I started to write this post by writing, "The state of American architecture is atrocious"...but I realized that is not true. American architecture is not atrocious, it is nonexistent.
Look around. Virtually every office building and store and home you will see are flat sided boxes, rectangular doorways and windows, with bricks or other nondescript siding piled squarely on top of each other. In other words, there is little, if any, art in our architecture. Perhaps rectangles make maximum use of space, and so our architecture, like much else in our society, is almost totally money driven. Shame if it is, because though money is a value, it may not be as much a value in the long run as art can be in our lives.
Driving around this afternoon, I was bombarded by building boredom to the point of nauseousness. I recalled vividly the artistically beautiful promenades and boulevards and avenidas, the porticos and terraces, the cobblestoned roadways, that I saw traveling throughout Portugal and Spain and Mallorca and Italy and Switzerland. Art, it seemed to me, was a critical part of European architecture. Buildings were every bit as functional as our boxes, but appealed as well to our emotions, to a sense of historical grandeur, and most importantly, to an uplifting of the human spirit.
Money flourishes in the world of concretes. We pay a heavy price if we fail to recognize our ongoing need for artistic and spiritual nourishment, as well...if not more.
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