Philistines Gotta Philistine

According to Wiktionary, “philistine” is an adjective meaning “lacking in appreciation for art or culture.” I think that falls far short of the definition. I forget where I heard it, but the most able assessment of a philistine I’ve ever heard is someone who knows the difference between beautiful and ugly, and deliberately chooses ugly.

It’s a philistine culture, now, top to bottom. People don’t lack appreciation. They spurn it. Girls know coloring their hair with Pepto-Bismol and putting a ring in their nose is ugly. That’s why they do it. When abstract standards of right and wrong go out the window, standards of etiquette and taste go out with the same bathwater.

I know I’ve mentioned it here several times, but Frank Gehry has done more harm to the human race than psoriasis. He knows his structures are ugly, no matter what he says publicly. That’s the point. Believe me, I know it’s hard to make a beautiful, sturdy, useful building of almost any size. Guys like Gehry understand it’s much easier to make an ugly one, and say, I meant to do that, where’s my check? It’s hideous. Ain’t it grand?

I’ve likewise pilloried the architectural style that makes Gehry the Larry Fine of the drafting table: Brutalism. I could paste in a long description of Brutalist Architecture, but I’ll save us all some time and sum it up thusly: Commies love concrete. Brutalist architecture doesn’t just spurn the wants and desires of people who enter or pass by their abominations. Brutalist architecture denies the essential humanity of humanity itself. It is the design motif of the prison, the abattoir, the death camp, the Stasi office, the nuclear fuel dump, and various colleges that produce students who like to bomb road races, like UMass Dartmouth.

So Boston City Hall is the ugliest building in the world, maybe. I can live with that. The government got big, and the people got small, so the kind of statement it makes is inevitable. But I can’t stand by and see anyone praise Brutalist churches and get away with it. Here dezeen magazine, which has to be dezeen to be believed:

Sacred Modernity showcases “unique beauty and architectural innovation” of brutalist churches

It showcases, something, alright, the same way overweight plumbers showcase things when they’re crouching in front of your sink.

Here are two examples. I chose them at random, basically. They’re all equally bad ideas, like speed dating at a carnival sideshow:

I’d mention the first one is plagiarized from the torture scene from Brazil, but what’s the point? They’d probably give the architect a raise if they hear that. The second, a concrete Tetris game gone bad, looks like the plans for a maximum security prison that got wrinkled in a paper jam in the fax machine, and they built it that way anyway.

I’m not disappointed in the architects. They’re jerks. Jerks gotta jerk. It’s the churches that paid for these monstrosities that should be ashamed of themselves. But then again, those churches have all lost their nerve and don’t even mention society’s obligations to each other, or to posterity anymore. Let’s look at a snippet from the article praising these sacred seawalls gone rogue, and see if we can grok where they’re coming from, man:

“In essence, the experience of encountering brutalist churches often involves a transformation from scepticism to appreciation, as individuals are confronted with the unique beauty and architectural innovation that these structures represent.”

Yup. Even he knows it’s crap, but bangs on his brain to convince himself to pretend it isn’t. Philistines gotta philistine.