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Originally Posted by jimbuna
How do you define something as a 'wonder' ?
What precisely is a 'wonder' ? (open to individual perception I suspect)
What criteria do you base your assessment on ?
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Well all of the massive landmarks that we have constructed in modern times seem to lack a certain nameless beauty that you see in the more ancient things.
Pyramids made with massive golden brown blocks in a pleasing shape. Hanging gardens just sounds impressive. The Collossus of Rhodes is just cool.
What makes all those things different from what we build today is that they were built for their own existance. A beautiful monument. We instead build utilitarian things. Some of the most impressive architecture we have is of bridges and dams and buildings. These things are useful first and pretty second. And really if you look at the trends since the late 60s everything is either all glass or filled with lots of concrete. What kind of monuments do we have? Our monuments are small and off to the side. What beaituful things we have aren't wonderous. They don't baffle you as to how it was done or why. You don't often see a building that makes you smile and sigh. And as tall and impressive as the World Trade Centre was I didn't think that it was particularly beautiful.
Theres an inexplicable quality to the wonders of ancient times that seems to be missing in what we build. That isn't to say that we can't build some very nice stuff but I rarely see a building these days thats younger than 60 years that I really want to take a picture of. Even castles of the middle ages are better looking than anything they're erecting in my city right now. And that just seems odd since we are more capable than ever to make truly unimaginable things.
And has anything thought about the fact that we keep bringing down all our older buildings to build new ones? It might just be an argument for the disposable culture.