Re: not so good
matthew6 wrote:
There are two things wrong with this picture:
1) There are no trees. The best neighborhoods are always at least thirty years old, because that's how long it takes for trees to grow & mature. If you can find any pictures of beautiful old Craftsman-style homes from around the time they were built, you'll notice how ugly and barren the surrounding neighborhoods always look. A lot of folks speculate that our desire to be surrounded by trees is innate and related to the fact that our ancestors spent a few million years living near the edges of forests...
2) This city was built for cars instead of people. Look at how much real estate is dedicated to driveways vs. yards, notice how much more prominent the garages are than the front doors. It's an indictment of the society that built it.
One thing that's important to remember: architects have a hand in the building process, but it is always their clients who set the priorities and decide what gets built. If a library board decides that they want to build a flamboyant Frank Gehry-like piece-of-shit monstrosity, regardless of whether or not it disrupts the street environment or even makes a good place for reading books - guess what kind of building they're going to get?
Anyhow, Kunstler is great. I'd also suggest Jane Jacobs and Stewart Brand's "How Buildings Learn". Good readin'.
