The Old Way of Seeing

Rating:
Summary: This author is brilliant
Review: I couldn't beleive the same author who knows so much about Radiohead is into architectural crtiticism as well. There is no end to this man's brilliance.

Rating:
Summary: This author is brilliant
Review: I couldn't beleive the same author who knows so much about Radiohead is into architectural crtiticism as well. There is no end to this man's brilliance.

Rating:
Summary: Revealing hidden truth at its finest
Review: Jonathan Hale's book so truly reveals the source of the hidden 'feel' in older buildings as also described by Christopher Alexander in 'A Timeless Way of Building', and which also draws parallels to other aspects of life.

Hale cites the turning point in society away from the honoring our human 'intuition' to the honoring of 'rational' or 'calculating' thinking which so drastically altered the 'feel' and look of architecture, and he puts this date around 1830. Alexis de Tocqueville also described the 'calculating' way of thinking in America which he encountered after that time..and who is also cited by Hale.

Truly worth the read, and it will probably change not only the way you look at buildings from now on, but also the way 'calculating' thinking dominates so many aspects of life now. I personally find when I get back into situations where the people and their decisions operate more from the basis of intuition, I feel a lot more human and natural, and no longer feel obliged to say the 'accepted' things which so many of us find ourselves saying, but not really believing. Hale's book has helped me understand why this is, and made me feel more comfortable with being natural and intuitive.

Rating:
Summary: YOU'LL SEE IT WHEN YOU BELIEVE IT?
Review: The "old way of seeing" is a phrase that architect/author Hale coins that describes an aesthetic sense that cannot be easily categorized in terms like Historic, Modernism, or Post modernism. He builds a thorough argument calling for a combination of design that incorporates universal human fondness for pattern with a designer sense of intuition and play. He argues that such "old way of seeing" has been lost in much by both the designer and the wider public and that today's contemporary architecture and built environment is the result. It's not that Hale is a traditionalist or even a Neo-traditonalist... it's just that he argues that most contemporary architecture (and all design for that matter) deals too much with style and superficial symbols than with basic elements of design such as proportion, balance, and structure. At first this may sound like he is supporting a Modernist view of design, but this is not the case, He has some of his severest criticism of the sterility, blandness and generally lack of delight that results from this"form follows function" paradigm.

While Hale appreciates Post Modern's return to architecture as delight, he is equally critical of this movement as well, claiming that it focuses almost entirely on effect and status and symbol. He extends this criticism to todays' "Neo-traditonal" planners including Andres Duany and claims they are superficial and obsessed with codes and regulations which tend to deaden the designs.

The author covers a lot of ground in this subject of architecture, art and design, but it is always interesting reading, with good photos and illustrations, Hale's easy writing style brings to life the issues he talks about, though at times he seems to stretch to make a point. He uses a photo of Audrey Hepburn's face superimposed with lines and diagonals to illustrate the "Golden Section" proportion to the accuracy of 1/1000 of a decimal. I'm tempted to say that some of the points he makes are not particularly objective and are the result of a "You'll see it when you believe it" tendency (like when the believing Catholic sees a miracle of the face of the Virgin Mary in the stains on the side of a building.)

Overall, though this is a ground-breaking book on architecture and design, perhaps the most significant since Venturi's "Learning from Las Vegas" in the 1970's. It's well worth the time and energy to read. Ideas will spin from it long after one finishes the book. Just don't take every word as gospel.

Rating:
Summary: YOU'LL SEE IT WHEN YOU BELIEVE IT?
Review: The "old way of seeing" is a phrase that architect/author Hale coins that describes an aesthetic sense that cannot be easily categorized in terms like Historic, Modernism, or Post modernism. He builds a thorough argument calling for a combination of design that incorporates universal human fondness for pattern with a designer sense of intuition and play. He argues that such "old way of seeing" has been lost in much by both the designer and the wider public and that today's contemporary architecture and built environment is the result. It's not that Hale is a traditionalist or even a Neo-traditonalist... it's just that he argues that most contemporary architecture (and all design for that matter) deals too much with style and superficial symbols than with basic elements of design such as proportion, balance, and structure. At first this may sound like he is supporting a Modernist view of design, but this is not the case, He has some of his severest criticism of the sterility, blandness and generally lack of delight that results from this"form follows function" paradigm.

While Hale appreciates Post Modern's return to architecture as delight, he is equally critical of this movement as well, claiming that it focuses almost entirely on effect and status and symbol. He extends this criticism to todays' "Neo-traditonal" planners including Andres Duany and claims they are superficial and obsessed with codes and regulations which tend to deaden the designs.

The author covers a lot of ground in this subject of architecture, art and design, but it is always interesting reading, with good photos and illustrations, Hale's easy writing style brings to life the issues he talks about, though at times he seems to stretch to make a point. He uses a photo of Audrey Hepburn's face superimposed with lines and diagonals to illustrate the "Golden Section" proportion to the accuracy of 1/1000 of a decimal. I'm tempted to say that some of the points he makes are not particularly objective and are the result of a "You'll see it when you believe it" tendency (like when the believing Catholic sees a miracle of the face of the Virgin Mary in the stains on the side of a building.)

Overall, though this is a ground-breaking book on architecture and design, perhaps the most significant since Venturi's "Learning from Las Vegas" in the 1970's. It's well worth the time and energy to read. Ideas will spin from it long after one finishes the book. Just don't take every word as gospel.

Rating:
Summary: Well-meaning but misses the mark badly
Review: This book is a well-meant medicine that won't cure anything. Jonathan Hale is correct in seeing that the modern built environment is an insult to the eye and spirit. Unfortunately, Hale's solution to the problem repeats the worst sins of the Modernists who caused the problem -- he seems to buy into Le Corbusier's theory that the most barbarous façade can be justified by the correct proportions. Much of the damage to our current built environment has come not from misunderstanding some sort of "natural geometry," but from the Modernist vision of the architect as auteur, a vision that Hale apparently applauds, and certainly perpetuates.

The author's mystifying and unfounded criticisms of Andres Duany's Kentlands is typical, and instructive: the development apparently doesn't work because it's built from standards that anyone can theoretically use, and not on inspiration or on a true grasp of nature's geometry. But unless we establish a vernacular usable by any builder, not just by the enlightened ones in tune with higher cosmic forms, the architectural landscape will always consist of the occasional gem among rubbish (and only the self-elected cognoscenti will think much of the "gems"). Hale's book is a recipe for the sort of obscurantism and inner-directedness that has robbed architecture of its fitness to create a public realm.

Rating:
Summary: One of the most important books on post-war architecture.
Review: This book is for people who know that buildings built after World War II are ugly, but they don't know why. Hale explains the ancient rhythms and formulas used by the architects of old to produce beautiful and harmonious structures. He traces the decline in American architecture to one building and makes a valid argument that all is not lost in American building design.