The Fascist Who Built a Real-Life Dystopia
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Today we explore the controversial life of Le Corbusier, and architect who fundementally changed the look of the world… for the better or the worse?
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- thanks for corrections on reinforced concrete, is is strong under COMPRESSION not tension. Also I got the pantheon bit slightly mixed up - but allow me
why did you change the title
to see if more people click it
Nice video, but I think you may be spewing a very general web here, in a few words - not all modern architecture is social housing, beauty is (as usual) relative and a lot of the study that goes into architecture nowadays deals more towards anthropology than to the idea of building something 'wicked sick
@@JimmyTheGiant love the videos
thanks Jim
“Very good, my roof is still leaking” such and underrated and savage comment by his mom, basically saying i don’t how fancy your building is if it doesn’t work
Good thing he didn't build boats.
the best architecture critic ever....
The Villa Savoye is infamous for its leaky roof as well. The family who commissioned it threatened to sue Le Corbusier after their child caught pneumonia. He ultimately paid for repairs out of his own pocket to placate them, and even then the building still had problems until a major restoration in the 80s.
For the record, Villa Savoye is considered one of Le Corbusier's masterpieces. Colour me unimpressed.
This also says a lot about Le Corbusier's need for approval if this is really what she says. He never got any from his parents, so he took it from pursuing the fame as an architect.
Still they haven't found a way to make flat roofs that doesn't leak unless piles of maintenance.
This ugly architecture damaged most Greek cities beyond repair after the 50’s. Unfortunately cities like Athens and Thessaloniki suffered the most. This mostly happened when people who owned land sold it in exchange for an apartment in some sort of contractual consideration (antiparochi in Greek) leading to the vast majority of the buildings looking like soviet style monstrosities.
That was my impression of Athens in the seventies. Totally ruined the classical parts.
It is frightening that we Turks are so similar with Greeks. Exact same thing has happened and still happening in Turkey. Now, classical parts of Istanbul are slums and the whole city was overtaken by these monstrosities. In my hometown, there are old Greek houses and old Turkish houses. Even in the same climate, same city, you can see what people prioritized while building their homes. Each has a character and tells a story about the people who built them. Not even two owned by same ethnicity, same religion, same socioeconomic status were the same. From their profession to number of their kids, effected their living space.
I so agree...I was enormously disappointed by Athens ( architecturally ) when I visited years ago
Want to see ugly modernism? View Corviale in Rome, Italy. "The longest building in Europe". The architect died shortly after its completion, legend from Rome says that he himself finished it out of remorse
I used to think council houses that were built post war in this country were ugly, maybe because i grew up in one, but now i see them as being beautiful and wished i still lived in one. What if we had more of them than the shit, we have on offer now?
"if you don't know about walls, I am not even sure how you got to this video, seems like there are a lot of things you need to learn in life" 🤣😂
I mean he's not wrong lol
Can some please explain roofs? Always wondered what those things were
@@Mr.PDF_File next vid dw
@@Mr.PDF_File Ask Clarke Gable and Ruth Tile? I would research for you more but I've got shingles.
@@JimmyTheGiant18:34 One utopia is another's dystopia. Vice versa. Dystopia is another's Utopia for another .
Like the matter of brith rate. Is overpopulation something autopsy or dystopia . Because overpopulation makes labor cheap. That's also the reason why Businessmen love immigration.Because it lowers the price of drinking wages But dystopia for the working class.
Le Corbusier's mom was right about the roof leaking, technically speaking he was a terrible architect even though he loved modern tecnology
I studied in a 1970s university and we had to walk around buckets on the floor.
same w/FLW. great architects are more designers than constructors.
I could do better
Most architects are crap, though: it's style over substance. They win awards for being edgy, then skip out and leave other people to live in their awful creations. Ditch your architect and hire a structural engineer.
His mum is a savage 😂 “that’s great. My roof is still leaking”
she probably hated his work as much as the rest of us
Sadly she died 7 seconds after you wrote your comment; it would be appreciated if you replaced the "is" with a "was".
@@namogo_3532 it's a direct reference to the actual quotation of what she wrote, which is why it's in quotation marks to signify that it was HER remark. why does this need to be explained?
@jamesriver9267 Why are Americans so disrespectful to the deceased?
@@namogo_3532 i don't know what context your question is addressing here, because i don't know whom you're referring to as 'American', nor can i discern where any disrespect has been incurred. in all probability, i don't think you have much of a clue what you're asking about either, but i expect on the basis of what you've written so far you'd be the last person to realise that.
Im sorry to be that guy but i feel as a civil eng i have too..... concrete acts well in compression not tension, it acts really badly under tension hence why it needs to reinforced, the rebar takes up the tension forces
I came to the comments to say this and I'm not an engineer, just a run of the mill pipefitter.
@@tryaluck honestly dont trust us engineers trust the foreman they know more
@@tmmcgourty shut up.
Good comment. It’s hard to find anyone these days who treats the technical as neutral. Can I ask what causes concrete to spall. The reason I ask is I used to work in the mining industry. A lot of civils are used to set up fixed plant. Cone crushers create radial forces. The concrete spalled on all the vertical surfaces below the machine.
