Friday, May 25, 2007
The Blank Face
With enough reflection and review of beautiful urban landscape, the Jersey Citoyen has finally figured out the main problem with the buildings in a previous post. They are incomplete. This incompleteness is rampant in new developments: beautiful (or at least decent) fronts to buildings but a reverse side composed of garage, vinyl, and blank brick wall. I claim that this incompleteness embodies the putative American lack of a soul.
Jersey City is a prime example, because we can find incompleteness all over town. There are two kinds: the one where the buildings' aesthetic used to be complete but has since deteriorated, and the kind which was never there to begin with. Consider this picture of the side of my building:
Clearly this blank brick wall is far from aesthetic. But it wasn't built to be good-looking; in fact there used to be another townhouse next to it which has since crumbled away. Townhouses which were built an exposed side do take this into account, as seen in this picture.
Now compare this with the new townhouses down in liberty harbor, where the developer clearly and intentionally neglected the sides and backs of the buildings.
Front doors:
No sides:
Perhaps this was done to save money. It is obvious to any urbanist that the dead space provided by the back of these buildings will permanently ban any life from happening back there. However, this is a practical criticism not an aesthetic one. Aesthetically, the fronts of the buildings are also now corrupt because the viewer knows of their inherent artifice. In the same way that Disneyland is no fun because you're only allowed to have well-regimented, paid-for, formalized fun, these buildings are not beautiful because you're only allowed to perceive well-regimented, paid-for, formalized beauty.
What saves my building despite its blank brick wall? The viewer perceives his own beauty; he finds it.
It looks, however, that the new townhouse development slightly inland, down the road, and west of the aforementioned won't have this problem:
But by God who came up with these stars??
Jersey City is a prime example, because we can find incompleteness all over town. There are two kinds: the one where the buildings' aesthetic used to be complete but has since deteriorated, and the kind which was never there to begin with. Consider this picture of the side of my building:
Clearly this blank brick wall is far from aesthetic. But it wasn't built to be good-looking; in fact there used to be another townhouse next to it which has since crumbled away. Townhouses which were built an exposed side do take this into account, as seen in this picture.
Now compare this with the new townhouses down in liberty harbor, where the developer clearly and intentionally neglected the sides and backs of the buildings.
Front doors:
No sides:
Perhaps this was done to save money. It is obvious to any urbanist that the dead space provided by the back of these buildings will permanently ban any life from happening back there. However, this is a practical criticism not an aesthetic one. Aesthetically, the fronts of the buildings are also now corrupt because the viewer knows of their inherent artifice. In the same way that Disneyland is no fun because you're only allowed to have well-regimented, paid-for, formalized fun, these buildings are not beautiful because you're only allowed to perceive well-regimented, paid-for, formalized beauty.
What saves my building despite its blank brick wall? The viewer perceives his own beauty; he finds it.
It looks, however, that the new townhouse development slightly inland, down the road, and west of the aforementioned won't have this problem:
But by God who came up with these stars??
Owen Martin 1:51 PM
1 Comments:
Yo, those stars are UUUUGGGGLY! I was on my way to the diner and they attacked me. A perfectly normal new take on a brownstone, ruined by stupid stars...
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