Michael Diamant on the Classical Architecture Takeover and the Utter Stupidity of the Modernists

most people a majority assume that all the ugliness of the modern world is a necessity it's because of costs it's because of some kind of practical function i think no all the ugliness of the modern world is 100 ideology we can decide we can build beautiful buildings that are not more expensive than ugly buildings it's so easy you know if you use the classical framework but they don't want to they want to build these ugly buildings they want to impose all this ugliness on us because of ideological reasons i would like to thank our top sponsors bergamo matthias proy ivy newston sean roberts and fergus ryan for making this show possible and welcome to the cave of a palace [Applause] classical architecture is preferred throughout the political spectrum as tonight's guest can testify his facebook group new traditional architecture is devoted to positive news about old and new classical architecture but more than that he is also working actively to expand his network bringing architects and students together so they might learn from each other are things improving i will let my guests answer that question mikhail diamant welcome to the cave of a palace thank you very much for having me thank you it's it's really a pleasure to um to finally have you here on on the show it's uh it was a few times that it was uh tried to to arrange this this interview but then came the corona and then other things but finally finally you are here yes i think this is the fourth fourth try we do or something so so i'm also i'm very happy to be and very excited to to discuss this subject and and to have a conversation with you and and share my thoughts about it but as many will notice what i say is not my original ideas or i have come up with them i just my greatest contribution is that i'm allowed allow myself to learn from the past and to look backward what did they do right and if you have that mindset then you will come to great conclusions and you will also come to the conclusions why we like the classical so much so yeah that was a short introduction of my thinking because it's not i'm not intending to do revolutionize anything i just want people to open old books and learn how to create things that we like because most people like classical architecture they like the classical cities they enjoy them always they want to recreate there they want to spend their vacations there they want to be seen there they want to eat at restaurants there so something must be done right so why don't we just open you know old books look how why do you make the streets how how do you make the houses everything is documented so i want to just open the eyes of people and make them learn study you know study the old masters that created this world that we all love so much and it's one one aspect that i really find fascinating and inspirational with your facebook group new traditional architecture is that you show the good things that are happening today yes it's it's so uh it's so easy to sit and and and complain about everything but you're actually showing examples of new buildings that are built in in a classical style and as you know i'm the editor of the civilization magazine that writes about classical culture philosophy and related topics and now actually right at this time it's about one year since the norwegian architecture uprising uh like really hits yeah it took off and but in civilization we started writing about this before it took off we wrote about examples on uh classical architecture built today and all the examples we're taking taken from your facebook page because where it's it's so important to find an area where you know that it is possible yes because it's so easy to say that it's impossible and that it it's you know there's a lot you know you can have a theory like it should be done and we should do this but you know a picture says more than a thousand words so it's very psychological you show a practical example if someone says it's impossible to build well here you can see this is new built this was built yesterday and this has an impact because then people want more because if other people can do it why can't we do it you should start you know the the one of the many goals with this is to start people questioning why aren't we allowed it's not just theory you can see practical examples they are doing this in our neighboring countries if you live in sweden why can they build classical in germany if you live in in belgium why can they build classically netherlands so you start these conversations and you will not get satisfying answers by the modestness establishment and then you start to question that you know the whole architecture scene why are things done as they are done because a lot of thinking that the modernists have implanted on on general society is that it isn't impossible that it is impossible today to build classical architecture and most people that don't have architecture has special interest has accepted this as a truth so the what these images do is that they question this truth and it's just these two projects you know i published progress now for for eight years so there are hundreds of problems there are thousands of projects so it's not just one you know one eccentric millionaire that built this this is mainstream if we want it to be mainstream it's still you know in the general general things this is of course a niche still but it's built still on such a scale that it's done you know they have thought about the economics uh the methods the construction methods everything is thought to and if we wanted we could implement this in a large scale so to talk specifically about the examples here uh what what are the examples this looks like uh an american college yes this is jail and this is one of their you know i think dormitory colleges i think people live live on this you know they live on campus so like student accommodation and this is new built this was completed in 2017 i think so it has far it's only five years old and it's you know it's beloved not because it's old but because it's beautiful people enjoy the sight of this they enjoy this they enjoy to be there and they have alumni pride and this may be one reason that now we strave a little off topic here but one reason you know about why american universities build so many new classical buildings unlike their european counterparts is because they are dependent on alumni donations so you need to foster a proud alumnae and what better way to foster a proud alumni than want having students that want to hang out at campus all the time and if you build buildings like this you know it's become part of the identifications and then 30 years later when you are ceo of a company then you make this 300 million donation in europe where we have mostly state universities it's not important you know alone is not important so then you can build ugly new student buildings so so that in a sense also show you know what what you said you know when you presented this discussion that classical everyone knows that people prefer classical why otherwise you know in a very free market society like the american would american colleges build classical if it weren't you know for an economic reason it's you know for their survival basically they build these buildings this may be more expensive to build in the short term than an ugly concrete box but in the long term they will benefit hugely you know because of all the alumni donations that they receive the pride the pride that they instill on their students that i belong to this campus and it's beautiful so could you could you share how you um how you became uh so engaged in architecture and and how you decided on creating this this uh this large group it's very matte you know there is a you know expression you know that men make plans and and god laughs so so it's there are so many unlikely factors that i started with all this first of all my main interest is not architecture and it's not city planning either i like social anthropology the study of of people and cultures and religion and and demography that are my main interests that's what's closest to her that's what i read every day i read something like this architecture is after all this but i care about architecture and i care about the built environment and like like most people you know when you were young you you went ahead in the downtown area you saw that old buildings were very very beautiful and you saw that newer buildings were very very ugly and it you know it started like a conflict in my mind because we are very very much told in the swedish education system that we were a dirt poor country a hundred years ago and now the last hundred years we got you know one of the wealthiest countries in the world but if you look at architecture it seems like otherwise you know okay this dirt poor people created you know the most fancy and lavish of buildings and not only in the capital city if you go to any you know remote swedish hamlet you know in the northern inland you'll find fantastic public buildings built you know in the 1900s how could this dirt poor country build these buildings and now this well-faced nation one of the wealthiest nations on the planet only build ugliness so then you had you know a seed for questioning what is going on here uh later on you know you know you you take local beauty for granted but on my first long you know trip abroad i went to vienna which is amazingly beautiful it's really amazing beautiful and it also struck me though that how what happened to our hands how could they create such a marvelous beauty and then suddenly you know everything has turned to i'm i'm sorry for for the you know the curse word but but it's it's like amazing are this this is this the same profession what happened do these people you know contemporary architects see them themselves as higher as of the people that created these buildings it's you know it's preposterous um and then you know what i thought about it i i studied society planning at university with i read a lot of urban sociology i thought you know maybe city planning is something i should go into it