Don't be sorry, people like you are heroes the internet needs.
I live in poundbury the town you referenced at the end of the video orchestrated and envisioned by King Charles. It’s beautiful & authentic (at least externally) They have done a remarkable job of building it, which is why we moved here. But even after three years of being here I don’t love it and I can’t describe why, it feels like living in a movie set, it doesn’t feel like a real place, it has a Truman show vibe but it’s so subtle it’s hard to pin point. We have friends and neighbours here but it’s always empty, there’s no history, it’s soulless. A truly remarkable architectural experiment, that has the same social anonymity of a brutalist tower block.
Can formulate what it is that is missing? I think this is an important subject. Personally, when I walk there with streetview, I think the ornaments are not really creative, I miss some joyful exuberance, weird details or deviations. The gardens are also not flamboyant enough. My feeling is dat the streets around Longmoor street feel more natural. Is that the oldest part? In that case it may just be a matter of time.
There is another village or estate on the edge of Newquay like that. When I saw a video about it, I wondered if it was a computer simulation as it looked flawless.
Thank you for your interesting letter about what it is like to live in Poundbury. Perhaps it will be time that will give your town a sense of place, of roots, of home. Bonne Chance! (I am French).
great comment. I feel an air of uncanniness throughout the city when I explore it virtually, but I chalk it up to it being a centralised project built in a very short time frame (30 or so years in urban timespans is nothing). Another commenter proposed that with the passage of time this can change, and I agree. As it is, it feels uncomfortably close to a misplaced Disneyland or a movie set, as there hasn't been enough time for the grime and the imperfections, the human touch of the thousands of people who live there to pile up, as it happens with every city.
@arccv It's like a New Town but better designed and using traditional principles. I did a project on New Towns at school long before Poundbury was built.
Finally, someone understands my deep hate for le corbusier as a French person.
yeah, but that guy was not a fascist
As a Dutchman, I share this hatred for any of his proteges.
Architecture that not even a mother could love.
@@apustajachileno he kinda was. He worked for the vichy government. The rest of the bauhaus and the Modern movement were socialists, but corbusier wasnt.
@@apustajachileno He was very sympathetic to fascism, though.
He probably knew his authoritarian "reform" ideas where only possible under dictators, and thus went and snuggled up to them.
Read his publicized letters - he still assumed Hitler to be " a great man who will modernize europe" in ´41. After 6 wars of agression had been started.
"Better conditions than before and massively improving the lives of many people"? But what you fail to mention that yes living conditions improved for a short while but they'd be a high price to pay because these brutalist high rises in the sky caused the break up of communities that had been there since before the war. The social impact it would have on people's mental health and the isolation felt by many residents is really sad. Concrete is very prone to water damage which would age these these buildings faster. Many of these high rises in London have been knocked down since and replaced with something more gentle with a better urban plan more focused on community.
Social housing was doing pretty well on the communal level before they filled them with drug-addicts gathered from the streets and 3rd world immigrants etc. at that point you have ghettoes created by politics rather than architects
@@koralgol777 They were already set-up to fail before they had even begun due to poor design and planning. Drug users and immigrants would just be the final nail in the coffin of an already failed vision that lacked social cohesion and compassion and an understanding of what people actually needed and not a perceived version of what they thought they wanted.
@@koralgol777This. For a lot of people, those ugly boxes significantly increased the standard of living, because most people simply didn't live in those nice old houses we admire so much nowadays. Central heating, proper insulation, an own bathroom with bathtub and hot water, and all of that for a decent price thanks to standardization and cheap construction. That was pretty revolutionary at the time.
Just a little comment to point that concrete needs to be under compression not tension. (6:25). Tension is pulling in opposite directions whereas compression is pushing in opposite directions.
Never let facts get in the way of a good Socialist narrative👍
@@LoremIpsum1970 whats socialist about it?
@@TVTH-cam-ow9xu Not been listening much to the last couple of videos, then. It's a shame they're not fact-checked.
@@LoremIpsum1970 ok but what does that have to do with concrete
@@marusdod3685 ...because the fact-checking in these videos isn't great...it's not hard to get the simple things correct.
The Pantheon? Oldest building on Earth? Whilst showing the Parthenon on screen? The oldest building on earth is Gobekli Tepe (9500BCE). The Pantheon may the oldest building on earth still in use. And it's different from the Parthenon.
Exactly! He is in fact showing the Erechteion, next to the Parthenon on the Acropolis.
my favourite part of Birmingham when I go up there on the train is the old areas made out of bricks and more bricks. The new stuff, in an attempt to appear modern, already looks plastic, artificial and outdated.
Le Corbusier was not French. He was from the French speaking part of Switzerland.
Hitler was not a German, but an Austrian. Napoleon was not French, he was Corsican. Alexander Hamilton was not from what was to become the United States, but from the Caribbean.
to be honest i think one people seem to ignore in the debate about modern architecture when we compare it to the past is the fact we only really preserved the best of what was built, most of us would have been in thrown up shacks or packed town houses
I'm a Rollerblader and an Architect so it's been quite interesting over the past few years watching the progression of your videos..
