For my own reasons I went right away to search for the
word "brutalist" which is what the older stations evoke when the cement ages around you.
Not pretty to look at it.
It reminds me of the Apple TV series Silo. It makes you want to escape to the surface to clean the camera.
The new stations on the Silver Line to IAD bring better feelings.
MSFT_Edging•31m ago
Brutalism is always a target for lazy critiques.
Concrete heavy architecture enables far more interesting geometry due to how you can use various molds and modular construction.
In addition, brutalist(and adjacent) architecture also plays a lot with lighting and sight lines, which IMO makes fore incredibly visually interesting structures.
I think there's a weird cultural thing where the cold war attitudes towards the USSR then influenced opinions on concrete-heavy architecture and created canned "brutalism ugly" memes. This even swings back around with weird obsessions with "classical architecture", which means even less and often results in essential virtue signalling via shallow features glued onto facades.
I think this also extends to various modern/contemporary art. Many people write it off before they even try to absorb it. They'll see a classical oil painting(with mid technique to boot) and go "pretty picture" and see a more modern piece with a lot of technique using shapes, color, and texture to draw attention in different ways and say "i can do that" but they wouldn't know where to start.
Rothko and Rembrant both produced pieces with spectacular use of color and depth, but people write off the former to circle jerk on the latter, especially due to various "trad" virtue signal type behavior.
Anyway, when you're looking at a brutalist building, follow the lines, look closely how the lighting interacts with the shapes, look how the lines interact with the flow of the room. There's so much thought and creativity involved, it deserves better.
francisofascii•20m ago
Rode the metro for 7 years. Feel like an idiot that I never noticed the waffle and arch designs had so many variations. Looks like my typical stations were either Waffle or Arch 1. Never know Wheaton and Forest Glen had separate tubes.
javier_e06•44m ago
For my own reasons I went right away to search for the word "brutalist" which is what the older stations evoke when the cement ages around you.
Not pretty to look at it.
It reminds me of the Apple TV series Silo. It makes you want to escape to the surface to clean the camera.
The new stations on the Silver Line to IAD bring better feelings.
MSFT_Edging•31m ago
Concrete heavy architecture enables far more interesting geometry due to how you can use various molds and modular construction.
In addition, brutalist(and adjacent) architecture also plays a lot with lighting and sight lines, which IMO makes fore incredibly visually interesting structures.
I think there's a weird cultural thing where the cold war attitudes towards the USSR then influenced opinions on concrete-heavy architecture and created canned "brutalism ugly" memes. This even swings back around with weird obsessions with "classical architecture", which means even less and often results in essential virtue signalling via shallow features glued onto facades.
I think this also extends to various modern/contemporary art. Many people write it off before they even try to absorb it. They'll see a classical oil painting(with mid technique to boot) and go "pretty picture" and see a more modern piece with a lot of technique using shapes, color, and texture to draw attention in different ways and say "i can do that" but they wouldn't know where to start.
Rothko and Rembrant both produced pieces with spectacular use of color and depth, but people write off the former to circle jerk on the latter, especially due to various "trad" virtue signal type behavior.
Anyway, when you're looking at a brutalist building, follow the lines, look closely how the lighting interacts with the shapes, look how the lines interact with the flow of the room. There's so much thought and creativity involved, it deserves better.