3 ms·

My simple theory on why we stopped building beautiful buildings

bwanab 2y ago
Beautiful buildings as they were got too expensive to build. When labor was cheap compared to materials lots of things were possible.
- k2enemy 2y ago
  This article is a response to another blog post that discusses exactly this. The link is in the first sentence: https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2024/05/88328.html https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2024/05/88...
- AlotOfReading 2y ago
  There are plenty of places in the global south where labor is still comparable to mid century America cost-wise. Those places build the same kinds of gleaming glass towers that crowd North American downtowns.
  - jonathankoren 2y ago
    You could easily chalk that up to fashion. Glass and steel wireframe polygons are all the rage in the rich countries. Why would a poor country want to look poor? Also, if it's comparably cheap and fast in the rich countries, it's still cheap and fast in poor countries.
    - AlotOfReading 2y ago
      The argument being made above is that it isn't fashion, it's the relative cost of labor that's the significant factor. Places like Columbo have extremely cheap skilled labor, and also face incredibly high material costs because the domestic supply chain simply doesn't produce the necessary materials. You could produce artistic decorative elements locally very easily. If you've been inside many of these places, that's often what's inside where the design is dictated by local cultural preferences rather than political vision and whatever the small number of skyscraper architecture firms want to design.
      - jonathankoren 2y ago
        A gleaming metropolis of glass and steel is fashion though.
Khelavaster 2y ago
Read "The Timeless Way of Building" to see what builders of ugly buildings moved away from.
BenFranklin100 2y ago
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.
- sokoloff 2y ago
  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.
  - BenFranklin100 2y ago
    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.
  - beryilma 2y ago
    The prize for the ugliest building in Cambridge, MA should go to the Stata building at MIT. An eyesore masquerading as "architecture".
office_drone 2y ago
Here's another simple explanation: Sticking out makes you a target. People in 1024 -> This dazzling new cathedral is a testament to the majesty of God and a point of national pride. People in 2024 -> This indulgent new cathedral is made from the exploitation of the masses and is a symbol of a something-phobic regime. Seize their assets! This also works on an individual level, especially online - being novel makes you a target, so instead everyone chooses to be boring.
- trgn 2y ago
  Absolutely. It's the would you rather live in the ugly or beautiful house on the block dilemma. By maintaining the beautiful house, you assume a public responsibility - with all the tall poppy syndrome effects that may entail.
polygotdomain 2y ago
This misses the mark for me completely. >My theory is that neither individuals nor organizations feel comfortable being frivolous or indulgent with their wealth anymore. I guess the author hasn't paid attention to the rise of the mega-yacht or having personal jets. If you also don't think that the wealthy live in opulent real estate, then I've I'm not sure what rock you've been living under. What I assume the author is really referencing is how skyscrapers and other buildings are no longer as "beautiful" as they used to be. Beyond the survivor bias of the older buildings that we perceive as "beautiful", a real explanation probably ties more to corporate accounting and business practices than anything else. The big grand skyscraper for a company HQ pre-dates the exodus of city centers in the 70s and 80s. In the meantime, the construction of these types of buildings is now being pursued by developers, rather than corporations. Those developers have a much different approach to building, which is much more about making profitable real estate, rather than something that's a statement or a symbol. Corporation also needs more flexibility in their office space that makes renting vs owning a much more viable approach to meeting space needs. We no longer need all employees working under one big roof, and corporations are far more likely to have far more office locations than they did. I also think that the definition of what this author and the one they're responding to consider "beautiful" is largely missing. We still build fantastic buildings, but they likely don't look like they were built in the 1920s or 1930s and may not align with everyone's preferred aesthetic.
- saalweachter 2y ago
  The Hancock Building, from the 60's, was specifically not built to be the tallest possible, because the insurance company building it didn't like the optics of wasting money on chasing the record.
- office_drone 2y ago
  > I guess the author hasn't paid attention to the rise of the mega-yacht or having personal jets. If you also don't think that the wealthy live in opulent real estate, then I've I'm not sure what rock you've been living under. The visibility is different. The jets take off from a private terminal, the yachts from a private marina. The houses are obscured by trees, and the general public can't see them. There was even just a law passed to prevent jet tracking, so no one knows if a billionaire is taking a private flight.
kelseyfrog 2y ago
