Friday, June 05, 2009

We Design and Build Buildings

Most folks know what I do for a living and how much I do enjoy my work. It is an integral part of who I am, but it is NOT the primary reason for my continued refusal to die. When you are employed in the architecture field, the majority of your peers and colleagues are far to the left in ideology. The closest that I can come to the reason for that is because they got into the industry because they liked to draw and realized that feeding themselves by producing art was too risky. Therefore, we do not have a bunch of folks that are interested in buildings for the right reasons, the buildings come much further down the list. The art is the primary reason.

That is why buildings these days SUCK. Artists do not take the time necessary to study the reasons for a building in the first place. What could those reasons possibly be? Well, of course they are simply to protect a man and his belongings from the elements. If you fail to meet the primary reason, you fail to meet all subsequent reasons. Sorry, Frank Lloyd Wright was AT BEST a poor architect. While Wright is the best known of all American architects, he was NOT a good one. His ART was nice, his buildings were failures. Hence, the only ones that people continue to talk about are the three of his main works that survive, Guggenheim, Falling Water, and Robie House. Of these three, only Robie has NOT had continuous work on it performed to keep it from collapsing from the element bashing the other two suffer daily.

Now, to the ideology. I read a great post this morning on Why Architects Drink on the history of Pruitt-Igoe, a Saint Louis housing development that was a failure from day one. While it does seem that the complex was adequate for keeping the elements at bay, the ideology of collectivism was the reason for their construction and proved beyond any doubt why collectivism is an abject failure wherever it is tried.

Understand please, that Saint Louis is a poster city for the failure of an activist government. Even as far back as the 1940s, working people were fleeing the city for the safety of the suburbs. Today, virtually no employed person lives in St. Louis proper, they are all on the outskirts of town and the downtown area rivals Detroit, Cleveland, Little Rock, and Jackson, MS in the crime department. This further proves the point of this post. Philosophy is the key to success in personal life, in townships, in cities, and in countries.

You can search across our country and diametrically opposing ideologies exist virtually within rock-throwing distance of each other and the contrast is STARK. DC/Alexandria, Memphis/Germantown, Forth Worth/Plano, and Jackson/any surrounding city sans Clinton, the list is endless.

The first real ideological battle that is well documented that I can find is the one that presented the United States with its first real influx of capable men, women, and children that brought about our industrial revolution. In the United Kingdom around the mid 1840s, the introduction of machinery started to reduce the need for skilled artisans and those craftsmen that were replaced suffered hard times. Local townships had always had poorhouses that were supported by the township's citizens to take care of their less than wealthy folks. But, alas, those poorhouses would NOT allow anyone that possessed a skill to live there.

If you were replaced in your job, you were EXPECTED to find another. If another job was not to be found in that area, you grabbed everything that you owned and migrated to WHERE THE JOBS WERE. That is why Pittsburgh, Cleveland, and the Great Lakes area received so many Irish, Scots, and British folks during the mid-1800s. There were no jobs in the UK, but there were plenty here, so the people came to WHERE THE JOBS WERE. Potato Famine? Uh, not really, it was a jobs famine. We had at that time, the greatest influx of new workers into this country that did the unthinkable, they sought and took JOBS.

Then the ideology began to slowly shift. People started to FEEL as if they were owed something from the greatest country in the history of the Earth. At the present time, we now have around fifty MILLION people that do not possess the slightest work ethic and they continue to expect more and more from those of us that do. One only need to point to the residents of New Orleans and the shit-fit crying jag that arose when two days after Hurricane Katrina hit Mississippi, they starting DROWNING in New Orleans.

But, in the same vein, these are those government subsidized apartment complexes that were provided as "low income" housing on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Twenty-two of these apartment complexes are scheduled to be constructed in Mississippi. Nine have already been completed.

Oddly, the number of jobs unfilled since the hurricane has NOT increased, yet we are making great strides to move people into these apartments in areas where there are no jobs available. What can the outcome of this effort possibly be?

Please note the covered PARKING at these apartment complexes. COVERED PARKING FOR POOR FOLKS. Our poor folks in this country OWN CARS. In other countries, most of the RICH FOLKS do not own cars.