Same here Man. I enjoy it all but do wish he occasionally did more sports videos
I'm not an architect but l have somehow nonetheless ended up spending a significant amount of my time around buildings.
Lol you enjoy someone who can't define fascism talking about it🫵😂
Same for me, though I didn't pay attention to the blading videos, I was surprised when it was released but blading or not, any subject is so well covered I would even watch a section on concrete.
This is why Dostoevsky hated the Inteligencia, a man I have shared the same faith with because of ''academics''...'' There are men there with whom no one would consent to live''
and I have committed no crime.
All men are ugly underneath. Its just weather you are open to it. Some men are able to rise above it.
I mean in all honesty... walk down a street in London with Victorian era buildings and then look at these shapeless ugly towers going up everywhere... turns out aesthetics do matter.
The Dutch have recently built an entire city in the old 1800s fort style and would you believe it... despite all the criticism from the so called architecture "experts", turns out people really wanted to move into a place that actually looks and feels nice
Well, of course, they would. Why would you move into a place that costs money if you don't like it?
@@coolman3074 there are many reasons why people would do that lol. In London it's mainly necessity because all the jobs are there
@@TiGGowich But isnt it crazy expensive there?
Jimmy is the only one holding the secret for tensile concrete
what is more : tensile concrete found propping up the parthenon ... or was it sky hooks from the firmament ?
The super secret rebar.
@@carlost856 that would be reinforced concrete then ;)
"Very Good, my roof is still leaking."
THAT! That's what genius looks like.
I love that the movement against modernist architecture seems to be growing, traditionally informed cities are starting to spring up again
Yet I have the feeling that at least half of that movement is a manifestation of the right wing culture wars against modernity itself. I've seen countless videos about the topic that felt less like a critique of bad architecture than an idealization of a past when "houses still were houses, men still men, and women still women". Modernist architecture is a perfect symbol for "everything that is wrong with the modern world", because it is very visible, intentionally puts function over form, and varies massively in aesthetic quality.
The pantheon isn't the oldest building on earth
And it's not even close
@@luizarthurbrito was it Shaky's house
It's the oldest still in use
Also shows a picture of the Parthenon in Athens 😔
@@clearsight456Also no. For multiple reasons.
"Very good, my roof is still leaking." Has to be the hottest burn delivered in the history of humanity.
Turns out Brits love a bit of Georgian architecture. Only problem is, no one can afford to live in any of it, so we all got stuck in Nelson Mandela House. Nevermind Rodders, this time next year we'll all be millionaires.
Georgian architecture doesn't have to be expensive to build. Most architectural features and ornamentation on beautiful buildings were mass-produced, and all of it can be poured concrete or similar inexpensive materials.
There are two separate points there, that are often conflated.
"Nice" architecture is more expensive to build than brutalism, yes, but not by the margins that you see differentiating the two in the marketplace.
A big part of the reason that "nice" buildings are more expensive than tower blocks is that people want to live in them and so people who can afford to pay more for them do so, pushing the price up. The challenge when building housing for the masses is to make it attractive enough that people _want_ to live there, without allowing the market to push those prices out of reach.
Before this thread gets sidetracked I'd just like to tell you what a beautiful comment this is. You really encapsulated British defeatist optimism and centuries of class structure in a single comment relevant to the video. Bravo.
@@mickey4125 Thanks mate. Nice to know someone got it.
See, we don't have that issue in the North West. Most of the land is protected reserve. 😅
We have homelessness tho.
Even as a young teenager, I hated Modern architecture. I needed no one to tell me this. I could see the cheap, shoddy materials and how ugly and dehumanizing these concrete monstrosities were. As an adult, when reading about Western architecture since 1920, l found every book and magazine article praising this trash. Sometime in mid century, the modernists took over architectural schools and companies. Everything was made from concrete, steel, and glass. Everything was blank, oppressive and devoid of human feeling. Everything was depressing. Instead of feeling grand and welcoming, new buildings were cold and hostile. I can still remember the great open space of the new Worcester library covered in buckets because the roof leaked, the new side entry concrete stairs and landing of the Worcester Art Museum crumbling after 20 years, and the flat roof of Warwick Shoppers World in Rhode Island falling in under all that snow. All the old libraries in the county had front steps that were just fine, as were the front steps of the Worcester Art Museum, and as were the roofs of stores built before 1900. I will never understand how people were persuaded by conmen like Le Corbusier who convinced them that homes are machines for living. Who wants to live in a machine? Especially "machines" with wasted space, uncomfortable quarters, leaking roofs, leaking walls, cracking walls, no awnings to protect from the sun, weird and pointless shapes, ad nauseam! Lecorbu built the ugliest and most unholy Catholic churches anywhere. When the bishop of a diocese in southern France saw what was being built he refused to pay for anymore construction. Thank God Lecorbu is gone, but his minions are still legion.
It's almost like concrete, steel and glass do better against mold, earthquakes and fires😱😱😱 crazy Isn't it?
If the people who actually build things thought like you we'd all be homeless
There was me reading that thinking the Library in Worcester had a leaking roof and the shopping centre in Warwick had issues. Then the OP mentioned Rhode Island, US. Amazing how many times the same names pop up in the US.