You could also ask Adolf Loos[1]. The problem is that theory doesn't explain why specifically, modernism displayed traditional architecture starting in the 1920s. Was there a phase change in what businesses requested from architectural firms? Was there a systemic shift in shareholder relations, or how boards made decisions? Were non-ornamented buildings substantially less expensive? Do we have accounts of decision-makers requesting less ornamentation? The issue that I have with this theory is that it's bottom-barrel speculation. It's no better than folk etymology and we shouldn't hold it to a lesser standard. There's more mundane explanations too, like architectural students were indoctrinated with modernism architectural principles because it was a shiny new design trend rather than an over-arching economy of hidden incentives that resulted in minimalism. 1. https://depts.washington.edu/vienna/documents/Loos/Loos_Ornament.htm https://depts.washington.edu/vienna/documents/Loos/Loos_Orna...
- trgn 2y ago
  People really underestimate the power of ideology, and especially in the blazing hot furnace that was the west after WW1. Loos formulation was still the best. Modernism was an attack against a bourgeois ethos, and a promise to deliver high quality to the masses. It became the aspirational aesthetic of the technocracy for these reasons. We refuse to believe this, it registers as completely absurd, that the motive force behind the collapse of architecture, would be a mindset, and have little basis in material reality.
draw_down 2y ago
[dead]
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
keeganjw 2y ago
https://archive.ph/fdT6N https://archive.ph/fdT6N A link in case the site doesn't load.
autokad 2y ago
Interesting take, I agree with it in many ways. while not the sole reason, its definitely part of it. especially in terms of companies chasing eternal growth. What we have seen in the tech bust boom cycle from the 90s till now is that no matter how large you get, saying you aren't growing is a swear word. The human part I am a bit perplexed on. some people have massive net worth (5 million+) and think they will never have enough for retirement. I am like, how much do you want to spend in retirement? "100k$/year" and me be like: and somehow you think you can't do that right now with 5 million? then you have people on the other side that say 'how could I ever retire, what would I do?'. like ... anything? O_O
KaiserPro 2y ago
This misses the mark in a few ways. 1) survivorship bias, old buildings we see have survived because they are either pretty, useful or too expensive to replace. 2) old buildings are presented at good looking, even if they aren't. Just look at some of the victorian cheese that infests london 3) people don't commission their own houses as much anymore 4) labour is expensive
ilamont 2y ago
It's getting hugged to death, but I have my own theories: * 50+ years of architecture thought leaders spreading idealized modern designs far and wide across industry and design schools * Rise of low-cost building materials and global supply chain, displacing more expensive locally produced materials and construction techniques. * Construction approval processes which remove artistic flourishes and frown upon creative designs because they don't meet code.
hindsightbias 2y ago
Ayn Rand's Howard Roark wasn't just some invention in her head. Architects were listening to FLW and other movements like Bauhaus. Even if those visions were different, young architects thought of themselves as leaders in change and you don't get that clinging to the old. FLW wanted to use new tech to build new forms, others wanted to use it to focus on function. A clash that didn't didn't necessarily conform with the general populations or Schopenhauer's views of the sublime.
- kelseyfrog 2y ago
  > focus on function Great point. The "form follows function" mantra was taken to it's logical conclusion. And since beauty has no function[1], it ceased to exist. 1. Other than intangible enjoyment.
office_drone 2y ago
> In the past, efficiency and optimization were less critical. Successful businesses and wealthy individuals could afford to indulge. However, today’s businesses aim for efficiency, optimization, and indefinite scaling. Apocryphally, a Las Vegas taxi driver was asked how the city had changed and said 'When the mob was running things they were happy as long as you were making money. Now that MBAs are running things you need to make as much money as possible.'
ffhhj 2y ago
My take is: sanitation + mass production + liability. Things can't be created with lots of decorations because these are difficult to clean, also mass production of the parts that make a building requires simpler designs to reduce costs, and decorations can fall and hurt people.
johnea 2y ago
tl;dr elon needs more...
smitty1e 2y ago
I think the economics of being decorative make it hard. However, one wonders if 3D printing may allow the return of detail work that would be cost-prohibitive otherwise.
jacknews 2y ago
it's not only buildings, and efficiency and financial optimization are definitely causes, but it's driven by business much more than consumers I think. Business has optimized itself simply to make money; so-called shareholder value. Financialization has become the dominant mode, and one way to wring more out of a product (or construction) business is to skimp on product 'quality' but keep prices relatively high by covering it up with marketing, finance and other pricing tricks, or simple 'natural collusion' - if everyone's products are turning to crap, customers won't notice or have no choice anyway. People still want nice things, it's just that for most people even quite expensive things can't be trusted to still be so nice.
hnaccountme 2y ago
I sort of agree with the post. Most wealthy people or companies today aren't really wealthy. They just have stocks with imaginary value. Most of which were bought by someone else's money and need to be repaid at some point.