didn't go in that way but at least i learned more about the subject and i studied you know culture geography and you know learned learned more about society then the years passed of course i wanted to know to to work and change and you know have a discussion about you know architecture but there wasn't a format and then you know social media came and i wasn't you know into social media in the beginning because it was you know i despised it even because it was the silliest and most stupid of narcissism a million people take a photograph of their food and then they take a foot off their feet when they are at the beach it's like you know that you get contempt you know for the masses or something you know like are people not more deep than this because they do exactly everyone else does it i i'm proud that i have exact the same interest and and once as everyone else you know it felt so sad but then this narcissistic crowd moved to instagram and facebook matured a bit you know when they became you know different kind of groups for different kinds of interests and in that then i thought maybe i should start you know a group and i believe you know that engagement you know should be very local so i started a group in swedish with a very simple goal as we mentioned now show an actual build project this is what they do here they built a new classical building today year linked architect and a short you know text about you know about the project and and because of of you know the swedish mindset how i interpret it uh the switch mines is very focused on progressive and and forward us we want to be the most modern of everyone so you cannot show you know the strategy you know behind the whole the whole group was not to show you know projects from countries that swedes consider backwards for a better world so i can't show you know too many polish projects or russian projects i would show project from berlin in new york because no one can accuse berlin of new york and be backwards on the contrary if you build you know classically in berlin and new york then it must be the latest and coolest thing to do and then the swedish psych will accept it more because it's it's like conflict you know in internal conflict on one hand people like classical on the other hand they want to be with the latest fashion all the time and this grew one year later a member uh he wants to remain anonymous contacted me and he started a group with the same goal but with a bit bit different you know approach and that was you know the swedish architecture pricing this you know extremely successful group and he's not not into marketing he doesn't work in marketing i will i cannot tell you know what what he's doing i think you know on on on video uh but he's like a marketing genius so he took the concept of new traditional and made it simplify you know one photo of the most beautiful new classical building click share like if you want the same and then you know it caught wildfire it made people that don't have architecture as a special interest join and join the conversation and they had a very good you know they have a very very good relationship they you know they they enrich it's out there so in new traditional today you have you know you have a project present education you have a serious discussion and in architectural pricing it's a very serious group but it's more simplified format this is new it can be done you can build beautiful today with the underlying message the only reason reason why we're not building beautiful is because of modernist ideology and if you teach people that they become quite angry because most people a majority assume that all the ugliness of the modern world is a necessity it's because of costs it's because of some kind of practical function i think no all the ugliness of the modern world is 100 ideology we can decide we can build beautiful buildings that are not more expensive than ugly buildings it's so easy you know if you use the classical framework but they don't want to they want to build these ugly buildings they want to impose all this ugliness on us because of ideological reasons and if people realize this they get angry they get really angry and there you started the rebellion and the flame which has been so successful and now it has spread to norway and the concept is the same make people realize that ugliness is a choice it's not a matter of cost or practicability or anything else the only thing is that architects want to create this ugliness and then they impose it on the rest of us and that's that's also something that i've noticed in in the norwegian um climate or in the norwegian society that after the architecture uprising really took off in norway it has become almost overnight more more accepted to discuss architecture yes and that is a positive thing it has people who previously was very were very hesitant to discuss and they could maybe admit that well yes i do like the classical but not for today like no that's as you said it's it's impossible to do it today but now it has become more like a realist or it has been perceived as a realistic option it can be done now the discussion is at least it has moved forward it can be done but the modernists say it shouldn't be done but at least now everyone knows that it's practical feasible there are too many examples now so you can't hide the truth so then the discussion moves a bit forward uh there are many problems with these discussions uh and it's important to stress that the modernists don't want this discussion they will try to kill this discussion instantly because as soon as you have this discussion they will lose if you just discuss okay why are we building this ugly does people like it no so why are you doing it that will the answer will provocate people to you know to the teeth but but by underlining what they are saying that we have the right to impose because we know better that is very provocative to say you know in 2022 we do we have a much more italian area and so uh egalitarian society today so you can't just say to people that oh i'm an architect i want to build this ugly building because and and have your living environment look like this because i know better than you um so that's what all discussions will end up so they try to avoid this discussion by labeling so you have all the time you have you try to brand people that have you know uh sympathy towards classical architecture uh or at least you know want to have an opinion about the architecture that they have some some they are sometimes they always uh have extreme right wing leaning or even nasty or fascism it's like you try to kill the discussion but associate people that have an opinion with all these kind of movements because as soon as you get a real discussion then they will lose then they will be exposed of what they are there's also a lot of problem you know in in the whole discussion with semantics and this is something that uprising has worked a lot with to give people the term the terminology what they like we are against modernism we're not against modern architecture because if you say that you're against modern architecture you know you you end up in a trap okay you're against modern architecture then you want unmodern architecture no i want heating in my apartment i want you know water and everything and i want a toilet so we are against modernist architecture all these buildings are these two at least they are modern all buildings here are modern architecture but these two are classical and this one is modernist so that you don't confuse these terms because then you end up you know and losing just by you know having lack of terminology and what do people want what do people like we don't want old style buildings we don't live on nostalgia it's not that we want old things we want beautiful things we don't want to have an eternal 19th century of style repetitioning endlessly we don't want neo-georgian or swiss style houses eternally it's not wrong to use these dice but of course we want to create something new what we want is the framework how you destroy how you create a facade a facade that appeals to the human mind i i think it's very very important what you say about giving the terms and and really trying to trying to define them and one one issue that i've met in uh in many discussions especially from those who are uh that they who support the modernist aesthetics is to question the or to make everything relative and to say well but what is the classical and what is the modernist and um yeah it's it would be interesting to hear your view on how to define a classical uh architecture well they do this it's all a smoke screen because they try to use their superior knowledge you know i must say it with really with irony to confuse you so it's just like you know a a way of tactics you know in in language to to make you to confuse you so you don't know to articulate what you want but what is the classical tradition the classical tradition is yes of course in western civilization at least or in european civilization it has you know the basis in ancient greece and roman times it's you know it's a way of you know understanding proportions and dimensions and division of facade how you create a building and from this understanding and of course that there is of course you know style elements you know you have certain style elements that associated with with classical architecture but with this understanding how you create a facade that comes from these ancient times and what proportions what are correct proportions this is to understand this is the classical architecture with the patient in ancient greek and greek and roman civilizations and from that on a multitude of new styles have been created during the centuries so 15th century and 16th century and 17th century classical architecture is not identical to the ancient greek and roman architecture but there is you know stringents they use the same understanding how to create proportions human scale all the measurements and how you divide a facade and that's you know that is so important you know how you divide a facade um it's it's such a wide subject so i stray all the times you will have to lead me back here but but it's you