@@ezpinutbutter3627 His other pounts still count. Apartment blocks are depressing. Europe has built better, more beautiful and just as affordable cities ex. Barcelona
@@k.umquat8604Pre-war European cities were absolutely terrible for most people. Berlin for example was crammed with densely packed and overcrowded tenements with no architectural value at all. Those houses were built as cheap as possible, because people were so poor they simply couldn't afford anything better. People nowadays probably can't even imagine how bad the situation was for the average worker's family. That was the status quo that modernists tried to improve by doing something completely new.
People say Le Corbusier was crazy for even suggesting to demolish parts of Paris to erect huge towers, but they completely overlook that the Paris we all know and love itself is the result of such a process.
Im glad you're covering this topic. Not enough people are.
Maybe not enough care, can you blame them?
He had already made a sort of a part 1 on this topic with the decline of the
dystopian estates video. Interesting subject indeed.
@@cristianjuarez1086yes
Didn’t he start the video with a run down on the amount of coverage this topic is getting online?
These replies are immune to sarcasm
Ehh... It seems like he was more of an autocrat than a fascist. These gray commie blocks are mostly popular with authoritarian or socialist leaders. Mussolini and other fascists' often focused on more overly grandiose styles that tried to evoke an ancient legacy or a prosperous future.
you clearly never saw a "casa popolare" in italy hahaha
Guess you didn't hear the news, but everything that's bad is automatically right-wing and therefore fascist. Despite reality.
@@ChristianBoraginele case popolari fasciste fuori da Roma sono molto più belle e "case" rispetto ai blocchi di cemento fatti nella ricostruzione negli anni 50 e poi continuati negli anni 60 e 70
@@FrancescoBedini mah dipende dalla zona, però non è che sotto il fascismo era tutto monumentale, è questo che intendevo. Poi ci sarebbe da disquisire quanto del monumentalismo è direttamente discendente dal fascismo e quanto è una forma atavica in Italia. Cmq riassumendo, il bro del commento non sa na ciola. 🤣
I mean, it's not that crazy for Italy to have huge concrete structures and apartment blocks, considering that's what Rome and other Italian cities have had for thousands of years. Yes, lots of pretty ones came after they lost the recipe for Roman concrete and population densities and population growth (not to mention many, many, many, plagues, wars, and famines) couldn't justify the massive rows of apartment towers that Rome had, but it's also not alien to the peninsula.
I worked in the Toronto city hall.
It was the most useless building I have ever experienced.
I'd like to know more about this experience please 🙂
@@deedeechur It was a long time ago. I was a mail clerk at the time so I had the run of the building. The details are now very fuzzy. I just remember wandering from office to office thinking how dumb the design was.
Architects talk a great story but it often seems to be more about their egos than practicality.
Personally I much prefer the character of old cities and towns. Give me the almafi coast over Mississauga anytime.
my town of origin, Plymouth UK, has not yet recovered from Corbusier and is busy cutting down mature trees...
Imagine thinking you’re a genius seeing liquid rock & keeping it as boring concrete instead of molding into something nice
That baffled me in school. The instructors tried to excuse it, I remember one saying the rough texture was because they couldn't find quality wood after WW2 to use for forms -- but for god's sake you can rub it out with a finish coat! Le C's work was purposely ugly and rough and unadorned and uncolored, and we are right to call it out for being such.
Honorable mention to Erno Goldfinger! Most prominently remembered for designing residential tower blocks, and the man after whom Ian Fleming would name the James Bond villain. When Goldfinger considered taking legal action, Fleming threatened to rename the character 'Goldprick'. Eventually he decided not to sue and Fleming's publishers agreed gave him some free copies of the book
note: Comment basically plagiarised from wikipedia. At least I'm not a bot.
That's what a bot would say.... Exposed
Concrete is extremely weak in tension. It is very strong in compression. What the steel.rods do is take the tension loads, leaving the compression loads to the concrete.
Also, steel and concrete expand at roughly the same rate when heated. This is why we don't see any aluminum reinforced concrete.
So he's to blame for Plymouth.
The "Habitation Unit" that Le Corbusier made is considered the first building on the "brutalist" architecture style, which I personally love. Now, the style evolved more from it and buildings instead explored bold and interesting geometry as ornament, with monumental spaces becoming it's staple.
I can understand that some people hate it, but for me ornamented buildings tire me after some time due sense overload, and a "machine to live" feels more comforting and calm. For my fellow music nerds, it's like the difference between a "wall of sound" song produced by Phil Spector against something out of the "music for airports" albums from Brian Eno.
Adding a very important correction here. Concrete is not strong under tension. Steel is but concrete isn’t useful at all when you try to put it under a load that is pulling it apart. That’s why you have never seen anything constructed with concrete cables but the cables in a suspension bridge however will be steel instead where as the areas that are under compression because they are being pushed together will be constructed in concrete. Reinforced concrete can combine the benefits of both materials in places where you can experience both forces. One simple example is a concrete beam. Where the beam sags under load the top of the beam will be under compression as it is being pushed together, the bottom of the beam will be getting stretched apart as it’s under tension. Reinforced concrete will make the beam extremely strong in both compression and tension. Another example might be a column that is under compression but may also have to resist twisting forces that would introduce tension into the structure.
