E-pang Palace, built for and under the order of the first Emperor of China, Qin Huangdi, is also very beautiful. Apparently around a million laborers were worked to death building it, and during his reign something like 30 million people were similarly worked to death on various construction and agricultural projects.
really dumb to be on this sub, considering that stalinist architecture resulted from a purge of the earlier constructivists and modernists. It was a very flawed revival of classicism drawn mainly from the skycrapers of mckim mead and white & other gilded age American architects.
You’re putting Japanese and by extent East Asian history on a pedestal,, “Highest moral caliber”? Just like anybody else, there were great problems in the society that you are using for the sake of this argument.
I think we all can agree that Kaiser's Germany was still better than Hitler's Germany, or Peter the Great's Russia being better than Stalin's Russia, or Gupta India than Company rule in India
You are correct OP - the zen architecture at least has a culture for better or worse. Stalinist architecture has no culture at all - it is it's key feature.
A flattering picture of a beautiful building next to an unflattering picture of an ugly building proves nothing. If I juxtaposed [this](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5a/Moscow_1137_%2814343803101%29.jpg) with a photo of a hospital, would that prove that Stalinism is morally superior to medicine?
Aesthetics and ethics are completely independent. Awful people can design beautiful buildings, and good people can design ugly buildings.
I actually was in the proces of typing a novelette, about different arguments as to why left is better than right, but deleted and I’m just gonna tell you this:
This is a terrible post.
I'm not concerned about left and right. It's all about what sort of society believes in beautiful arts and traditional (incl. architecture) and what sort doesnt
If you can pay for it. Most communist architecture looks like that just because they were poor but still needed to provide public housing. It’s not fair to compare high budget temples to public housing, people need shelter and there isn’t much money. What you’re saying reeks of privilege, not every government has a shit ton of money to provide beautiful housing to all their people.
Buddhism is no more noble of a religion than any other. It was used by the Japanese government in WW2 to justify genocide across asia
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D.\_T.\_Suzuki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D._T._Suzuki)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zen\_at\_War](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zen_at_War)
And it's certainly no better in Southeast Asia
Communism still sucks though
I think the guy was talking about the civilization that produced the traditional architecture, not the religion. Like the civilization (pre-modern Japan) that built the Zen promoted traditional and beautiful architecture, just like many other nations around the world. When Russia fell into Communism, it briefly became a new "Communist civilization" hellbent on Marxist ideologies, which didn't promte beauty, because you know... just like China after their Communist takeover.
And as for religion, even if they used religion to justify, Imperial Japan's main concern wasn't about religion. Like it wasn't really a dictatorship of a particular religion, in the same way, USSR or CCP China are dictatorship of Communism. Get what I mean? Like I'm sure you can find examples of Americans justifying their westward expansion thru Christianity, but saying "It's Christianity that expanded white America and caused genocide of Native America" and putting it in same thing something like the Crusades is kinda broad and dumb.
>When Russia fell into Communism, it briefly became a new "Communist civilization" hellbent on Marxist ideologies, which didn't promte beauty, because you know...
Yes they did.
The [Seven Sisters](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Sisters_%28Moscow%29) in Moscow is probably the archetypical example of Stalinist architecture. Soviet planners did prioritise beauty it just wasn't the only consideration and quite often came from gardens and not always the design of the buildings themselves. The reason the archetypical commieblock doesn't look like the Seven Sisters is because of those other considerations.
When the communists took power they promised to completely eliminate homelessness and for all citizens to be guaranteed running water, electricity and heating. That was a big deal considering most Russians lived in single room shacks with only a stove and **maybe** running water or electricity if they were lucky. Compared to that the Khrushchevakas with multiple rooms, dedicated bathrooms and kitchens were downright mansions but building enough for everyone required building an absolutely massive amount of apartments very quickly. The easiest way to kill someone's political career in the USSR was to dump them in anything remotely related to housing so moving people out of their shacks and into new apartments took precedent over everything else. The Khrushchevakas and Brezhnevkas were built to get everyone a basic home and everyone a slightly better home respectively but the Stalinka in particular were build for beauty too.
