But we can bear in mind that we build for fellow people, who are perfectly imperfect, and that the buildings will stimulate and comfort people for generations after they are built. A lot of people love the relaxed atmosphere that is produced by old and worn architecture , which have survived the test of time and still looks beautiful! Walking through the Medieval towns of Italy, as an example, many will experience lower degrees of stress, and feel safe and comfortable. Everything is worn, but nevertheless beautiful; we all know it works; it is loved and well used.
Plenty of the materials most commonly utilized in Modern Architecture today do not age gracefully. They are prefabricated in large units in huge quantities and assembled on site. When they deteriorate it is difficult to steadfastly keep up them without having to replace large areas of the building altogether. Good materials such as for instance stone, brick, and tile are labour intensive, so they're not profitable in a brief perspective.Unfortunately, the sophisticated poetic styles of the guru´s have all but disappeared, leaving a never-ending pursuit of profit and self promotion, like we see in the International Finance Centre in Hong Kong, completed in 2003 modern architecture.
The solution to the question of WHY we build tall buildings like this appears to be: "because we can!" Modernist Alvar Aalto said about Modern Architecture : "it does not mean the use of immature new materials; the most important thing is always to refine materials in a more human direction." Is that what is going on when our building get higher and higher due to economical considerations?We seem to have forgotten that the proportions of the body ought to be the decisive aspect in designing and building our houses. Le Corbusier knew precisely the dimensions of the body when he designed his beautiful chapel Notre Dame du Haut in the fifties.However, some of his other ideas were not so sympathetic, and have unfortunately been much more influential, including the "Plan Voisin" for Paris. He pictured high-rise apartment complexes, and he planned to level the historical buildings of the region to the ground to be able to develop this new part of the city.