I love your thesis about drawings being the thing (that flipped the switch). It's so hard to pinpoint the thing, most likely because it was several things. Drawings could explain the initial appeal. And indeed in the age before computers drawings were what stirred imaginations. I would even suggest that maybe not just Le Corbusier's. I remember reading comics from the prewar period, most notably Flash Gordon, and being stunned by the streamlined cities. They were quite Art Deco-ish, but even more futuristic -- cleaner lines, elegant shapes, not a lot of ornament. It is even possible that such comics had a greater influence than Corbusier, and that young architects were just looking for a champion of what they already intuitively wanted to build -- streamlined futuristic cities. Maybe I am overfitting the evidence, I'm just sceptical that a few guys could have caused it all, and could have spread it everywhere so rapidly, had the conditions not been ripe for it.
Drawings alone can't explain the continued appeal. Other forces (fashion, conformity, ideology) must have taken over later on to sustain the ugliness to this day. (Of course, those forces are not enough to explain the ascent of ugliness, for if everyone was just conformist to the established figures the drastic change would not have happened in the first place.)
Several thoughts, in brainstorming fashion, on to how to fix this mess.
If we look back to why the drawings were so appealing, a big part of it is their sculptural quality. Architectural drawings tend to be black-white-grey so they lend themselves to emphasizing form. They are always zoomed out to a distance at which the building is a sculpture -- distance from which people do not actually experience it. Secondly, the buildings are made of "renderium", the smooth material that does not age.
So one avenue to investigate is to artificially limit oneself to 1) closeups only and 2) weathered materials only (as if buildings start from being old).
Such constraints should be if anything liberating -- the best architecture was produced when it was constrained by technology and money, and the worst now when technology can do wonders and money is abundant.
Any new ornamental style will probably have to involve sculptures of people and animals. Looking back Art Deco sculpture has a certain pattern to it, but it's a tall order to try to invent a sculptural style -- they certainly didn't think they were doing it back then. It became obvious only afterwards.
So just by legalizing/normalizing sculpture again we are on good path to a new architectural style (that will again be obvious and named only in retrospect -- that's a given). New (and resurrected old) patterns of adding sculptures to facades should be a top priority.
Also, more texture seems better and there doesn't seem to be an upper bound to that. Quite literally even a facade that is simply corrugated is better than one that is flat, and one that is twice as corrugated is better than the simply corrugated one. So a return to lines and carvings on facades is probably another avenue where progress can and should to be made.
Ultimately, architecture has always been an imitation of other architecture. So the new style has to be modular and fractal, so that it can be imitated and "stolen" in small portions as well as wholesale. Even a small detail like color tends to be imitated -- in Zagreb Croatia most new buildings are white-grey-black, be they large or small, public or private. It's very hard to figure out why exactly this has happened, but it must be a reflection of the wider international trend of losing color. The point here being that even such a small thing is imitated.
A window style that always has a sculpture as part of the window? Can be copied. Especially if the sculpture is slightly functional too (in a gimmicky way is fine). We need better door framing too, that can be copied.
Line patterns that can be applied to facades once again. They need a "why" too. Not necessarily a logical why, but some sort of invented reason attached.
Some consideration should be made for materials, but not too much. "Honesty" and "true to the material being used" are just empty phrases of people who have no other guidance. Once a style spreads, materials will be chosen accordingly.
Architecture is about fashions. So it starts with ideas (stories) first, not materials first or money first.
Sorry for my slow response to your kind comment! I think the ideology came before (or simultaneously with) the drawings for people like Corbu; I don't think drawing is the monocausal explanation, more like the murder weapon used by the ideology. And yes, I agree that the space age/streamlined aesthetic was very much "in the air," and futuristic technology like spaceships seems like an obvious influence to me, too (which is an aspect of modernism that I love, because I love space and astronomy and sci fi). And I agree with so much of what you wrote!
You can probably correct the name in your substack settings! I feel like everyone is talking about "third spaces" nowadays, so the zeitgeist is favorable...
A person becomes a leader by saying, in words of one syllable, what lots of people have been thinking for years. Your ability to articulate what we've all been thinking about Brutalist architecture and all the horrible ugly rectangular modern buildings means you are now the leader of a movement. So, fearless leader, what's the next step? I'm pretty sure I'm not the only person who wants to contribute to your project and really really really wants to hear what you come up with.
PS I've decided that what I hate most about ultra-modern architecture is NOT the skyscrapers, the skyscrapers can actually be impressive if you are looking at a group of them, all rectangular but in slightly different colors, silhouetted against the sky. What I hate most about ultra-modern architecture is the horrible little strip-mall shopping centers where all the buildings are ugly and there is little in the way of landscaping, just a parking lot with a couple of straggling bushes that haven't been well trimmed. It always looks like the style of building was chosen because it is the cheapest thing available with no attention to whether it is attractive or not. Why can't buildings in shopping centers be attractive? If they have to be rectangular and unornamented could they at least be COLORFUL? A shopping center where the buildings are strictly rectangular but each store front is a different shade of blue would be a step up. What about each store front a different pastel - pink, lilac, robin's egg blue, mint green? Why do all store fronts in all strip malls have to be beige with screaming orange yellow signs that don't coordinate with the other signs? Okay, Best Buy wants a certain color scheme and a certain sign and Wal-Mart wants a different color scheme and sign, but can't we place SOME requirements on them?
