The Rise of Modernism and the Uglification of Cities
Modernism is making our cities more ugly nearly every time a new building is built.
The tragic failure of the architecture profession, which gained a full and seemingly unstoppable head of steam in the United States in the 1940s, has now resulted in approximately 80 gloomy years of making our cities increasingly unlovable and unworthy of our affections.
Exemplifying this, I recently stumbled upon a historic image of the former Greenville City Hall building – a delightful building that was torn down several decades ago and replaced with what is perhaps the most hideous, atrocious building in the city – the city in South Carolina that I now call home.
It is yet another heartbreaking example of how older is better than newer when it comes to architecture, and how modernism is a failed paradigm that is making cities increasingly ugly all over the world.
Sadly, the question of how much a person enjoys something – such as a city or first meeting someone – is commonly based on “first impressions.” Many cities effectively have done this by striving to make their “entryway” – be it a train station or airport – announce to the newcomer that the city is lovely by making that train station or airport stupendously grand and admirable. Unfortunately for Greenville, another important “first impression” is the appearance of city hall, and in the case of Greenville – as the above comparison shows – is that the City is not admirable, and is on the ruinous road of becoming increasingly unlovable.
Here are a few more examples of important and surely negative “first impression” civic buildings. The new Alachua County Courthouse in Gainesville Florida and the Gainesville city hall, where I spent 20 years as a long-range town planner.
A friend responded to these “before and after” images by asking why the city would allow such a travesty. Why doesn't the city make people build houses that look like they belong in the neighborhood?
I informed my friend that her city of Boulder (and most other cities) allowed this ongoing tragedy because citizens are not demanding their elected officials adopt such design rules. Citizens waste their time and effort in trying to stop development. Instead, they need to demand that when the development occurs it be designed in such a way as to be worthy of the affections of most citizens. Unfortunately, almost no citizen does that. They wrongly think it is possible to stop development instead.
I don’t have a photo of the original and surely lovable Boulder City Hall, but here is today’s city hall in Boulder – a building no one loves, and one that by its “first impressions” function, has made Boulder much more ugly in the eyes of newcomers.
Nearly all citizens and elected officials wrongly think that building beauty is “subjective” and therefore cannot be regulated by law.
This is mistaken.
It is possible – as cities such as Santa Fe New Mexico show – to prohibit ugly and require beauty.
Too many elected officials have drunk the kool aide when it comes to modernist ideology, and too many modernist architects have too much political clout in most cities and most universities.
As an aside, I need to point out that beautiful buildings can only do so much to make a city beautiful. Even if laws required new buildings to be lovely rather than ugly, gorgeous buildings set in seas of 12-lane monster roads and endless asphalt parking lots would still lead to brutal non-places that no one would love.
Therefore, our task is to not only demand that elected officials adopt laws requiring beautiful (traditional/classical) buildings, but also that our transportation system be human-scaled. That is, human-oriented rather than motor vehicle-oriented.
If a survey of citizens in my city of Greenville was conducted asking which version of city hall was more beautiful – the older version or the current (hideous) version – 99 percent would vote for older. The political power of modernism I note above is aware of this, which is why such surveys are not allowed to be conducted.
I told my friend that the next time she goes to a public meeting in Boulder regarding a proposed development, she should notice how nearly all citizen comments pertain to demands that the development not be allowed. Notice how none of the citizen comments pertain to demands for compatible, classical, or traditional building design.
In sum, residents of cities have fought the wrong battle for nearly a century. The result – a mystery to most all citizens – is that our cities are far more ugly than they were a century ago.
Consider how this played out in Berlin. Like in any city, Berlin could have adopted laws to require new buildings to mimic the classical styles shown in the “before” images above.
Let's survey Berlin residents: "Which city do you prefer?" The image set shows the same location in Berlin -- then and now.
More examples of the uglification of cities due to modernism…
These ‘Before and After’ images break my heart.
I’ve written a number of essays on the topic of modernism. See this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this.