Why modern architecture is making us sick

To be honest , I don’t think modern art and architecture (at least most part of it) can be actually called an Art in its high sense, it’s just obvious devolution... It makes me sad going to contemporary art expositions or looking at modern buildings , esp those that made for people living , I actually call them “anthills”...

But what’s more, Modern architecture makes us literally sick ...as it’s known the higher a person lives from the ground, the more his health is destroyed.
Man has evolved under certain conditions, and our body can function normally only in them - any deviations are fraught with consequences. We need a lot of factors - a certain composition of the air, a certain gravity, sunlight, and so on. There is one more item on this list - a magnetic field.
The tree lowers the level of the field by about 1%,
Ceramic and silicate bricks - by 7%,
Concrete - by 9%.
Steel sheet 1 mm thick - by 66%.
In modern construction, reinforced concrete floors between floors are almost always used, which strongly shield the magnetic field.
If you are on, for example, the 15th floor, there are 16 reinforced concrete floors under you, each of which reduces the influence of the electromagnetic field that reaches you.
The weakening of the level of geomagnetic field leads to negative consequences for the body. If a person spends a lot of time in a weak field, his efficiency and immunity decrease, and he becomes an easy prey for infectious diseases. The activity of the cardiovascular and autonomic nervous systems is disrupted.
Experiments were carried out on mice to live completely outside the magnetic field, in a shielded chamber:
by the 4th generation, they stop reproducing;
in the 2nd generation they have frequent miscarriages of embryos;
mice at an early age are inactive, lie on their backs a lot;
14% of the adult population has progressive baldness. First the head goes bald, then the back. By 6 months, the animals die.
Histological analysis shows that the shielding affects the kidneys of mice most of all (they develop a cyst and multi-chamber), and the liver also suffers.
Simakov. "Living Devices". Knowledge. Moscow. 1986 p. 55.
https://dumai.livejournal.com/3864.html?

Another nuance: the higher the number of storeys, the thinner the design. The difference in wall thickness on the first and 21st floors is needed to lighten the top of the building. Therefore , the audibility at the top is very high . The result is an accumulated psychological stress, lack of a sense of solitude. Plus , because of their "sophistication " , the tops of skyscrapers tend to vibrate . These micro-oscillations are not audible to the human ear, but irritate the nervous system. A person may experience anxiety up to horror for no apparent reason for a panic.
 
To be honest , I don’t think modern art and architecture (at least most part of it) can be actually called an Art in its high sense, it’s just obvious devolution... It makes me sad going to contemporary art expositions or looking at modern buildings , esp those that made for people living , I actually call them “anthills”...

But what’s more, Modern architecture makes us literally sick ...as it’s known the higher a person lives from the ground, the more his health is destroyed.

yes, the american natives insist on having foot contact with the ground soil

Man has evolved under certain conditions, and our body can function normally only in them - any deviations are fraught with consequences. We need a lot of factors - a certain composition of the air, a certain gravity, sunlight, and so on. There is one more item on this list - a magnetic field.



https://dumai.livejournal.com/3864.html?

Another nuance: the higher the number of storeys, the thinner the design. The difference in wall thickness on the first and 21st floors is needed to lighten the top of the building. Therefore , the audibility at the top is very high . The result is an accumulated psychological stress, lack of a sense of solitude. Plus , because of their "sophistication " , the tops of skyscrapers tend to vibrate . These micro-oscillations are not audible to the human ear, but irritate the nervous system. A person may experience anxiety up to horror for no apparent reason for a panic.
 
To be honest , I don’t think modern art and architecture (at least most part of it) can be actually called an Art in its high sense, it’s just obvious devolution... It makes me sad going to contemporary art expositions or looking at modern buildings , esp those that made for people living , I actually call them “anthills”...

But what’s more, Modern architecture makes us literally sick ...as it’s known the higher a person lives from the ground, the more his health is destroyed.
Man has evolved under certain conditions, and our body can function normally only in them - any deviations are fraught with consequences. We need a lot of factors - a certain composition of the air, a certain gravity, sunlight, and so on. There is one more item on this list - a magnetic field.



https://dumai.livejournal.com/3864.html?

Another nuance: the higher the number of storeys, the thinner the design. The difference in wall thickness on the first and 21st floors is needed to lighten the top of the building. Therefore , the audibility at the top is very high . The result is an accumulated psychological stress, lack of a sense of solitude. Plus , because of their "sophistication " , the tops of skyscrapers tend to vibrate . These micro-oscillations are not audible to the human ear, but irritate the nervous system. A person may experience anxiety up to horror for no apparent reason for a panic.
I would like to add, in soviet times that scientific approach was taken as a basis in construction standards. Thats why we did not have skyscrapers of any sort (rare exceptions around 30 floors in height, they had more of a symbolic status). Nowadays profit ‘rules’ the world and of course that standards were cancelled and the companies are building blocks (flats/offices) as high as they can, not caring about physical, psyche health etc.
 
Here is a condensed version of what Tucker Carlson said a couple of days ago about modern architecture after the second world war, not only in Britain, but worldwide. A pretty interesting and fitting observation IMO. I couldn’t agree more!:


Here is the full interview:

 
This post is definitely off-topic, but I don't know where to put this subject, and I think that it is a part of this big trend of Corporate Minimalism. It's everywhere... in architecture, in computer design, phone design, fashion design, in car industry... And people start wondering what is going on here? It's like a destruction of creative spirit on a global scale.


 
Here are another two examples of Corporate Minimalism. Twitter's new logo and also a logo of their new competitor, Threads. What do they have in common?
They are both in black and white. Anything else ?

