As for beauty, you never know, take the Eiffel tower for instance, when it was built, people found it ugly, and it was to be a temporary structure. Now it is the symbol of Paris, more popular than the Paris Pantheon, which much better fits the classical standards of beauty.
The Eiffel tower is also more historically significant, more representative of its time. The Paris Pantheon, is an imitation of the Roman style, beautiful, but probably not as interesting for future historians. If both building survive that is, which won't happen without continuous maintenance, at least for the Eiffel tower.
For those who don't know, Centre Pompidou is built "inside out", with all the technical parts like ducts, framing, elevators, etc... fully visible from the outside. There is some beauty from function here, like looking at an old locomotive. For people in the future, it would be an insight into what a 20th century building is made of.
Problem is: for a form-from-function design it is not very functional. Because the technical parts are also part of the aesthetics, it makes maintenance problematic. Every single pipe you change has to be of the same model or you would ruin the façade, which is crazy. Unfortunately (for me), it is one of the least likely building to stand the test of time, from a technical perspective.
Other than that, the Louvres pyramid is starting to gain some acceptance, even though it was almost universally hated when it was built, who knows how it will be seen a few hundred years from now, if it still stands.
I do think a lot of new building hideous. Looking at St Paul's in London from the west so you see the hideous backdrop to its east is depressing.
You can make sand by crushing rock, we don't because it is cheaper to extract natural sand. Should we run out of suitable natural sand, we will just have to go with the more expensive option, not a big deal.