The Culture Critic Twitter account has only been around since 2020, but it’s already made quite a name for itself on the site, amassing an impressive 718.4k followers. The page has a simple description, stating, “Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire.” And over the past few years, it has shared nearly 1,400 tweets celebrating amazing art and architecture of the past, while also calling out some of the most disappointing pieces and structures of our modern day.
Of course, everyone is allowed to have their own preferences when it comes to which buildings they consider the most impressive or most amazing in the world. But if you take a look at almost any list featuring the planet’s most breathtaking structures, you’ll quickly find that many of them were built at least a century ago. Plenty were even built several hundred years ago! So why don’t we create buildings like we used to anymore? Clearly, we still find them beautiful, so what happened to ornate churches and stunning state buildings? First, let’s take a look at Gothic architecture in particular.
According to Newspire, you don’t see Gothic buildings popping up in your city today due to several reasons: these structures are incredibly expensive to build and maintain, the style isn’t really in fashion anymore, and there aren’t enough skilled stoneworkers to create the intricate designs today. Building planners would be required to pay a pretty penny for these kinds of structures, and they don’t always have the resources or time needed. Also, no matter how much you may love the Notre-Dame, this style of building has been deemed outdated.
The peak of Gothic architecture was around the 12th and 13th centuries, and since then, the Renaissance and Baroque styles pushed these designs out of the forefront of architects' minds, and they have rarely been revisited since. And nowadays, it would be extremely challenging to find builders who are familiar with and skilled enough in the construction techniques needed to perfect a gorgeous Gothic building.
But of course, Gothic structures are not the only gorgeous buildings that we don’t see anymore. So why are modern structures so ugly? Well, according to Nader Sammouri at ADF Magazine, a lot of it comes down to today’s architecture being a business. There’s not as much of an emphasis on aesthetics or creating a beautiful structure that will complement a city. Architects are often given small budgets and strict time constraints, so they make do to earn a paycheck. Plus, there are many other factors at play today, including government regulations, safety codes and political agendas that may impact how much freedom an architect actually has.
Despite being eyesores, many modern buildings are actually terrible for our planet as well. John Barham wrote a piece for Medium explaining how the materials used nowadays make buildings last for much less time than their predecessors. “Switching from wood, bricks, and stone, to concrete, composites, and plastics is a big part of the issue, as these new ‘low maintenance’ components often really mean ‘un-maintainable’ and so become destined for landfills,” Barham writes. “For example, while a wooden sash window will need regular repainting it can last hundreds of years, but a plastic window once damaged will need to be completely thrown away.”
Barham also notes that the ideology behind modern architecture is a problem as well. He notes that architects today argue that because beauty is subjective, they don’t need to worry about intricate details or trying too hard to make a structure stunning. “When they find themselves bored by the dullness of a sheer glass and concrete façade of a pastiche Minimalism, they turn to irregular, incoherent, asymmetric shapes, or uncomfortable cantilevers,” Barham writes. “They claim their brief is to shock with ‘originality’ or to ‘challenge’ the public. The results are anti-human buildings that do not ‘spark joy’.”
Creating buildings while solely being concerned with function also does a disservice to future residents or occupants, as they will no doubt want to renovate or rebuild. If the structure isn’t timelessly beautiful, there’s no reason to preserve it. And the cycle of tearing down and using resources to rebuild continues. So the solution to this, Barham suggests, is to actually build structures intended to last forever. He notes how many pre-modern buildings have been homes, offices, retail spaces and gone back and forth between all of the above simply because the spaces were so beautiful and timeless that there was no desire to alter them.