Beautiful buildings as they were got too expensive to build. When labor was cheap compared to materials lots of things were possible.

k2enemy 2y ago
This article is a response to another blog post that discusses exactly this. The link is in the first sentence: https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2024/05/88328.html https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2024/05/88...
AlotOfReading 2y ago
There are plenty of places in the global south where labor is still comparable to mid century America cost-wise. Those places build the same kinds of gleaming glass towers that crowd North American downtowns.
- jonathankoren 2y ago
  You could easily chalk that up to fashion. Glass and steel wireframe polygons are all the rage in the rich countries. Why would a poor country want to look poor? Also, if it's comparably cheap and fast in the rich countries, it's still cheap and fast in poor countries.
  - AlotOfReading 2y ago
    The argument being made above is that it isn't fashion, it's the relative cost of labor that's the significant factor. Places like Columbo have extremely cheap skilled labor, and also face incredibly high material costs because the domestic supply chain simply doesn't produce the necessary materials. You could produce artistic decorative elements locally very easily. If you've been inside many of these places, that's often what's inside where the design is dictated by local cultural preferences rather than political vision and whatever the small number of skyscraper architecture firms want to design.
    - jonathankoren 2y ago
      A gleaming metropolis of glass and steel is fashion though.

Khelavaster 2y ago

Read "The Timeless Way of Building" to see what builders of ugly buildings moved away from.

BenFranklin100 2y ago

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.

sokoloff 2y ago
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.
- BenFranklin100 2y ago
  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.
- beryilma 2y ago
  The prize for the ugliest building in Cambridge, MA should go to the Stata building at MIT. An eyesore masquerading as "architecture".

office_drone 2y ago

Here's another simple explanation: Sticking out makes you a target. People in 1024 -> This dazzling new cathedral is a testament to the majesty of God and a point of national pride. People in 2024 -> This indulgent new cathedral is made from the exploitation of the masses and is a symbol of a something-phobic regime. Seize their assets! This also works on an individual level, especially online - being novel makes you a target, so instead everyone chooses to be boring.

trgn 2y ago
Absolutely. It's the would you rather live in the ugly or beautiful house on the block dilemma. By maintaining the beautiful house, you assume a public responsibility - with all the tall poppy syndrome effects that may entail.

polygotdomain 2y ago

This misses the mark for me completely. >My theory is that neither individuals nor organizations feel comfortable being frivolous or indulgent with their wealth anymore. I guess the author hasn't paid attention to the rise of the mega-yacht or having personal jets. If you also don't think that the wealthy live in opulent real estate, then I've I'm not sure what rock you've been living under. What I assume the author is really referencing is how skyscrapers and other buildings are no longer as "beautiful" as they used to be. Beyond the survivor bias of the older buildings that we perceive as "beautiful", a real explanation probably ties more to corporate accounting and business practices than anything else. The big grand skyscraper for a company HQ pre-dates the exodus of city centers in the 70s and 80s. In the meantime, the construction of these types of buildings is now being pursued by developers, rather than corporations. Those developers have a much different approach to building, which is much more about making profitable real estate, rather than something that's a statement or a symbol. Corporation also needs more flexibility in their office space that makes renting vs owning a much more viable approach to meeting space needs. We no longer need all employees working under one big roof, and corporations are far more likely to have far more office locations than they did. I also think that the definition of what this author and the one they're responding to consider "beautiful" is largely missing. We still build fantastic buildings, but they likely don't look like they were built in the 1920s or 1930s and may not align with everyone's preferred aesthetic.

saalweachter 2y ago
The Hancock Building, from the 60's, was specifically not built to be the tallest possible, because the insurance company building it didn't like the optics of wasting money on chasing the record.
office_drone 2y ago
> I guess the author hasn't paid attention to the rise of the mega-yacht or having personal jets. If you also don't think that the wealthy live in opulent real estate, then I've I'm not sure what rock you've been living under. The visibility is different. The jets take off from a private terminal, the yachts from a private marina. The houses are obscured by trees, and the general public can't see them. There was even just a law passed to prevent jet tracking, so no one knows if a billionaire is taking a private flight.