After WW2, they started removing the decorative ornaments on buildings here in Vienna. So they kept the buildings (if they were still inhabitable) but made them bland. There are movements to bring back the decorations to buildings.
Another thing is: the corporations planing housing today are doing it for profit, to sell the flats. If you look at the plans, most of them are not made for living. They are impractical shoeboxes and and eyesore from the outside.
He designed the most comfortable chair / chaise lounge ever, though, and my back is thankful for that.
Just what I needed for my thesis, thank you for your content
Another banger as usual
i saw that this was posted a few hours ago and i waited, waited so i can sit down and really enjoy it. and i enjoyed the anticipation of getting to watch it later. i dont have that with many crators, this is def in my top tier of channels.
You’re best video yet. I live in Las Vegas so you could imagine how I feel! PS congratulations on your wedding. The pictures were epic.
6:27 yeah mate, you got it completely backwards! Concrete is exceptionally strong in compression and remarkably weak in tension and torsion. That's why it has to be reinforced with steel ffs
Honestly, most people do not have PhDs in material science
@@hugepumpkin8094 Most people know stacking toy blocks, though. Say, which of these is under tension; the archway or the rope bridge? Exactly, no PhD needed
I wonder - does 'brutalism' count as modernist architecture (what is shown here is practical rather than brutalist). Some brutalist buildings are absolutely awesome, although far from pretty.
Iirc; Brutalism and Bauhaus are different in goals from whatever the heck Le Corbusier was wanting. Bauhaus was trying to make Form = Function = Aesthetic (as in, try to make things Aesthetically pleasing WITHOUT having to slap stuff on it) with mixed results (though the rise of fascism ending Bauhaus School early before it can refine its ideas probably didn't help matters), and Brutalism is Function > Form & Aesthetic; which is ugly but atleast works.
Le Corbusier somehow got it in his head Function = Aesthetic > form; which honestly sounds just a few steps away from Italian Futurist (i.e. Proto Fascist Artist group whom ideals made even Mussolini go "hol' up!") building aesthetics ("traditionalism" without anything Aesthetically Traditionalist; making culture by destroying culture; etc.)
@@matthewutech5970 Thanks for responding - I have a clearer understanding now.
Absolutely fantastic video, always love the topics that are explored on this channel
Le Corbusier was a Swiss native born in La-Chaux-de-Fonds.
Oscar Niemeyer and Santiago Calatrava have been employed by him.
Several of his buildings in several countries have been listed as “World Heritage Site”.
People say “it’s a comfortable living” in his buildings like in Firminy-Vert/ Firminy / France.
If anything this video makes Le Corbusier sound like a proto Technocrat. Obsessed with cost cutting ad efficiency.
Jimmy the best on the platform
Thank you, I learnt so much !
Yours is definitely one of the best TH-cam channels by a long way. There's a lot of addictive mindless crap on YT and I watch too much of it 😢 but your videos are a very different experience. Thanks Jimmy the Giant.
I’m an architect, and the way Le Corbusier is revered in the academy is just INSANE. Granted, he really marked a before and after in architecture and influenced entire generations and even the way we build, design and live today, but I feel he’s exaggeratedly overrated.
Brutalism is the negation of God erected into a form of architecture. It is soulless architecture for soulless people.
Same thing here in Finland with Alvar Aalto, who has been elevated into a godlike status. Our architects can still not shake off his shadow and just go in a different direction.
Kind of like Alvar Aalto in Finland, lots of beautiful buildings were demolished to make way to some pile of crap a kindergartener can draw, today is even worse.
Agreed, but architecture is a work of art, so neither hatred nor reverence for one particular style is undesirable
Same here. He was revered as a god by the hackiest profs I had, and his works like La Villa Savoye were presented as if they were literally perfect, transcendent beyond criticism by mere mortals such as us.
I myself admire the works of FLW quite a lot, but he was a flawed individual to say the least, and I would never claim that any of his buildings were perfect.
Back to Le Corbusier, I would argue he overall had an extremely negative impact on humanity. I could argue that he came up with the first public housing concepts that were ungodly flawed in thought and execution.
Awesome video!! 🔥Great overview of Le Corbusier. He really did have a massive influence (unfortunately). I wasn't aware he couldn't even design a non-leaking roof for his own mother... we learn new things everyday!
quite frankly, ensuring the roof didn't leaked was the builder's job, not the architect's
"All I really need to know I learned in kindergarten" - that's quite accurate if you consider traditional folktales for kids. The Emperor's New Clothes tried to "vaccinate" us against people like that: "If you don't like my work you're stupid" shouldn't be effective on adults. We should retorn periodically to kindergarten.
Great doc, you have the most original style of commentary on TH-cam 🙂
If you want more buildings, you need to massively loosen regulation. Start with the 1947 Town & Planning Act.
Do you think you can build your way out of the housing crisis?
Really?