know the division of facade is so important because it's about readability uh our human minds always you know when we when we walk around we read our environment and we feel happy and secure and calm when we can read our environment the classical facade and the facade division is very logical it's varied but it's logical you have a base you have a middle section and you have a roof section our brains can instantly we don't think about it read the building so you get calm of that your environment your built environment is readable the baseline that you find on many classical buildings also keeps your eyes straight they don't go up and down if you look at modernist buildings they lack a baseline it's all the same you know the bottom floor and the top floor is the same and the roof is flat the building you know makes it's much harder for our brains to read and now we have when you have this mutated modernist of today if you look at this building that i took an example because it's very good example of the latest trend you cannot read this building with this building and this building you have port symmetries so you can instantly recognize different pairs of windows you can read this building very quickly with this building your brain will struggle to find a pattern you will not be able to find a pattern no matter how long you look and it will stress in you it's not that you think i'm stressed by seeing this building is everything you know an unconsciousness that you cannot you cannot make pears you will try to make try to create some kind of of system of this building but you cannot so this is one you know neuroscientific you know reason why we like classical buildings they are logical the scale and proportions feel right and they are very very readable and their readability make us call then you have you know the aspect of beauty they are varied they are both homogen and varied in the same building so there is symmetry but it's not one symmetry it's not like you know the 60s building where you have 10 windows you know in a row and every every section is you know equal you have port symmetry so all these are many symmetries in the same building so it's a bit fun it's fun for the brain because you search and you find all the time you find different pairs of symmetries so it's amusing for us at the same time as it's readable so you get harmony for from it so that's if you break down you know beauty and the concepts of beauty very much it's you know we are biologically inclined to like classical just because it makes us feel secure and it's also really it's amusing for our brains to look at yeah i um i also think it's um i i find it useful to to see how classical architecture is so connected to to nature yes and that has also to do with the what you say about proportions yes much of the classical architecture is based on the human proportions and on symmetry as in nature not as in as you said with all the windows on the same row it's not that kind of symmetry and many of the aspects of uh classical architecture you can't trace it back to something you find in nature yes in a way you can see the columns are like uh stems on a tree yes trunks on a tree and um and you know these when there are a lot of columns it's almost like walking in the forest and you feel safe and it's still and it's still the wind comes through uh but a bit more protected and the spires or the towers are like tops of a tree and so it's it's not that it is an ideal necessarily to be just connected to nature but it's also back to the neurological aspect of it we are uh we are used to being close to nature and to to react and observe other people and therefore that makes us more comfortable ourselves and then on the other side you have the modernist architecture that actually strives towards strives towards breaking the harmony and being disharmonious and being unsymmetrical and trying to really actively break all these elements that makes it connected to to nature it's very true because instinctively we can see if proportions are wrong on a building if the columns are too high or too low we just you know everyone can just you instinctively see if it's wrong because sometimes we have like in our biology what are correct proportions it's so easy to see and this is also you know when you argue about you know costs and everything can you argue that it was more it was cheaper to put the windows you know in in many crazy locations and you must also ask if you're allowed why did the architect put the windows in all this location as you mentioned it creates total this harmony what is the good what is the good for you know for passerbys or for society to have a building stresses us that you know goes against everything that we are as human beings what is the point of that why should we approve a building that looks like this it's just insane basically and i studied a lot you know why are we allowing this and it's it's because of power you know the modernists have hijacked all the institutions and they have also uh put two concepts into culture that are are so destructive one is relativism that beauty is subjective that's a total nonsense and lie uh and now we have neuroscience to prove you know what everyone has known for thousands of years so beauty is not subjective it's there are very very many objective elements in what is beauty and the second is that if you have an opinion you are totalitarian and totalitarian so if a politician has questioned this he has the same leanings as hitler because hitler also had you know thoughts about architecture so they get got like a free hand to do all their crazy experiments because no one dares to question them until now yeah and okay i should not have that hybrid people have questioned all this ugliness for for decades but they didn't have the channels you know they didn't have social media is excellent because anyone can start a facebook group before you know you couldn't start a newspaper and you couldn't get you know the spread of this discussion because the modernists were always able to suppress you know all dissident and all you know critique because it just ended up you know in the page five in the culture section i don't like modernism and then there was a reply you know a little exchange between them and nothing more now with social media it cannot be suppressed the critique cannot be suppressed it is there and it puts with lack of a better word it puts a gun at the modernist head not that they die but they are forced to discuss they are dragged to the discussion table it has a discussion that they don't want but now they are forced to discuss their architecture and they haven't had they haven't had to do that for for since the 1960s and it's it's amazing because they are not used to critique and they you know frogs leap out of their mouths all the time and it's so hilarious because because they they will say the most stupidest of things that provocate people even more yeah and just commenting on on what you said about relativism to me my my background is in philosophy and i think that is one of the most harmful things to do to the culture to to relativize everything because or at least or anything because that is the most unphilosophical attitude that you can have yes not necessarily to say that i know the absolute truth i know exactly what it is but you're supposed to try to define it yes not saying that well that's that's up to you that's that's your opinion not mine that's not that's not a philosophical mindset then you're okay that's your opinion and i have another opinion let us discuss and i will try to convince you that my opinion is right or maybe you will convince me and those with the best arguments will uh that pursue for truth yes exactly so so it's and this uh this relative is you know it the most destructive effect it had uh is of course on the construction companies you know many architects try to lead the critique oh we architects we are just you know we just make what the client want that's because the architect said that this course and the culture of what we built today and because they introduced relativism construction companies are very happy for relativism construction companies don't care what they build they can build an amazing cast that you know will be towers and everything or they can build a concrete box they are not ideological they are profit maximizing but if you say that beauty is relative okay let's build an ugly box and just say oh but beauty is you know in the eye of the beholder we think that this is beautiful yeah and no one can criticize it because beauty is just relative you know so they are very happy for this modernism and relativism so they will just order books and build new boxes and another one critique well that's your taste our taste is that these boxes are beautiful so this horrible combination that we gave you know relativism to the culture and and uh and that architectures you know any critique is some kind of fascism then they have you know been freed from responsibility but but the whole whole um the whole reason why the modern world is ugly it's not construction companies it's not politicians it's architects 100 the fault is entirely theirs because they set the discourse what you know the framework of the discussion about architecture what is contemporary architecture and if you look at the magazines what what uh you know what what buildings do they present and and you know share what buildings do they give prices well that's the reason why the modern world is ugly because they price the ugly buildings they share is the ugly buildings and the attributes for good architecture the only quality that is important for modernist architecture in the field of architecture is that it's new not that is good not that is practical that it has never been built before that it is original so now they use you know computers to twist a building you know even more oh is this better somehow no but it's new it has never been built before and then you get recognition as a genius among you know among fellow architects so they are entirely responsible and they should not be able to flee this responsibility they will try and they will try they try in sweden then they