Is Traditional Building Design More Expensive Than Modern Design?
A friend of mine recently defended the replacement of a gorgeous, ornamental, loved building with a sterile, ugly, embarrassing modernist building by saying that the replaced ornamental building was far more costly to build and maintain.
This is an all-too-common canard. That modernist buildings – while admittedly ugly and unpopular – are all we are told we can afford these days.
But to that we must recognize the following: ugly architecture is extremely costly for society in several ways. Unfortunately, those costs are more subtle and difficult for us to see.
Because important architectural costs are not easy to see, it is an exceptionally common misconception that traditional design is more expensive than modernist design. This misconception is therefore a common reason why it is not seen to be “practical” to use traditional building designs today.
Many don't see the hidden expenses of the modernist "building" on top -- expenses that make the traditional building on the bottom far less expensive.
The top building is so hated by nearly everyone that it will have a far shorter life than the bottom building (short-lived buildings are outrageously expensive because they are short-lived). That, by the way, is a reason why beautiful, classical architecture is “greener” (that is, better for environmental conservation) than ugly modernism: classical buildings will stand far longer than ugly modernist buildings because the community is more likely to want to keep beautiful buildings and more likely to want to quickly demolish ugly bldgs. As the article points out, buildings are greener when they have a longer life.
In my view, the environmental costs of such things as "embodied energy" are far lower for traditional, ornamental, beautiful buildings than the embodied energy costs of ugly buildings.
A Wikipedia definition of embodied energy is that it is an accounting method that aims to find the sum total of the energy necessary for an entire product lifecycle. Determining what constitutes this lifecycle includes assessing the relevance and extent of energy in raw material extraction, transport, manufacture, assembly, installation, disassembly, deconstruction and/or decomposition, as well as human and secondary resources.
Another less visible yet high cost for modernist buildings such as the brutalist/modernist design in the top building is that modernist buildings are far more likely to use exotic (read: far more expensive) materials.
While not quantifiable, ugly modernist buildings are damaging to us psychologically. And ultimately bad for our physical health. And those costs are exceptionally difficult to quantify. The value of a building loved by nearly everyone -- as is the case in the bottom building -- is an extremely positive/high value (partly because residents are proud of the building and partly because the building is so photogenic). By contrast, the Brutalist/modernist design in the top building has an extraordinarily negative value.
Consider how much value the residents of a community would place on their community looking beautiful because it was composed of beautiful buildings.
Consider how much negative value community residents place on ugly buildings – buildings that are so hideous that residents tend to despise and be embarrassed by them. Buildings that are psychologically depressing due to their grim, weird nature. We can be sure that no one wants to shoot a photo of something that no one considers beautiful – unless the intent was to capture an image of something that is noteworthy for its bizarre, awkward, repellent appearance.
And consider this: Countless residents will take out-of-town guests to proudly show off the bottom building, while no resident will take out-of-town guests to show off the top building.
For the modernist architect, it is a virtue when their building design is innovative – so innovative that it does not fit into the design vocabulary of its neighbors.
This partly explains why there is a nationwide NIMBY epidemic – a growing army of people who are terrified of new development because the decades-long track record has been to build something jarring and unlovable.
Because the “innovative” paradigm strives so strongly to reject time-tested design that communities have loved for many centuries, large majorities of citizens inevitably, understandably, and strongly dislike the modernist building design to the point of being in knee-jerk opposition to any new development.
In effect, the modernist has ruined our world and destroyed any chance of making our communities more loved.
"The flaws in all this [modernist architecture]…are so obvious that future generations will be aghast it was ever taken seriously, let alone mistaken for harbingers of what was to come." – Peter Buchanan
"If buildings are beautiful, higher density compounds that beauty. Conversely, if buildings are ugly, then higher density compounds that ugliness." - Vince Graham
"The vernacular process is based on things that resonates enough with the average citizen that they want to repeat it on their house or in their town. Repeated enough over time, it becomes a pattern, and then a tradition. The Most-Loved Places are therefore all by definition traditional places." - Steve Mouzon
More of my essays regarding modernist architecture.
The Rise of Modernism
Why Do We Keep Building Modernism?
The Failure of Modernism
The Failure and Unpopularity of Modernist Architecture
Modernist Architecture is a Failed Paradigm Ruining Our World
The Modernist Cult of Innovation is Destroying Our Cities
The Opposition to More Housing
Moses and Modernism and Motor Vehicles
Indirect Opposition to Affordable Housing
What Makes Buildings Beautiful (a YouTube video from another source)