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Comment by BenFranklin100 | Hacker News Reader

There are practical reasons why we build less ‘beautiful’ buildings.

1. First, beauty is subjective and many of these so-called ‘ugly’ buildings will be considered attractive decades in the future. Think Brooklyn Brownstones or New England triple deckers, both considered scourges at one time.

2. Labor costs. It’s relatively expensive to build ornate masonry buildings in high-wage economies. Overall, this is a good thing.

3. Zoning. It’s difficult to get approval for most building projects, doubly so if the building is in some was unique or unusual . Developers go with has been approved before.

4. Survivorship bias. Old, ugly buildings were torn down long ago, leaving the relatively attractive standing.

There is no need to conjure up half-baked, speculative, psychological theories like the author does.

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> Labor costs. It’s relatively expensive to build ornate masonry buildings in high-wage economies. Overall, this is a good thing.

To back this up, here's a quote from people who are building a new ornate masonry building:

"We originally wanted to bid out the stone carving," explains Brother Isidore Mary, the 30-year-old monk in charge of construction, "but when we heard the cost, we almost had a heart attack. There was no way we could afford it, so we decided to figure out how to build the monastery ourselves." In 2013 the monks purchased a Prussiani [CNC] stone carving machine. After several months of trial and error, they began carving ornate pieces of stone.

https://www.arizcc.com/post/carmelite-monks-of-wyoming-use-t...

This seems to me largely explicable even without reference to labor cost. I live in a downtown townhouse and asked my own builder why these kinds of projects take so long compared to the cookie cutter suburban projects. Some of it is more difficult permitting, zoning, having to often clear existing buildings first. But part of it according to him is just a shortage of skilled tradespeople who are even qualified to do the work.

Basic microeconomics would dictate you can just pay more and induce more people to take the job, but if you're talking about a usually lifelong career choice that takes years at bare minimum to master, and requires an apprenticeship with already existing masters, no matter what you offer to pay, you can only increase the labor supply so quickly, and even then it might take a generation. Very few, if any, businesses have that kind of time horizon. Thus, it does not happen, and instead, there simply aren't enough people who have the necessary skill to do certain jobs. I would imagine that all of the custom stonecutting and sculpting to create very ornate unique buildings is one of those sufficiently rare skills that, no matter how many cities and people might claim to prefer one type of architecture over another visually, you're instead going to get what is actually possible to build fast enough to meet the required rate for new buildings to go up, which means standard shapes and sizes that are pre-fabricated in abundance by robots.

Excellent additional points on the labor cost/availability issues. Thanks.

Cambridge resident here. I think plenty of the New England triple deckers are still ugly.

There are some pretty ones, but most in the Cambridge/Somerville area are pretty ugly boxes. I don’t think another few decades will redeem them either, but would welcome being wrong.

Haha. Somerville resident here. I think they are ugly too and should all be torn down and replaced with 6-8 story mid-rise with first floor retail. Our opinion seems to be in the minority however.

Mid-Cambridge does have beautiful 5-6 story masonry buildings, which ironically, given the hot market, probably are economically feasible for a developer to build. Zoning prohibits this however.

As it stands, imho Somerville MA, is #1 in the nation on the (ugliness * cost) scale. Chain link fences, few parks, lots of concrete, and housing that outwardly looks the same as it did 50 years ago, but is 10X as expensive.

The prize for the ugliest building in Cambridge, MA should go to the Stata building at MIT. An eyesore masquerading as "architecture".

Heresy. The one-story 7-11 in Central square takes the prize.

> 1. First, beauty is subjective

There is such a thing as timeless beauty.

> 2. Labor costs

Doesn't explain why all sense of proportion is lost too. Plus, machines can churn out ornamental and intricate materials just as well.

> 3. Zoning

Has nothing to do with aesthetics.

> 4. Survivorship bias.

I find this the biggest cope of all. Older buildings are torn down because they lose their function. There is no such thing as an "ugly" medieval town house, just go to bruges or strassbourg for confirmation. Or famously, the warehouse from the 1800s had so much appeal that if would become expensive lofts 100 years later.

Also long term safety. Water (and its freezing) damages everything over time, old ornate stuff sticking out falling down is a risk. And nobody really wants to pay proper regular maintenance, which goes to point 2)

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