Indoor plumbing is also provided. Do you realize that OVER seventy percent of people on the entire planet do not have ANY plumbing? This bathroom would be inconceivable to the overwhelming majority of people living in Mexico, wonder why exactly they want to come here illegally and also wonder why we let them do that?

Do you wonder why those in the Middle East hate us so? It is because we do not have to shit on the GROUND.

In many areas of the world, BATHING is unheard of. Imagine what someone that was transplanted here from the Amazon basin would actually think of a knob that you could turn that would produce potable water? They would think that we were SORCERERS that can conjure up the great spirits of MAGIC!

Oh man! We can make MAGIC FIRE, too!

Let's see, an electric range, a microwave, kitchen sink, places to store canned goods....HOLY SHIT! CANNED GOODS!

No flat rock and a pointed rock is needed either to prepare food in our MAGIC SORCERER kitchen for "poor people." And dang, we do not even have to travel eight miles to the dirty, crocodile infested river to fill a wooden bucket with muddy water, then travel the returning eight miles with a wet bucket on our heads.

This is our circa 1840s UK poorhouse, folks.



OH LOOK! Holy spotted leopard G_d! There are things made from shiny magic material that receive our dirty garments and offer them to the cleaning spirits so we no longer have to go to an area covered over in Malaria and Yellow Fever mosquitoes, too!

Please consider the shark sufficiently jumped if this is what we regard in this day and age as "affordable housing." Admit it, the phrase means "FREE HOUSING FOR DEADBEATS."

And also take a brief glimpse at the SIX-PANELED DOORS! None of those flush, hollow-core bullshit doors for our poor people! That is elitist and shall NOT STAND.



By the way, swimming pool with fountain. Beach volleyball court. Free internet and cable television. Yeah, they are poor.

Do you understand that we have produced a class of "poor" people that shall never, ever hit a lick at a snake for their entire lives? How can that survive? Dunno, just ask those mythical people that Ayn Rand wrote about at The Twentieth Century Motor Company.

Who's the MASTER and who's the SLAVE?

Please take the time to comment.

17 comments:

classicaliberal said...

WTF is all over that bathroom floor?! Do you guys break it in before the tenants move in?!

Neil Cameron (One Salient Oversight) said...

Pruitt-Igoe was a monumental failure because it pretty much had at its core the belief that if you provided for people's basic needs (in this case, cheap, affordable, housing) they will respond naturally by progressing and developing their intellects blah blah blah.

Here in Australia we have a number of what are called "Housing Commission suburbs". They weren't on the scale of Pruitt-Igoe but the philosophy was the same. Entire suburbs of similar looking houses were created. In one case, a suburb was designed with the roads and garages at the BACK of the houses while a grassed common area was at the front - the idea being that you walked out the front door and into the wonderful community that the government has provided for you. Very Soviet, really.

And just like Pruitt Igoe, these entire suburbs owned by the government and housing the poor and unemployed ended up decaying into crime, vandalism and intergenerational welfare dependency.

My argument is, of course, that the government did the right thing in the wrong way - but I know there's no point in really discussing this further with you! Nevertheless the fact was that the plans for Australian housing commission suburbs or British housing estates or American Pruitt-Igoe copies were based upon a utopian ideal that human beings would spontaneously prosper and develop if one or more of their needs were met by government departments.

Successive governments in Australia and the UK have realised that their 1960s forebears were pretty stupid. As a result, they began to see housing estates and suburbs as assets that can be sold off to private owners. Apartments and houses have begun to be sold off, allowing a change in culture. There are still lots of social housing, but these are mixed in with private owners who take care of their property. It has been (one) step that Australia and the UK have done to undermine the welfare culture that has developed.

Denise said...

Moving into one of those places would be a monster move up for me, TD. However, they won't look like that in another year. They will be trashed, just like every other place where people move in without having to invest their own sweat equity into obtaining it. Wayne Manor Projects in KC was the same way. They finally had to tear them down to get the drug dealers out. The cops wouldn't even go in there.

Paul Mitchell said...

