Attention to detail. The Europeans sure do it right!
Maybe the Japanese do it right too, but I haven’t been to Japan. We recently came back from a little vacation in Germany and Italy and the first thing that struck me was the many levels of beauty everywhere.
People definitely pay close attention to detail and maybe its partly my Indian (British influenced) upbringing, but I did appreciate the little windows with lace and flower boxes :). Flowers were sold everywhere and people bought them with a dedication that was very inspiring!
People have an innate sense of color that is apparent in the way they dress, how they decorate their buildings and environment. It was so soothing to see green fields broken by yellow fields of mustard, instead of ugly billboards like here in the States.
There was a lot of uniformity everywhere (especially in the red roofs), but the uniformity was aesthetically pleasing. Again in sharp contrast to the many uniform, character-less homes in the States. I was wondering what exactly made the homes in Europe so beautiful as homes in the States that try to bring back some of those features just look fake. I think it maybe that you need to internalize an influence and not just blindly import it into a different environment. For example the Spanish style facades look so ridiculous in LA, but lovely in Spain! They just need to fit more organically with the LA environment!
Another surprising thing was that there were some inventions and features that I hadn’t seen in America before. It was surprising because I assumed all first world countries were pretty similiar due to the active back and forth flow of goods and ideas. So I was very surprised to see the tilt-turn windows.
and a little teapot with a hole at the spout. This prevented the tea from dripping down the teapot. Totally ingenious! I wish I had taken a picture.
Lesson: Pay attention to detail, beauty and color. It makes life so much richer!
Architecture is just a representation of the people. Europe was until recently very homogenous (not going back over hundreds of years, but the cities built in the last couple hundred years). America is extremely diverse. That shows in the architecture. That’s one. Another is the speed of development which had to occur here in order for the country to grow. That means cheaper construction. If the US waited to develop at European style pace it would only be 1/10 of what it is today. And finally, there is isolation, as a continent, and so there are stylistic ideas about the old world from which people came that are just romantic idealizations, detached from the reality of what is actually going on in that place. That makes for many of the kitsch details and plastic Doric columns.
Check out the architecture of the countries developing now at a rapid pace and you will see the sky equally polluted with many individual buildings that want to stand out. On a small scale and also on a big scale. But you can’t ask someone not to live in a more comfortable apartment for the sake of good visual urban structure.
It would be great if we could build fast only temporary structures and build slowly the ones which will remain. Time is a key factor, as is money. Beautiful buildings cost a lot more in terms of materials and details, even if simple. The materials are really important.
Many European buildings have been built to be owned, particularly homes. Here in the US they are built with a resale value in mind. There is no way that a house built of good materials and details could equal it’s resale value. It is very unlikely. Internationally now we are building more and more with a resale value in mind.
But, please know that you can buy tilt-turn windows here too!
PS Japan has very many beautiful buildings but many scary ones as well. The big cities are plastered with billboards and signs. They pay a lot of attention to details and construction, which you can tell even when buying well wrapped Japanese products. Japan is a very homogenous country.