by hilbert42 | 2025-10-06 16:07:36+00:00
"Get rid of finials, cornices, non-standard windows, and then look for the next victim."

Well, I live in a house built in the Victorian era and I love my cornices and architraves decorated with classical shapes that go back to antiquity—astragals, cavettos and such—and my cedar doors, panelling, window sills, skirting boards again all shaped with classical mouldings—ogees, coves, ovolos, cymae, scotias, beadings, etc mostly together in various architecturally-pleasing combinations. And, yes, my house even has a finial on top.

These days, it's unfortunate that many of us never give much consideration to or take time to even look at these decorative shapes let alone examine them carefully. Shame really, as they aren't just fleeting fashion from the bygone Victorian era but are wonderful geometric shapes and curves that have stood the test of time, in fact they've been appreciated for at least several thousand years.

"Oddly, it's never been cheaper in labour to get a plaster decoration made, but you can hardly get them, whereas they were sold in catalogues by the ton when they were carefully hand-moulded."

I don't consider my house to be exceptional by any stretch but still it's an ongoing testament to both good design and to the excellent skills of craftsmen who built it. That build quality is just not available today despite builders and carpenters having excellent timesaving tools not available in yesteryears.

Moreover, those classical geometric curves cut into the woodwork in my house weren't done with modern machinery (say a spindle moulder) but planed by hand with either a wooden hand plane or a combination plane like the Stanley No. 45†, and cutting mouldings this way is difficult and requires considerable skill (I know, I've had to do it when making repairs).

Unfortunately, as you've mentioned, modern CAD/CAM and other industrial tech has made manufacturing easier than ever and yet design (and often quality) have almost hit rock bottom. Whether it's building houses or computers and or any numbers of things, design is almost nonexistent; or little or no thought has been given to the ergonomics of how products are used (I'm continually whingeing on HN about the terrible ergonomics of much software produced these days).

These aren't isolated cases, recently on separate occasions I've purchased cargo-type work pants (different brands) and the special smartphone pockets in both aren't deep enough to do the zipper up, my normal sized phone protrudes about a cm above the zipper (it's a great feature to prevent phone loss but totally useless if it can't be zipped). How the fuck can something as obvious as that happen?

I've come to the conclusion it's a combination of manufacturers maximizing profit and the fact that too few complain, a general drop in aesthetic appreciation across society and our disposable throwaway culture: "who cares if it doesn't look good or it's buggy, we'll be chucking it out in a year or so anyway."

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† I own a Stanley No. 45, if look carefully in these links you'll see numbers of its plane irons have curved cutting surfaces that conform to the geometry of those curves. https://www.carters.com.au/index.cfm/index/9072-woodworking-...

https://www.jimbodetools.com/products/complete-set-of-22-cut...