Go to some modern temples/shrines in Japan. Check out the torii gates and any other classical looking structure. Compare the ones in wood to the ones in stone or concrete. They look identical.
If you look close, you'll notice the little details sticking out of parts of the design. It's almost always a part of Japanese wood joinery. But it's still in the stone copies. Is it bad design? Of course not. That simple, striking, beautiful, complicated wood joinery has its own unique aesthetic appeal, and shaving off features just because they aren't necessary is completely beside the point of aesthetic beauty. To say nothing of honoring the tradition of a difficult and highly effective craft.
I’m inclined to believe that, if the original masterful wood-crafters had instead began their professions with stone, that they would have created beautiful structures that fully explored the capabilities of stone, and that their contributions to architecture may have looked a little different, but no less aesthetic.
So, assuming the will of the original craftsmen was to simply make the most aesthetic structures that their materials would allow (and maybe I’m wrong about that), would it be paying homage to them by making stone copies of their wooden accomplishments while working in a new medium with different characteristics, or would it be paying homage to them by continuing their pursuit and fully exploring the capabilities of stone, as the forefathers had done with wood?
That’s a question with no right answer... but I personally believe that homage is not to copy one’s output, but to copy one’s input.. To seek what they sought. To do as they would have done if they had stone instead of wood.
Beauty is subjective and the development of taste is path-dependent. A thing can be beautiful because it evokes features that make a designar successful for functional reasons in historical media.
In the case of many of these structures, their physical form is a reflection of some spiritual aspect. They're basically religious icons. Their design may be carried forward in part just because not doing so would be disrespectful on a spiritual level, or because they remind people of something. But they're not all the same.
There are probably thousands of different torii gates with slightly different designs. Some show an extended nuki with kusabi wedges, a modified mortise and tenon style joinery. But many torii gates don't feature these. Nuki joints are actually widely used as ornamental carpentry, and can be found in several non-wooden objects.
The construction of most torii, regardless of their material, seems to be about aesthetics (and honoring whoever paid to put it up) before the rest.
If you want maximum accomplishment with a material, check out their multi story pagodas that use a massive wooden beam in the middle. It acts as a mass damper and prevents the different floors from sliding off the building during an earthquake, as they aren't attached to each other. Hard to do that with stone! :)
What building by modern architects will even be around 500 years from now, much less revered as an example of beautiful architecture?
In fitting with the theme of the GP, not only is it structurally sound (to my knowledge) because of how the pillars are constructed, but it successfully pays homage to Gothic architecture and the oldest inspiration, Nature, while also being new and innovative.
Religious communities have the motivation to build something that lasts and use the best of materials. They see the building as an act of worship, in and of itself. Cathedrals often took extremely long times to build. In some cases, such as the beautiful Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque, they also have the money to build it both well and quickly.
Within many modern protestant Christian communities, building grand buildings is seen as a poor use of money that could be better spent helping people. These grand buildings are seen as less comfortable, efficient and flexible for modern congregations that would prefer lower cost, environmentally friendly and low energy building with community facilities.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UTS_Tower
Something about those big blocky Brutalist style concrete box buildings you just know the thing is nigh indestructible and is going to be around forever and that to me is the beauty of the thing it has such as permanence about it. It just kind of sticks out there and says 'here I am deal with it'.
I don't say it's as beautiful as the Parthenon, and it might not last 500 years, but we moderns aren't completely shabby...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathedral_of_Saint_Mary_of_the...
> Its saddle roof is composed of eight segments of hyperbolic paraboloids, in such a fashion that the bottom horizontal cross section of the roof is a square and the top cross section is a cross.
The interior is open.
https://goo.gl/maps/R2arUkpaZeD2
The top cross section is also a cross on this one.
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"Why do you want me to think that this is great architecture?" He pointed to the picture of the Parthenon.
"That," said the Dean, "is the Parthenon!"
"So it is."
"I haven't the time to waste on silly questions."
"All right, then." Roark got up, he took a long ruler from the desk, he walked to the picture. "Shall I tell you what's rotten about it?"
"It’s the Parthenon!" said the Dean.
"Yes, God damn it, the Parthenon."
The ruler struck the glass over the picture.
"Look, " said Roark. "The famous flutings on the the famous columns—what are they there for? To hide the joints in the wood—when columns were made of wood, only these aren't, they're marble. The triglyphs, what are they? Wood. Wooden beams, the way they had to be laid when people began to build wooden shacks. Your Greeks took marble and they made copies of their wooden structures out of it, because others had done it that way. Then your masters of the Renaissance came along and made copies in plaster of copies in marble of copies in wood. Now here we are, making copies in steel and concrete of copies in plaster of copies in marble of copies in wood. Why?"