try norway and they should also be dragged back you set the tone you decide what is architecture of the day and you decided that this is the architecture of the day you give prices to all these ugly buildings how can you not claim responsibility that you are a part of the problem and you introduced relativism so why do you blame the construction company when you introduce that you know taste is just you know it's just subjective you know beauty is just you know a matter of taste and as as one example the there was one construction company in i think it was frederiksta norwegian town where the constructor wanted to to build something that was slightly classical and that was the winner of the norwegian architecture uprising price and it was not like classical like this but it had some classical elements like with a column something like that and he didn't find any architects in the beginning who wanted to do it it was really difficult and that was not something it was not building a castle it was building something with certain uh classical elements in bricks not in just concrete and glass and it was so difficult the architects didn't want to do it no because they will get a stigma within the group because this is also it's it's like you know it sounds so silly it sounds can sound quite stupid to accuse people but they are really a cult because they have so narrow definitions of what they are allowed and they are so afraid to stick out an architect that you know would agree to do this project you know his co-work you know if he go to know the architecture gala or anything you know he would be questioned people wouldn't talk to him so they care a lot and it's very very narrow what they are allowed to do they are not allowed to think freely they are afraid of each other they even dress you know they even dress the same you know so it's what's happening there's no free thinking or anything like that they are not creative they are very very afraid people and they are afraid that to stick out you know from the established dogma and established dogma is that everything must be new you are never allowed to look back and function previously it was you know form follows function or something like that now it's just it has never been done before therefore it must be done and that's the highest highest value so i i have only i only content for them actually i i because they you know they want to be treated as experts but what are the experts at they don't make anything good can anyone point out you know that contemporary architecture is good can any point out that contemporary city planning the areas that plant that they are you know lovely and thriveful and that you enjoy them no so what what are they expert at except for human misery so so it's first you know i thought you know naively that there must be some kind of logical reason by this but the more i discuss with them you know i've discussed them without both online or in real life for eight years yeah just very stupid people they're just very very stupid people that refuse out of ideological reasons to learn anything from the past so what is your what is your uh goal or the dream and scenario of how or the the dream of how it will will develop how should um how do you want buildings to be constructed in in the future and how should the decisions be made and um yeah okay i can be honest now you know it's not that it will be a democratic process you know that everything is not you know perfectly democratic but but my ideal for the future is to remove all the modernists from you know the architectural high schools from the engineering schools from the civic institutions remove them and replace them with classical architects classical school engineers classical bureaucrats that is the final goal it's a matter of power because it doesn't matter if you are the best it's the ones that are in power that are in charge so they control all the institutions now so they have to be you know we have to take the you know the architectural rebellion what it does it removes power from them so there's a power vacuum now we you know we have made a breach and you fill it with other architects that are classically inclined and then you will get a better tomorrow that is happening uh but it must happen you know in a faster pace of course that's why it's so important to to educate new classical architects and to show young people you can be a classical architect you don't need to be a modern nostalgia that you can be a classical architect and then you know slowly it's a project of 10 to 20 years you you make this you know oil tanker you make it you know turn around uh and then when you have taken control of all the institutions then you will have as beautiful cities as as in the past you'll know as good city planning is near as in the past of course there will be new inventions and there will be new classical styles but beauty will be seen as an important attribute of a building as it was before and i cannot stress its beauty is you know essential for a building in so many ways it's not about shallowness or we want beautiful buildings because we are shallow beauty is a function that is you know extremely important and you notice it more and more you know with every new challenge that humanity you know confronts now there's very much talk about you know uh climate and climate crisis so the the architects are very occupied they are always occupied with everything except architecture that they should somehow solve the climate crisis so we build these green buildings we put grass on the roof or something similar like that but the most important you know the biggest contribution to to co2 emissions of a building is when it's built the longer life span a building has the the more green it is how do you make a building a long lifespan you add value beyond mere function so this building has a value beyond mere function this building has a value beyond mere function old industrial buildings they have a value they were beautiful you know they are beautiful so what happens now you know when when they are not long used as you know for manufacturing we convert them to residential buildings or to offices so in that way we have extended their lifespan the building's lifespan and we did that because they had a value beyond mere function no one will convert an industrial building from the 1960s or onward to you know to beautiful residential lofts or anything like that that won't happen because the buildings are pure utility they are you know built specifically for this manufacturing then when this is no longer needed then you bulldoze it and you build a new building and this is not environmental friendly you see it all over the place you know we tear down now where i come from in stockholm buildings in in city that were built in the 1980s and 1990s why do we do that because they don't have no value beyond mere function if they were you know built like this then people would consider oh this is what you know preserving it's beautiful it's it's uh culturally rich expressions then we will find we will keep the building we'll make some modification and we will use it for a new purpose if you go close to where we are not to starve and or to all downtown oslo the buildings you know the old buildings have maybe had 10 different purpose you know during their lifetime or people always saw it fit to reuse them because they had a value beyond mere function so the classical way of building is more ecological it's a hundred times more ecological than a modernist way because building lasts for hundreds of years and thousands of years they don't last for 30 years torn down and then you build a new new building but the modernist cons think that you know an ecological building is one that is building ecological materials that's totally falsehood a building is ecological when people want to preserve it otherwise it's not economic ecological and we don't want to preserve ugly buildings we tear them down out of a social aspect oh sorry out of a social aspect you know you talk about social sustainability well what is more social sustainable than buildings that lift people's spirits you know people are lifted in their spirits if you walk in this environment you get happy not that you think of the building but you know unconsciously you know this is a very harmonious environment this is this harmony this makes people more stressed this make people more calm out of like a macro perspective if you put it out you know in all our built environment people who get much healthier if our built environment were beautiful if we weren't ugly and this in turn you know if you think of statistics and economics they could say you know a lot of money when it comes to classical city planning uh when i talk of classical city planning i i think of the city in the you know turn of the century in the early 1900s i don't think of the medieval city i think of the you know lack of a better term the houseman city there you have a city where you have perfect integration and you get economic optimization you know the modernist planning create a million islands where you only have chain stores because they are the only ones that can survive and some pizza place when you create this you know this dense but very efficient urban fabric that that you have in the early 1900s city you get so many economic benefits because what you get is you get uh what they use in american english mom and pop stores you get niche stores they cannot survive in this modernist landscape they can only survive you know in in the city where you have a flow of people that randomly communicate and pass by in the suburbs you get a very sterile economy that is dominated by you know large companies in the city you get small shops because there is enough you know diversity of plots there is the enough diversity of you know spaces and everyone is equally good in the suburb you have a clear center and there's what you get flows if you build outside the center no people will pass by your store in central oslo almost any street would do because people will naturally pass by it so you get a lot more possibilities you know for for stores that don't have maybe economic muscles and and that