The Lost Romance of Contemporary Architecture

By M.P. Pellicer | Stranger Than Fiction Stories
​Why do you think modern buildings are more likely to be graffitied versus older construction? Because people do not like them. 

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The Tour Montparnasse, an ugly piece of architecture erected in Paris' slums in 1969

The British author Douglas Adams had this to say about airports: "Airports are ugly. Some are very ugly. Some attain a degree of ugliness that can only be the result of special effort."

This observation holds true for many other examples of contemporary architecture.

The Tour Montparnasse, a black skyscraper that looms over Paris like a monolith from a dystopian future was erected in 1973, and it was the tallest building in France then. Montparnasse was a slum area historically characterized by overcrowding, poverty, and poor living conditions. Parisians hated the building from the beginning.

"The longstanding joke has been that the tower has the best view in Paris because it’s the only place from which you can’t see it."

Four years after it was completed, Paris banned building over seven stories, and high rises could only be built on the outskirts of the city.

Post World War II in the suburbs beyond Paris, brutalist apartment blocks were built as affordable housing. Meant for the working class, they instead were occupied by large immigrant populations from the Middle East, Maghreb, and Sub-Saharan Africa. The design of the buildings were compared to those found in the Soviet Union.

The architects who designed the building were: Urbain Cassan, Eugène Beaudouin Louis de Hoÿm de Marien and Jean Saubot.

A 2008 poll voted the building the second-ugliest building in the world.

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Boston City Hall an example of Brutalist architecture has been voted the ugliest building in the world

If you wondered which building was voted the ugliest, it's Boston's City Hall Plaza. It's a controversial example of Brutalist architecture designed by Gerhard Kallmann, a Columbia University professor, and Michael McKinnell, a Columbia graduate student who co-founded Kallmann McKinnell & Knowles.

Erected in the 1960s, even before it was finished there were calls to demolish it. Mayor John F. Collins reportedly gasped as the design was first unveiled, and someone in the room blurted out, "What the hell is that?"

It's been called a dark and unfriendly eyesore among Boston's examples of genteel architecture that reflects its history dating back to Revolutionary times.

A complex of attached federal buildings are equally distasteful.​

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Blob Building (Kunsthaus in Graz, Austria; seen from Schlossberg) c.2006

Contemporary architecture alienates regular humans, and one could believe they are the products of architect school rejects. However most architects will argue they are  examples of wonderful engineering. Believe it or not there is a school of contemporary architecture known as "blobitecture", which is a product of computer-driven algorithms. Buildings designed in this fashion you would think would be found on the Blob's home planet, where dreary and ugly are in vogue, but unfortunately they are found on planet Earth.

​The designs are hopeless, cold and unappealing.

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The SESC Pompéia was built in São Paulo between 1977 and 1986. Lina Bo Bardi designed it, to feel like nails on the chalkboard of your soul

It's not only select examples of architecture that are unimaginative and dreary, but in the last 60 years there has been a concerted effort to design unappealing and ugly buildings. This observation is not lost on the majority of the populace, where public opinion favors structures dating to pre-World War II. And isn't that what it's all about—how a building or monument makes you feel? Humans are not robots, and emotion will always win over logic.

After the Grenfell Tower (U.K.) fire in 2017, there were calls for more comfortable public housing, however left-wing writers defended the high-rise apartment buildings, despite feedback that people do not prefer to live in places like this. Why are so many on the left married to these unpopular urban design styles?

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The Caltrans District 7 Headquarters in Los Angeles. The design is as inspiring as a turnip, nope a turnip has more style

Normal humans become depressed when cut off from nature, color, light and social interaction with other humans. Why would modern architecture believe humans would want to live or visit places that inspire feelings of sadness?

Historically builders and designers have understood this, as exemplified by 2,000 years of  architecture from around the world. Is it coincidental that vacationers will travel further, and pay extra to stay at historical locations?

What went wrong after World War II?

This could be traced to an earlier time at the turn of the 20th century when "ornaments" disappeared, and "form follows function", was articulated by Louis Sullivan an American architect, who nonetheless designed elaborate ornaments for buildings he designed. Architect Adolph Loos in 1908 declared that lack of ornamentation was a "sign of spiritual strength."

For some reason architects interpreted these observations to be a call for simplicity and utilitarianism.