After careful reflection, I think THAT's where you should start. What can be done to make strip mall shopping centers more attractive, without instantly igniting a conflict with companies like Best Buy and Home Depot and Wal-Mart that put a lot of energy into designing distinctive signs and color schemes to identify their stores? We need a concept for better strip malls!
This coming the same year as the Bruce Goff show in Chicago is no coincidence! That man was fearless. He began doing Deco ... and then became something totally singular. Which is impressive but not a way to make a "New Aesthetic", I suppose, which spreads for real. I think about his spiky orange Harder House roof weekly...
PS I heard someone say once -- perhaps in school -- that Paul Rudolph, with his bush-hammered corduroy concrete, found a way to make a building LOOK LIKE A DRAWING. Amazing. (And it's true!) One of the many "brutalists" who recognized that the austere material benefits from detail at the scale of the hand. IM Pei did a similar thing at his museum in Syracuse. And the hanging gardens of course (in reference to your other post). The best version of that by the way I think is in the Ivry-Sur-Seine apartments in Paris.
This is quite exciting — I can’t wait to see what you design. Perhaps surprisingly, Denver is home to some remarkable examples of multifamily art deco and Spanish revival architecture. Walk around the Capitol Hill / Cheeseman park / congress park neighborhoods.
Do consider visiting ex-Yugoslavia: a terrain where aesthetics was used programmatically, holistically; where traditions meshed, clashed, were transfigured, especially after the "Non-alignment".
It is high time someone was given the means to attempt this much needed project. By just this short note on it, I can see your ambition is matched by the necessary taste and vision. Excited to see what comes next!
This is a wonderful project!
I love your thesis about drawings being the thing (that flipped the switch). It's so hard to pinpoint the thing, most likely because it was several things. Drawings could explain the initial appeal. And indeed in the age before computers drawings were what stirred imaginations. I would even suggest that maybe not just Le Corbusier's. I remember reading comics from the prewar period, most notably Flash Gordon, and being stunned by the streamlined cities. They were quite Art Deco-ish, but even more futuristic -- cleaner lines, elegant shapes, not a lot of ornament. It is even possible that such comics had a greater influence than Corbusier, and that young architects were just looking for a champion of what they already intuitively wanted to build -- streamlined futuristic cities. Maybe I am overfitting the evidence, I'm just sceptical that a few guys could have caused it all, and could have spread it everywhere so rapidly, had the conditions not been ripe for it.
Drawings alone can't explain the continued appeal. Other forces (fashion, conformity, ideology) must have taken over later on to sustain the ugliness to this day. (Of course, those forces are not enough to explain the ascent of ugliness, for if everyone was just conformist to the established figures the drastic change would not have happened in the first place.)
Several thoughts, in brainstorming fashion, on to how to fix this mess.
If we look back to why the drawings were so appealing, a big part of it is their sculptural quality. Architectural drawings tend to be black-white-grey so they lend themselves to emphasizing form. They are always zoomed out to a distance at which the building is a sculpture -- distance from which people do not actually experience it. Secondly, the buildings are made of "renderium", the smooth material that does not age.
So one avenue to investigate is to artificially limit oneself to 1) closeups only and 2) weathered materials only (as if buildings start from being old).
Such constraints should be if anything liberating -- the best architecture was produced when it was constrained by technology and money, and the worst now when technology can do wonders and money is abundant.
Any new ornamental style will probably have to involve sculptures of people and animals. Looking back Art Deco sculpture has a certain pattern to it, but it's a tall order to try to invent a sculptural style -- they certainly didn't think they were doing it back then. It became obvious only afterwards.
So just by legalizing/normalizing sculpture again we are on good path to a new architectural style (that will again be obvious and named only in retrospect -- that's a given). New (and resurrected old) patterns of adding sculptures to facades should be a top priority.
Also, more texture seems better and there doesn't seem to be an upper bound to that. Quite literally even a facade that is simply corrugated is better than one that is flat, and one that is twice as corrugated is better than the simply corrugated one. So a return to lines and carvings on facades is probably another avenue where progress can and should to be made.
Ultimately, architecture has always been an imitation of other architecture. So the new style has to be modular and fractal, so that it can be imitated and "stolen" in small portions as well as wholesale. Even a small detail like color tends to be imitated -- in Zagreb Croatia most new buildings are white-grey-black, be they large or small, public or private. It's very hard to figure out why exactly this has happened, but it must be a reflection of the wider international trend of losing color. The point here being that even such a small thing is imitated.
A window style that always has a sculpture as part of the window? Can be copied. Especially if the sculpture is slightly functional too (in a gimmicky way is fine). We need better door framing too, that can be copied.
