May 2021
A couple of years back, while driving near a holiday park South of Perth, I stumbled upon this very new suburb, designed around a manmade lake with parks, a shopping centre, schools and a medical centre. As we drove around, there was something about it which was unsettling, even depressing. As my grandpa would say - “It gave me the heebie jeebies”. Too much sameness. Lacking the diversity and creativity which are part of the beauty of being human. Such estates are not rare. This could be anywhere in Australia, and that’s the problem. What has happened to architecture?
Homes Built To Be Sold, Not Lived In
In the past, people built their own homes that were meant to last a lifetime. This was necessitated by price. Builders and homes were expensive, as was moving homes.There was a good deal of care in crafting something of beauty, something to be proud of, something to last.
But now, homes are built by professional builders to be sold on. Developers are often involved and the idea is, of course, to make a handsome profit.The goal is not primarily to create a beautiful place to live, but a place to be sold - with anything unique or artistic threatening to diminish the resale value.
Modern project homes are therefore designed to maximise surface area, with the cheapest linoleum and carpet and fewer windows than desired, replacing the sun and fresh air with lights and air con.
Isn’t it peculiar that the creation of wealth actually inhibits beauty?
Certainly creating housing for so many people in today’s world is not an easy task, and must be about more than beauty, but there is much more to consider than cost - Prince Charles has well know views ofn architecture, some very controversial, but there is something that rings true in what he has said about designing according to ‘nature’s order’, and therefore fulfilling humanity on the “physical, cultural and spiritual levels”.
In the physical, cultural and spiritual sense, something is missing from the ‘Austin Lakes Estates’ of Australia.
Function over Form
Modern architecture today, as a whole, lacks uniqueness and aesthetics in the name of function. Almost nothing new is as beautiful as the old. I bet your favourite piece of architecture was built before the 1960s. Take some examples from Sydney. Think of “Long Gully Bridge” in Northbridge. You could easily use the words of Prince Charles (in his famous address to British Architects in 1984) and describe this bridge as a ‘much-loved and elegant friend’:
Built before 1960 Built after 1960
It’s especially ironic because even if we wanted to build these buildings today, we wouldn’t be allowed to because of obnoxious building codes. In the wealthiest period of human history, in one of the wealthiest countries, we don’t build beautiful buildings.
The wealth of the modern era has come at the cost of beauty.
The developments since the Renaissance have stemmed from a belief in rationality and logic above all else. Functionality over form. How else could we get to the moon?
Also, since the industrial revolution, materials have changed. New building technologies such as steel and glass have superseded stone and timber construction and this means the buildings are different.
Would you rather live in a world of beauty, where uniqueness and diversity are celebrated, or spacious and functional ‘pretend luxury with too much stylisation and too much sameness?
But maybe all the old architecture isn’t as beautiful as it seems. For one, there’s a survivorship bias - only the beautiful buildings, considered worth maintaining, end up preserved and not knocked down. We adore old books and old music partly because of this fact - because only the absolute best have survived.
Still, l believe that there is something more than special about these older buildings, although I can’t quite put my finger on it. It could be that these buildings have more of a sense of ‘the Divine” which has been lost in the modern world. There is something that seems more spiritual in the ornate - in carefully crafted beauty, and natural, rather than man made materials.
We used to build lots of impressive shrines, temples, gardens and cathedrals. Even very poor people. Even illiterate and pre-literate people. Why did we stop?
I’d agree with Douglas Murphy, who wrote in the Guardian that “At the end of the day, architecture doesn’t change the world, but it offers us a picture of how people see themselves in it.” How do we see ourselves in this world? Is the picture we are creating with architecture an accurate representation of that?