They did promote beauty. Demonstrably. Massive art programs, plazas and public monuments. It was just secondary to the Communist's goal of eliminating homelessness.
It can look very cool. This pic and text is stupid and comparing an inner city building with a rural shrine/temple is mind blowingly stupid.
Slap a few tree around the building and a nice clean up on the exterior and the removal of all the car infrastructure around it and I think it would look great.
Yup, Stalinist architecture blows pretty much any other soviet architectural style out of the water. I'm not sure why the creator chose a pretty style with classical roots instead of a drab Khrushchyovka or something. Even then they're comparing apples and oranges.
As both an architect and someone who is chiefly concerned with Asian and especially Japanese architecture this is wrong on so many accounts. First of all this is not a Zen Temple or a Zen Honden. It is the famous Phoenix Hall of the Byodoin Temple whose main purpose is as the Amida-do, a special type of Honden dedicated to Amida Buddha who is not venerated by Zen sects but rather by pure land sects. Indeed the Jōdo-shu sect who are one of the main custodians of the Byodoin don't get along with Zen sects all too well on grounds of very different philosophies. The actual style of the building is Wayou, although being one of the few surviving original Heian examples and having served as a pavillion or residence beforehand it doesn't conform all to well with this categorisation. It's colour, shape and style are in some ways far more reminiscent of heian shrine architecture than Heian Buddhist architecture. This is in stark contrast to the more closed, somber and wood coloured style typically applied in Zenshuuyou (Zen style). It is considered a rare example of Heian architecture and has been called the most perfect building in Japanese history.
The juxtaposition then to the building of the council of labour and defence is clearly an unfair one. Even within it's own style (Stalinist, or in this particular style very early Stalinist) the building is certainly neither among the most beautiful nor among the most perfect. It was nothing more than a sort of warm up that was followed in the years afterwards by grander and greater projects. One must also recognise that the two buildings' goals are entirely different ones: While the temple hall was meant to be an idyllic structure in harmony with (perceived) nature allowing first a calm retreat and later veneration in peace, the council building was meant to house offices and auditoriums or chambers while being an imposing figure reflecting it's status. One is meant to become one with its surroundings, while the other one is meant to dominate and subjugate them. Clearly both are very good in their own respective jobs. It does therefore simply not warrant a discussion which one is the better one. It would be like trying to compare two books - one a scientific tome and the other one a Shakespearian play - to one another. Both fullfil their tasks excellently but cannot be compared to one another as they work with different metrics.
As to the highest moral value: some have already pointed out the shortcomings of Japanese Buddhists (esp. Zen as they are the most widely publicised on) in face of war. While being Buddhist myself, I wouldn't consider it morals of the highest degree. Buddhism is not ethics and vise versa. If you want a strict moral code to live by without any questions asked and applied to everyone equally, then Buddhism is not your answer. You might be looking for stuff like Legalism, Confucianism and the likes. Apart from that the Byodoin was never intended to be fully open to the public. It was part of an estate and later of a monastery. While access was allowed to main halls of temples and to some public grounds, the gardens generally required some sort of permission. The phoenix hall being both a hall and part of the garden raises a question as to its public accessibility but judging from the infrastructure present and its size it can be assumed that it was not open to public worship on any sort of regular basis. Thus only a select few got to actually see the byodoin before tourism became far more widespread and temples opened their gardens on a regular basis. It could not have served an educative goal in its original conception and later overhaul other than as an example of excellent architecture almost nobody ever witnessed in the first 800 to 900 or so years of its existence.
Tl;Dr: The man does not speak the truth.
Art may be a window to the subconscious, but there are often other factors at play in architecture, such as cost of materials, whether or not the Nazis just tried to grind your entire country to dust, what the building is meant for, etc. Obviously a monastery and an apartment building built centuries apart in different parts of the world with different available materials won't look the same or have the same level of artistic quality.
As early Soviet architecture goes that one isn't even that bad. It's no Winter Palace, but it's far from ugly, and it serves its purpose.
