Modern Architecture Is Rubbish

What comes to mind when you think of classic, enduring architecture?



Perhaps this:

Or maybe this:

Or this:

Or for a more modern example:

But I'm pretty sure this hideous abomination won't be in your thoughts:

What is this utter mockery of good taste, you ask? It's the proposed art gallery for the city of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, and I have to say...who actually thinks this looks good? Was this what anyone really wanted? Did anyone during the design phase actually think to himself, "Yeah, this will definitely not become a horrendously-dated eyesore twenty to thirty years from now?" Just look at it. Look at it! It's a bunch of goddamned boxes piled atop one another! You hired an architecture firm to come up with something that looks like nothing more than a pile of shipping containers! What the hell is wrong with these people?

The people responsible for this atrocity are Kuwabara Payne McKenna Blumberg Architects and Smith Carter Architects and Engineers, who apparently won an award for this, which only confirms my suspicions that the field of architecture is totally inbred and insulated from, you know, actually producing what people want. If I were in charge of a project and a prospective firm showed me the above design, I'd make a mental note never to hire that firm again.

And I'm not the only one who has an issue with the art gallery. Consider some of the comments on this CBC article:

"More ugly stacked boxes from Toronto. Why couldn't we hire someone local who might understand the city, the province and the prairies. If you want Toronto, move there."

"Do the architects consider climate when they design these buildings ? I didn't think so."

"I don't know what the citieria were for the award but IMO this stacked-box structure is going to look horribly out of place against the beautiful, natural curves of the river valley. Additionally, the massive amount of glass on the building is going to be a death trap for the birds which are found in abundance along the river. *sigh*"

"Award, for what? Merely boxes stacked on top of one another and wedged up against a bridge/freeway overpass! What a joke compared to the Mendel, which the majority of people will never visit given admission costs and a complete lack of parking. Funny that the Remais are stupid enough to waste their money and have their name attached to such a fiasco when there are so many other constructive ways they could be helping in the community."
  
These people can see that the emperor has no clothes. But if I can see it, and they can see it, why the hell can't the architects see it? Oh, there's some sort of "artistic expression" behind this cuboid rubbish, I'm sure. And that's what I hate about modern architecture - it's all about some pretentious twat's "artistic vision" and not about creating a building that people, actual humans, will have to live and work in. Concerns about how much heating energy will be wasted with all that glass are even less important. And it's not just one building I'm talking about, either - these sorts of ugly, glass-and-steel cubes and shards are all over the place. Consider the London Shard:

Notice the complete absence of any attempt at blending the building in with the surrounding architecture. Modern architecture lives in perpetual, sneering contempt of the past, creating offensive blights on the cityscape that invariably become dated eyesores within a few decades. I recall one architecture complaining that the neo-Gothic architecture of the University of Saskatchewan was "dead." Well, what could be more dead and soulless than these slabs of glass and steel that are cropping up everywhere one looks?

Don't get me wrong - I'm not suggesting that architects slavishly emulate the forms of the past. But is it too much to ask that they create something that feels like it was designed for people, not robots?