Whatever happened to architecture that is actually good?
Boy, if any of the builders from ancient times were around to see some of the monstrosities we've created.
Boy, if any of the builders from ancient times were around to see some of the monstrosities we've created.
They would probably be amazed at some of the structures we can create and others they would just shrug at... but the same can be said for structure of their time.
Customers and economics.
A king telling an architect to build the greatest church in the world and mass-produced materials being unavailable resulted in some of the great structures of antiquity.
Now, you have a corporation asking how a structure can look distinct while being cheap, and you get the stuff we build.
Thank god at least for LEED branding, even if it's a compromise.
I wonder if there's also a cultural explanation as to why movements like brutalism caught on. Even 50 years ago buildings in the US were a lot more elegant than they are today.
It's a pretty insular culture (less so farther back, moreso the more modern you get), so essentially everyone knows the recent and current style... and then wants their work to be different.
When someone hits something that resonates, that gets copied, becomes the new dominant style, and then the cycle repeats.
Modernism (and then brutalism) was a rejection of the florid, nature-themed, complex styles that came before. It was literally "less is more."
I'd personally say that the longer a style lasts, the more derivative hacks you get with less talent, claiming to be designing in its name.