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These two ideas quickly became dogmas of the architectural profession. A generation of architects with both socialistic and fascistic political leanings saw ornament as a sign of bourgeois decadence and cultural indulgence, and began discarding every design element that could be considered 'mere decoration.'

The model of the Plan Voisin for the reconstruction of Paris

What's sad is that many of these architectural monstrosities are touted as innovative and inspiring. One could say that Art Deco was the last gasp of a beautiful movement in architecture, before buildings were produced by persons who were more social engineers than creators of places humans relished to visit or live in.

French architect Charles-Édouard Jeanneret (1887-1965), known as Le Corbusier described a house as a "machine for living". His 1925 "Plan Voisin" in Paris would require demolishing half of Paris north of the Seine and erecting twelve towering, duplicate skyscrapers. The idea didn't go beyond the design stage. He considered decorations as perversions and stated: "rustling silks, the marbles which twist and turn, the vermilion whiplashes, the silver blades of Byzantium and the Orient… Let’s be done with it!"

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City of Culture, Galicia, Spain designed by Peter Eisenman,

What's difficult to understand is how uniform the architectural designs touted as progressive, went against what had been the preferred forms of ornaments such as grillwork or gargoyles. Instead of transcendence it wanted to remind humans that life was violent and brutal. A chaotic building could be considered "honest" and a beautiful building is "deceitful."

Peter Eisenman designed a disharmonious house in 1975 that caused the owners to write a book about the difficulties they experienced while trying to live in it. The master bedroom was split so the couple couldn't sleep together. A precarious staircase didn't have a handrail, and initially he omitted bathrooms from the design.

In a 1982 debate with architect Christopher Alexander, Eisenmann declared that once you've seen one Gothic cathedral you've seen them all. Alexander replied: "I find that incomprehensible. I find it very irresponsible. I find it nutty. I feel sorry for the man. I also feel incredibly angry because he is fucking up the world."

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Penn Station was sacrificed on the altar of Brutalist architecture

Twentieth century architecture eschews the use of symmetries, where arches and classical domes are  taboo. All the additives that made structures attractive such as arcades, cornices, cupolas or spires have been dumped, even if the results are ugly structures. It's a murder of European imperialist art, or so they think.

The original Penn Station with its breathtaking design was so beautiful it had to be destroyed. It was considered a "Beaux-Arts architectural magnum opus of the 20th century." It opened in 1910, and its 84 Doric columns were reminiscent of ancient Rome.

Despite loud protests, it was demolished in 1963 to make room for the construction of Madison Square Garden.

Modern architectures ignores the wishes of the people who have to use the building. The people do not have any participation in the final product.

One has to wonder if some architects are intimidated into producing irrational designs, which are falsely described as "clever".​

British freelance writer Sam Kriss ludicrously claimed that Brutalist Alexandra Road, designed by Naeve Brown is more beautiful that St. Paul's Cathedral. In 2017, Kriss was dropped by Vice after a Facebook allegation of sexual harassment (or assault) went viral, and later his own admission and apology about the incident.

Brown's concrete creation, were not to taste when they were first built in the 1970s, and led to the sacking of Brown. The public housing project was ugly and very costly.

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Modern architecture take the best from the past and create a beautiful vision for future cities.

These are individuals who hate nationalism and tradition, but the fact remains that ancient structures are the most beautiful the world over, and are admired by their populace and visitors from other lands. Simplicity and complexity can be married and produce beautiful architecture.

The absence of ornaments and symmetry on a building is a study in tedium, ennui and stupidity, masquerading as being profound.

For example flowers and plant life enriches architecture, but postwar architecture is sterile and devoid of nature with its blank walls and concrete spaces. Many time Brutalist creations are salvaged with the  presence of trees and plants especially if they cover most of the concrete.

"Brutalism is the opposite of democracy: it means imposing on people something they hate, all for the sake some narrow and arbitrary formalistic conceptual scheme."

If anything this one size fit all designs are flat with a pre-fabricated flavor that's unoriginal and uninspiring. One cannot make decisions for private owners, but if tax dollars are to be used for any structures, then as citizens we should raise our voices and dissent and say, "No, that's ugly, no more of this schizoid view of the world." Then give the government officials the stink eye, as in you better not OK this or you'll be out of a job come the next election. It has to start somewhere, and when better than now?

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