you know are directed at a very niche demographic yeah people that collect uh stamps or or locomotives or or anything like that you know you are happy that they exist maybe this new pure interest maybe it's an interest of a very tiny part of the population but it's it's good that they can have a place also you know and yeah yeah i think i think rome is a city that has a really fantastic city planning and city life the old par old part of rome and uh what you can see there is all these holes very many of them that are called doors yes that you can go in and um and that is what you often don't see in the more like in the buick area in oslo there are um which is this modernist buildings looking like this like how how many doors do you see on this building it's one yeah it's one door on that whole building yes it could be filled with with the i don't know 40 50 doors yes and and that creates this variety and and life and um and you get that's just one of the many aspects you know the the new urbanist guru jane jacobs you know said it very good because all these different plot sizes and everything it creates you know a chance for you know small people with fewer means to create a business to create a store that creates life you don't get the sterility of only you know one big plot and this plot is very because location is so important you know with modernist planning uh you get only chain stores that you know have the money you know to buy this place you don't get a diversity in the economic diversity in the city and in the end you know you need small companies to create big companies so it's bad in the long run you know it's good with you know many different plots that you can have like a a seedling ground for for small companies and then you know if people discover that this small little bakery was very good maybe that owner is entrepreneurial and start you know maybe a chain and then it grows to something bigger yeah but um um you talked about uh this beautiful vision of replacing uh the modernists with the classical it's quite bloody so it's beautiful but i don't know it's it's not bloody but it's low it's it's it's removing power it's taking power from people that have the power yeah and just say thank you for your time goodbye yeah first there is no second chance for them they have done theirs so these professors will be austered and it will be replaced by a classical professor uh yeah but then i i do totally agree that there they are two different ideologies but not only that the difference between modernism and classical because then then one could think that well the modernists know both of them and have chosen one of them why can they not be free to do that but um what what has struck me is that it's more of a reintroduction of a craft or a knowledge yes because i uh just from my own experience i attended this course in classical architecture in new york in the um in the institute for classical architecture and art and it was this winter course and i remember i did it just because of interest and i have no background in my background is philosophy not architecture so i i called the office and said is is that all right that i attend this course um because it's made it's really you do architecture it's not something theoretical you are drawing and you're making something some pavilion and a building and she said yeah that that could go well and i was the only non-architect on the whole course but i was on the same level yes and it was architects students that were really skilled people and it was uh professional architects who had worked in the field for 30 years and they wanted to learn classical we were on the same level meaning we were we didn't know anything yes and that really that really disappointed me in a way because it it it made it even clearer that this is something that is not only about uh ideology although it is ideology but it it's also something that through the ideology it's just been lost no it's it's an ideology of ignorance it's like the law of ignorance they don't know anything and that's a whole bunch but they don't know how to create a city they don't know how to plan if you visit urban forums or urban studies one should think that oh you discuss how to make a good grid or how wide should a street be no they talk about planting grass on the fact i get angry now but they talk about planting grass on the rooftops they talk about now i saw an article multi-species urban planning they want to bring wild animals into the city it's one idiotic thing after the other they never talk about practical urban planning or practical architecture and they invent new words all the time because they are so ashamed no they are not ashamed because their their ideology tells them that they are never allowed to look back they invent new words for things that existed for a thousand years what is the 15 minute like it's a very big slogan now in urban terms the 15-minute city well that's the classical city it's like why do you need all these new words all the time resilience all these fashion wars it just describes the cities that existed until modernist more or less basically and they don't know and the level is so low and that's why you know it is very funny because i on the net i've been described you know as a architectural historian and a professor no i work with personnel at a food delivery company and still i have more insights and this is not hubris you must understand that because you saw it yourself then 99 of architects and planners i know better how to create a good city and a good architecture than 99 of current architects and planners because they are ideologically ignorant they are not allowed to look back so they make mistakes and they make stupid mistakes because people have discussed urban planning as long as we had cities you know in ancient mesopotamia and the romans and the the you know that there is you know you have the new world you know there were clear regulations how the spaniard should build new cities there so we have always discussed how to create a good city and what is important attributes of a good city so it's it's nothing new and if you just open a book everything is well documented oh as a street there should be a hierarchy of streets an ideal street with is this because then you get connected you know you're connected to both sides people on both sides of the street are connected to each other you know everything has been thought out just open a god just open a book and read because everything is documented no we will not so then you go to a course and you sit there and you are not an architect and you sit there with architects and they do nothing and they are the so-called experts that you know shall define our built uh environment how can you be an expert when you don't you know use two thousand years of experience i don't know in any field they know that they reject past knowledge what if mathematics no we can't use algebra because it was invented in the 800s we must invent something new to to count these figures it's amazing yeah because it's so stupid you notice that i get you know the more i talk about it the angrier i get because i have no other way to say it these are really really unintelligent people their focus is on everything that they shouldn't and they don't know anything it's um it's also because all of this is uh is connected to to the field of of aesthetics yes and um it's it's strange that also in in aesthetics in philosophy in academic philosophy aesthetics is the only um it's the only field of philosophy where one aesthetics has been chosen as the only relevant while the past is rejected that is not the case in any other fields of philosophy in philosophy of politics you still discuss communism you still discuss capitalism and all kind of democracy everything is relevant and that's how it should be in philosophy and same with ethics you discuss everything although it's many think it's proven to be incorrect and that's how it should be yes and it should be the same in uh in aesthetics as well that it is then they will lose but then they will lose so they are not interested in a competition or a discussion because if you hold these next to each other okay which building is the best then 90 will say this building and they will lose so why have a competition if you will lose that competition they know this very well that's why they never want to make surveys what buildings people like and they will never have an open discussion should we have this option if you look at you know competitions today they're a joke here we have five different modernist alternatives which one do you dislike the least it's that it's not like here with two classical and two modernist because then more than the classical would in most cases they would know in an overwhelming majority of cases they would win so they are not interested in anything that competes with their ideology ideological architecture because they would always lose because their premises their you know their reason that their buildings beauty is not it's not only that it's not important it is seen as something shallow as something bad so they will have none of it and most people enjoy beauty and beauty is not a sign of jealousy beauty is sign of intelligence it's refinement you know creating this is a lot of refinement you know figuring out how you should place and how you should organize it's a refinement of the mind it's not simple to create a beautiful building it's very simple to create an ugly building because then you make very little effort i would say okay they make an effort to make it i really ugly okay to make it really ugly make an effort but but in general it's much harder to make a beautiful building than to make a hard building and you need more skills for that so yeah in the in the end you know everyone should have questioned them and have a certain degree of contempt for them because they impose this ugliness on everyone else and they do it because of their extreme narrow-mindedness we can they have the power so we have to live with them but we don't need to love them for it we have the right to tell not you know i don't want people to attack them you know physically but yes we can tell