[Cupertino95014]

> the architect Walter Gropius, a well-known flat roofer and ostensibly Tessenow’s opposition, insisted “the question of whether a roof is flat or pitched is to be answered solely on the basis of practicality, technology, and efficiency.

hey Walter: have you heard of snow? It's known to fall in Berlin. Not so much in Jerusalem.

[intalentive]

>the question of whether a roof is flat or pitched is to be answered solely on the basis of practicality, technology, and efficiency

No. The aesthetic dimension to architecture is critical because buildings constitute our environment and affect our psychology and how we interact with one another.

Would you rather have lunch in a beautiful piazza in northern Italy, or in a purely functional American strip mall / parking lot?

Would you rather live in a cozy cottage in the Cotswolds, or in a commie block in Petrograd?

Should a courthouse reflect the majesty and seriousness of its purpose, or should it reflect the ridiculous dadaism of a peculiar architect?

Buildings are not merely functional and they are not merely art. They are the environment that conditions the daily experience of the community, and because of their persistence and constant action on the public mind, we should take care how they form a home for civic life.

[IncreasePosts]

So what? All you need to do is make sure the structure can support the weight of the added snow load. Which entirely falls under the rubric of "practicality, technology, and efficiency".

[octopoc]

How is it efficient to make design choices that increase the strain on the structure, forcing you to add extra strength that would not otherwise be necessary?

[IncreasePosts]

It wouldn't be efficient if the only thing a flat roof bought you was added strain. But, for the most part everything is a tradeoff. Maybe the practicality of extra floor or head space is worth increasing the strength of the structure.

[Cupertino95014]

> All you need to do is ...

That's not all you have to do. I'll let people who've owned houses in snowy climates amplify that.

In a building, water is your eternal enemy. Keeping it out of places where it doesn't belong accounts for a good part of the other things you have to do.

[IncreasePosts]

Well, I own a cabin in a location that gets 300+" of snowfall yearly. I'm pretty familiar with it.

I am also familiar with the climate of Berlin, where it barely snows, and when it does snow, it only very rarely accumulates.

[octopoc]

Practicality aside, another major controversial opinion of the Nazis was that buildings should be beautiful. There's a lot of ugly communist architecture in Europe that shows which side won the war.

[WalterBright]

They call it "Brutalism" for a reason. Soviet buildings often look like flak towers.

[cjbgkagh]

Brutalism - béton brut ("raw concrete") and art brut ("raw art") https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brutalist_architecture

Though the common modern understanding of it does lend itself to 'brute'. I think one of the real issues was the post WWII era of 1950s to 1980s was a time of focus on low cost construction with an overconfidence in the forgiving nature of concrete combined with a fair amount of corruption in the factory supplied components - at least in the UK which I'm more familiar with.

It can be done well, and I point to the Barbican in London as an example. With better construction techniques it can last a lot longer with less maintenance cost.

[trhway]

>Though the common modern understanding of it does lend itself to 'brute'.

English brute and French brut (raw) both seem to come from the Latin brutus.

[jcranmer]

> It can be done well, and I point to the Barbican in London as an example.

The brutalist-does-not-mean-ugly architecture I usually point to is the Washington Metro.

[Cupertino95014]

> I point to the Barbican in London

https://www.barbican.org.uk/our-story/architecture/our-build...

To me, this looks more like an East Berlin apartment building for the Communist Party elites. Not as ugly as the workers' buildings, but that's not saying much.

[Michelangelo11]

Yes, but that is not the reason:

> Brutalism is an architectural style of the 20th century that mainly uses concrete as a building material. The term "brutalism" comes from the French expression "béton brut", which means "raw concrete".

https://industrialkonzept.com/blogs/magazine/beton-brut-berl...

[WalterBright]

Looking like a prison, flak tower, or bomb shelter is certainly brutal!

[Michelangelo11]

Yes, but I mean the reason it's called "brutalism" isn't because the buildings look "brutal".

[aguaviva]

The socialists thought their architecture was beautiful as well -- both aesthetically, and because it was produced efficiently and served the needs of the people. And in fact they produced many perfectly fine and beautiful buildings, some of which are quite coveted residences today (such as the apartment complexes near Frankfurter Tor in Berlin).

Meanwhile pretty much the worst architecture you'll find anywhere would have to be the strip mall architecture (and most office complexes, and much suburban housing) created in the U.S. from the mid 1970s onwards (up until then it had at least some semblance of style). And now basically copy-pasta'd all over much of the world.

In my view it's arguably even uglier, because it symbolizes a system in which people thought they were more free, original and infinitely wealthier then their counterparts in the supposedly drab, miserable, totalitarian East. (It was all those things to some extent; and folks in the West were categorically more free -- just not nearly to the extent that they typically thought).