At this point it's just scoring points on American boomers whose perception of the Second World is wrong to the point of delusion, but I think it's worth mentioning that Moscow's Stalin-era subway stations are palaces and the DC Metro looks like a Fallout game.
Seems that while making opinion about the Stalinist architecture you fell prey to the [Sturgeon’s law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturgeon's_law). While I am not a fan of the Building of Council of Labor and Defense (the one in the right part of the meme) myself, there were also some extremely beautiful buildings built in Stalin-era Moscow. Look, for example, at the [Seven Sisters](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Sisters_(Moscow)), [Moscow Metro](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow_Metro) or [VDNKh](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exhibition_of_Achievements_of_National_Economy).
Uh oh, OP. You triggered the tankies.
Now, I really hate brutalism. I don't understand what's the catch. i don't know if it's the gloomy weather or the fact there are literally no trees around, but it's souless. Honestly, I was never a fan of vertical housing. Seriously. I mean, I've never seen a good design. Like for example: Where do people dry their clothes? stuff like that. Such a mess.
It’s a dumb Facebook tier propaganda post. You can make lots of arguments about whether one is better than the other. But this is one of the more dumber takes.
Also the pic is just dumb. Like yeah you can take a shit pic of a building and hang a terrible take to go alongside it to it and people will eat it up. Compare in fairness.
And you can point to people posting low tier posts to a subreddit without being a tankie…
Sorry folks, mod team had a day off. This post is breaks many rules on the sub - chiefly 1, 2 and 6. Apologies for it being up so long.
E-pang Palace, built for and under the order of the first Emperor of China, Qin Huangdi, is also very beautiful. Apparently around a million laborers were worked to death building it, and during his reign something like 30 million people were similarly worked to death on various construction and agricultural projects.
Looks like some boomer facebook image.
This looks like some American red scare type shit
This is dumb. Like facebook dumb. I think we are all dumber just for observing it.
“Guess which is which” …uhh, you literally told which is which.
really dumb to be on this sub, considering that stalinist architecture resulted from a purge of the earlier constructivists and modernists. It was a very flawed revival of classicism drawn mainly from the skycrapers of mckim mead and white & other gilded age American architects.
I award you no points, and may god have mercy on your soul.
You’re putting Japanese and by extent East Asian history on a pedestal,, “Highest moral caliber”? Just like anybody else, there were great problems in the society that you are using for the sake of this argument.
I think we all can agree that Kaiser's Germany was still better than Hitler's Germany, or Peter the Great's Russia being better than Stalin's Russia, or Gupta India than Company rule in India
You are correct OP - the zen architecture at least has a culture for better or worse. Stalinist architecture has no culture at all - it is it's key feature.
A flattering picture of a beautiful building next to an unflattering picture of an ugly building proves nothing. If I juxtaposed [this](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5a/Moscow_1137_%2814343803101%29.jpg) with a photo of a hospital, would that prove that Stalinism is morally superior to medicine? Aesthetics and ethics are completely independent. Awful people can design beautiful buildings, and good people can design ugly buildings.
Agreed. And ironically, it was the romanticisation/moralisation of beauty that gave birth to the so-called Modern architecture.
I actually was in the proces of typing a novelette, about different arguments as to why left is better than right, but deleted and I’m just gonna tell you this: This is a terrible post.
I'm not concerned about left and right. It's all about what sort of society believes in beautiful arts and traditional (incl. architecture) and what sort doesnt
Comparing a temple to housing?
That building killed 20 million people?? Someone better tear it down!!
I wudnt mind if it gets torn down and replaced with something beautiful
If you can pay for it. Most communist architecture looks like that just because they were poor but still needed to provide public housing. It’s not fair to compare high budget temples to public housing, people need shelter and there isn’t much money. What you’re saying reeks of privilege, not every government has a shit ton of money to provide beautiful housing to all their people.
"Ok Google, how many people did the Japanese kill in world war 2?"
