[Rodmine]

It's like your opinion, man.

Aesthetic taste varies from culture-to-culture, even individual to individual. Sometimes, minimal and simple is beautiful.

I really thought that the pictures you were posting later were examples of ugly design (when I was glossing over it) and I found out that you were saying that that one looks good to you.

The one on top, the example of your ugly design, has natural beauty: a weathered concrete finish. I prefer that WAYYY more than any of the later examples.

[croisillon]

the first one, the Mary McAleese bridge, is in the article as an example of a nice design

[hoseyor]

I find that curious, because I would not even really call that a design. The distinguishing characteristics are more what it lacks than what it has.

But for me it is in fact a symbolic character of the roughly 20th century that we still suffer from because it sucked all humanity and joy out of everything; including design, art, and beauty itself. That bridge represents the asphalt parking lot of bridges in my mind. Featureless, drab, barren, desolate, soulless, miserable, humanity crushing … the 20th century and its current ripple effects of shell shocked humans lacking any kind of identity, self-respect, or will for survival. It’s the “bare minimum nutrition to prevent by organs from failing” of bridges/design.

At least do the equivalent of showing yourself and brushing your teeth by painting the bridge in some way so you are not constantly reminded that your culture, identity, and self-respect is dead and you have no will for survival.

[demosito666]

Aesthetics is objective as long as we’re talking from casual perspective, which is always the case for infrastructure and buildings unless we’re at architecture summit. 90% of people would agree that Amsterdam or Paris city center is more beautiful and pleasant to be in than modernist hellscape at outskirts of Soviet cities. And therefore 90% of the buildings should be built with this in mind, when feasible, because it directly affects wellbeing of humans. Weathered concrete finish is nice in art house movies and in hipster bars, in everyday life it’s ugly and depressing on large scale objects for most people. The rest 10% would be perfect for modernism/functionalism/brutalism, but unfortunately proportions are reversed today. This is of course more subtle for pure infrastructure like bridges or highway interchanges, but the general principle still applies.

[marcosdumay]

Weathered concrete finish is ugly if the architect that designed it made it look ugly.

Coincidentally, the same applies to a painted mural or whatever finish you are pushing for.

[dfxm12]

Don't forget that tastes change over time, too. I would hope that our infrastructure is built to last for a great many generations. What was considered beautiful when I was born might very well be garish to my grandkids. This deserves some consideration. A blank canvas that can be painted, buffed and painted again (by the people from its community) is a decent compromise.

[morkalork]

People's opinions aren't even internally consistent, there's a new condo building built in my city that everyone is shitting on for how it looks but it's honestly no different than other colorful/modern buildings from the 60s/70s that are cherished.

[loco5niner]

On top of that is road safety. I want my roads to look like roads and bridges to look like bridges. His painted examples below just add visual distraction.