@@nickbarber2080 Yes, you can. Japan did it. Brazil did it (despite being one of the poorest countries in Americas, 80% of Brazilians own the houses they live in and have no mortgages pending). It is because in Japan and Brazil, once I own a plot of land, I can build whatever I want on it.
@@madjames1134 Their economies are not entirely predicated on constantly-rising house-prices,like ours is.
I share the sentiment that this gulf separating architects' opinions and the general population's needs to be bridged asap. I don't think the solution, however, can be found in this insistence that whatever styles that were popular in the pre-modern era are the ones worth reproducing, but that's a larger dissatisfaction of mine in the anti-modernist movement. I don't believe that anti-modernist must necessarily mean traditionalist. I've been working as an architect only for a few years still, but I truly believe we're quickly approaching an inflection point in the method of designing and constructing buildings. Primarily due to the increasingly complex computerization of the process, compounded by breakthroughs in materials that could enable an explosion of "ornamental" elements that would be unheard of only a few decades ago. The kind of ornament that would give Gaudí and the Art Nouveau architects a run for their money. It would be a shame for these exciting new possibilities be lumped together with the drab Modernists and its children, and cast aside in favor of a rushed return to the past.
You can tell you put a lot of effort into this great video . Thanks !
This is really great man. The pacing and the editing is so good.
Like top fucking tier perfect TH-cam video moment.
Guy seeking the vindication of traditional architecture: “I’m not fascist, you are”
if there is something i can't help noticing, was the social conscience early modernist architects had. a good deal of what they did was getting rid of slums.
For some reason this reminded me a lot of Hitler's youth, except this Charles guy got accepted into architecture ranks and instead of becoming a dictator he created the world's most ugliest buildings. So in another reality we got an architect of war and a guy who redefined painting and made it really ugly.
Well, who would have thought that capitalists are open for ideas about squeezing money out of business.
@@Hizsoo How has this anything to do with what I said, weirdo?
The city where I work has these beautiful 1900s office buildings, apartments and hotels, yet I work in this horrible 1960s concrete block with an even more hideous multistory car park next to it (12 floors!). Each day I walk down the street admiring the old buldings - which are ornate in a non flashy way. When I get to where I work my heart sinks. It’s soulless. The building won several architecture awards and it’s definitely not the worst modern building in the city, but it’s not interesting to see or to work in.
These original modern architects and the communist/socialist and fascist regimes that approved of their principles somehow totally ignored that ordinary people are inspired by beauty and variety. Sure, people want houses they can afford, but no one has respect for a concrete block.
What is up with people blaming "Communism" for the crappy buildings that CAPITALISM forced on you?
"Look at all these crappy communist buildings here in London..."
LOL!
The villain was capitalism the whole time!
Just giving a shout-out for using a This Country clip. Christ that show is hilarious, and at least outside of the UK criminally unknown despite still being so recognisable.
Pre fabricated buildings are really a scourge, thank you for covering this
Man, he should have stuck to traditional buildings.
I don't care what anyone says about his buildings, they are genuinely depressing and ugly.
Why would anyone want this cheap crap in their city?
I can see the buildings being cheaper to produce or something, but I don't think we should care about cost as much as we do.
For example, look at American schools built past 1970/1980, they look like old, sad military buildings.
There is no reason for anyone to like this style, let alone put it into place. It sucks and ruins all cities.
There's a reason the majority of people (aka the ones with actual good taste) like traditional city centers and not concrete shitboxes.
Are you saying people should care about the cost of living?
@@ezpinutbutter3627classical architecture doesn't need to be expensive at this day and age
@@jackyexexpensive is vague but it is by definition more expensive than modernist architecture
@@alcedob.5850 depends on how you calculate cost. Especially longterm.
Fantastic video, keep it up man!
Our local cinema/theater was stunning and they trashed it making it look brutalist. Such a shame it really sucks they get away with being allowed to do it. Often councils here refuse first plans just so they look like they are doing something and it really messes stuff up in time and money.
Pantheon, Parthenon, tension, compression… all the same, right?
As an Architecture student in the 1960's Le Corbusier was a god. I sought out his buildings in France. I still think he was a great designer of space, an artist, but a totalitarian. He had the typical French arrogance and at the time was loved by both intellectual and ruling class. Your lecture is brilliant...well done.
Ever noticed that most buildings seen as haunted have beautiful architecture
This channel is just so totally excellent.
I was born and raised in Chandigarh. AMA. I love it, it’s green, clean, organsied and one of the most prosperous and least congested cities in India.
Most people I know here don’t like other cities much.
(Just started seeing the video) There's also Oscar Niemeyer who turned Brasilia into a dystopian nightmare. He really did create some beautiful buildings, but the design is totalitarian in its very core: A city of huge boulevards that's inherently *non*-walkable because of the distances, with no adequate public transportation, only really navigable by car ... in the capital of a country with (then) a majority who couldn't even dream of owning one. The ministries are like huge Lego blocks placed on monstrouls lawns - meaning, if 100 people gather protesting in front of one they'll look like nothing; if a thousand does, still nothing; if a HUNDRED thousand does, it will still look like nothing, the politicians and civil servants can just look out the windows at see that it's nothing. (Sigh.)
great video jimmy. i gave you some stick on your video about milton keynes. this video provides some outstanding context for places like milton keynes. much appreciated :)
building new stuff that looks crap is bad, but the tearing down of old beauty to do it is far worse, which is what happens too much here.
