Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by demosito666 395 days ago
Aesthetics is objective as long as we’re talking from casual perspective, which is always the case for infrastructure and buildings unless we’re at architecture summit. 90% of people would agree that Amsterdam or Paris city center is more beautiful and pleasant to be in than modernist hellscape at outskirts of Soviet cities. And therefore 90% of the buildings should be built with this in mind, when feasible, because it directly affects wellbeing of humans. Weathered concrete finish is nice in art house movies and in hipster bars, in everyday life it’s ugly and depressing on large scale objects for most people. The rest 10% would be perfect for modernism/functionalism/brutalism, but unfortunately proportions are reversed today. This is of course more subtle for pure infrastructure like bridges or highway interchanges, but the general principle still applies.
1 comments

Weathered concrete finish is ugly if the architect that designed it made it look ugly.

Coincidentally, the same applies to a painted mural or whatever finish you are pushing for.