Monuments

Well, his famous essay is titled "Ornament and Crime."

He pretty much equates ornament to how 'developed' a society is (for the most part it's an indictment of American architecture at the time, which was headstrong into classical revival).

At least he had a sense of humor though, as he entered a gigantic Greek column for the Chicago Tribune Building contest.

 

Classical is such baloney though.

I have a fondness for Byzantine art moreso than Roman. Roman art always struck me as ugly and plain. Byzantine is so purple, and green, and mystical, and so vivid.

 

He basically sees it as a sign of backwardness, and considering some of the political undertones brewing around the region and world, the shift away from classical ornamentation (and the political and social values they represented) was an easy one to make at the time.

 

I would like a house too.


Like Karazhan from World of Warcraft.



If not that.... Palatine.

 

I mean, I am as big a fan of the Napoleonic Era, as GAJ is of the Roman Era, but Bonapartes Neo-Classical tastes always come off to me as garish, pretentious, and silly.

 

Yeah, the late 18th/19th centuries can be seen as somewhat of a Dark Ages for architecture, at least up until the 1870s.

The three best works made during that 19th century were not even made by architects (the Crystal Palace, the Brooklyn Bridge & the Eiffel Tower).

 

I would have the Man In The Moon face made more clearly defined and carved to resemble my own face so we would all have a 2,000 mile wide me looking down on the world.

 

A small bronze plaque in the middle of the Amazon jungle.

 

Some big sheltering thing that homeless people and cats can sleep under. Anybody trying to kick the homeless people out would be sued.

 

Something with a lava floor! And crocodiles swimming around in it.

I'd also have a spiky wall. So I can kick people into my spiky wall. Well, I can't, but you get it.

 

Some of the ones my friends and I came up with:

A hollowed-out mountain whose interior is filled with murals of the subject's life.

The Colossus of Rhodes remade in subject's image.

Subject carved into the moon in classic warrior pose.

Subject's face inserted into the Sistine Chapel's roof. (Though not as God)