Почему мы строим уродливо. И дорого

19th-century stucco and columns are cheap, but a bare 21st-century concrete wall is pure luxury. -------- Sponsor's Corner 🏡 Learn all the intricacies before buying a plot and building on the Valdai Master channel    • Покупка участка: 3 риска 2026 года которые...   Also on Alexander Loginov's Telegram https://t.me/domavn -------- Modern new buildings are universally criticized: identical boxes, anthills, faceless facades, and courtyards that double as parking lots. At the same time, historic buildings with stucco, columns, and bas-reliefs—tenement buildings, Stalin-era buildings, and older housing stock—seem to be the epitome of beautiful architecture, a standard that today's developers can't match. It's commonly believed that this is a matter of cost-cutting: decor is expensive, while a smooth wall is cheap. But construction economics work quite differently, and even the most modest residential complex today costs more than a 19th-century palace. In this episode, Arkady Gershman examines where architectural excess has truly disappeared: how tenement buildings were built under the Tsar, why Khrushchev banned decor in a 1955 decree, and why Stalin-era buildings were replaced by Khrushchev-era buildings and prefabricated prefabricated houses. We'll discuss the design of modern housing—engineering, energy efficiency, ventilated facades, modular construction, and 3D-printed houses—and why marketers, not architects, are now responsible for the appearance of new buildings. The history of architecture is cyclical, and boring boxes have a secret that changes the way we view urbanism and the urban environment. -------- Related videos Why are there so few skyscrapers in Moscow:    • Почему в Москве так мало небоскрёбов?   Why are modern cities so ugly:    • Почему современные города такие уродливые?...   The city of the future from Soviet architects:    • Город будущего от советских архитекторов. ...   -------- Advertising on the channel and collaboration: [email protected] Invite to give a lecture: [email protected] -------- Support the project team: ✅ Boost (for Russian cards): https://boosty.to/gershman ✅ Via Telegram (any card): https://t.me/gre4ark/21130 ✅ YouTube sponsorship (for international cards): youtube.com/arkadiygershman/join ✅ Patreon (for international cards):   / gershman   -------- Telegram and a post about glass houses: https://t.me/gre4ark/24556 TikTok:   / gershman_arkadiy   Twitter:   / arkadiygershman   FB:   / gre4ark   Instagram:   / gre4ark   Blog with text posts: http://urbanblog.ru -------- My name is Arkady Gershman, and for the last ten years I've been promoting a healthy attitude toward the city (Google "City for People"). Simply put, I'm an urbanist with an unhealthy love of transportation. I'm not an architect, so I won't talk about choosing materials or different architectural styles. But I will talk about proper urban planning policy, how to lay a tram, what a street should look like, and how to create a park without drug addicts and alcoholics. -------- Timecodes: 00:00 Excesses Gone 02:16 The Beautiful Life of Old Houses 03:52 The Tsarist Stage of Simplification 05:58 Decree on Excesses 08:14 Why a House Will Be Demolished - Advertising 10:01 A Box with a Secret 12:21 A House in a Month 14:46 An Expensive Box 17:46 Bring Back Architecture!