them we think your buildings are very very ugly and very very disturbing so they should know that they are not loved they should know that they impose this on us it's not that we like the barcode area in oslo it's imposed on us we hate it but you are in charge so of course you can do it but you will not be popular will not like you for it and they should know it so this is important you know because we are so every human is a social creature so they should really feel you know the social stigma okay we can build this ugliness but people will dislike us for it yeah they will not be indifferent they will tell you that you do this not uh not with our permission but just because you have the power to do it and it's um and it's also interesting uh with the lack of will of having these uh service done and everything because uh many of them are so clear also when it comes to the newest survey i saw from from the us made by the national civic arts society uh was very clear on it was 75 or 78 prefer the classical buildings to the modernist ones and it was a very good uh good test with very good examples yes made by a professional survey company and it showed that it showed that it was uh across political uh belonging democrats and republicans just the same the same with gender the same with race with background with income even yeah and and education it was um it was a very very interesting uh survey and because everyone that is not ideologically inclined to like modernist will like classical you know if you have a part of your everyone has like you know in contemporary times and identity project so if you're not a special interest in architecture you will always use this before this but then of course if you study the architecture and you know you have a social circle and everything and you learn the rules of the social shockers how you get you know score higher in that social strata then of course you will out of ideology say that you like this one because it raises your you know your your points among this among your peers that you that matters to you but since majority of people are not have the main interest as architecture they just go by heart and then they'll be like classical always or in 75 percent of cases at least you know i think that's a crushing majority and you could probably get a higher majority if people if people would have more if you i would say if you would specify the question these were public buildings if you would ask people if there is a new building that will be neighbor to your home then it will be like 90 would prefer the classical you know to the modernist because then it gets more personal a public building is still you know a bit far away the further away a building is the more crazy it is to be allowed but the closer it gets to your home then people will be much more much more more picky on what they want you know next to them so what what's your view on [Music] on having the citizens decision heard to a larger larger degree well of course that's important as i told majority of people don't have architecture as a main interest so there's always a need for an expert but with that said people should have a saying about their built environment and they should have meaningful choices so people don't know always know what they want that's true for not only for architecture that's true about everything but they know what they want when they see it when they feel it so show very good examples this is a vision for how it could look in your eye and this is a competing vision which one is closer to you that's how you do you know it's it's hard to do citizenship participation it is a goal but it must be made in a meaningful way so it's not hijacked you know by a certain activist you know small groups that just you know want it in a certain way so meaningful participation is important then but in today's world when you know considering education levels the public should always have a saying about and they should have a final saying about build pro build projects maybe not a vote you know specifically about these four choices but you know the general direction what kind of architecture do we like more you can make it like a more simple you know like something they have in mind do you want buildings look more do you want an area that is more like this district in the town or this district in the town so they can you know imagine themselves more oh do i like it more there or do i like it more there then you can get you know a better you know understanding of what the public prefers and then of course the architect will have you know a creative vision and create something and then this will be reviewed and then the public can be consulted again so there is there should be room you know for artistic expression there has never been a you know true democracy in architecture and all our very marvelous cities were built you know without any citizenship participation um so but the public should have a say it should have like a say of the general direction the qualities that they want that's why i think is a realist and then it must be it it must be done in an engaging way because they tried you know there's always a problem with you know public consulting when they try to involve the community is that you so few people show up yeah it's not that they don't want a beautiful environment but they don't know they know it when they see it when it's already there if you ask someone it's like asking a child you know what kind of ice cream do you want chocolate yes do you want strawberry yes do you want you know this and this and then you end up with a totally crazy no ice cream with everything on it will not be good so it's it must be done in a good way and this i don't know i don't know there are probably good examples but in general i don't know any good you know example of you know public involvement and or community involvement in projects yeah i i think the the british think tank create streets had some examples of citizen participation but in a very local and small scale that had some some kind of impact but i i don't know the details in general the best way is to do like the operas is have a building look at this do you want this what do you want this yeah no more questions click on this picture click on this picture so yeah we also have some uh questions or one question from uh one of our top patrons oh if you're ready yes i'm ready so one of our top patrons asks is there any avenues for people who do not have an architectural license or degree to design buildings if they have an aptitude for classical design the many precedents in the renaissance for for example giotto michelangelo and leonardo seem to show that great classical architecture can be born from those who aren't professional architects not to mention the myriad of nameless peasants who built the most beautiful medieval towns and were certainly certainly not architects what are your thoughts on this well you know there is a democratization of knowledge today you can learn more from youtube then you can learn from many universities so i'm not fixated with degrees but in general but of course you need a standardization of knowledge one must know that you know that the person that you hire has certain you know qualifications so that is needed but for a practicing architect or designing a building well i think that most people are more qualified to design a good building than most architectures today because they are trained to design bad buildings today so i have no problem with you know lay people designing wheels as i told previously i'm a lay person i still believe and it's not hybris that i can do better city planning and better architecture than 99 of all contemporary architects and planners can do with the simple reasons that i allow myself to read old books how they design the cities that we love do you have any any either books to recommend or any places where you can learn some of the basics or even take an education in classical architecture well there are there are springing up not many summary schools there is few institutional there is in the us you can study full-time at notre dame university and i think at colorado university you can now study to become a class scholarship like a full year four-year program you know it's very excellent in europe we have summer schools now in in belgium there's a new one in netherlands there was one in sweden in english by i don't know it will be resumed it died with coronate scenes i don't know if it will awaken there is very much talk about starting one in germany and i know for sure that there is a starting of an institution in hungary but everything is you know still you know in infancy so study at the summer schools you will meet excellent teachers there there is online courses also you have the classical planning institute is an online institute in the u.s where you are taught you know city planning good classical city planning and classical architecture and then you can go to city archives it's a more you know research on research but they have regulated everything how wide should the streets be how tall should the buildings be how many stores how many stories should the buildings have what is the hierarchy why there is height regulations there is hierarchy of buildings some buildings are allowed to be taller everything with the beautiful city that we love is you know it's thought of in detail and you read you open those manuscripts and you read the details you you read the thoughts then you get a good insight a book that i could recommend that can lead to further reading is like a 1980s doctorate that it's online now for free in pdf format uh it's written by a swede originally in german but now it exists in english it's called planning europe's capitals and it's it's focuses on you know the planning process of 1870 to 1914 i would say the golden age of city planning um and focus you know on the aspects what's when they create you know modern stock called modern oslo modern amsterdam modern berlin and modern vienna because as you know our cities may be old but they were built more or less in the 19th century you know if you compare the city size of medieval stockholm or oslo to contemporary