Why is classical architecture almost universally beautiful, while anything "modern" is some shapeless monstrosity of concrete, steel, and glass?
Take the classically-inspired Cook Library from the University of Michigan, for instance...
Compare it to the Joe and Rika Mansueto Library at the University of Chicago, which looks like a cyborg pimple:
Or this alien prison masquerading as an institution for public learning formally known as the Geisel Library at UCSD:
What happened to us? Are we incapable of building beautiful things anymore? Have we simply chosen not to?
I have a few theories, and let me reiterate: they're just theories. But the one that holds the most water, in my opinion, goes something like this:
1. The Communist Trap
In 1913, Henry Ford developed the assembly line, revolutionizing the concept of productivity. Far beyond the automobile industry, people who specialized in a particular product began to specialize in a minuscule piece of that product.
On a macro level, we already knew that specialization was the key to productivity. It's only when societies develop different jobs that they become civilizations. When you do everything yourself, all your energy is focused on finding food.
The assembly line showed us that the same thing is true on a micro-level. Within reason, the more specialized the job, the faster you can do it. Craftsmen who focused on the whole product simply couldn't keep up, particularly if their product was entirely handmade. They were absorbed or kicked out of business by the big guys.
Here's the ironic part. Th assembly line--this triumph of capitalism--unintentionally falls into the biggest communist trap of all: it creates a lack of individual ownership.
When I am making your door handle, your light fixtures, or what-have-you, I'm going to take a certain amount of pride in my work. It can be traced back to me. I can use it to sell future products. It's mine, and I'm going to do the best I can with it.
On the other hand, if my job is to pull a lever that stamps the "x" on a screw that will eventually be used in some mass produced furniture, there's probably not much pride in the final product. And that's not a statement criticizing the lever-puller; it's a flaw in the system. It gives very few people the power to improve anything because so few people have ownership over anything.
I'm as big of a defender as capitalism as you can find, but the insidious erosion of ownership created by one of the great developments of capitalism--the assembly line--has ironically pushed a more collective approach to architecture that has littered our landscape with ugly things.
Soviet architecture is notoriously brutalist, and ours is headed in that direction for the same reason...And we're headed there faster, with capitalistic efficiency! Oh, the irony. I can't get over it.
2. 'Ornament is Criminal'
There are other reasons, of course, why our architecture has become so hideous. One of them boils down to the trends pioneered by Adolf Loos in the early 1900's, one of the founders of modern architecture.
His whole catchphrase was that "ornament is a crime" and any time spent on beauty was a waste of human potential. "Ornament," a.k.a. any kind of decoration, was trapping us in history, and if we could only break free of our bonds, we'd enter utopia.
In his famous treatise, "Ornament and Crime," Loos wrote:
Those who measure everything by the past impede the cultural development of nations and of humanity itself. Ornament is not merely produced by criminals, it commits a crime itself by damaging national economy and therefore its cultural development.
It won't surprise you to learn that Adolf Loos' "villa" looked about as pleasant as poison:
But fads come and go. I don't want to credit Loos with ruining American architecture single-handedly because trends are transient.
I believe the transformation is more complex than "we like plain, ugly stuff now," because a lot of people don't actually like it!
3. The Loss of Beliefs
For most of human history, it wouldn't have mattered which civilization you pointed to on a map: the people would have had a religion, worshipping something larger than themselves.
Our beliefs inform our worldview. When we are thinking about concepts greater than ourselves, we build structures greater than ourselves. When my son is watching "The Floor is Lava," he starts hopping around the furniture. It's a weird form of manifestation, but we often create what we think about.
Put another way, "To believe in the heroic makes heroes," as Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli said in the reign of Queen Victoria.
If you believe humans are the greatest creatures in the universe--homo deus, as Yuval Harari posited--everything you make is divine! There is nothing greater than you. What is there to strive for? We certainly shouldn't look at anything from history; we've evolved beyond it. And really, we'll all be gone soon anyway.
It's a bleak and contradictory mindset, but that's where a lot of society is.
Conclusion
As I said originally, I favor blaming problem number one. It's big enough to explain why we're still building ugly things 100+ years after Adolf Loos, but small enough that I can tackle it. I can't do anything about society's nihilistic beliefs, but I can encourage people to own their work and lead by example.
That's why I deleted X and would dearly love to delete all other forms of social media. You can't build anything timeless there--at least I can't. But I can take control of Vocabbett in ways I'll never be able to do with Instagram, reversing the communist trend of collectivism in these deeply capitalistic products.
Wish me luck. What are your thoughts on this?
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