Why people hate contemporary architecture (2017)
It&#x27;s a shame this is a polemic when it discusses important issues.<p>It&#x27;s not as if these issues aren&#x27;t discussed in architecture.  And there are definitely weird pathologies and pomposities in architecture (as in any field), which manifest themselves in a variety of unpleasant ways.  But this doesn&#x27;t mean all we have is ugly buildings; we also have new, playful, and enjoyable buildings as well.<p>Another HN comment this morning (on a different post) brought up Postel&#x27;s law and how it is usually both misunderstood and overused.  The same applies to &quot;a house is a machine for living&quot; or &quot;form follows function&quot;: they can be taken as an excuse to ignore the person, or as a call for: make sure the person&#x27;s needs are at the centre of the design.<p>A case of both skill and pathology: One of my homes was designed by an architect and one simply built by a developer. The developer house is adequate.  The architect-designed house was a lot more expensive but is also a <i>lot</i> more pleasant to live in.  But speaking to those pathologies: it needed a lot of interaction with the architect to make sure it didn&#x27;t get our of control on design (I&#x27;m sure we&#x27;ve all seen this in software too).  I think this is why so many corporate buildings end up so sucky: many cooks, complex constraints, and in the end the architect has too much control.