Good Modernism Is More Difficult Than Good Traditional Design

GENIUSES like Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier and maybe even Frank Gehry are born with talents that can't be taught. And that's the problem with a lot of Modernist nightmares like the terrible and tasteless building above: it was designed by a team without the talent of Wright of Corb that was educated in a system that gave them little basis for critique of their own work. When one is always striving to be different and unique, judgment can suffer.

On the other hand, anyone with the basic talents for design can be taught to be a competent traditional designer. And within the same systems, geniuses like Michaelangelo and Charles McKim can still create works of genius and outstanding beauty.

That allows the creation of cities, which are necessarily ensembles of buildings depending on many hands. While buildings like the one above have ruined countless cities and neighborhoods around the world. Modernism can create scattered works of genius, but it has a lot more trouble with the ordinary, everyday building.

PS: Compare the picture above to the photo in the post below. The designers of the building above focused on the creation of the individual object and the "spirit of our time," while the designers of the buildings below, while they certainly lived in distinct times, were at least as concerned about the making of place.