[rayiner]

Because architects went from building monuments to God and creation to building monuments to their own narcissism. Notre Dame (https://www.britannica.com/topic/Notre-Dame-de-Paris) was meant to be pleasing to God. And by implication, to man, because man was created in the image of God. Boston City Hall wasn't meant to be pleasing to anyone. It's more important to "make a statement" than to make something that is beautiful and uplifting.

[tptacek]

The point of Notre Dame is to be a monument to God. That's not the point of most buildings.

Ironically, the other example of a good building you've provided in this thread, the Taj Mahal, is in fact a monument to narcissism.

[rayiner]

The Taj Mahal is covered in arabic inscriptions from the Quran: https://www.wonders-of-the-world.net/Taj-Mahal/Scriptures-on...

Public buildings historically had a religious significance, and architecture as a field was intertwined with religion. The current british parliament building, for example, is built in gothic revival style, which arises from religious architecture: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gothic_Revival_architecture

[tptacek]

As you obviously know, the Taj Mahal is a memorial to the empress consort to the Mughal emperor.

[rayiner]

Yes, but it’s design and memorialization to her are deeply intertwined with religious significance: http://counterlightsrantsandblather1.blogspot.com/2013/12/th... (“According to Muslim tradition on the Indian subcontinent, women who died in childbirth are regarded as saints. Shah Jahan had all the more reason to revere his beloved wife as a saint when she died giving birth to their fourteenth child. The design of the Taj Mahal reflects the legacy Shah Jahan wished to create for his deceased wife, not only as deceased royalty, but as a saint. Our experience of the Taj and its gardens is not only about grief for a beloved wife, but a foretaste of the paradise that awaits the righteous and a premonition of the final Day of Reckoning as it is described in the Quran.”)

It was built by people who feared God and wanted to build something lovely in his sight.

[tptacek]

You can't bullshit a bullshitter. I'm a practicing Catholic. We've been putting Jesus, Mary, and Exuperius of Toulouse on things for a millennium to Christian-wash monuments to vanity. The Taj Mahal is about the Mughal emperor's bae, not about Allah.

I'm not saying Notre-Dame de Paris is a monument to the ego of Pope Alexander III. But the Taj Mahal is not a monument to the glorification of God. You're not going to win this argument.

[idlewords]

The point of Notre Dame is to win football games.

[tptacek]

Notre Dame Stadium: a more practical building than Notre-Dame de Paris.

[kasey_junk]

Not been meeting the form lately if winning football is the goal.

[wglb]

I would say drawing crowds is the goal. The crowds that hope and maybe pray that wins manifest.