Comment by thechao
6 hours ago
Here's my theory about modern architectural design. Let's say you've got two students that have to do a final design: (a) chooses a rococo or neoVictorian (humanist design); and, (b) chooses a spare modern design. Both of them are required to draft facades, elevations, etc. The modern design is literally easier to draft — literally less time. That means any school of architecture that both rewards "good grades" and "project completion under pressure" will naturally select for students who like "modern" (brutalist?). Those students then become professors, and the whole system reinforces.
It's also that it's really difficult to find anybody who could build rococo or neoVictorian buildings. And if you do, it's a lot more expensive. So the designs are not built, making it impossible for young people to gain experience building it.
That's exactly it. Modern buildings are cheaper, so they get built. Cash rules everything in construction, and nobody wants to build expensive unless they have an idealist client.
If this were true we would be living in huts (and adobe constructions schools of architecture would rule supreme)
Functional design is not brutalist and is modern, and more humanist than rococo, there is nothing more humanist about rococo and schools dont choose the projects grades based on what is easier.
A plausible but very wrong explanation imo
Regression to the mean, then? It’s not that those other architectural styles aren’t appreciated, but when it comes down to a project being completed on time + on budget, unless one is building for a king with time and money to spare, it seems like of course you’d inevitably end up with the sparer more utilitarian approach. I guess that could be a bit bleak of an outlook. We definitely shouldn’t need rich patrons funding personal passion / vanity projects in order to continue to explore neovictorianism or whatever.
Less "regression to the mean", and more evolutionary architecture. Selection of the fittest applied to schools of architecture, with grades being the selection pressure.
Or they do what they don't like, under the pressure of the moment, in order to pass, and keep their sense of taste in a separate place from passing that one class.