Is there an Old Money Look in architecture? – Brick Magazine

writing. Haewook Jeong, Co-CEO of Midday and David Chipperfield Architects Collaborator

These days, you can often hear the term ‘old money look’ in the fashion field. The emergence of this trend was quite interesting even to me, who doesn’t know much about fashion, perhaps because of its somewhat blatant meaning of ‘the outfit of the rich passed down from generation to generation.’ This is because the word itself seemed to reveal a contradiction with the universal design desires of the era. What kind of mentality does it have to openly represent the old upper class? If you think about it, the word ‘old’ should itself be at the opposite end of trends, but it is an interesting contradiction to include this word in an expression that refers to the leader of trends. Haven’t real old money been trying to avoid being seen as old money? But the opposite trend is happening. Rather than limiting this interesting point to fashion, I think it could be meaningful to look at it more broadly, including other design fields and architecture.

If you look at this word more generally, you can feel the nostalgia for dignity or authority that cannot be easily surpassed in the word old money. The fact that it is old money rather than new money may be a reflection of the desire to transcend the times or the desire not to be swayed by the times. This is because old money is not something that can be created in a short period of time. Anyone can achieve new money if they work hard, but old money is not a status that can be acquired without effort. In front of old money, new money is just a group without any foundation. Isn’t the fact that such old money has emerged as the dream of a trend paradoxically revealing the will to guarantee permanence and authority for a long time, rather than disappearing soon as a mere light fad? This leads us to infer that it was because the authority of this era was easily volatile or diluted.

This phenomenon appears to be the result of oversupply and resulting excessive competition that has continued since the 20th century. From the late 20th century until now, it was an era in which new money was exploding. At the same time, a huge amount of avant-garde music focused on novelty. However, if there is a large supply of new and cool things, paradoxically, they will not be very new and cool. If everyone shows off their presence, it’s like no one has a presence. For this reason, since authority is hardly guaranteed with most of the newly introduced things, I think the beginning of this trend is to rely on the elegance and atmosphere handed down from the past, such as old money.

However, metaphors such as the authoritative elegance of the old upper class wearing the old money look are actually something that civil society has been trying to remove from society for a long time. In our country alone, there are numerous narratives of struggle for de-authorization in the political and social sectors. Behind this lies the history of choosing chaos in freedom rather than order in dictatorship. However, a new generation who does not know this history may regard the chaotic disorder given to them as a critical object that needs to be improved. To exaggerate, the rise of the old money look can be interpreted by some as revealing a dialectical desire to return from civil society to aristocratic society. In this way, the Old Money Look is in the same category as the phrase ‘Dedicated to you who dream of a world without equality’ that appeared in a recent apartment sales advertisement.

I think the old money look can be compared to cooking. If you compare the Old Money Look to a recipe, it can be close to an authentic recipe. Authentic recipes are sometimes boring, but they set standards and guarantee quality. On the other hand, there will be fusion recipes. Fusion recipes are new and interesting, but if done wrong, they only leave behind incomprehensibility and crudeness. The former is the role of establishing order, and the latter is the role of overturning or transforming the established order. What we need to think about is that in an era of competitive oversupply, too many obsessive fusion recipes (mainly centered on new money) have been poured out with the purpose of being different from others. Perhaps the reason I followed Old Money was because I was sick of the disorderly crudeness that deteriorated fusion recipes had spread to the world. This directly contradicts what most modern design fields naturally pursue in that they reject innovation toward visual or formal newness.

There is a similar trend in recent automobile design. Looking at the recent trends in automobile design, classic designs are once again being treated as hip. The car that today’s generation thinks is the coolest is a traditional off-roader with a right-angled shape. The models chosen for the retro trend under the name ‘Young Timer’ are all models that have visually very clear tangible characteristics as a coupe or sedan. This actively reveals the prototype of the category. Angular shapes are sometimes more popular because they visually reinforce the circular stereotype. This can be seen as nostalgia for authority leading to the pursuit of typological prototypes. What is interesting is that, despite these clear signals, the models pouring out of the market are crossover designs that somehow try to break away from the typological archetype under the banner of innovation. This can be understood as established designers still not giving up the blind pursuit of new designs.

In fact, architecture is not much different. If there is an authentic recipe in architecture, it would be classic or orderly yet slightly old-fashioned, revealing the typological original form of the building as much as possible. However, in this day and age, buildings like this are not often created. There are still architects who design these buildings, but they are only a minority. On the contrary, fusion recipes are very common. When you look at new buildings being built around you, they pursue their own uniqueness by adding one more so-called design element. For example, regardless of whether it is public or private, we can very easily come across irregularly shaped building styles, such as drilling holes or stacking chunks in an alternating manner, without any particular reason. This includes the numerous ugly public buildings that have been built so far, as well as the numerous unidentifiable sculptures that are pouring out of current designs.

There is a stereotype here that design must be something different and new. People who have this stereotype usually regard morphological novelty and morphological complexity as synonyms. Conversely, the repetition of ordered objects is recognized as a taboo because it implies boredom. And this is packaged in the words creativity or innovation. In this context, the design is flamboyant in form but lacks an elegant atmosphere. Of course, this is not a bad thing because it is a different branch of thought. The problem is when quality drops due to this impulse, and as mentioned earlier, clumsy fusion only leaves things crude. Usually, the design in these cases ruins the physical order of the building.

The exterior design of apartments in Korea is a representative example. The design of apartments, in which all buildings were arranged in an orderly line up to head height, was regarded as an eyesore that ruined the cityscape. Perhaps the cause was the excessive old-fashionedness caused by deteriorated orthodox recipes. Therefore, a lot of effort was made to instill diversity, from enacting ordinances to strengthening deliberation standards. Nevertheless, when I look at newly built apartments with high heating levels and messy exterior finishes, I feel more anxious. I rather miss the comfort I felt inside an old apartment complex built in rows. In the Apgujeong apartment complex reconstruction, which emerged as a hot potato last year, the fact that the current appearance was said to be more beautiful than any other plan submitted has many implications for the current trend of architectural design (of course, the inconveniences residents experience in old apartments are also (That’s a different issue).

This trend may be a precursor to the old money look in the architectural field. Assuming that the inconveniences of living are not serious, living in an old apartment in a wealthy neighborhood can feel more noble than an expensive new apartment along the Han River. This may be because it stimulates nostalgia for the wealthy past while simultaneously distancing oneself from promiscuous design. Even if it is not a question of rent, it is similar to the fact that it feels more hip to open a store or office in an old, honestly built commercial building than in a fancy and complicated new building nearby.
Of course, in this case, even if ‘old’ is emphasized, ‘money’ may not be emphasized. The important thing is that most designs that obsessively pursue newness do not provide much inspiration to the next generation. As the city becomes more cluttered, wouldn’t people rather want to restore fundamental order? The old money look is expected to become a major trend in architectural spaces in the near future. Of course, it is difficult to conclude that it is the best and ideal alternative.