Comments on Two recorded conversations – about Sean Gabb and about modern architecture

Well I did enjoy that, but I was a little disappointed that neither of you went beyond just 20th Century architecture. In particular I'd be interested in hearing what thoughts Brian may have about the function of aesthetic judgements of architecture more generally.
Brian made some good points about attitudes to beauty, but I get the feeling he could say more about that.
Durham Cathedral, for example, is often cited as Britain's most beautiful building, yet it seems to me that its' builders had intended not beauty, but the sublime, the terrible - not too much unlike Brian's description of certain modern buildings as 'fascist'. So how these judgements of a building's aesthetic appearance change over time seems like an interesting subject for another podcast - should either of you find the time or inclination of course.


Posted by mike at October 27, 2007 11:30 AM

Podcasting. Named so because listeners usually download the, uh, broadcast (for lack of a better term) to their iPod or like device. Or casting to pods if that sounds better. Not that you an iPod.


Posted by diesel_f250@yahoo.com at October 27, 2007 11:56 AM

Yes Mike - there is a difference between the beauty of (for example) York Minister, and the sublime of Durham Cathedral.

Both have there place - and the sublime need not be Facist or in any way evil (showing power is not always evil - and even being grim and serious is not always evil).

An interesting contrast is between the interior of Manchester Cathedral, were the burnt damage of both World War II and the I.R.A. bomb is the main part of the atmosphere, and the interior of the main Church in Leeds (whose name escapes me) - where the interior is high Victorian bright coloured beauty.

Both have their place.


Posted by Paul Marks at October 29, 2007 11:20 PM

Although (to contradict myself) if one looks closely there are some friendly decorations in Durham Cathedral (and they were there from the first). Yes it is there to show the power of God (and perhaps of the Norman masters), but at close observation it is also saying "I am not alien, and I stand for right against wrong - whether Norman or Saxon".


Posted by Paul Marks at October 29, 2007 11:27 PM
Post a comment









Remember personal info?


Enter anti-spambot Turing code:





Select some text and click this to format it as a quote Make the selected text bold Make the selected text italic Add a web link


Basic html active.

Alas, but for obscure reasons Mac and some Linux users cannot use push-button formatting options and have to use basic html manually. Revealed forthwith are the mysteries of basic Html:

<strong>This text in-between is bold</strong>

<em>This text is in italics</em>

And
<blockquote>This is a quote</blockquote>
Remember to close your opened tags as such: <tag> tagged text and closing </tag> and we promise you will get out of here alive.

For adding links, either use the link URL button on the toolbar or enter your code by hand in the following format:
<a href="http://www.your_link.com">your link text or description here</a>

Your e-mail address will NOT be displayed.

You are a guest on private property and we reserve the right to delete anything we want to. Have fun but please be civil and succinct. Blogroaches will be persecuted, not to mention IP banned. Be polite or prepare to be deleted.

Long third party quotes or articles will also be deleted... so just link to articles you think are germane to your comment, do not quote the whole bloody thing.

And finally, please do not post using different names to agree with yourself, it will only get your comments deleted and banned.