Is Symmetry in Architecture Dead?
What is up with this building?
(Hat tip to Fark.)
Was it really necessary, or advantageous, to make a “twizzler” building? Or was it sheer vanity of the architect or owner? How much more expensive was it to construct the building this way as opposed to a simple square or circular layout?
Most importantly, who is his right mind thinks this building is aesthetically pleasing?
Here’s another example, the almost-finished Weill Cornell Medical College Ambulatory Care and Medical Education Building, less than two blocks from my home:
Again, what is with the deliberate and extraneous angles? As you can notice at the unfinished top, the angles, which protrude in two dimensions (vertically and outward) required extra, custom-made steel beams and windows, in a wide variety of shapes. That was certainly far more expensive that traditional rectangular designs.
All else equal, symmetry is more aesthetically pleasing than asymmetry. We identify (subconsciously) “attractive” faces by their symmetry; “ugliness” tends to reflect asymmetry in facial features. The same is true for buildings. The glory of the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building were not just their size or proportion, but also their multi-perspective symmetry of design.
Call it an architectural razor: symmetry should never be destroyed without just cause.
Another building that makes me nauseous:
Blech.
Sorry, but as the song goes, “It’s Hip to Be Square…”
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Nonsense. That building is gorgeous. There's nothing WRONG with practical building but on the otherhand there is also nothing wrong with aesthetically pleasing construction.
If we only did what was practical we'd have to get rid of everything that doesn't serve a specific practical function. What kind of world would that be?
…there is also nothing wrong with aesthetically pleasing construction…
I'm not arguing for austerity architecture — that's how most government buildings are designed, and they look hideous.
My point is that frivolous destruction of symmetry is NOT aesthetically pleasing.
This twizzler building could have been designed with exactly the same style, materials, etc., but just without the twizzle, and it would have been cheaper to build AND more attractive.
Well beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Personally I think the first two buildings that you show are quite beautiful. Symmetry is a huge no-no in modern art (usually, it depends on what you're trying to express). Symmetry reduces visual tension to almost nothing and can often lead to a very visually boring work. On the other hand, it can evoke authoritative power and dominance. It depends on what these buildings house.
I usually defer to your knowlege of law since you have more education than me in that field, but my degrees are in music and art and I have to categorically disagree with this statement:
All else equal, symmetry is more aesthetically pleasing than asymmetry.
Nine times out of 10 this is not the case. Symmetry is boring. Look at the average snapshot and compare it to the work of a professional photographer. The biggest difference. The snapshot taker plants his subject in the middle of the frame resulting in movementless symmetry. The photgrapher will usualy place the subject to one side or the other or take the picture at an angle. Anything to break the symmetry.
Please. THe building is gorgeous. Even if you disagree with the modern aesthetic, architecture is functional art. Visit Pentagon City (across the river from Washington DC) and see what you get when you take the approach that architecture need not be interesting. Yikes.
I really like the "twizzler building."