One characteristic that differentiates contemporary design from all our grandparents’ houses is transience rather than permanence. Design immediately following WWI was largely about calm and comfort; the emergence of the den, cottage-cozy, spaces for reading, listening to the radio, etc — stability, calm, people wanted everything the war wasn’t. Immediately following WWII was different in different parts of the world but especially in North America there were all these industrial manufacturers wanting to sell The Future, and you get on the one hand gleaming kitchen-forward spaces and two car garages and rooms for entertaining. Less built-in bookshelves, more built-in HiFi. And on the other hand, the sort of refuge or counterpoint, more integration with nature, more natural materials, exposed timber and vaulted ceilings and giant windows, frank lloyd wright. And in all these cases, the ideas were rooted in stability and permanence. The space was designed for its uses and its inhabitants.

More recently, it’s less about the buyers and more about the sellers. Design is optimized for flipping, which means fast market movement, which means generic. Yes there is always cookie-cutter, especially in postwar housing boom. Modern markets have just embraced that more fully. Offices don’t embody the tenants identity, or if they do it’s the same as all the other companies “in the space.” Everyone wants to look like Google, at best, otherwise it’s about commodity layouts, finishes, and styles… platforms for cubicles and bulk furniture purchases that can be amortized over the lease. Housing is similar… design for a family that will scatter once the kids leave home and the parents retire elsewhere. Or the inverse… design for Airbnb until the owners are ready to retire and move in or sell off. In any case the inhabitants are a secondary consideration to returns on investment. Design is a cost center to a financial concern.

Unless you’re rich enough not to care about any of this, in which case there’s finally time and space and money for design, but none of it really matters