Line patterns that can be applied to facades once again. They need a "why" too. Not necessarily a logical why, but some sort of invented reason attached.
Some consideration should be made for materials, but not too much. "Honesty" and "true to the material being used" are just empty phrases of people who have no other guidance. Once a style spreads, materials will be chosen accordingly.
Architecture is about fashions. So it starts with ideas (stories) first, not materials first or money first.
Best of luck and I will follow the progress! :-)
Sorry for my slow response to your kind comment! I think the ideology came before (or simultaneously with) the drawings for people like Corbu; I don't think drawing is the monocausal explanation, more like the murder weapon used by the ideology. And yes, I agree that the space age/streamlined aesthetic was very much "in the air," and futuristic technology like spaceships seems like an obvious influence to me, too (which is an aspect of modernism that I love, because I love space and astronomy and sci fi). And I agree with so much of what you wrote!
BEAUTIFUL WORK MEGAN, congratulations.
Thank you!! 🥰
PS While I'm listing things I want in the New Aesthetic, we need an Aesthetic for Third Spaces.
See
https://unherd.com/2026/06/welcome-to-the-silent-society/?edition=us
PS I see that my posting name is KatieJ for some reason. But Hi, it's Irene's mom! Have fun in London!
You can probably correct the name in your substack settings! I feel like everyone is talking about "third spaces" nowadays, so the zeitgeist is favorable...
A person becomes a leader by saying, in words of one syllable, what lots of people have been thinking for years. Your ability to articulate what we've all been thinking about Brutalist architecture and all the horrible ugly rectangular modern buildings means you are now the leader of a movement. So, fearless leader, what's the next step? I'm pretty sure I'm not the only person who wants to contribute to your project and really really really wants to hear what you come up with.
PS I've decided that what I hate most about ultra-modern architecture is NOT the skyscrapers, the skyscrapers can actually be impressive if you are looking at a group of them, all rectangular but in slightly different colors, silhouetted against the sky. What I hate most about ultra-modern architecture is the horrible little strip-mall shopping centers where all the buildings are ugly and there is little in the way of landscaping, just a parking lot with a couple of straggling bushes that haven't been well trimmed. It always looks like the style of building was chosen because it is the cheapest thing available with no attention to whether it is attractive or not. Why can't buildings in shopping centers be attractive? If they have to be rectangular and unornamented could they at least be COLORFUL? A shopping center where the buildings are strictly rectangular but each store front is a different shade of blue would be a step up. What about each store front a different pastel - pink, lilac, robin's egg blue, mint green? Why do all store fronts in all strip malls have to be beige with screaming orange yellow signs that don't coordinate with the other signs? Okay, Best Buy wants a certain color scheme and a certain sign and Wal-Mart wants a different color scheme and sign, but can't we place SOME requirements on them?
After careful reflection, I think THAT's where you should start. What can be done to make strip mall shopping centers more attractive, without instantly igniting a conflict with companies like Best Buy and Home Depot and Wal-Mart that put a lot of energy into designing distinctive signs and color schemes to identify their stores? We need a concept for better strip malls!
This coming the same year as the Bruce Goff show in Chicago is no coincidence! That man was fearless. He began doing Deco ... and then became something totally singular. Which is impressive but not a way to make a "New Aesthetic", I suppose, which spreads for real. I think about his spiky orange Harder House roof weekly...
PS I heard someone say once -- perhaps in school -- that Paul Rudolph, with his bush-hammered corduroy concrete, found a way to make a building LOOK LIKE A DRAWING. Amazing. (And it's true!) One of the many "brutalists" who recognized that the austere material benefits from detail at the scale of the hand. IM Pei did a similar thing at his museum in Syracuse. And the hanging gardens of course (in reference to your other post). The best version of that by the way I think is in the Ivry-Sur-Seine apartments in Paris.
Good luck!
Thank you so much! And I’m unfamiliar with Bruce Goff, thanks for sharing that, I’m checking him out now.
This is quite exciting — I can’t wait to see what you design. Perhaps surprisingly, Denver is home to some remarkable examples of multifamily art deco and Spanish revival architecture. Walk around the Capitol Hill / Cheeseman park / congress park neighborhoods.
I used to live in Denver! Very familiar 🙂
I should've done my research! Now I need to go see some of your work in-person around Denver/Boulder :)
I have some sculptures on display on the DU campus right now, but I think the show is coming down soon:
https://vicki-myhren-gallery.du.edu/cabinet-of-curiosities/
These are from my mad scientist days!
https://journal.tiltwest.org/vol4/gafford_daisies_essay/
Do consider visiting ex-Yugoslavia: a terrain where aesthetics was used programmatically, holistically; where traditions meshed, clashed, were transfigured, especially after the "Non-alignment".
I refer you to https://www.spomenikdatabase.org/
It is high time someone was given the means to attempt this much needed project. By just this short note on it, I can see your ambition is matched by the necessary taste and vision. Excited to see what comes next!