Here is a far fetch theory of mine:
Some people think that in the near future building smartphone with color screen will be impossible because of a lack of some resource materials, and thus we will then have only smartphones with black and white screens.
If this theory happens to be true, having a black and white logo may come handy to be easily recognisable.

This is just my crazy thought of the day.
 
They are both in black and white. Anything else ?

Black and white and simplistic, and as a bonus in the Twitter's case, completely meaningless.

If this theory happens to be true, having a black and white logo may come handy to be easily recognisable.

This is just my crazy thought of the day.

Even if that crazy theory is true, that still doesn't explain why other non-IT companies are also following the same trend? Or why, when they are using colors, they are using them also in a very simplistic way?

If you look at Formula 1 cars for 2023, you can see that there are still colors on them, but there is more area covered with black than ever before.

 
Even if that crazy theory is true, that still doesn't explain why other non-IT companies are also following the same trend? Or why, when they are using colors, they are using them also in a very simplistic way?
Why do "they" want to simplify languages ?
Why are we bombarded with simplistic ideas ?
I see a trend here. An attempt to make people stop thinking or something.
 
Surprised by the doubt. Everything in black or white; you’re with us or against us. Black and white dumb down the emotional palette/no associated emotions. (Except maybe “bleak” power and emptiness) The kiddie-look lame graphics used by govt, corporations and medical industry. All super dumbed down. Shallow immature populace unable to critically think. By design. Orchestrated Step by step.
 
I would like to add, in soviet times that scientific approach was taken as a basis in construction standards. Thats why we did not have skyscrapers of any sort (rare exceptions around 30 floors in height, they had more of a symbolic status). Nowadays profit ‘rules’ the world and of course that standards were cancelled and the companies are building blocks (flats/offices) as high as they can, not caring about physical, psyche health etc.
Uh, I can't agree with the example. This so called "scientific approach" was guided by nothing of the sort and was little different from the profit seeking approach. Only instead of profit there were figures in the statistics of the number of built square meters and the height was limited not by usefulness, but by the limitations of construction equipment of the times of Khrushchev and as soon as the development of technology and more production of elevators made possible the construction of 17-storey anthills in the times of Brezhnev. I would still understand if the example was given of Stalinist architecture, which was aesthetic and oriented towards low-rise buildings even with minimal decoration, but not the ugliness that followed it....
1690309875719.png1690309991159.png
 
There is another aspect to this that I noticed. For some reason it seems like at some point, in general, people who build industrial factories decided that it is a good idea to reduce the number of windows in such buildings, particularly in the areas where the people work their a**es off to keep “the machine“ running. And it seems like the newer and more “modern“ the building is, the more extreme that trend has become.

To the point that you now often find new and sometimes huge industrial facilities being build without any windows at all! And if they decide to put in windows, they are often very small and look like windows of prisons.

Having worked in a number of such industries, I keep coming back at the way people are treated in such industries and that it feels like just a modern form of slavery in a number of aspects. Inhuman.

Even though many such companies pride themselves to be very “liberal“ and “humane“ I often find myself seeing that just as a shallow lip service excuse where the words don’t match actions at all. Particularly towards the workers.

As for the reasons for eliminating windows, I think many such companies would overtly explain that by making the buildings more “green“ and “energy saving“ for “the environment and the workers“. But I think that “explanation“ is often just a cover and lip service for some of the real reasons.

I think one major reason for why that is really done is because the chiefs want to have their workers „work continuously without distractions from the outside world such as nature and the sun“. They think that makes more profits, which in my opinion is their main goal there. I don’t think much has really changed, on a deeper level, in terms of slavery mindset.

At one workplace I worked this became pretty obvious to me when I was informed that the only view and contact to the outside world for the workers was deliberately closed off at some point: It was a balcony type with windows and it was replaced by a brick wall by the chief, who is notorious for his bad treatment of the workers. I think one of his rationals there is likely “the workers are lazy and need to be forced to work and concentrate on the work“.

Another of the real reasons is probably because it is cheaper to build without windows.

Here is a typical modern example of an industrial factory:

01.jpg


And here is a typical example of an old/early industrial factory with lots of windows in:


fabrik.jpg
 
One thing to consider is a point Collingwood made: every period of history has its own problems to solve, its own ideas, its own challenges and questions, to which people are trying to give answers, including answers in the form of architecture and design.

So it's not really a matter of just keeping building the old way, or designing the old way. Change is always necessary. For example, new building materials like modern concrete and steel concrete became available, and the housing needs and the needs and processes of industrial productions changed, so architecture will change accordingly.

With logo design, the most important places logos need to work these days are screens, where a more 2D/flat design works best for readability and recognizability.

If you look at different periods (before, say, the 1930s), you can find beauty and transcendence in all of them - even though the approaches sometimes changed dramatically. You can also see how some generations of people looked down on certain periods and celebrated others, but later generations reversed it. So it's hard to say "Barock was uglier than Romanticism" or something like that. It was just different - different people trying to solve different problems under different circumstances, each generation adding something new, creating in new ways.

So the problem is not so much that there are new approaches, new materials, new parameters etc. It would be kind of ridiculous to build cathedrals these days by copying the old styles.

The problem is rather that for giving original, compelling, and beautiful answers to the new questions, to use newly available materials and technology in pleasing ways that respect and celebrate humanity, requires true creativity in alignment with something higher and transcendent. Which obviously has been lost or subverted.

We could have beautiful and uplifting logos that work well on smartphones and screens. We could have great buildings using steel concrete that cover modern needs but also give us beauty in new ways and lift us up. We could have beautiful factories that make people smile and enhance the human experience of workers while at the same time responding to the completely new technical parameters of modern industry.

We could, but we don't, so...
 
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