• Matt Blaze@federate.socialOP
    1·
    15 hours ago

    With a few exceptions (mostly towers atop downtown switching offices in populated areas), no one was trying to make any of this utilitarian communications infrastructure beautiful. It was form strictly following function, built to be reliable and rugged.

    But there was, I think, quite a bit of beauty to find in it. I wonder if we’ll look at our current neighborhood cellular towers, now often regarded as a visual blight, the same way decades after they’re (inevitably) also gone.

    • Clive Thompson@saturation.social
      2·
      14 hours ago

      @mattblaze@federate.social

      I’m pretty sure we will

      The brownstones of Brooklyn – over which these days Wall Street guys frantically try to outbid one another with $3-$4 million offers – because they’re regarded as gorgeous and iconic …

      … were, when they were first built in the 19th century, utterly loathed by veddy propah citizens as being hideously ugly eyesores

      While recognizing that horrible contemporary design does indeed exist, I have trouble fully trusting here-and-now aesthetic judgements