint with no takeaway.
Something about the writing, though, stuck with me. I think it's because the author made me feel something about the space I live in that I hadn't really put my finger on in a while. Like, yes, of course, gentrification bad, but it's like the clothes you wear -- you stop noticing them after a while. The writing is fairly poetic, I think.
I'm kind of impressed to see a lot of the comments on this post, though (and perhaps yours as well!) coming from people who seem to have really spent time with these ideas already. If you're habitually paying attention, maybe all that writing is just beating a horse that died for you a while back.
At any rate, I value your perspective; the idea that
is probably the real moral of the story, and I kind of wish, now, that the authors had taken us there.
A vivid portrayal of the "cardboard modernism" of modern city life and consumer goods. The article can perhaps be faulted for selling its point too hard, but the writing has enough color in it to make up for its drab subject:
Economic, social, and aesthetic forces all seem allied in the quest toward visual blandness and disposable mediocrity:
As a recent transplant to a gentrified area of an American city, I feel this article viscerally. I'm wondering if anyone in a similar situation has managed to find an oasis in the desert?
There aren’t any pictures in this article are there? Or maybe they aren’t loading so apologies if I’m off base - I’m definitely not an interior design person but I’m a bit confused by the headline using mid century modern and then describing so many grays, cold, stale, dull etc items.
Midcentury modern is more focused on earthy tones mixed with pops of color, natural fibers, etc. I don’t picture gray at all when someone says it and would say it leaned more warm than cold. Maybe that’s just me though.
Brutalism, specifically the Tropicalism variation, is my preferred panacea. All the joys of sleek concrete and modernism, softened by verdure and the disruption of uniformity by integrated greenery, but I'm partial as it's something of the national style in Brazil. Here's an article in English with some pictures, and you can find more by searching google or such for
arquitetura tropical.None of the images in the article are loading for me
I personally enjoy decorating in the 'maximalism' style as an answer to bland, disposable looking everything. It's a great (albeit over-the-top) way to incorporate thrifted, gifted, and cheap necessity furnishings into a cohesive and wildly personal living space.
My wife decorates our home in a maximalist style and I really do love it. Vibrant colors in our living room, bookshelves with irregular books, heaps of art and photos, weird paint colors on every wall. I do very much love it.
She sounds talented! I love living surrounded by my interests. I have stained glass lamps, scifi posters, a sheep-shaped ottoman and too much leopard print. It feels comfortable and exciting at the same time, i love it haha
E- im not, like, THAT interested in sheep.. theyre just very cute. Reread and thought id clarify lol
I haven't read through the entire article yet but I'm really feeling it so far too. I had shared some thoughts on minimalism in general a while back that I think apply particularly to my taste in design. I'm glad that I am not the only one who feels that it reflects some degree of temporariness and relates it to the fact that fewer and fewer people actually own the places in which they live.
This is just a layman observation and a feeling, not something I can really back up, but across many cultures and eras it seems to me that the most valued stuff was generally intricate and colourful. To me going the opposite way feels more imposed by 'practicality' or circumstance at this point. Of course, I realize everyone has different sensibilities, but more visible buildings and spaces really are becoming dominated by fewer people and wouldn't that lead to some degree of inescapable homogeneity?
For me the antidote to this is to get out into nature, which... is not super ideal, I think, because the problem is a human problem and it'd be nicer to fix it in-place than feel the need to escape it. Still, just seeing something other than straight lines everywhere can lift the cloud a bit.
Call Jerry Saltz because this headline is a work of art.
Perfect headline, I ask myself this every time I see a new block of flats or big glass hotel get slapped up