Well done Jimmy. I've been thinking a lot about this as well. I've picked up the reproductions of the big books on ornamentation form the 19th Century by Racinet and Owen Jones (not the recent political figure). Interestingly because of the whole modernists dilemma there aren't updated versions. I believe I'm the guy who first put Adolf Loos and Ornament and crime in your ears. There is a lot to explore in the Italian Futurist manifestos as well. I've been following some of these other channels that seem to be popping up critiquing Modernist and Postmodern architecture. And I've been following with interest your detective story from the councils to the Brutalist buildings and the anonymous shite that we are being asked to live in. I live in Tbilisi Georgia. The old Soviet architecture seems better than the soulless post independence blocks that keep getting put up.
I have an idea, I'll send you an email to reinforce it. But what would say to a kind of online symposium inviting several of the people from various channels that have been doing this. You have the biggest channel. So hosting it on yours might be a good option. Anyway I'm putting this in your ears now. I'll come back soon with an actual proposal. I think this movement is growing. We need our ornamentation and texture back. Thanks for the good work you've been doing.
Not sure about constructing new faux Edwardian buildings. It just feels a bit like China's themed European towns but maybe that won't matter if people love these places. It would be interesting to explore new possible alternatives that people could still enjoy being in.
Have you seen the King's 'planned' town? Awful.
@@LoremIpsum1970 Yeah, did they build that on the cheap? Still, some ironic street art and a couple of modifications would fix it right up. I have the feeling that the locals already like it though.
@@LoremIpsum1970 What's awful about it?
Ornament is way more interesting than many architects think. A lot of ornament is in fact abstract art. Some of it is minimalist sculpture. But as entertainment it is also great. Ornament can tell stories, teach us about nature, can be energetic or static, it is an incredibly rich, complex language and still one that can be understood almost immediately by most people. This also means that the ornament of the past is not inaccessible to us to learn from. It draws us in, like a good novel or film, and then reveals more of its possibilities. Any architect can plunder the vaults with forgotten forms and use them or be inspired by them. Unfortunately, going half way between modernism and ornament usually gives bad results. This is because modernism is founded on a rejection of the richness and complexity of ornament. The inner resistance of architects makes them use irony, superficial references, or chaotic patterns, in order to use ornament while repressing its seductive, overwhelming power. Only when architects completely give in to their repressed desire for ornament can they learn to speak its language fluently.
My city was turned into a soul-crushing dystopia by Daniel Libeskind, when are you making a video on him?
Brasilia his greatest disaster. Also those post war council estates were absolute social disasters, that improved the lives of nobody. Thankfully most of them have been pulled down.
Can you pull down New Addington, please?
You might be thinking of Oscar Niemeyer, the main developer of Brasilia.
Mostly because everything is spaced out. There's plenty of greenery in the city which is always a plus.
Brasilia is terrible because it is car centric, not because of the architecture. It actually fits quite well there.
I’d say the design was only part of the problem for council housing. An equally important reason was when the labour government at the time decided to house deadbeats alongside the decent hard working, working class. That ended dragging it down for everyone.
As an architect in the socialist Bauhaus approved International Style, Le Corbusier was hardly a fascist. Mussolini and Hitler favoured neo- grecian/ roman, see Speers blueprints for Germania. Fascists prefer grandeur to utilitarian
He did write a book called “A new French fascism”, though. As an architect, I studied him thoroughly while in uni.
Apparently he wasn't a very good fascist.
@JimmyTheGiant 21:42. The majority of the Battle war was on the Eastern front.
Paris is given free To Germany because he was afraid of being bombed.
Even the British only have 60,000 deaths due to German bombers vs 600,000 deaths due to British bombers .
Nicely done. Thank you
Cool video excluding the “concrete good in tension” faux pas but they have manufactured this idea that people who dislike copy and paste ornamentation dislike decoration as a whole. Most just want the decoration to be considered and designed as part of the building.
Le Corbusier was a Fascist, but most people misunderstand what that means. Italian Fascism, or National Socialism, is a form of trade unionism fused with the state and corporate interests, underpinned by a philosophy called Actualism (or Actual Idealism), developed by Giovanni Gentile and Benito Mussolini.
1. **National Syndicalism**: At its core, Italian Fascism aimed to integrate the interests of the nation, corporations, and trade unions (the Russians call them 'soviets') into a single, cohesive entity. This is referred to as National Syndicalism, where the state acts as a mediator and leader, ensuring that all parts of society work together harmoniously for the national interest.
2. **Actualism (Actual Idealism)**: Giovanni Gentile, the philosopher of Fascism, developed the idea of Actualism. This philosophy emphasizes the active role of human will and thought in shaping reality. According to Gentile, reality is not a fixed entity but is constantly being created through human action and thought. This ties into Fascist ideology by promoting the idea that the state and society are dynamic entities that can be shaped and molded through collective will and action.
