You can't just dwell on whether the "top ten ugly buildings" are ugly or not

【Author Guo Yuanpeng】

A few days ago, a list of "China's Top Ten Ugly Buildings Selection" became popular on the Internet, including the Hengda Haihuadao Building Complex in Danzhou City, Hainan Province, the Suzhou Bay Cultural Center in Jiangsu Province, and the Hongyang Square in Jinan City, Shandong Province, which triggered heated discussions about architectural design and aesthetics. Some netizens said: "Although there is no standard for aesthetics, the buildings on the list do violate everyone's basic cognition of beauty, and the evaluation is reasonable and well-founded, which is worthy of in-depth consideration by the industry." ”

For the selection results of this "Top Ten Ugly Buildings", the views of network public opinion are also different, and it can be said that one side is "seawater" and the other is "flame". Some people think that the buildings listed in the "ugly buildings" are indeed ugly; some people think that the buildings listed in the "ugly buildings" are not the "ugliest", and that the "very ugly" ones have slipped through the net. For example, some netizens said: The building in a certain place is "uglier" than the building on the list, why is it not rated?

In fact, there is no need for us to dwell on whether the "Ten Ugly Buildings" are "deserved" and whether they are "unjust". The significance of the "Top Ten Ugly Buildings" is greater than the result.

What is beauty? It should be said that there is no specific standard for beauty. The same thing, the same content, the same lines, the same colors, in the eyes of different people, see "different results" are seen. In the case of beautiful women, the standards cannot be the same, some people think that "so-and-so beauty" is very beautiful, and others may not agree. This is what we call "the lover's eyes out of the West". Everyone has a "standard of their own beauty" in their hearts, and everyone has a "standard of their own ugliness" in their hearts. A thousand people have "a thousand kinds of beauty" in their eyes, and a thousand people will have "a thousand kinds of ugliness" in their eyes. Therefore, it is impossible for the "Ten Ugly Buildings" to be considered by everyone to be "ugly with one voice" in terms of external form.

We need to agree with the significance of this "ugly building". In a city, no matter what the external form of the building is, the first thing that needs to be followed is "scientific and reasonable". For example, the "ugly buildings" on the list this time also contain several levels: "destroying the marine ecology", "strange and chaotic shapes", "exaggerated and wasteful shapes", "unreasonable use of building functions" and so on. It should be said that the construction of urban buildings still needs to keep the bottom line.

There is no fixed standard for "beauty" and "ugliness" in people's minds. Therefore, for the buildings on the list, whether it is "ugly" or not cannot be decided. It's just that this kind of selection makes people start to pay attention to the design of urban buildings, which is a good thing. The design of urban buildings can not be "experts close the door design" and "officials hammer and hammer", when passing the design drawings, it is advisable to invite the people to participate as judges, both "expert opinions" and "people's approval". Because, in the end, the city's buildings are built for the people. Its greater significance lies in the fact that through the selection of "ugly buildings", through the focus of public opinion and netizens to form a kind of pressure, forcing the leaders of architectural planning and design to be more cautious about the "frozen art" of the city from the beginning of the heart, prompting them to repeatedly ponder and demonstrate the design concept and plan. At the same time, this is a constraint on the design of the arbitrary intervention of administrative power.

You can't just dwell on whether the "top ten ugly buildings" are ugly or not, and the significance of the selection is not the result.