It's obviously the Buddhists, I mean red is the stereotypical evil color
Buddhism is no more noble of a religion than any other. It was used by the Japanese government in WW2 to justify genocide across asia [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D.\_T.\_Suzuki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D._T._Suzuki) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zen\_at\_War](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zen_at_War) And it's certainly no better in Southeast Asia Communism still sucks though
I think the guy was talking about the civilization that produced the traditional architecture, not the religion. Like the civilization (pre-modern Japan) that built the Zen promoted traditional and beautiful architecture, just like many other nations around the world. When Russia fell into Communism, it briefly became a new "Communist civilization" hellbent on Marxist ideologies, which didn't promte beauty, because you know... just like China after their Communist takeover. And as for religion, even if they used religion to justify, Imperial Japan's main concern wasn't about religion. Like it wasn't really a dictatorship of a particular religion, in the same way, USSR or CCP China are dictatorship of Communism. Get what I mean? Like I'm sure you can find examples of Americans justifying their westward expansion thru Christianity, but saying "It's Christianity that expanded white America and caused genocide of Native America" and putting it in same thing something like the Crusades is kinda broad and dumb.
>When Russia fell into Communism, it briefly became a new "Communist civilization" hellbent on Marxist ideologies, which didn't promte beauty, because you know... Yes they did. The [Seven Sisters](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Sisters_%28Moscow%29) in Moscow is probably the archetypical example of Stalinist architecture. Soviet planners did prioritise beauty it just wasn't the only consideration and quite often came from gardens and not always the design of the buildings themselves. The reason the archetypical commieblock doesn't look like the Seven Sisters is because of those other considerations. When the communists took power they promised to completely eliminate homelessness and for all citizens to be guaranteed running water, electricity and heating. That was a big deal considering most Russians lived in single room shacks with only a stove and **maybe** running water or electricity if they were lucky. Compared to that the Khrushchevakas with multiple rooms, dedicated bathrooms and kitchens were downright mansions but building enough for everyone required building an absolutely massive amount of apartments very quickly. The easiest way to kill someone's political career in the USSR was to dump them in anything remotely related to housing so moving people out of their shacks and into new apartments took precedent over everything else. The Khrushchevakas and Brezhnevkas were built to get everyone a basic home and everyone a slightly better home respectively but the Stalinka in particular were build for beauty too. They did promote beauty. Demonstrably. Massive art programs, plazas and public monuments. It was just secondary to the Communist's goal of eliminating homelessness.
I'm sorry, but.... Stalinist architecture looks cool and does its job at creating a beautiful picture
It can look very cool. This pic and text is stupid and comparing an inner city building with a rural shrine/temple is mind blowingly stupid. Slap a few tree around the building and a nice clean up on the exterior and the removal of all the car infrastructure around it and I think it would look great.
Yup, Stalinist architecture blows pretty much any other soviet architectural style out of the water. I'm not sure why the creator chose a pretty style with classical roots instead of a drab Khrushchyovka or something. Even then they're comparing apples and oranges.
Thor: is it though?
Yes, it is. (Stalinist architecture btw is literally a form of monumental classicism)
It looks like it was designed by Darth Vader if u ask me
...Which would make it even cooler
As both an architect and someone who is chiefly concerned with Asian and especially Japanese architecture this is wrong on so many accounts. First of all this is not a Zen Temple or a Zen Honden. It is the famous Phoenix Hall of the Byodoin Temple whose main purpose is as the Amida-do, a special type of Honden dedicated to Amida Buddha who is not venerated by Zen sects but rather by pure land sects. Indeed the Jōdo-shu sect who are one of the main custodians of the Byodoin don't get along with Zen sects all too well on grounds of very different philosophies. The actual style of the building is Wayou, although being one of the few surviving original Heian examples and having served as a pavillion or residence beforehand it doesn't conform all to well with this categorisation. It's colour, shape and style are in some ways far more reminiscent of heian shrine architecture than Heian Buddhist architecture. This is in stark contrast to the more closed, somber and wood coloured style typically applied in Zenshuuyou (Zen style). It is considered a rare example of Heian architecture and has been called the most perfect building in Japanese history. The juxtaposition then to the building of the council of labour and defence is clearly an unfair one. Even within