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To paraphrase a classic comic, it's not that modernist architecture is ugly, but rather that ugly architecture is ugly. There are aspects of aesthetics that ar

To paraphrase a classic comic, it's not that modernist architecture is ugly, but rather that ugly architecture is ugly. There are aspects of aesthetics that are subjective, but there are also centuries-old rules of composition, of proportion, rhythm, space, and texture that transcend styles and objectively make some buildings, old and new, more beautiful than others. The apartment blocks in the header image: terrible visual rhythm, no sense of proportion. You could slap some neoclassical filigree on those and it wouldn't change the underlying aesthetic shortcomings. The contemporary value of traditional architectural styles is that because it's largely only the beautiful examples that have survived, they offer a readymade set of templates that have stood the test of time. With modern architecture, the bar is that much higher to get it right.

542458 3y ago
> but rather that ugly architecture is ugly I think it’s also worth nothing that things that are new are often hailed as ugly. A number of pieces of what we’d identify today as beloved classic architecture were called outrageously offensive to good taste when they were first constructed. For example, from a letter signed by 300 artists and architects published by Le Temps on 14 February 1887: > We, writers, painters, sculptors, architects and passionate devotees of the hitherto untouched beauty of Paris, protest with all our strength, with all our indignation in the name of slighted French taste, against the erection ... of this useless and monstrous Eiffel Tower ... To bring our arguments home, imagine for a moment a giddy, ridiculous tower dominating Paris like a gigantic black smokestack, crushing under its barbaric bulk Notre Dame, the Tour Saint-Jacques, the Louvre, the Dome of les Invalides, the Arc de Triomphe, all of our humiliated monuments will disappear in this ghastly dream. And for twenty years ... we shall see stretching like a blot of ink the hateful shadow of the hateful column of bolted sheet metal. If even “great” modern architecture is met with scorn, middling modern architecture is sure to attract so much more hate!

542458 3y ago

> but rather that ugly architecture is ugly I think it’s also worth nothing that things that are new are often hailed as ugly. A number of pieces of what we’d identify today as beloved classic architecture were called outrageously offensive to good taste when they were first constructed. For example, from a letter signed by 300 artists and architects published by Le Temps on 14 February 1887: > We, writers, painters, sculptors, architects and passionate devotees of the hitherto untouched beauty of Paris, protest with all our strength, with all our indignation in the name of slighted French taste, against the erection ... of this useless and monstrous Eiffel Tower ... To bring our arguments home, imagine for a moment a giddy, ridiculous tower dominating Paris like a gigantic black smokestack, crushing under its barbaric bulk Notre Dame, the Tour Saint-Jacques, the Louvre, the Dome of les Invalides, the Arc de Triomphe, all of our humiliated monuments will disappear in this ghastly dream. And for twenty years ... we shall see stretching like a blot of ink the hateful shadow of the hateful column of bolted sheet metal. If even “great” modern architecture is met with scorn, middling modern architecture is sure to attract so much more hate!