IMHO many new housing designs are hideously ugly.

[Richard]

Years ago there was a furniture retailer Scan Design,high end Scandinavian style furniture,IKEA became the Wal-Mart of Scan Design.

The basic building materials have not changed,the architecture styles have changed no different then they have through the centuries.

Frank loyd Wright is popular with some but not so much with others.

They built signature buildings in the past just like they built plain Jane Industrial buildings,Detroit is a bit different because even buildings that would have been plain Jane in other cities were built as a showpiece.

So there is a higher standard or was anyways. Building trends have always been started in Europe,so here in the states there is nothing really innovative going on,it’s just copy and paste similar to cookie cutter subdivisions.

In downtown Philadelphia they built a cutting edge modernist skyscraper that was all the rage with a full glass facade,problem was when the sun hit it,it blinded everybody sitting in traffic with the reflection.

I view it as the vintage architecture presented power and strength as a corporation but yet warmth when you entered them,the building was used in the messaging.

If that applies to a lot of the new buildings to me the message is cold steel and glass with no soul,just a place to go to in order to take care of business.