*This comic was about France in 2021, but this style seems much more widespread.
You can blame this guy: Adolf Loos, at least in part.
Major influence behind Modernism. He was mainly reacting against Art Nouveau which he was a staunch critic of.
“The evolution of culture marches with the elimination of ornament from useful objects” is the core theme of his essay “Ornamentation and Crime” .
Basically,
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ornamentation causes buildings and useful objects to go out of style.
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Things that go out of style require materials and manpower to update.
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It is the moral imperative of the designer to make useful things, things that need to be redone are less useful and are wasteful.
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Therefore it is the moral imperative of the designer to remove all ornamentation from design.
He saw ornamentation as “degenerate” and equated ornamentlessnes with moral and intellectual development. He also made it a race thing. He used the example of people from Papua New Guinea having tattoos. Paraphrasing: “these primitive savages ornament themselves with tattoos, we enlightened europeans don’t. We smart, they dumb. Therefore ornament = dumb bad, no ornament = good smart. See?”
He was a major inspiration behind the modernist movement. It helped that unadorned buildings are cheaper and easier to construct - especially with the advent of cheap glass and steel construction. So you end up with this sort of soulless architecture that gives no sense of time or place - that tells you nothing about its purpose or the people who built/use it.
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Fachwerksbau (Alsace) is just fetish harness for houses, change my mind.
Having seen other German words, I’m going to just blindly guess that the word etymology is this:
Fachwerksbau
Fuckworks Bau
Sex worker Bough
Sex Dungeon Beams
Yep, fetish harness house.
This is dictated by cost and the desire to insulate. It’s possible to build well insulated buildings that look traditional, but it’s going to cost more and it’s not going to improve the quality of living inside the house.
Flat rectangular insulation panels with plaster on top placed on large flat surfaces -vs- irregularly shaped insulation with a cavity and a bespoke brick façade. Just the bricks alone, so without the labour, is going to cost about the same as the finished plaster. In the long term brick and a sloped roof should require less frequent renovations, but I doubt that it would ever offset the higher initial cost.
You can stick a fancy facade on basically any wall construction to make it look like an old-half timbered style, or brick, or stone, etc.
But trying to actually build an old brick/stone/plaster and timber monstrosity today wouldn’t be smart. Insulation, moisture control, energy efficiency, and even creature comforts like wifi signal penetration are all miles better with newer construction methods.
I agree the architecture is boring, but again, it doesn’t have to look this way. However, I think most people would rather have the soulless gray box than have uncontrollable mold spreading across their walls unless they leave the windows open in winter.
“Guess you guys aren’t ready for that yet, but your cat’s are gonna love it.”
