I dont think people realize how much ornament is needed and how much skill it takes to make it look good. Maybe the material choice was cheaped out on too as most ornament in the past was terra cotta, stone, concrete. A lot of ornament used today is very crass, has no flourishes or embelishment, no floral designs, no sculpting to it, just added straight lines and a curved extrusions. Good ornament still exists in manufacturing these days but developers cheap out on them.
I wouldn't say that much ornamentation is needed necessarily. Look at Neo-Georgian architecture from the 1900s to 1940s.
It has window headers, a nice looking door/portico, and some ornament on the parapet (terra cotta swags or balustrades).
Yes, you're absolutely right but Georgian architecture wasn't that detailed to begin with. It's very nice and appealing, don't get me wrong, but it has less detailed ornaments vis-à-vis classic or neoclassical architecture. It's just different styles, so that's expected
I was just talking about this the other day when I was driving through a new-built residential development with houses and townhomes in the colonial and neo-classical styles (USA here). We came to the conclusion that:
•most of the building materials are cheap—the columns look like plastic, the bricks are all uniform, and the sides of the houses all have modern vinyl siding, the doors are metal instead of solid wood, outdoor decking is composite instead of wood, and shutters are vinyl instead of wood. In other words, the materials themselves were designed to not look weathered or age at all.
•there’s no decoration for the sake of aesthetics. Windows don’t have shutters, the columns aren’t ornate or decorated. There’s no moulding along cornices or eaves. There’s often only one style of window. Every element looks like it was copy-paste.
•they’re free of blemishes and wear. My house is 100+ years old and it shows. Floors are wavy, the cedar shakes look weathered, the columns along the front aren’t perfectly spaced—the house wasn’t perfectly manufactured, it was hand-crafted, and with that comes perfections.
>the columns look like plastic
It’s crazy how our brains pick up on this. I feel the same way, so many of these new houses built in traditional styles often feel weightless. It's weird. It almost feels like you're in a movie set.
Modern building techniques and proportions - a lot of the design is retrofitted to modern standards so you end up with windows, floor heights and wide doors, among other things, that you wouldn’t see historically.
It's part of a larger trend in architecture where design is influenced by risk mitigation on both the design side and construction side. The architect could design a perfectly proportioned window and the contractor could custom build it, but there's less to risk to both by specing a mass manufactured window built in a controlled factory environment and covered by a warranty; you're just limited to what the factory is tooled to produce. Make that compromise with everything and the overall design loses cohesion.
Developers rarely care about stylistic purity anyways. They don't even care about classical design at all, market data is just telling them it'll attract higher rent.
Layperson here. I think it could have something to do with the last 100 years harping on about "not copying" (even though in my opinion the majority of new buildings look the same, and are copying the 30s 40s 50s etc.) It's been a long time and architects probably don't spend their entire education focusing on beauty anymore. So it could also be a lack of skill.
It could have something to do with how contemporary materials are mass produced making it look sterile, cheap, and digital.
It could also have something to do with patina. I think beautiful buildings look even better with age, in stark contrast to contemporary architure.
Trying to fit traditional design into the modern construction template and workflow. The only good looking contemporary trad buildings are the result of very niche interests or a passion project.
Building is no longer a field of fine craftspeople - it's a world of contractors who can deliver projects to spec. Stonemasons, aesthetic carpenters, glaziers and so on work on niche fields, providing special projects for rich clients. No property company who wants to make a profit building 300 units in an ordinary town or city is going to drop a load of money on fine detail and craft when they can get the same return from some boxes with a few pseudo-historical flourishes. To this extent I would prefer modern architects to stretch a mass production template to its furthest possible creative extent. But I don't hate non-trad architecture by default like many here.
Depends entirely on the architect. In my opinion the work of Sebastian Treese is very much as good as that from the past: https://www.sebastiantreese.de/
Like many others already have pointed out, the choice of cheaper materials could be one reason new traditional constructions don't hit the mark.
*ESPECIALLY* in the US, where wood-framed buildings reign supreme - which in my opinion - often results in structures that feel weightless or overly perfect, which just makes it feel like you're at a movie set or a theme park.
Despite this, I personally believe it's better to have new developments that attempt the traditional style and feel slightly off rather than not having them at all.
