Why Architecture Today Lacks Character

I asked my old boss on a large downtown construction site why modern buildings are emotionless blocks, while older buildings are full of character. He responded that in the past material was expensive, but labour was cheap. So you could afford the labour hours to work the material onsite to make it beautiful. Today labour is relatively expensive, and material is cheap. So you need to work it fast onsite without much compensation. Best explanation I've heard yet.

It would be nice for architecture to have ornamentation. Old buildings have interesting things to look at meanwhile modern they just are plain white walls or glass facade.

Nice video. I design buildings for video games and giving them character is so important. Selecting and recomposing the right elements is what it's all about.

The built environment is intrinsically linked to our economic system. So we can theorise as much as we want about what character is and how to bring it back, but at the end of the day when developers pumping out cheap new builds trumps the careful designs of architects, character will stay gone. I do appreciate your insight though, and I will be adding the people you mentioned to my ever growing reading list 😅

This captures some of my quips with current day architecture but not all. A lot of it is utterly soulless in my eyes, even the 'depressing' brutalist architecture has character, albeit not one that's often looked at favourably, the cheap copy-pasted tiramisu blocks (as I like to call them) or glass towers are completely detached spaces from our environment. The worst part comes when they replace local heritage - erasing and masking history, character, destroying aesthetics and the nearby environment. In the middle of the most lively areas, you get these 'empty' spaces that seemingly don't even look like they're made for humans. There's a plague of people trying to liken any budding urban area to look like the most 'successful' global giants to attract investors and, in general, be more like them, vainly trying to imitate prestige while destroying what the city actually has. This might be a different case in USA but it still is at the heart of this issue, even if in its own style. Of course, an argument can be made that because we're living through it it feels so poignant and that bad architecture is just bad architecture, but there is still something to be said about how in the end it's mostly about money, whether materials, design or permits; overall consumerist economy and its values which are held by the ones shaping our world against us. It is almost astonishing how we manage to build and yet not create but destroy in the process leaving ourselves with wasteland far too costly in the name of profit for the very few.

Imagine if the only music available was made by people with at least a masters in music theory. It's obvious this would destroy the vitality of music in the world. This is what has happened to architecture. It was once learned through apprenticeships, world travel and experience. It's now taught in academic settings where careerist professors use students to promote their work and develop ever more self-referential fads - deconstructivism, phenomenology, biomimicry, etc. Return to the sensual and intuitive, and character will follow.

I'm a chemist who likes working in AutoCAD. Recently I projected an industry entirely in hexagons, that was beautiful, but was not funded. One day, these designs will be found and either my geniality or absolut arrogance will be revealed. Woderful video profesor.

I feel like I have to point out that even a lot of those classical designs were absolutely awful, and their monolithic scale is the thing that saves them. That water building looked like it was built out of children's building blocks. I understand that architects have their own culture of nods and Easter eggs and references but the rest of us don't live in that world, and have to walk past countless awful concrete grey cubes (or if we're lucky, awful piles of random shapes) on our way to work, triggering an unpleasant part of the brain each and every day until we vehemently hate these stale, unintricate, ungilded blocks, rectangles and triangles. I can't believe how architects look back at the architecture of Paris with admiration, and then immediately begin work on horrible projects that this city is a refuge from. I know, I know, subjective, subjective, just my opinion, life is relative, love is just chemicals in your brain, get back in your box, etc, etc. All I'm saying is that the universal hatred of modern architecture is probably a reason for architects to stop pushing the medium to impress each other and make something that's actually nice for everyone to look at for once

Your introduction reminds me of when I was telling my girlfriend that I liked cars with character, and her response was that as far as she could tell from my car preferences, "character" was another way of saying "there are things wrong with it".

"What gives buildings character?" Usually everything and anything that's there on top/besides of the utility and usability considerations. (In the context of architecture) "Character" is a feature denomination. Not a value statement. "Character" is "this thing has something extra about it besides the required minimum for it to fulfill its utility as best as it can". The value judgement is in whether someone considers a character of a specific thing to be good/bad.

Look at any of the architecture in rural England and you will see so much character and soul that is devoid in modern architecture. Old architecture took it's surroundings into consideration, using the materials found in that area such as wood, slate or granite, and built in a way that blends with its environment by focussing on colour, landscaping and the foliage around it. Modern architects are more concerned with shapes, form and impressing each other than they are designing places that people can live or will want to look at on a daily basis. No one sees a 16th century cottage in England and says "that's ugly".

When I studied architecture in the 90ties in Cologne, I allways wonder why my professors loved Le Cobusier and his work. It was just brutal without a heart. I loved to watch the great "Kölner Dom" instead.

I understood a part of character to just be honesty and craftsmanship. Visibility of technique and purpose. Compare a fire stove with floor heating. Or a plastered wall with brick/sandstone. Or a flat ceiling with an arch or beams. Or timber framing. You recognize the purpose of the object and use it as an aesthetic device, not hide it or fake it. And perhaps the visibly handmade nature of something also makes it have character. I suppose you could design the most quirky building, it will not be comparable if you build it once with drywall and once from sandstone. Material matters, and I am not sure that it is merely a matter of traditionalism and conservatism that we perceive some materials as more valuable than others. There has to be more to it.

I feel like part of the problem is people keep trying to change nature to fit their vision, instead of changing their vision to fit nature.

Houses in movies. There's a topic. How many sci fi movies use FLW buildings or his style for sets? Which Wright buildings would you use to illustrate these 3 character types?

I'm a 14 year old who had the sudden dream go build houses last night. So happy to find this channel! It's a well researched analysis 👌

As an architectural student, this character thing is something very hard to express, because it's intangible. What's also hard is to relate it to the programs, systems, and functions. . My professor encourage us to look outside architecture; like philosophy, history, art, politics, etc.

11/10 would watch again

I'm an international student and have been struggling with those ideas of architecture history. I did not get how did they get into those ideas even try to rewatch lecture videos several times. But this video totally gives me a sense of architecture history. Thank you so much for your video and I'm going to send this to my friends.

It’s my first time seeing this guy and I subscribed 5 seconds in because: 1. I’m building my own house soon 2. I’m interested in architecture in general 3. I like his mustache