Comment by sorcerer-mar

Christopher Alexander’s “Notes on the Synthesis of Form” blames this phenomenon for the crimes of architecture schools of late.

He calls it a craft becoming “self-conscious,” i.e. the architect’s role is not to create a place to live, but to be an architect, which necessarily entails “competing” against other architects. Nobody wins design competitions by creating the 1000th example of a tried and true form, they do it by pushing the boundaries of other architects’ sensibilities, which are already far afield of a normal person’s. Most results are therefore complete garbage.