[thriftwy]

People who had the determination to pay for beautiful buildings appear even more comparatively smarter than modern bean counters, than architects of old vs. the modern ones who have to yield to bean counters while observing all kinds of building codes and other busy paperworks.

So yeah, maybe it's just that the landlords had an IQ of 170 a century and half ago, whereas now they have "just" 70.

But also no. Modern architects think they're so much smarter than architects of a century ago, solely on the basis of living later, as the article describes. They think they could do the same greatness effortlessly, whereas when they actually try, they usually fall flat on their face. Turns out, it was actually quite hard even with appropriate practice, and without said practice it's often impossible to just build a nicely-looking house.