or nineteen hundreds you know that it's like a hundred times false you know increasing in population so there are products of the 19th century and the planning of that time is the most relevant if one look at contemporary classical thinking city planning one will stumble upon a person called liam clear he's a fantastic lecturer he's very funny and he's very intelligent so it hurts me to criticize him a bit i think he's a lousy city planner he's a medievalist i would call it you know we like you know these narrow streets and and everything and that's can be cozy but it's not relevant you know for for contemporary city planning because we are planning cities for millions now we're not planning a city for five thousand uh you have to consider logistics you know in the 19th century city they had considered they faced all the problems that we face today you know with flow of many people mass transit infrastructure greenery because if you you know if the city is big you need to create parks and green systems how do you get light into apartments they have all these thoughts that we struggle with today so that's it's a much better book to learn from the medieval city is cute but it's a logistical nightmare considering having a store and you want a truck you know to go in you know it cannot enter because the streets are too wide uh consider walking with a stroller in the old town and it will be like because the stones are not you know that that flattened um and it's not you know it's it's hard to navigate everything's hard it's beautiful it's amazing but it's not feasible in a in a larger scale and cities are so big today so you need a model that works for for modern cities uh he was the architect behind pounds perry right yeah prince charles a very bad city oh oh you think yes how so because it's very badly planned it has all the faults of modernist planning it's an enclave it's not an extension of dorchester you know there is a main city it's a separate enclave they're not integrated into each other it's separated it depends your car dependent if you live in dorchester it's not you know this walkable community you're depending on using cars so it's not the national extension is an enclave over there and there you have dorchester if you want to see a real city center then you go to dorchester city center there you have a diverse and everything the whole grid the structure and the lack of cohesiveness with the old build environment makes pound very very bad and also you have barriers you have barriers in in urban planning terms is when you have something that makes it hard for people to take from point a to point b usually it's a wide road if you have a wide road with many cars you can't you know you're disconnected from the other side and pound barrier has lots of barriers and there's cars everywhere there's cars parked everywhere in palm berry it's so it's not utopia i i i consider pound berry a planning failure okay and he created a community in in belgium i think close to a community in nokia heights heidelberg or something is called is also bad because he he's a very intelligent man but he's not a good urban planner because i think he's a faulty model and that he misses some of the very very fundamental aspects of good city planning and one of those is queasiness you know if you if you if you have a forest and you want to log it you don't you spare some parts of the old forest because when the new forest grows it will be quick you know species that are established will click will be quick to repopulate the places that you log down and it's the same with city the new city part can only become meaningful if it's cohesively adjacent to the old city part because the old city park can you know in how to say bring all the life and and you know the life blow to the new part you know by they being physically uh cohesive with each other if you put it separate for far away you know all the business and everything will not move there it will be an island and you will have that suburb problems you'll have chain stores and you will have a sushi place and a gym but you will not get this that's because this places you know the stores that you buy things seldom you will not get that true urban place a true urban place needs cohesiveness all the time things need to be physically integrated to each other if you don't do that it doesn't matter how beautiful the buildings are because i will not claim complain about the architecture in boundary but it's a failed urban community can it be fixed yes it can but then you have to build it in a way then use sections so it's you should be able to walk from dorchester to poundbury and you should feel that you haven't left the city now there is a space in between so it's like a separate total separate entity and so i swore in church now and you will get angry comments probably from people but i have to stick to what i believe is the truth and just to talk about talk about this maybe you can call it a wave of restoration of older buildings especially in in germany many cities are are restoring lost classical buildings um and and also it looks like notre dame in in paris will also be be restored although it was a a scary discussion uh with uh all the suggestions yeah and uh but then it seemed like uh in in my view it was macro who really fought for having it reflect our time uh the new roof uh while uh there were some people that managed to to save it to be to be built do you experience it as a wave of of restoration that are going across europe or are there only in some countries yeah in some countries in perspective it's it's it's not a wave it's like a little bound because there were so many buildings lost you know and we we focus on except for resistance so we focus on a very small very shallow you know german cities you know were more or less flattened and they are hideously ugly today many of them so okay we reconstruct this church but then the rest of the built environment is still you know very very ugly it's it's really some it has gained popularity because it's the only way that the public feel that they have a voice to demand beauty okay we cannot demand that you build new beauty but at least we can you know reconstruct the old beauty so it engage people yeah uh that's why you see it you see it in a lot of it in hungary poland and partially in in russia you see it also uh more in eastern europe for different reasons they do a lot more reconstructions than you do in in western europe um but in general it's it may be a trend but it's it's a such a small you know of all the things that were destroyed it's it's just you know some what you call this in english uh from bread you know this small uh yeah crumbles yeah yes some small crumbles yeah and there's always a compromise yeah so when they build this they have to add a contemporary part i'm i'm curious to to hear how [Music] how yeah what can i say conservative you are because i um the reconstruction of of notre dame in paris some people who are in favor of of reconstructing it are also somewhat against it because it is not done exactly the way it was in the i don't remember exactly when the roof was built in the 1600s yeah because it was it has been changed like all buildings it has been changed during the year we had a much healthier relationship with our built environment before with modernist there came a freeze you know if you look at the castle a typical european castle it has changed you know they've added they interacted with the building and everything now things are frozen you have this venice charter so if you build something you're not allowed to make a harmonic addition you have to make a very very sharp contrast between the old and the new so with notre dame i think they made alterations in the 1850s so there was some things on the tower and some extra section that they removed so which part should you reconstruct it as it was in 18 i saw the medieval notre dame or should you reconstruct it as the you know late reconfiguration in the 19th century what um what i discussed with this um i i was in in rome sitting at piazza navona and we discussed architecture and this this guy was a very successful man in the national um international organization for preserving old buildings uh in norway and so he had and he was educated in preserving old buildings and i said well i'm at least i'm glad that they are reconstructing uh notre dame and not doing this thing to reflect our time and see and he said yes but it's it will i'm i'm against reconstructing it because it will not be as it was it will just be disneyland yes because they do not use wood underneath because they want to prevent fire the next time so they use some other kind of material but it will look the same but he thought that was fake because it was and i'm i totally disagree with him and then i said well why why why is it fake well because it is supposed to be wood underneath but they use something else and then it's fake it's disneyland and and then i pointed around on the classical buildings there in rome yeah and i said well but that column is supposed to look like a tree trunk that is where the columns came from and you can see they have taken off the bark on the on the sides and it still looks like that and they are making um different elements to make it the way it was used to be constructed by wood with you can see it up by the roof you see these teeth or whatever you call them and they are supposed to look like something they are not because they don't use those elements when building anymore and and then i said so so then is everything here at disneyland because it's supposed to look like something it's not and he said and he was this expert he was like i haven't thought about that i i have to think more about it it's a philosophical question because it is what do you preserve the modernists as the idiotic people are they focus on material so when this is a discoverability they focus on the material for me for for the classicist it is the historical memory that is important so it's important that notre dame looks like it did not that the materials are identical or when they reconstructed the berlin castle that the inner walls are made of bricks and