Not as much has changed in Europe. These cultural values of beautifying your surroundings never went away. It's America that is incredibly utilitarian in contrast. It is amazing the ugliness we are used to.
> Not as much has changed in Europe. These cultural values of beautifying your surroundings never went away.
With regard to the GP’s remark, I noticed this with fast food places in the United States. McDonalds there seem to have a much lower level of cleanliness than in parts of Europe. I assumed that running a McDonalds franchise is completely systematized: corporate gives you a series of three-ring binders that tells you exactly how clean everything must be, but if that is so, then enforcement still differs from country to country.
Furthermore, US McDonalds were often staffed by unattractive people (the disturbingly obese or the merely unphotogenic), while in Eastern Europe – whether due to lax laws or the specifics of the labor market – McDonalds often hires fairly nubile young women.
The market positioning is different; remember that the first McDonalds to open in the USSR had queues round the block. Those staff probably weren't born when the USSR existed. But the value of American coolness still remains. As does the value of "keeping up appearances" in public.
> McDonalds there seem to have a much lower level of cleanliness than in parts of Europe
Some McDonalds I have been to in Europe were a whole dirtier than the ones I have frequented at home in New Zealand, but I put that down to frequenting the extremely high traffic tourist mcds rather than the normal traffic suburban restaurants.
Being utilitarian is being beautiful. When I look at the Brooklyn Bridge, I feel the same sense of aesthetics I would get from Roman aqueducts.
The problem of some American architecture is not that they are too utilitarian - it's that they stopped being utilitarian in search of some nebulous artistic merit.
The Brooklyn Bridge is utilitarian, but also constructed with an eye to aesthetics and beauty. Contrast it with your typical highway overpass.
The same thing applies to the aqueducts, by the way. Sure, they were engineering projects, but they were constructed with an eye towards elegance and beauty.
Want to see a purely utilitarian aqueduct? Look up the Acqua Felice, built to restore Rome's water supply in the 16th century after a thousand years of interruption. Sure, it did the job, but it's much uglier than the old Roman aqueduct right next to it.
Now, modern buildings aren't just ugly because they focus entirely on function (like the Acqua Felice) -- they're intentionally and deliberately ugly and inhuman. Modern architecture is awful.
It’s worth noting that when you look at 2000 year old buildings, you’re generally looking at stuff that both lasted 2000 years, so was probably of fairly high end construction, and that survived 2000 years without someone saying “we should pull that down and build an office block”. A lot of the stuff that didn’t survive mightn’t be so inspiring, and after the stuff around at the moment goes through the same filter, in the 40th century people may marvel at how amazing 20th century architecture was!
Unless it is actively preserved for the entire duration I doubt any modern concrete building will survive 2000 years. Brickwork may last that long, depending on the quality of the masonry. There is definitely some selection bias with ancient architecture, the buildings built to stand forever are the ones that have stood forever.
I wonder how granular people will look at this period of history in 2000 years. Just like how we tend to lump a period of half a millennium together as “roman times” people in 4000 ad might consider a 17th century cathedral and a 21st century court house to be from the same era.
It’s because we are new. America doesn’t have any domainant original cultural memory. Our edifices are second hand European. Every other place from Rome or India or Caucasus have had invasions and migrations and intermingling of cultures etc that paint everything in vibrant shades.
I would imagine colonization happened for economic gain with the colonists benefiting. The colonized population were likely still governed by the locals who were controlled by the colonizers.
For example, India was a colony of Britain. All trade was diverted to Britain to benefit them. The great famine of bengal for example was because farmers had to grow and send cotton to England rather than grow food for Indians. The economic activities were controlled by the colonizers armed forces.
The British colonized India. The Moghals invaded India. Alexander, The Great...for example..tried to invade India, but had to retreat. It’s usually done with armies vs colonizations that is through trade.
An invasion is when a military moved in and took over the government. The invaded country became the de facto territory of the invaders. And the invaded people have to live by the rule of the invaders. Example: Georgia was invaded by mongols and the Turks and then Russia. Each time, it became part of the other’s empire.
The US was colonized with entire family units being uprooted and moved, and little cultural and marriage intermingling, sometimes by law.
Mexico and Central/South America instead starting as a military venture with mostly men raping/“marrying” the native women and having children that way.
I suppose the main difference is that the colonization of the US was an invasion that was so successful that native Americans living there before were almost exterminated(being today less than 1% of the US population) and as a result nobody cares about them anymore.
Usually invaders, like Alexander the Great, Tariq ibn Ziyad , Kublai Kan, Hernán Cortés or Napoleon will kill opposition(mostly males) but leave women and children and men who don't oppose them.
That means most of the society remains the same after the invaders take control of power, and grant special privileges to themselves, like owning the best land or having sex with the local women.
In the US, they never mixed with local population, they just expelled them of fertile soil until they died from starvation, illnesses or fights.
I'm not sure I understand how native Americans are unrelated to the topic at hand. They still exist, and there are still thousand year old villages in the US and Mexico.
A United States where a significant fraction of the Native population had survived, intermingled, and developed their own 20th-century culture and architecture on a significant scale would be very different.
With regard to the GP’s remark, I noticed this with fast food places in the United States. McDonalds there seem to have a much lower level of cleanliness than in parts of Europe. I assumed that running a McDonalds franchise is completely systematized: corporate gives you a series of three-ring binders that tells you exactly how clean everything must be, but if that is so, then enforcement still differs from country to country.
Furthermore, US McDonalds were often staffed by unattractive people (the disturbingly obese or the merely unphotogenic), while in Eastern Europe – whether due to lax laws or the specifics of the labor market – McDonalds often hires fairly nubile young women.