If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

An interesting article I just came across:

Spotting Good Architecture

(Please don’t ask why I came across dummies.com…it just happens.)

I find it interesting that deciding that something is “good architecture” could be so formulaic. But this brought to mind another question:

Who decides whether buildings are architecturally significant; architects or the public? Does the general public lack the skill-set to recognize value in architecture? Do we as architects wait for industry media or pundits to give their opinion before we make our own? Is a project given the benefit of the doubt if it is designed by a highly regarded architect in our community? Or better yet, what about the buildings that architects gag at but other people seem to love? An excerpt from this article is telling:

“What is considered beautiful and what is considered ugly changes over time. The Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., designed by Edward Durrell Stone, a leading architect of his day, was considered the height of architectural beauty when it opened in 1971. Today, it’s ridiculed for its boxy shape, gigantic lobbies, and modernistic decorations.”

Are architects the ones that have held this building up as a standard of design and then stomped all over it later on? Does the general public share this sentiment? Has this building fundamentally changed to the point where it is now “bad.” According to Slate.com it is a “failure.”