kelseyfrog 2y ago

You could also ask Adolf Loos[1]. The problem is that theory doesn't explain why specifically, modernism displayed traditional architecture starting in the 1920s. Was there a phase change in what businesses requested from architectural firms? Was there a systemic shift in shareholder relations, or how boards made decisions? Were non-ornamented buildings substantially less expensive? Do we have accounts of decision-makers requesting less ornamentation? The issue that I have with this theory is that it's bottom-barrel speculation. It's no better than folk etymology and we shouldn't hold it to a lesser standard. There's more mundane explanations too, like architectural students were indoctrinated with modernism architectural principles because it was a shiny new design trend rather than an over-arching economy of hidden incentives that resulted in minimalism. 1. https://depts.washington.edu/vienna/documents/Loos/Loos_Ornament.htm https://depts.washington.edu/vienna/documents/Loos/Loos_Orna...

trgn 2y ago
People really underestimate the power of ideology, and especially in the blazing hot furnace that was the west after WW1. Loos formulation was still the best. Modernism was an attack against a bourgeois ethos, and a promise to deliver high quality to the masses. It became the aspirational aesthetic of the technocracy for these reasons. We refuse to believe this, it registers as completely absurd, that the motive force behind the collapse of architecture, would be a mindset, and have little basis in material reality.

draw_down 2y ago

[dead]

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

keeganjw 2y ago

https://archive.ph/fdT6N https://archive.ph/fdT6N A link in case the site doesn't load.

autokad 2y ago

Interesting take, I agree with it in many ways. while not the sole reason, its definitely part of it. especially in terms of companies chasing eternal growth. What we have seen in the tech bust boom cycle from the 90s till now is that no matter how large you get, saying you aren't growing is a swear word. The human part I am a bit perplexed on. some people have massive net worth (5 million+) and think they will never have enough for retirement. I am like, how much do you want to spend in retirement? "100k$/year" and me be like: and somehow you think you can't do that right now with 5 million? then you have people on the other side that say 'how could I ever retire, what would I do?'. like ... anything? O_O

KaiserPro 2y ago

This misses the mark in a few ways. 1) survivorship bias, old buildings we see have survived because they are either pretty, useful or too expensive to replace. 2) old buildings are presented at good looking, even if they aren't. Just look at some of the victorian cheese that infests london 3) people don't commission their own houses as much anymore 4) labour is expensive

ilamont 2y ago

It's getting hugged to death, but I have my own theories: * 50+ years of architecture thought leaders spreading idealized modern designs far and wide across industry and design schools * Rise of low-cost building materials and global supply chain, displacing more expensive locally produced materials and construction techniques. * Construction approval processes which remove artistic flourishes and frown upon creative designs because they don't meet code.

hindsightbias 2y ago

Ayn Rand's Howard Roark wasn't just some invention in her head. Architects were listening to FLW and other movements like Bauhaus. Even if those visions were different, young architects thought of themselves as leaders in change and you don't get that clinging to the old. FLW wanted to use new tech to build new forms, others wanted to use it to focus on function. A clash that didn't didn't necessarily conform with the general populations or Schopenhauer's views of the sublime.

kelseyfrog 2y ago
> focus on function Great point. The "form follows function" mantra was taken to it's logical conclusion. And since beauty has no function[1], it ceased to exist. 1. Other than intangible enjoyment.

office_drone 2y ago

> In the past, efficiency and optimization were less critical. Successful businesses and wealthy individuals could afford to indulge. However, today’s businesses aim for efficiency, optimization, and indefinite scaling. Apocryphally, a Las Vegas taxi driver was asked how the city had changed and said 'When the mob was running things they were happy as long as you were making money. Now that MBAs are running things you need to make as much money as possible.'

ffhhj 2y ago

My take is: sanitation + mass production + liability. Things can't be created with lots of decorations because these are difficult to clean, also mass production of the parts that make a building requires simpler designs to reduce costs, and decorations can fall and hurt people.

johnea 2y ago

tl;dr elon needs more...

smitty1e 2y ago

I think the economics of being decorative make it hard. However, one wonders if 3D printing may allow the return of detail work that would be cost-prohibitive otherwise.

jacknews 2y ago

it's not only buildings, and efficiency and financial optimization are definitely causes, but it's driven by business much more than consumers I think. Business has optimized itself simply to make money; so-called shareholder value. Financialization has become the dominant mode, and one way to wring more out of a product (or construction) business is to skimp on product 'quality' but keep prices relatively high by covering it up with marketing, finance and other pricing tricks, or simple 'natural collusion' - if everyone's products are turning to crap, customers won't notice or have no choice anyway. People still want nice things, it's just that for most people even quite expensive things can't be trusted to still be so nice.

hnaccountme 2y ago

I sort of agree with the post. Most wealthy people or companies today aren't really wealthy. They just have stocks with imaginary value. Most of which were bought by someone else's money and need to be repaid at some point.