A hundred and some years ago, an aesthetic force called the City Beautiful movement professed the theory that grand public buildings, lovely civic palaces, could inspire Americans to become good citizens. [...]
Since the 1960s, though, it seems as if great civic architecture has become an embarrassment. Politicians who love to cut ribbons find it hard to justify paying for beautiful on top of functional. The result is a style I call Sunbelt Stalinism [...].
— latimes.com
6 Comments
Patt in the hatt asks an intriguing question, but for some reason limits it to one place. On the upside, she does coin a cutesy alliterative phrase that's meant to show education but is still meaningless.
A better question: Can beautiful architecture inspire people to become better citizens, or to some other positive outcome?
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
nope
If you take a young child to a redwood forest, under a glorious canopy of ancient trees, light filtering down through the branches, do you need to tell the child that it's beautiful? Or do they know it innately?
What does that have to do with architecture?
The Sequoia forests I've been to a largely cold, dark places.
You said "beauty is in the eye of the beholder". I was testing that notion.
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