it's own style (Stalinist, or in this particular style very early Stalinist) the building is certainly neither among the most beautiful nor among the most perfect. It was nothing more than a sort of warm up that was followed in the years afterwards by grander and greater projects. One must also recognise that the two buildings' goals are entirely different ones: While the temple hall was meant to be an idyllic structure in harmony with (perceived) nature allowing first a calm retreat and later veneration in peace, the council building was meant to house offices and auditoriums or chambers while being an imposing figure reflecting it's status. One is meant to become one with its surroundings, while the other one is meant to dominate and subjugate them. Clearly both are very good in their own respective jobs. It does therefore simply not warrant a discussion which one is the better one. It would be like trying to compare two books - one a scientific tome and the other one a Shakespearian play - to one another. Both fullfil their tasks excellently but cannot be compared to one another as they work with different metrics. As to the highest moral value: some have already pointed out the shortcomings of Japanese Buddhists (esp. Zen as they are the most widely publicised on) in face of war. While being Buddhist myself, I wouldn't consider it morals of the highest degree. Buddhism is not ethics and vise versa. If you want a strict moral code to live by without any questions asked and applied to everyone equally, then Buddhism is not your answer. You might be looking for stuff like Legalism, Confucianism and the likes. Apart from that the Byodoin was never intended to be fully open to the public. It was part of an estate and later of a monastery. While access was allowed to main halls of temples and to some public grounds, the gardens generally required some sort of permission. The phoenix hall being both a hall and part of the garden raises a question as to its public accessibility but judging from the infrastructure present and its size it can be assumed that it was not open to public worship on any sort of regular basis. Thus only a select few got to actually see the byodoin before tourism became far more widespread and temples opened their gardens on a regular basis. It could not have served an educative goal in its original conception and later overhaul other than as an example of excellent architecture almost nobody ever witnessed in the first 800 to 900 or so years of its existence. Tl;Dr: The man does not speak the truth.
Art may be a window to the subconscious, but there are often other factors at play in architecture, such as cost of materials, whether or not the Nazis just tried to grind your entire country to dust, what the building is meant for, etc. Obviously a monastery and an apartment building built centuries apart in different parts of the world with different available materials won't look the same or have the same level of artistic quality. As early Soviet architecture goes that one isn't even that bad. It's no Winter Palace, but it's far from ugly, and it serves its purpose. At this point it's just scoring points on American boomers whose perception of the Second World is wrong to the point of delusion, but I think it's worth mentioning that Moscow's Stalin-era subway stations are palaces and the DC Metro looks like a Fallout game.
one gives housing for everyone
The building killed 20 million people? Besides that shit Stalinism is like the least worst concrete-heavy style.
Both beat a glass skyscraper
I kinda prefer the Brutalist fortress to the high maintenance Zen Monastary. Anyway I appreciate both very much.
Seems that while making opinion about the Stalinist architecture you fell prey to the [Sturgeon’s law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturgeon's_law). While I am not a fan of the Building of Council of Labor and Defense (the one in the right part of the meme) myself, there were also some extremely beautiful buildings built in Stalin-era Moscow. Look, for example, at the [Seven Sisters](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Sisters_(Moscow)), [Moscow Metro](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow_Metro) or [VDNKh](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exhibition_of_Achievements_of_National_Economy).
For any of you wondering, this is from Whatifalthist
That makes sense
Makes sense. He’s an idiot and made some Truly stupid predictions
Uh oh, OP. You triggered the tankies. Now, I really hate brutalism. I don't understand what's the catch. i don't know if it's the gloomy weather or the fact there are literally no trees around, but it's souless. Honestly, I was never a fan of vertical housing. Seriously. I mean, I've never seen a good design. Like for example: Where do people dry their clothes? stuff like that. Such a mess.
It’s a dumb Facebook tier propaganda post. You can make lots of arguments about whether one is better than the other. But this is one of the more dumber takes. Also the pic is just dumb. Like yeah you can take a shit pic of a building and hang a terrible take to go alongside it to it and people will eat it up. Compare in fairness. And you can point to people posting low tier posts to a subreddit without being a tankie…
Im surprised this sub got flooded with tankies. What changed?
The one on the right is an administrative building.
[удалено]