That said, I'm sure there are architects today for which some or all of this is not true.
Most of the above are subjects an architect student would have had to learn about and demonstrate profienciency in, to earn their degree, a 100 years ago.
I'm sure the change in architecture's priorities played a role in this too. Industrial materials, construction efficiency. The need to mass produce housing, costs and new social ideals, yadayadayada.
And ofc the modernist rejection of any ornament; even that which is there historically, on existing architecture.
My hope is that in a future where we 3D-print buildings or construct them with robots we will see a renaissance of non-functional[1] beauty/sculpture/texture/color in architecture because the cost difference will be marginal/nonexistend.
But then, architecture is also always a mirror of the period. And from that pov it's not looking so great for beauty making it back any time soon.
[1] Yet functional because how can the happiness/joy of the perceiver of architecture be removed from what should count as functional, in architecture?
The other aspect I think also deserves attention is that as our lives have become more digitised and online, our care and attention towards the physical realm has degraded a little. We no longer need exquisite masonry to fire off the synapses - we have the endless scroll and the 24-hour news cycle.
Finally there is a small amount of survivor syndrome happening too - we keep the beautiful buildings but ignore or forget the enormous unhygienic slums that often co-existed with our most beautiful architecture.
Or that seems like the goal of commercial builders now, right?
I'm currently renting but looking to buy in my area, I'm sure I'll find the chemical stripping of horrible white gloss paint and the painting over of 'minimal' white walls with a riot of colour outright cathartic. The house I'm renting would look so good if someone took the time to undo all the bodge jobs and cheap decoration choices I think. The lovely hardwood doors have proper brass hinges for example but it's all covered up with decades' worth of horrid white paint. Half the houses round here probably have gorgeous hardwood floors under crappy laminate or lino, and almost all have nice fireplaces I'd love to reinstate and use with a wood burner.
To be fair, this isn't entirely new. The American West was strewn with cheap wooden structures that all looked alike with big fake fonts with hand painted signs. Those mostly rotted so they're uncommon in our lexicon outside of movies.
I only have a couple of architect friends, but wow, they actually have exactly these skills and interests. Amazing artists and designers in their own right. They seem to know a lot about how philosophy interacts with architecture too! Interesting to know they might be the exception.
There's an ideological capture of postwar architecture departments. Talk to a dutiful architecture student and mention classical architecture, and don't be surprised if you get some eye-rolling or stock dismissals ("it's anachronistic", "it's pastiche", "it's expensive", "it's unoriginal"). People - and that includes students - tend to go along with the prejudices of their professors, both because of ignorance and because they want to "fit in".
There are some maverick departments[0], however.
> My hope is that in a future where we 3D-print buildings or construct them with robots [...] the cost difference will be marginal/nonexistend.
The cost isn't the issue. Societies much poorer than our - and we are the wealthiest we've ever been in history, materially speaking - have produced magnificent artwork and architecture. We simply have different priorities. I don't remember who it was who said this, but if you want to know what a society worships and holds in highest regard, look for the tallest building in the city.
It will not happen because the rich will always keep standards of living of the average and poor people just at the low level that they will not rebel.
Could you explain your exact line of thinking?
It is also interesting to read about the Amsterdamse School, an early 1900's style with "mass appeal" of which you can see many beautiful examples throughout the city, which were also only built thanks to strong support from the political sphere. https://architecture-history.org/schools/AMSTERDAM%20SCHOOL....
Cheap, soulless, forgettable, replaceable metal and glass rectangular prisms filled with cheap, soulless, forgettable, replaceable workers. Form follows function!
That old architecture implied things like spirit, transcendence, community, beauty. Outmoded concepts for sure!
It was all killed because two dynamics came together to push "the yale box": corporate america's love of cheap buildings (although the buildings are cheap to build but often nightmares to maintain and use... somebody else's problem) and the ideological purity spiraling post WW2 driven by the academic environment and the rise of abstract architectural criticism over the practical building arts.
post modernism acknowledged the failure of the yale box but, because going back to traditional building forms was unthinkable (of course), had to do ironic kitsch instead
i.e. "any mason can build a brick house, but an architect will create an ugly box that no mason would ever have built".
Edit: I love me a craftsman bungalow but matching dry rotted custom milled trim from 90 years ago is an mfer.
Of course building a new house is expensive. There are a lot of sunk costs in an existing house and generally while there is a lot to not like about an old house, in generally keeping it and doing small remodels to make it better is a better use of money even though ideally you would replace it.
Art Nouveau and classic styles from before are very expensive to build and maintain. Human population increased massively during the Industrial Revolution leading to more demand for cheap living space, and living inside is more important than looking at it from the outside.
The whole thing is anyway an ideological thing today as it was back then. The online trad architecture aesthetic is associated with the right wing, who see it as a return to order from today's decadence and overly guilt ridden elite zeitgeist. Urbanism and human scale architecture is associated with certain parts of the left who admire Nordic and Western European social democracies like the Netherlands and Denmark against what they see as the hegemonic capitalist state of the US.
