自分用。英語：モダニズム建築が世界にもたらしたもの。19世紀ビクトリア建築から説き起こす良いエッセイ→資本主義の方が動因という意見多数

The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

What has modern architecture done to the world? pic.twitter.com/zRSwx3eek2

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The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

When people talk about "modern architecture" they usually mean one of two things. First is something like the Kunsthaus in Graz, Austria. A large building which attempts to grab our attention with its strange appearance. Subversive, unusual, playful, peculiar. pic.twitter.com/ZwlZsPo8TX

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The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

Such landmark buildings are very famous — think of Frank Gehry's Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, or even the Sydney Opera House — but relatively few and far between. They get the attention, the praise, the blame, the adulation, the hate, but they are rare. pic.twitter.com/QIVIky3IXx

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The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

Which brings us to the second thing people mean when they talk about "modern architecture". Not the landmark buildings designed by famous architects, but the regular buildings — the houses, apartments, offices, and shops — that have filled our cities and streets. pic.twitter.com/GH0LeotjZe

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The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

Well, we've got to remember that there are 8 billion people in the world; just one hundred years ago there were less than 2 billion. And so most modern architecture is not so much a replacement for what exised in the past as an addition to what was already there. Like London. pic.twitter.com/v1lPLSPYPl

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The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

But there's another level to this. Most people in the 19th century did not live in beautiful Victorian townhouses or elegant Georgian terraces. Quite the opposite: many of our ancestors lived in conditions of almost inconceivable squalor and misery. pic.twitter.com/mijfPtTaYM

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The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

So what modern architecture has replaced, if anything, is not the *beautiful* architecture of the past, but the squalid architecture we have long since, thankfully, left behind. Our ancestors may well have been happier than us, but their material living conditions were worse. pic.twitter.com/pq4V3GPYBt

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The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

But that doesn't tell the whole story of modern architecture. What did universities, libraries, train stations, and town halls look like in the past? Most people probably think they looked rather better than those we build now... so why don't we build them like that any more? pic.twitter.com/11zwYo6AXc

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The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

Of course, variety is both delightful and important. Think of the natural world. Within a single forest there are thousands of different types of trees, plants, animals, and rocks, all of different shapes and sizes. Change and variety are the laws of nature. pic.twitter.com/AUP4ReAq3C

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The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

Perhaps a beautiful city should be like a forest, full of variation. Narrow and winding streets, broad avenues, Medieval churches, Art Deco skyscrapers, Baroque theatres, Brutalist libraries, Postmodern galleries, and so on... Is that better than everything being the same? pic.twitter.com/RqpHYtMWW7

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The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

Well, the problem is that we seem unable to build like we once did. The most ordinary Victorian storefront, the humblest Saljuq tomb, the simplest Hadhramaut tower, the lowliest Medieval street... all are more charming than our mightiest modern edifices. pic.twitter.com/fJHaiyQ5n9

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The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

The cities of the world are filled with beautiful architecture — to which tourists flock, where people are happier, and where they *want* to live — and yet we are unable to recreate it. Effective, time-tested aesthetic and urban models waiting to be replicated. pic.twitter.com/7SWg0gpCD0

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The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

Some say we simply have no choice but to build this way — that economic reality dictates the form of modern architecture. To make this claim is, first of all, to admit that modern architecture is not ideal. And, secondly, it ignores that modern architecture was a choice. pic.twitter.com/khYpb8g8yV

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The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

Look to the revolutionary architects of the 1920s and 1930s: Le Corbusier, Walter Gropius, Mies, Adolf Loos. They openly and consciously broke with the architecture of the past, seeking out a new style for the modern, mechanised, industrial world. A conscious aesthetic choice. pic.twitter.com/lKxXwuEhrM

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The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

And yet modern architecture is, clearly, an expression of the economic and political system in which we live. A globalised society falls to the lowest common denominator, and traditional architecture becomes impossible. Concrete is systemically preferred and demanded. pic.twitter.com/CuhnOEvyBV

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The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

And this is a trend which has been rising for well over a century, ever since the Industrial Revolution and the rise of mass-production. Design has fundamentally changed, as the *way* things are made has changed. Always cheaper, faster, simpler... for better or worse. pic.twitter.com/0wGUQGY3Jm

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The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

Still, none of this addresses the wholly conscious decision to modify or demolish the architecture of the past. Dresden's Military History Museum is an apt visual metaphor for what has been happening all over the world. A neoclassical building with a striking recent addition. pic.twitter.com/B2LhA7CDGS

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The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

This can make some sense in context. The widespread demolition of Victorian architecture in Britain during the 20th century is perhaps justifiable when we consider what things were like, culturally, after the Second World War. Still, it was an architectural tragedy. pic.twitter.com/0axeIHeies

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The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

And it's worth mentioning that people in the 19th century, for example, actually disliked what was, to them, modern architecture. We see something like London Bridge or St Pancras Station and call it beautiful; critics at the time called them ugly and artificial. pic.twitter.com/A0SSM9ROe5

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The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

And now we have come full circle once again: Brutalism is under assault. Welbeck Street Car Park in London, for example, has recently been demolished. In two hundred years it would have been a wonderfully interesting historical structure. A cycle of destruction. pic.twitter.com/z0Xqma6jSZ

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The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

Perhaps people have always disliked whatever "modern architecture" was for them. What makes the Pyramids interesting other than their age? In five thousand years will London's Shard be viewed similarly? It probably won't last that long, but you see the point. pic.twitter.com/WJJdR0udXV

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The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

To the extent that living standards around the world are better than they were in the past — that we have been able to build quickly and cheaply enough to provide people with decent housing — modern architecture has been an unqualified success, and the world is better for it. pic.twitter.com/iH1yTjghH1

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The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

But to the degree that cities have been filled with architecture that is boring and monotonous at best, and actively harmful to human beings at worst, and to the extent that it is no longer possible to build as beautifully as we did, modern architecture has totally failed us. pic.twitter.com/tgboGyFbKa

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Lambrusco @lambruscov

@culturaltutor Modern architecture, for the most part, assails our sense of beauty and decency. It always stands out disproportionately. It mocks us. pic.twitter.com/S8PJfLnmWU

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