Comment by PaulDavisThe1st
9 hours ago
I like this general hypothesis, but dislike this formulation:
> This led the tastemaker art and architecture elite to start playing a kind of inside baseball where what's "beautiful" isn't beautiful in some objective sense, or to ordinary people, it's just what's trendy within their clique at a given time.
I don't find "gothic" design beautiful though I can recognize the skill and devotion it represents; I do love shaker and bauhaus and scandi design. There is no "objective sense" when it comes to beauty.
I think you could rephrase this as "where what's beautiful is no longer determined by the amount of skill and effort to construct it", which I think is also true but also more meaningful and much more accomodating to the range of actual "ordinary people's" tastes ...
You're right, I was imprecise.
However, while you may be correct that the range of opinions among "regular people" encompasses people who like Bauhaus or brutalism, it is important to acknowledge that such people are the minority (and, fair to add "by far" in most settings).
https://www.civicart.org/americans-preferred-architecture-fo... https://www.researchgate.net/publication/249624309_Physical_... https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S026427512...
etc. etc. etc...
When it comes to subjectivity, I am not a majoritarian. I would go even further: I do not care what the majority thinks. Furthermore, I think this is a vital element of a free and vibrant society.
I agree.
However, what we have is a situation where, what, 90+% of big or public buildings are "modern architecture". The people who are paying for them and/or the people for whom they are built think they are ugly. We're trapped in this bad local equilibrium.
If there were some sort of agreement in a group of people about what they want, and then they build it, and it's "modern architecture" - that would be fine. But that's not where we are. It's more like the tastemakers have a stranglehold on the rest of us.