>It is the pervading law of all things organic and inorganic, of all things physical and metaphysical, of all things human, and all things super-human, of all true manifestations of the head, of the heart, of the soul, that the life is recognizable in its expression, that form ever follows function. This is the law.
Emphasis mine.
Louis Sullivan is quoted as saying this in 1896, prior to any world wars. I think you can blame architecture being reduced to the sum of its usefulness to our friends in Chicago, who are far more worried about function over aesthetic. Ludwig Mies van der Rohe decided "less is more" in Chicago. Frank Lloyd Wright. John Root. Daniel Burnham. This continues today with the premiere skyscrapers in the middle east and Asia being designed by Chicago's Skidmore, Owings and Merril. It's too cold to care what you look like.