12-20-2022, 01:51 AM
(This post was last modified: 12-20-2022, 01:57 AM by jwilliamson.)
(12-19-2022, 06:29 PM)ac3r Wrote:(12-19-2022, 11:49 AM)jwilliamson Wrote: Honestly, losing the train station might not be a bad thing. $100 million is way too much to pay for a small station with no amenities.
I do agree. Though I think having a nice train station in a city should be a symbol of pride, much like a City Hall building can be. It's somewhere that people go to on a regular or semi-regular basis. A grand station with a nice design should be a must for a city/region that wants to take itself seriously. However indeed, the lack of amenities is disappointing. They had such grand visions for this at the start with the project not just being a train station, but an entire mixed-use development. Then it turned into just a train station...with nothing really there. I suspect they have long term plans for more development as the property is significant, but if it's 30-40 years out at best, what's the point?
(12-19-2022, 07:45 AM)Spokes Wrote: Genuinely curious, why would someone design this? Is a design like this cheaper compared to something that looks good. And by a significant amount?
It's a lack of talent. You also get a lot of architects who aren't, well, artists in a sense. You look at the work of so called Starchitects and you can see they have an aesthetic sensibility and are also governed by personal philosophical and ideological beliefs. You can look at buildings by Zaha Hadid and immediately see she worked within an aesthetic she prefers and is governed by a belief system that incorporates it.
Then you look at the architects who design for companies like SRM or Drewlo and you can see how they lack those sensibilities. They design in a formulaic, capitalistic way. It's like with music. Plenty of people can learn how to play a violin or grand piano. The technical side of reading music and playing an instrument is really down to basic "rules". But playing those instruments in a way that can convey actual emotion takes a special person to touch the strings or keys in the right way to achieve a good composition. The redesigns of this project that were recently posted show a pretty bland looking project. I can just look at them and using the exact materials they've chosen, can mentally imagine a much more evocative and interesting design. The tower doesn't need to look that awful. The midrise sections and podium could easily be a lot more interesting with some adjustments. I think it's just an issue of who these developers hire, which also comes down to how much they're willing to spend to work with and then what budget they will allocate to things like materials (but again, even with limited materials you should be able to create something good). And...well...just having people around with a "good eye" who can look at something and say, yeah, this is great. Or this is terrible.
If building a beautiful city actually requires architects who have artistry, it will never happen here. I don't think that's actually a requirement though. We need basic designs that look good
when implemented by mediocre architects, with easy ways to vary their appearances so they don't get too repetitive.
If you imagine yourself in some non-descript neighbourhood of your favourite city, were all (or even most) of the buildings designed by an architect with a sense of artistry? Were the buildings designed on their own, or were designs repeated over many buildings?