Why is simple decoration so rare in recent work?

Re:Why is simple decoration so rare in recent work? by evilduck on Wednesday May 01, 2024 @01:12AM (#40219730)

I think it's still a large degree of fashion. In 2024 we spot the lone ornamented streetlamp that survived and think it looks nice or appreciate that its still standing, or walk past the an old decorated building that was maintained all these years think it looks elegant, but if you travelled back to 1920 when your entire environment was filled with cheaply manufactured fake ornamentation then the new simplistic modern designs would have been the things that demanded notice and been associated as the new hotness and an ornamented cast iron product would have carried an association as old and dated. For the same reason if you sold an avocado green kitchen appliance in 1988 you'd be viewed as out of fashion and still too early to be retro-cool. Not everything gets a retro-resurgence, but everything gets old.

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Re:Why is simple decoration so rare in recent work? by 082349872349872 on Wednesday May 01, 2024 @01:48AM (#40219937)

Case in point: Eichler houses.

When I was young, they were cheap and cheerful and derided as "little boxes made of ticky-tacky".

Now that they're going for a million+, they are "mid century modern" and cool.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Eichler#Eichler_Homes

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Re:Why is simple decoration so rare in recent work? by mturmon on Wednesday May 01, 2024 @02:11AM (#40220083)

Some of that perceived value is the (wonderful) original Modernist attributes of simplicity, manufacturability, and form-follows-function, which are integral to the design philosophy of those homes.

The design work of the Eamses is another case: https://www.vitra.com/en-me/magazine/details/eames-potato-ch..., it’s just a magnificent use of the material.

Even the original Case Study homes were intended to be affordable, not made as mansions: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Case_Study_Houses (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bailey_House_(Los_Angeles)#Des...)

Needless to say, I think OP is just not well informed about design.

Just as it might have been hard to make an ornate street lamp, it’s also hard to make a clean modernist home. There are reasons (personal, practical, philosophical) to prefer one or the other for a given use, but the author isn’t seeing those nuances.

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