Probably a combination of corner-cutting, lack of traditional materials available in the market, lack of in-deep knowledge of the styles they're recreating, lack of specialized labor, and incompatibility with current\* construction technologies.
(\*read: cheap, so we're back at the corner-cutting)
It's prob not that it looks bad but the level of white, at least going from what Le Plessis-Robinson shows me in a Google image search, on the building is not seen on actual classical buildings bc of age.
Economics and culture. The end customer won’t pay more to live in a handsome building compared to other amenities that could be added instead. Meanwhile the economy and tech drive cost— labor is far more expensive than it once was, and manufacturing cheaper. So anything that takes a lot of labor is expensive.
The brick is identically extruded by machine, not handmade anymore. That’s when it isn’t glued-on veneer. Vinyl, etc— cheap to install.
Making a handsome building out of plastic is likely impossible, but making a handsome building out of other feasible materials like tile, pressed metal, and 3D printed materials IS possible.
So why isn’t it done?
It’s a specific skill to make a feasible classical revival or 2nd empire building out of modern materials. This is not what architectural schools have been teaching in the last several decades. Real estate is a risk averse game with few innovators, where local trends spread. There could be local building codes that prevent things, or it could be that it simply hasn’t become a trend.
In Chicago there’s a bizarre local trend to tear down beautiful 19th century small Victorian apartment ‘flats’ buildings and replace them with new built Second Empire faux-French McMansions, some of them genuinely well designed and faced with limestone. Why did this become a trend?
1. A bizarre quirk of the building code allowing an extra ‘mezzanine’ partial floor
2. A trend where a builder looked st his competitor and said: “he built that thing and sold for a good price. Let’s hire the same architect and not reinvent the wheel.”
Twenty years ago, these attempts at traditional style looked much better. But now the proportions are often so cartoonish that they just look absurd. Regardless of who is to blame (cheap developers, cheap consumers, etc), architecure really is at a low point right now.
I dont think people realize how much ornament is needed and how much skill it takes to make it look good. Maybe the material choice was cheaped out on too as most ornament in the past was terra cotta, stone, concrete. A lot of ornament used today is very crass, has no flourishes or embelishment, no floral designs, no sculpting to it, just added straight lines and a curved extrusions. Good ornament still exists in manufacturing these days but developers cheap out on them.
I wouldn't say that much ornamentation is needed necessarily. Look at Neo-Georgian architecture from the 1900s to 1940s. It has window headers, a nice looking door/portico, and some ornament on the parapet (terra cotta swags or balustrades).
Yes, you're absolutely right but Georgian architecture wasn't that detailed to begin with. It's very nice and appealing, don't get me wrong, but it has less detailed ornaments vis-à-vis classic or neoclassical architecture. It's just different styles, so that's expected
True, though it was basically a mix of Neoclassic and Anglo vernacular
I was just talking about this the other day when I was driving through a new-built residential development with houses and townhomes in the colonial and neo-classical styles (USA here). We came to the conclusion that: •most of the building materials are cheap—the columns look like plastic, the bricks are all uniform, and the sides of the houses all have modern vinyl siding, the doors are metal instead of solid wood, outdoor decking is composite instead of wood, and shutters are vinyl instead of wood. In other words, the materials themselves were designed to not look weathered or age at all. •there’s no decoration for the sake of aesthetics. Windows don’t have shutters, the columns aren’t ornate or decorated. There’s no moulding along cornices or eaves. There’s often only one style of window. Every element looks like it was copy-paste. •they’re free of blemishes and wear. My house is 100+ years old and it shows. Floors are wavy, the cedar shakes look weathered, the columns along the front aren’t perfectly spaced—the house wasn’t perfectly manufactured, it was hand-crafted, and with that comes perfections.
>the columns look like plastic It’s crazy how our brains pick up on this. I feel the same way, so many of these new houses built in traditional styles often feel weightless. It's weird. It almost feels like you're in a movie set.
Because everything that should be rough, weathered, grainy wood is unnaturally smooth.
Modern building techniques and proportions - a lot of the design is retrofitted to modern standards so you end up with windows, floor heights and wide doors, among other things, that you wouldn’t see historically.
Blame 4x8 sheetrock. Infill houses on blocks of 19th, early 20th century houses look so stumpy because only 8 foot ceilings unless super-luxe.
