by bilsbie on 5/17/25, 12:41 PM with 70 comments
by appleorchard46 on 5/19/25, 2:34 PM
> “Though the word beautification makes the concept sound merely cosmetic, it involves much more: clean water, clean air, clean roadsides, safe waste disposal and preservation of valued old landmarks as well as great parks and wilderness areas. To me…beautification means our total concern for the physical and human quality we pass on to our children and the future.”
[0] https://www.nps.gov/articles/lady-bird-johnson-beautificatio...
by Rodmine on 5/19/25, 2:14 PM
Aesthetic taste varies from culture-to-culture, even individual to individual. Sometimes, minimal and simple is beautiful.
I really thought that the pictures you were posting later were examples of ugly design (when I was glossing over it) and I found out that you were saying that that one looks good to you.
The one on top, the example of your ugly design, has natural beauty: a weathered concrete finish. I prefer that WAYYY more than any of the later examples.
by airstrike on 5/19/25, 1:47 PM
by thedanbob on 5/19/25, 2:08 PM
This struck me the last time I traveled in the UK: they seem to have about 3-4 times as many road signs as the US, to the point where it almost becomes a dangerous distraction. On the other hand, they don’t have the omnipresent billboards and other public advertising that the US has.
by troupo on 5/19/25, 2:25 PM
And while a lot of this can be explained by the requirement to build a lot of things fast, and cheap, even one-off buildings that are supposed to be unique are... just slabs of concrete and/or glass.
I think nowhere is it more evident than in Europe: https://x.com/dmitriid/status/1912957880195575980
by hk1337 on 5/19/25, 2:34 PM
> There are any number of ways to build an ugly bridge, but its builders were allowed to make it pretty, and they were right to do that.
There's obviously extremes to this with developers being perfectionists holding up release (I could probably be on the poster for this) but the pendulum can swing the other way too. Sometimes not taking that extra hour or day to do something can cost you many hours and days later on in the future and to my point, sometimes taking that extra hour or day can save you hours or days in the future.
by taeric on 5/19/25, 2:36 PM
I'm assuming that is just a preference of mine based on how much rarer they are to see? Could be that they tend to be more expensive and have the maintenance baked into the costs?
Good examples in the article of how to make others pretty. I'm assuming cost is almost always the limiting factor. Many "ugly" bridges have a hard time keeping up with required maintenance. Keeping any art clean and maintained is almost certainly not in the budget.
by affinepplan on 5/19/25, 2:20 PM
cars.
by cadamsdotcom on 5/19/25, 8:01 PM
I beg to differ. Cheaper stuff is accessible to more people.
The problem is we haven’t figured out how to agree on how much ornamentation is the right amount.
by potato3732842 on 5/19/25, 1:26 PM
When it comes to indoor capital investments those flat surfaces are easy to clean and they're places that label and storage of ancillary items can be affixed and they reduce wasted space when things are placed adjacent with other things. When it comes to buildings themselves those flat lines lend themselves to ease of laying out the indoor and space. The idea that you have to make things pretty for decision makers reflects how divorced those decision makers are from the daily realities of thing the things they decide (same goes for the peanut gallery).
I'm so sick of listening to people saying they ought to be prettier when doing so has serious tradeoffs. Are they willing to pay for it? Even a couple percent effort adds up when you make it part of your typical decision making. I would rather have 11 ugly widgets than ten pretty widgets.
by notnmeyer on 5/19/25, 2:41 PM
would i rather pay more in taxes for a nicer looking freeway or have it be utilitarian? ehhhhhhh, im unsure.