[patrickk]

> they have tons of unnecessary ornamentation

That's in the eye of the beholder.

Pertinent HN article + discussion, which I love to revisit every once and a while, even though I do not work in anything related to architecture.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23582942

The fact that so many people from all over the world are drawn to older architecture with "tons of unnecessary ornamentation" makes you think where we went wrong in recent decades.

[zrobotics]

I guess I may have phrased that slightly incorrectly. The ornamentation is unnecessary from a functional viewpoint, but that isn't a bad thing. It is one of the reasons those buildings are so good looking, and that is not a bad thing. All the ornamentation is one of the reasons both of those buildings are still tourist attractions and draw thousands of visitors a year. I just meant that the ornamentation is unnecessary from a functional viewpoint, they just did all that stonework to make them look nice. Which is an architectural trend I wish would catch on again.

[patrickk]

Fair enough.

I think the "form over function" dogma has taken over to such an extent that it's creating miserable, concrete and glass hellscapes that are foisted upon the public by detatched "starchitects". A great point that was mentioned somewhere (maybe in that artlicle I linked) is that unlike other forms of art, architecture is forced into your view, whether you like it or not. If you hate modern art, you can simply avoid that msueum.

With newer stone CNC machines now advancing, hopefully we can recreate the beautiful, intricate craftsmanship of the past, and indeed even develop wacky, creative new forms too and move away from these horrible, bland designs that have taken over everywhere, and made every cityscape look generic and indistinct.