Naw, CL, the floor has not been installed yet in that photo. That is the debris left over from the tiling of the tub surround. Click it, see it big!

OSO, read your first paragraph, then the first sentence of your fourth paragraph. You do see the lunacy of their attempt, but your emotions disallow you from removing all doubt that it is the wrong idea. That is called, "just being nice." the idea shall never be able to work because the people that shall take advantage of the gov't redistribution of wealth are NOT NICE. They are deadbeats.

And Denise, you happy new gun owner, can appreciate the fact that the Fed came to those in public housing and made them gun-free zones. That effectively taped a target on the backs of the legitimate poor folks that needed these places to survive. Individuals must take care of the poor, that is what civilized people do. Government is NOT civilized.

classicaliberal said...

No more drunken blog commenting for me... Wow, what a night...

Paul Mitchell said...

CL, you didn't even break nothing or get in a fight, you couldn't have been that drunk.

Neil Cameron (One Salient Oversight) said...

Well, the liberalism that I hold to is one which tries to make the world a better place. This is not a utopian vision but a practical one. I am also well aware of certain failures of liberalism (such as Pruitt Igoe) that have achieved the opposite of what it sets out to do, while also aware that conservatism does have some good, strong points.

But I think you already knew that.

Paul Mitchell said...

But, OSO, take your money and go be liberal as you want to be with it, just leave mine alone, I do not want to be liberal with mine.

Get it?

Government is useful for very few things and charity certainly is not one of those useful things.

Neil Cameron (One Salient Oversight) said...

Ah yes but as soon as you start recognising the importance of some parts of what government does you can't help but sit back and plan tax rises to pay for them.

Paul Mitchell said...

OSO, all it would take to kill liberalism dead in its tracks would be to start taxing the people that want those programs and cutting taxes for those that don't want them or refuse to use them.

Anonymous said...

Yeah, god forbid poor people get access to INDOOR PLUMBING! We should make them crap on the floor, and SLEEP in it, right? That'll teach them to be uneducated and unskilled!

"Affordable Housing" doesn't have to be a clapboard shack. Most of these complexes are so poorly constructed that they begin to deteriorate within a few years.

Paul Mitchell said...

Anon, I am unsure what your first three sentences even mean. Are you making the argument that I am saying poor folks do not need to get indoor plumbing? I think that you are missing the much larger point of my post.

And as far as the final idea that you voice, you are entirely incorrect. Lower quality finishes do NOT equate as lower quality work. Again, these apartments are VERY high quality and 22 complexes are to be built in an area that HAS NO JOBS!!!!

But, keep that ideology that has proven to be an overwhelming failure wherever it is tried.

Unknown said...

Ive been researching Pruitt-Igoe for a architecture position paper, the main thing that i pulled out from the research was the differences between the methods of housing associations of the time and now. We have learned from our mistakes, or at least i though we did. To make a difference and successful structures, we need to revitalize communities not the housing. Bring in the jobs and community aspects first then incorporate the housing units after a successful root has been put in place for the economy of the area.

Paul Mitchell said...

Ah, Dana, you are certainly on to something there. In my never to be humble opinion, people need housing where the jobs are, not the other way around.

Keep in mind though, after those jobs are there and services begin to expand, people naturally move away from the clutter because where people are making their living, criminals soon move in to make theirs. It's kinda like a cycle or something.

paul mitchell said...

Ah, Dana, you are certainly on to something there. In my never to be humble opinion, people need housing where the jobs are, not the other way around.

Keep in mind though, after those jobs are there and services begin to expand, people naturally move away from the clutter because where people are making their living, criminals soon move in to make theirs. It's kinda like a cycle or something.

One Salient Oversight said...

Well, the liberalism that I hold to is one which tries to make the world a better place. This is not a utopian vision but a practical one. I am also well aware of certain failures of liberalism (such as Pruitt Igoe) that have achieved the opposite of what it sets out to do, while also aware that conservatism does have some good, strong points.

But I think you already knew that.

classicaliberal said...

WTF is all over that bathroom floor?! Do you guys break it in before the tenants move in?!