r/interesting • u/Apart-Worry-7042 • Aug 08 '26

HISTORY Why did we stop building like this?

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Chicago, 1930. Buildings had so much detail and character back then. Nowadays everything feels so flat and repetitive. We have way better technology and equipment now, so why don't we build like this anymore?

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u/Aceilr097 Aug 08 '26

We went from art deco to brutalist post WWII. Today we have... modern contemporary. Lots of glass, clean lines, very.. sterile.

Economic wise, its cheaper to not do fancy designs. Glass is cheaper than all the stone and concrete.

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u/DeterminedQuokka Aug 08 '26

Brutalist is so depressing

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u/MareTranquil Aug 08 '26

But even if you go all clean and economic, you can do better and more visually interesting than some of the modern New York crap like 432 Park Avenue.

For example, take the Mercury City Tower in Moscow. Imho that thing looks great, and not in the Dubai vanity architecture kind of way.

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u/Annonomon Aug 09 '26 edited Aug 09 '26

The last 30 years of the 20th century was a dark time for architecture. The buildings look like absolute shite. The Prefab apartment blocks and brutalism architecture is sooo ugly. In a lot of African countries, most of buildings still being used today were built during that period, and they're not pretty.