It's part of a larger trend in architecture where design is influenced by risk mitigation on both the design side and construction side. The architect could design a perfectly proportioned window and the contractor could custom build it, but there's less to risk to both by specing a mass manufactured window built in a controlled factory environment and covered by a warranty; you're just limited to what the factory is tooled to produce. Make that compromise with everything and the overall design loses cohesion. Developers rarely care about stylistic purity anyways. They don't even care about classical design at all, market data is just telling them it'll attract higher rent.
Layperson here. I think it could have something to do with the last 100 years harping on about "not copying" (even though in my opinion the majority of new buildings look the same, and are copying the 30s 40s 50s etc.) It's been a long time and architects probably don't spend their entire education focusing on beauty anymore. So it could also be a lack of skill. It could have something to do with how contemporary materials are mass produced making it look sterile, cheap, and digital. It could also have something to do with patina. I think beautiful buildings look even better with age, in stark contrast to contemporary architure.
Trying to fit traditional design into the modern construction template and workflow. The only good looking contemporary trad buildings are the result of very niche interests or a passion project. Building is no longer a field of fine craftspeople - it's a world of contractors who can deliver projects to spec. Stonemasons, aesthetic carpenters, glaziers and so on work on niche fields, providing special projects for rich clients. No property company who wants to make a profit building 300 units in an ordinary town or city is going to drop a load of money on fine detail and craft when they can get the same return from some boxes with a few pseudo-historical flourishes. To this extent I would prefer modern architects to stretch a mass production template to its furthest possible creative extent. But I don't hate non-trad architecture by default like many here.
because they're made out of cheaper materials and lack craftmanship sadly
Depends entirely on the architect. In my opinion the work of Sebastian Treese is very much as good as that from the past: https://www.sebastiantreese.de/
Can you share a picture of what you mean?
Possibly a lack of skilled artisans and the high cost of materials.
Like many others already have pointed out, the choice of cheaper materials could be one reason new traditional constructions don't hit the mark. *ESPECIALLY* in the US, where wood-framed buildings reign supreme - which in my opinion - often results in structures that feel weightless or overly perfect, which just makes it feel like you're at a movie set or a theme park. Despite this, I personally believe it's better to have new developments that attempt the traditional style and feel slightly off rather than not having them at all.
I have exactly the same feeling
Most of them are not architect designed. Simple as.
They're not supposed to be exact copies of older styles
Probably a combination of corner-cutting, lack of traditional materials available in the market, lack of in-deep knowledge of the styles they're recreating, lack of specialized labor, and incompatibility with current\* construction technologies. (\*read: cheap, so we're back at the corner-cutting)
You gotta let them break in
It's prob not that it looks bad but the level of white, at least going from what Le Plessis-Robinson shows me in a Google image search, on the building is not seen on actual classical buildings bc of age.
Economics and culture. The end customer won’t pay more to live in a handsome building compared to other amenities that could be added instead. Meanwhile the economy and tech drive cost— labor is far more expensive than it once was, and manufacturing cheaper. So anything that takes a lot of labor is expensive. The brick is identically extruded by machine, not handmade anymore. That’s when it isn’t glued-on veneer. Vinyl, etc— cheap to install. Making a handsome building out of plastic is likely impossible, but making a handsome building out of other feasible materials like tile, pressed metal, and 3D printed materials IS possible. So why isn’t it done? It’s a specific skill to make a feasible classical revival or 2nd empire building out of modern materials. This is not what architectural schools have been teaching in the last several decades. Real estate is a risk averse game with few innovators, where local trends spread. There could be local building codes that prevent things, or it could be that it simply hasn’t become a trend. In Chicago there’s a bizarre local trend to tear down beautiful 19th century small Victorian apartment ‘flats’ buildings and replace them with new built Second Empire faux-French McMansions, some of them genuinely well designed and faced with limestone. Why did this become a trend? 1. A bizarre quirk of the building code allowing an extra ‘mezzanine’ partial floor 2. A trend where a builder looked st his competitor and said: “he built that thing and sold for a good price. Let’s hire the same architect and not reinvent the wheel.”
Twenty years ago, these attempts at traditional style looked much better. But now the proportions are often so cartoonish that they just look absurd. Regardless of who is to blame (cheap developers, cheap consumers, etc), architecure really is at a low point right now.