Quote:
Originally Posted by Lisnaholic
Spectacular stand-alone buildings like the above are great for making your name as an architect, but in European cities, already chockablock with architectural gems, I like the fitting-in style of design which has the fancy name of "Contextualism". If ever a single building defined this approach, it's this one:-
It's modern, but it works as a perfect compliment to what's there already. Together, each building looks better than they would've done on their own. Instead of slap-in-the-face architecture, this is well-mannered architecture that respects, even enhances, the past. |
Well we have much older buildings than American architects can ever dream to work with. For American architects, buildings from 200 years ago are often historic, that's nothing for Europeans. We have buildings the freakin Romans built. Everywhere.
These modern influences often are installed when a building, or part of a building is damaged, but many if not most cities try to restore buildings to their former appearance. Especially here in the south of Germany we would not like something like that. Our cities are more like
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9TFKw99BPo
We really love the ancient vibe and try to keep our cities looking old.
edit: even in much larger cities in the south the city core is usually entirely preserved
take Munich as an example which has many modern buildings in its Speckgürtel,
but the city core looks like this