not concrete i don't give you know it's not important because the important is the historical memory of the building that it's alive we understand what people saw 300 years ago if you speak about preservation if they added you know more fireproof material that is only good but for them it's all about materials and no one cares about materials do you care do you own a car do you care about what materials that you build by no you don't care you care that it looks good and it takes you from place a to place b so they focus on things that no one ever ever cared about and no one cares about no one cares of the inside of the car of course you can compare engine power and such but you don't care if it's aluminium or iron you care about the end result and that's you know how it looks so that is the most important aspect so classicist cares about historic memory the modernist care about the authenticity of materials if you change materials it's fake so you cannot renovate any building because if you don't because then you will take away the original materials and you put in the new materials and then it's automatically disneyland and there's there's some kind of a morality or a hair or or perhaps a misunderstood morality because i i have heard that in parts of asia in chinese and japanese culture they um they do not have the same view on copying yes and not the same requirement of the authenticity of the material so for instance when they they can point to a building i've been told and say this building is 2 000 years old and then the westerner comes and says oh my god has it really been there for 2 000 years yes really for and it's so well preserved really is it really 2 000 years yes so it has never burnt down ever it's of wood oh it it has burnt down to the ground like 300 times three times but it's reconstructed and it's morally equally good i've heard that i i think it's in chinese they have two words for imitation one of them means that it's a copy that is equally good so that's when they say it's 2000 years because it's copied in a equally morally uh valid way and then it's the bad copy that is just a cheap copy of some of something and it seems like in at least in today's western culture it's only the second one that we have that at least in the modernist ideology it's everything is a cop it should be authentic and we are not allowed to interact or add value to buildings okay the the chinese is like extremes because the chinese can be too extreme you know of course you know in in nationalism we have always written history to a more glorious past but now i heard you know they oh that temple is from the disappeared it's too small so we build a new larger temple and say that it's the same temple so they are extreme on the other hand but like a healthy balance like a not view buildings as you know fossilize them you are allowed to interact with them we are allowed to add you know interact with our buildings and add to them in a respectful way the goal is a harmonious whole but like previous generations we alter buildings all the time take a typical church it has for generation people have added you know because it was the most important building in most most places for generations they have added to the building so the the altar may be medieval and then you have the the place where the preacher you know the priest preaches is from the 17th century and then you have paintings that were made 200 years later you know it's a continuation of hundreds of years so people added different things and then because the village grew they expanded the whole church in the 19th century it was like a healthy they cared about a hole but every generation were allowed to add now everything is frozen we are not allowed to interact with old buildings at the same time as we build ugly new buildings so it's a it's unprecedented predecently in history the way how we view buildings today either they are museum are not allowed to be touched or the new ones we create are not allowed to imitate how they learn from how the old ones look like what do you think about the suggestion if we lived in an um ideal world in the sense of architects actually being skillful and knowing the classical crafts what do you think of the suggestion of um of rebuilding parthenon on on the acropolis and taking it back into use and not making it stand there as a as a ruin i would support it yeah the thing is that now there is a discussion i posted actually in in the group new tradition that iran because they recently rebuilt a castle in belarus that were built by polish kings it was destroyed by by swedish forces during the great northern war and it wasn't rebuilt because it hadn't even had the funds and now more than 300 years later authorities decide ah let's then build the castle and it's much better than a ruin so i would say the same with acropolis you can do it like they did if you look at the the flower kitchen in trace them you know the germans they're master engineers so they use the old stones all the old bricks that they could find and on the facade you see you know which bricks are old and which are new so make like a material so you can see which part original original pantone and which parts are the new section but why not rebellion why don't make it like some livable and useful or at least make buildings around it you know that are are new because the worship of ruins ruins are useless you know it's it's more important that you know the historic memory can be alive um i have the same feeling you know i love food and romano in rome it's amazing in one way in another way it's just a dead place in the middle of the city why don't you know living it up maybe you don't need to reconstruct that they think about integrate the ruins in in new buildings and and new areas this is of course should be done case by case i don't advocate you know for for generally you know uh mutilating old ruins but it should be done in more ways we shouldn't be less afraid of it if it's done in a sensitive way with the goal of keeping the historic memory alive that is the most important goal to keep for me at least is to keep the historic memory alive we were not the first people there are lead people before us and they will lead people after us and to remind people all the time to make you it's a way it's a humbling oh i'm on this earth now there are people with people before me and there will be people after me long after i'm dead the word wasn't invented yesterday so it's uh and it's not your goal is not to go back to just to the past but to integrate past knowledge into using it for something something new that respects the yes yes very much so because you see the value is much greater if if pantheon is uh or i don't know is it part on in rome or in pantheon in hindi no the opposite way no is it alright i always confuse them so it's more useful if it's not just a ruin that it is a you know live place and if you can do it in a sensitive way yeah i'm not against i'm not necessarily against it case by case it's not clear in all always but case by case most of you know the building survived quite well until i think it was destroyed in the 1600s i think there was a venetian ottoman war and the ottomans stole you know a lot of gunpowder so it was blown up yeah so it at least could be reconstructed how it looked then okay i don't think the greeks will reconstruct the mosque that was there but at least they would reconstruct you know the how it looked before it was blown up it could be done but a discussion and what the purpose of everything is and we should not be afraid to interact with buildings we are them and they are us we are not more advanced or different species than people that lived before us everyone has ever read a book in literature knows that people have dealt with exactly the same problems the last as soon as we could write people talk about you know love marriage betrayal and the uh all kind of this you know concepts that you take for uh that we discuss today and then you realize oh we are exactly the same people we haven't changed a bit since i quit antiquity we are more technologically advanced but we are exactly the same people they suffered from the exact same problems uh they had except you know they wanted to show off today we show up with facebook in the 17th century people showed off in i don't know bowl costume balls and everything so there was always a place you know the the desires of people are have always been the same it's just because of technology it can manifest in different ways so human is still the same we just are still the same we are still the same yeah and we are not better it's not a line modernist thinking makes you think there is some kind of line they are less advanced and today we are more advanced we are more advanced in thinking that they were 100 years ago no we are not we are exactly we are more we are we are not more stupid than them and we are but we are not brighter than them either we're exactly the same you have to go back like uh 300 000 years before you can say that we are more advanced humans you know but 2000 years we are exactly the same 30 000 years we are exactly the same we haven't changed you know in in any meaningful way so on that note thank you so much mikhail diamond for coming to the cave of palestine it was really a pleasure to to have you here and have this really important conversation thank you very much for having me and allowing me to express my sometimes radical thoughts radical in this age but not in previous ages and and thank you for watching i also want want to thank our other top sponsors anders paris christensen eric lasky fernando ramirez even ukusta jack and swarner jared fountain yonha aspime marion boo pedersen mikhail irish misty delane richard barrett stacy evangelista trim udall engle hello and remember to head over to caveofapellis.com subscribe and become a member today we will see you next time so so so you

Channel: Cave of Apelles

Views: 33,739

Keywords: Kitsch, Jan-Ove Tuv, Myths, Philosophy, Aesthetics, Classical culture, arkitekturopprøret, architecture revival, architecture revolt, arkitekturupproret

Id: IHbLc-gRcIk

Length: 104min 37sec (6277 seconds)

Published: Sun May 15 2022