The point is, architecture doesn't live in a vacuum, it is inextricably linked to political and ideological tribalism, and choices in architecture are expressions of what other tribe one rejects and consciously differentiates from etc.
There is a reason that there is so much difference in interior design and art: It is easily changed and preferences vary wildly.
In a block of cookie cutter houses, one need only pick say a color of shutter.
In a block of artistic architecture, there may be one house that many enjoy while most are seen as ugly to most.
If the original builders all really enjoyed say neo-victorian, brutalist homeowners must either find another neighborhood or rebuild. And they likely can't rebuild to their own taste because what neo-victorian owner wants to stair out their windows at a bunch of cubes? What brutalist owner wants to look out upon whimsical scroll work?
It's the same in tshirts, underwear, socks, pants, bicycles...More people are okay with accepting some perceptual average than are willing to buy men's thongs and unicycles.
https://www.myhelsinki.fi/visit/helsinki-art-nouveau-archite...
"Helsinki is indeed a unique city of Art Nouveau architecture on the global scale, boasting no less than 600 “Jugend” buildings – more even than in Barcelona or Brussels."
Softly put, it's discipline, focus and a sense of greater purpose, far above the monetary value of things, fame and fortune.
In other words, exactly what our current, consumer-oriented society lacks. (for better or worse)
You can buy discipline, focus, and a sense of greater purpose. But it ain't cheap and few with the means to do it have the will to want it.
Consider my office. The original drafted designs for it had an airy look, full ceiling, windows connecting the rooms for added light, doors.
Every single one of those things got nixed because it meant $$$ and the people running my company didn't want to foot the bill. So instead what we ended up with is cheap carpet, no ceiling (I can see all the joists and the ductwork), and paper thin cardboard walls which you can hear discussions from across the building. But the conference room where the C Levels commonly meet is fantastically decorated.
I mean common, La Sagrada Família has nothing to do with "focus and sense of greater purpose". If you want to show off, you will want something like that. If you do not care about showing off, you end up with more boring architecture.
I say that despite finding the building itself quite ugly.
The Central Square (Piata Unirii) has been renovated nicely and looks very good. The old main street is still in renovation, so it's not so nice now.
The latter had a bikini fashion shoot ongoing.
Maybe something to do with it. The world and society completely transformed. Mass media, fashion, loss of religiosity, sexual liberation, globalization, social mobility...
I do understand and share the view that the current mainstream is utterly boring, but I also acknowledge the (somewhat) irresistible forces that shape it: money, time, effort. And I don't believe AI can do anything to counter them in a significant manner, sadly.
It is already a topic in student textbooks, how the first private villa in the constructivist/bauhaus style was wildly over initial budget and suffered severe degradation even in the first few years, strictly because of the design decisions.
Thank you!
But it is a _lot_. Putting aside the artistic skill and construction cost of it, I'm glad I don't live in a city where everything is like that. I feel like it'd be overstimulating much like an analog version of the Las Vegas strip.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfN517mqhC8 (Absolutely worth watching if you want to know why Barcelona was planned the way it was.)
If you go to the "Gothic quarter" or to Gracia you won't see much "Art nouveau."
Its a very varied city. I live in a building in the "Modernisme" style and its lovely.
Sagrada Família is very purposefully a total exaggeration but so are most large churches when viewed as part of their surrounding context. They’re designed to stand out.
It would not be a lot. It would fade into the background, except that any time you want to see beauty you just have to look up and focus.
i highly doubt a christian church has the same effect. everytime i see a church i think about atrocities commited by the religion and alienation
Maybe not the exact same effect as nature but it is indeed calming to me at least. Stepping into a cathedral, or masjid, or temple and the noise of the world falls away (and I'm not even religious). I'm sure I'm not the only one.
Not to downplay atrocities committed in the name of Christianity but I am pretty sure every large ideology has its share of of atrocities.
The place was horrible. With few windows and poor ventilation, it was close to a rainforest. Because of that, it was moldy and a nurturing place for respiratory diseases. Add to this the fact that in Southern Brazil no one knows how to build with proper insulation against cold and you get what many Brazilian architects say in secret about Niemeyer: "as an architect, he was an excellent sculptor".
Hand placed parquet that took a master craftsman several weeks to lay disappeared. Intricate carvings upon otherwise utilitarian and common structures likewise.
Art Deco itself is a compromise with this creeping reality. Not fully modern minimalist but economically efficient in using flattened elements, prefabs and striaght accents for detailing.
When a trad person posts their diatribe online it is a simple tell. They know next to nothing about how the built world is actually created. And they don't understand how wages came to form the basis of respect for working people. The act of decrying the utilitarian transition is itself a form of disrespect via ignorance. Because what you are essentially saying is that your aesthetic preferences are more important than the time of expert laborers, whether you know it or not.