3. **State and Society Fusion**: Under Mussolini, Fascism sought to create a totalitarian state where there was no distinction between the state and society. The government controlled various aspects of life, including the economy, culture, and private life, to ensure that all actions aligned with national goals. The state was seen as the embodiment of the collective will of the people.
4. **Corporatism**: Fascism promoted the idea of corporatism, where the economy is divided into sectors or corporations representing different industries and professions. These corporations were controlled by the state and were supposed to work together to achieve national objectives. The idea was to eliminate class conflict by having all economic activities directed towards the common good of the nation.
5. **Opposition to Liberalism and Socialism**: Fascism positioned itself against both liberalism and socialism. It rejected the liberal idea of individual rights and freedoms as paramount, instead emphasizing collective national interests. It also opposed socialism's class struggle and the idea of a classless society, instead promoting a hierarchical society where different groups had their roles but worked together for national strength.
6. **Totalitarian Control**: Mussolini's regime sought to control all aspects of life through propaganda, censorship, and the suppression of dissent. The aim was to create a unified national community where everyone worked towards the same goals under the guidance of a strong state.
In summary, Italian Fascism is characterized by the fusion of the state, corporations, and trade unions into a unified entity guided by the philosophy of Actualism, which emphasizes the active role of human will in shaping reality. This ideology sought to create a totalitarian state where all aspects of life were controlled and directed towards national objectives, rejecting both liberalism and socialism in favor of a hierarchical but unified society.
You just never know what you gonna see on this channel next but one thing is for certain - it will be interesting
Couldn't agree with you more my guy; we definitely need a movement toward the middle ground!
i love modern art and classical music and scupltures, but even i don't want my town or city to look brutalist
brutalism was a different late mooernist movement developed by the smithson couple
@@FilipSornat rip wrong term then 💀
Still hate the guy's style though /lh
> Erechtheion, Greece pictured when talking about the Pantheon, Rome...
>Concrete: Compression good, Tension bad, an arch is in compression, the rebar is there to handle the Tension... Concrete got worse with Eugène Freyssinet's invention of pre-stressed concrete...thinner concrete that can go bang! Inspiration: Metropolis (1927)
> Slums to highrise...what were the Garden Cities for? And places like New Addington?
> No toffs in WWI? Who do you think the Trinity College Tiddlywinkers were? I guess that means all Knights were working class...
Came here for this :)
He showed the Erechtheion/Erechtheum, not the Parthenon. If you're going to correct someone, at least be correct yourself.
@@yuyutubee8435 Congratulations. Tbh I didn't think anyone would notice, most people think they're one of the same. Though neither use any concrete...
Domino house 😂 that's like calling your kid Remus Lupin in a world where werewolves are a thing
"There's strength in arches." - Joe Wilkinson
I despise brutlaist architecture
edit: wow this video's title has changed so many times
In the end haven't there always been ugly buildings? Like you said, before the modernist movement only the wealthy could afford nice homes. Of course most new buildings are not beautiful, most people who need homes are not rich. Every piece of decor on the outside of a traditional building was made by someone, if you put that on an apartment building do you think it would remain the same price? I feel like le corbusier and the modern movement are not the problem. Poundbury (that town you brought up at the end) houses 4000 people over 400 acres, corbusierhaus houses 1600 over 10, which do you think would become the blueprint for lower income housing? Is Poundbury really even in the running? I think the real problem here is that you think housing for lower income people is ugly, which has always been true. Now you can just see in better because they live in towers.
Also, of course traditional buildings look better. We tore down all the shitty ones.
Even the terraced streets of 1900's England are nicer.
Most modern architecture is technical and economic - not aesthetic. It's not about life... it's about profit. Many modern buildings are manufactured, not created.
Love your videos bro
I took an architecture course when I was in high school and while it was super complex and you needed to be very detail oriented, it was also super cool. I even got to design a theoretical museum
Ah Le Corbusier, the definition of controversy. Imo, a genius architect as far as individual buildings go. Not an urbanist. Actually the worst urbanist this world has ever seen, he really didn't understand the concept of cities
Your background music is top tier!
Loving ya intreat in architecture jimmy
i like how jimmy's videos still see the world through a parkour lens, i'm sure he wouldn't care as much about brutalist architecture if it weren't for barbicain and thamesmead's influence on parkour.
Haha for sure man, parkour shaped my whole life - I hope I can get back to training one day
You mean more people made it out of the Barbican? I almost gave up hope when I was there.
@@JimmyTheGiant Hey dude your doin meta'Parkour urbexring urban myths & overcoming obstacles to understanding important things that only 3D perspective of rooftops, kick offs & a literal visceral {bloody bails, shins & knees} connection to the built environment.
Your turning into a bloody good journalist {even got s sense of humour}
Le Corbusier was a fucking monster in pretty much every way imaginable. The damage he and his legacy have done to our world and our psychological well-being is difficult to overstate.
Great stuff.
I love how trying to make housing affordable and available to everyone ended up making housing ugly as sin, creatively bankrupt and somehow also so much more expensive even if 2 people per household work fulltime theyll never be able to afford one.
Or if they do theyll pay it off for 70years.
And its just ugly ontop so the construction company can have 1% higher margins.
Amazing.