modern architecture
Article
modern architecture is a recurring concept in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 2 times across 2 issues between October 04, 2021 and July 18, 2025. The archive places it in contexts such as “the first generation to make non-traditional art (eg modern architecture, impressionist painting , Art Deco, jazz, e.e. cummings)”; “The debate over the virtue or vice of modern architecture”. It most often appears alongside 16th century Spain, 19th century African art, 20th century.
Metadata
- Category: Concepts
- Mention count: 2
- Issue count: 2
- First seen: October 04, 2021
- Last seen: July 18, 2025
Appears In
- Highlights From The Comments On Modern Architecture
- Your Review: Islamic Geometric Patterns In The Metropolitan Museum Of Art
Related Pages
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- 16th century Spain (1 shared issues)
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- 19th century African art (1 shared issues)
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- 20th century (1 shared issues)
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- 9-11 (1 shared issues)
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- abstract art (1 shared issues)
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- ACX (1 shared issues)
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- Ahmed al-Sharaa (1 shared issues)
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- Aka (1 shared issues)
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- Akhenaten (1 shared issues)
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- Albert Gleizes (1 shared issues)
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- Alhambra (1 shared issues)
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- America (1 shared issues)
External Links
Source Context
Recovered passages from the original issue text. When the raw archive preserved outbound links inside the source passage, they are listed directly under the quote.
Thanks to everyone who commented on Whither Tartaria (currently 1079 comments). Many of you really like modern architecture, and many others of you really hate it. I appreciate most of you being able to accept disagreement on that and move on to the bigger question of why there’s so much more of it now.
Inline links: Whither Tartaria
Several people brought up opinions that the first generation to make non-traditional art (eg modern architecture, impressionist painting, Art Deco, jazz, e.e. cummings) were very good, original, and actually quite interesting critiques. Then every generation after that was terrible. They suggested something like that rebellion is good and constructive when you have a very specific thing you’re rebelling against, understand it inside and out, and are still in some sense “constrained” by the world it created, and then the generation after you doesn’t understand the traditional forms at all and just sort of does vague rebellion-adjacent things cluelessly in the hope of capturing some of the original energy.
Inline links: impressionist painting
As a final thought, I wonder if this experience is generalizable. The debate over the virtue or vice of modern architecture has been going on for years on ACX, and one of the baffling knots that Scott has tried to untangle is: what is going on with architects? Why are their tastes so different from the laypeople? One theory is that it’s all signaling, be it class signaling by the patrons, or signaling for cultural priesthood. But assuming these are genuine aesthetic preferences, as I’m inclined to believe, what then?
Inline links: cultural priesthood