In fact, so deeply threatened were the new overlords in the West by the very idea that the socialist system could also produce beautiful and vibrant public spaces that they felt they just had to destroy one of its crowning achievements (the Palast der Republik, also in Berlin), and at a stupendously great cost -- and replace it with something basically garish, entirely fake (by design), and far less inviting and useful -- just to make a point.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankfurter_Tor

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palace_of_the_Republic,_Berlin

[Cupertino95014]

> the worst architecture you'll find anywhere would have to be the strip mall architecture

That's like asking which is worse: pancreatic cancer or Huntington's Chorea?

both pretty bad. Wouldn't want either.

[nosianu]

> In fact, so deeply threatened were the new overlords in the West by the very idea that the socialist system could also produce beautiful and vibrant public spaces that they felt they just had to destroy one of its crowning achievements (the Palast der Republik, also in Berlin)

Here is some background about the GDR Palast der Republik demolition. It's German, but Google can translate that page for you: https://www.berliner-zeitung.de/mensch-metropole/geschichte-... -- it's pretty interesting really, lots of details.

The GDR used 5000 tons of sprayed asbestos even though it had been banned since 1969 even in the GDR but they exempted this new project. That is why there had to be a huge asbestos removal project. It was sprayed directly onto the massive steel construction, so not easily removed. Only the bare steel shell remained at the end.

However, the argument is that they did not have to remove the Palast entirely and could have rebuild it after asbestos removal. I was inside as a GDR teenager, it sure was an impressive looking building. I'm not sure how political or technical the final decision to go ahead with its demolition was, too late now anyway, and I don't feel all that strongly about it even as ex GDR citizen. I think given that they had to pretty much completely dismantle the whole thing down to the steel skeleton makes it hard to fault them for going that one step further. The article I linked makes an argument that it should have been kept and used.

The articledoes point out though that three different Bundestag legislatures all overwhelmingly voted for the demolition, with three different sets of parliament compositions, so that it definitely was a democratic decision, and it came after lots and lot of public discussion. Even the article, voicing a different opinion, concedes that that was the case and that the democratic process was "exemplary".

That's why I think you should be careful using this example the way you did there, I don't think that the description of how that happened supports such a claim. One also has to point out that it was supported by plenty of people from the ex-GDR too, this wasn't dictated by the West Germans.

[aguaviva]

Well yeah I was being slightly polemic in my narrative, if you will. And of course there were varying opinions on all sides of the former border.

But being as the issue was decided by Bundestag, that would mean it was ultimately decided by Wessis, by definition. Largely on the basis of it a "symbol of the Dictatorship" (and as a snub to Gysi) and all that. And as far as public opinion in the East was concerned -- I don't know if it's the last word on the matter, but we do have this one poll result at least:

   Nach einer Umfrage der Zeitschrift «Super Illu» lehnen 60 Prozent der befragten Ostdeutschen einen Palast-Abriss ab, weil damit «wieder ein Stück DDR-Geschichte plattgemacht wird». Zugleich sprach sich die Mehrheit aber für eine dauerhafte Grünfläche anstelle der historischen Schlossfassade aus. Befragt worden waren 1005 Menschen in den neuen Ländern. (tso/dpa)

https://www.tagesspiegel.de/berlin/bundestag-stimmt-endgulti...

[nosianu]

> Zeitschrift «Super Illu»

That tabloid is hardly representative!

[aguaviva]

Right, but as the matter was never put for the locals to vote on (either through the Senat or directly) that's all we have to go on.

[vintermann]

The modernists were pretty close with the fascists, though.

[Maiestatis]

"major controversial opinion of the Nazis was that buildings should be beautiful"

That's not controversial my friend. They should absolutely be beautiful. This is a belief that has been held for thousands of years up until the advent of the late 20th century.

[throwup238]

> This is a belief that has been held for thousands of years up until the advent of the late 20th century.

The belief has held through to today, too. The difference is that there was a huge explosion in the global population - especially the middle class - to the point that all the crappy houses and apartment buildings people could actually afford to live in vastly overwhelmed the buildings with pretty architecture.

[lupusreal]

In this rare case, downvotes have actually proved somebody wrong. The value of beauty actually is controversial!

[oseityphelysiol]

Look up stalinist architecture if you think communists can’t build beautiful buildings. For peak capitalism, look no further than Art Deco. My point is that this is a difference between pre-war and post-war construction and is seen in all regions, across all political ideologies and economic systems. The ugly communist buildings you speak of were born out of necessity, due to chronic shortage of housing, a rise in fertility and urbanisation on a scale never seen before, much the same way as the urban catastrophe that is suburbs in the US.

[Cupertino95014]

No. They liked it that way, and thought "beauty" was bourgeois.