Why Beauty Matters (and how it has been destroyed by “usability”)

People have strong feelings about architecture.

I think a lot of people feel alienated by "modern" architecture, particularly the "international style". Conversely when they want to tear down a "brutalist" building people frequently come out with a lot of support to keep it: even though a building like that might be ugly people feel there is something honest about it.

In the big picture postmodern architecture has won, particularly the "decorated shed" when you build a building with a very ordinary frame but just decorate it on the inside and outside. That's Versailles for you.

I'm not sure if it's considered bad form to link to Twitter threads here, but I found this commentary via Twitter particularly moving and thought provoking. The comment about many schools looking indistinguishable from prisons, as well as the observation that many megacities all seem to aspire to look exactly the same with no local flavor are particularly noteworthy.

People back then used to have (almost) free labor. That is one variable that also changed over time. All that pretty architectural features took a lot of effort and time. Usability is one factor, but many things past civilizations did were only possible because they only paid for food (and often, not enough)