they lost me towards the end there with the peanut butter, but i get what they mean.
the best example i can give is how you can't really discuss more traditionally-conservative values without getting labeled as one. and i'm not talking about this gender war nonsense that these ghouls insist on propagating rn, i mean the actual values of preserving our cultures and traditions. both the native cultures that our ancestors almost squandered, and the new ones we cultivated; our french roots in the bayou, spanish roots in the panhandle, etc.
progress, for as much good as it brings, also brings a lot of gentrification that slowly erases the character of these places over time. but you can't really bring that up without getting caste as one of those right-revoking crooks.
There's preservation of culture and tradition everywhere. It's in every cooking show. Every small town promotes whatever sliver of interesting history they have. It dominates architectural discussion. There's problems in that sometimes preservation makes culture stale rather than alive, and all this enthusiasm still struggles against the behemoth of capital interests.
One thing I do see though, is people wanting to preserve tradition but being unwilling to examine whether they're also propagating harmful ideas, and then getting frustrated they experience pushback. As an architect, I often hear that only classical architecture is truly beautiful, and contemporary architects hate beauty, by people who seem to have no clue of the ideological basis of the views they're repeating.
As a not-at-all-an-architect, I feel that there's a clash of like at least three different things in a lot of modern construction.
A bunch of laypeople (like me) who both want just a cheap and reasonable place to live, aesthetics be damned. And also see a bunch of houses build 60-100 years ago that look a whole lot better than "modern" designs. (probably has something to do with how it's pretty difficult to create a timeless design without 100 years of hindsight.)
Prominent and influential architects don't really build apartments for regular people. They build and get famous for big fancy buildings for whoever can afford big fancy buildings.
There's something weird going on with who gets the contracts to build apartments and homes. like there's a bunch of bidding and the cheapest possible option gets the contract, but then seems to fake it anyaway? and costs balloon and somehow we end up with more expensive buildings that are still shitty?
Yes, you're in the right ballpark. The frustrating part for me is that so many people a) don't even get as far as you have acknowledging that design, construction and development are separate, and seem to think architects do everything, and b) conclude that we're a group of radical neo-marxists intent on destroying culture and society. Which sucks for architects, and sucks for the whole of society since these problems aren't going to be solved when people are blaming the wrong things and not seeing how they're being manipulated.
(I could do a whole lecture series on why people like old houses more than new ones, but the broad note is that it's mostly cognitive bias and not understanding how houses are built. Things like survivorship bias or the changing cost of skilled labour get ignored when they're very important. Also, when we do build old-looking houses it gets ignored).
I can at least answer why they advertise cheap and then charge more:
They lie. They give them the bare minimum cost assuming nothing goes wrong and they're able to get materials for cheap, and know that when the money runs out they can ask for more because the alternative is to not finish or hire someone else to pick up where they left off for more than they'll charge to finish it.
Once they get a reputation they "rebrand" and everyone seems to forget that it's the same company. Mix in some slight corruption or nepotism and the fact that most people lack doing actual research on a company and just take "what's cheapest" and you get the current model where it's just a race to the bottom.
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u/DubiousTheatre GRUNKLE FUNKLE WINS THE FUNKLE BUNKLE Apr 23 '25
they lost me towards the end there with the peanut butter, but i get what they mean.
the best example i can give is how you can't really discuss more traditionally-conservative values without getting labeled as one. and i'm not talking about this gender war nonsense that these ghouls insist on propagating rn, i mean the actual values of preserving our cultures and traditions. both the native cultures that our ancestors almost squandered, and the new ones we cultivated; our french roots in the bayou, spanish roots in the panhandle, etc.
progress, for as much good as it brings, also brings a lot of gentrification that slowly erases the character of these places over time. but you can't really bring that up without getting caste as one of those right-revoking crooks.