The Battle for Beauty

The National Civic Art Society has long championed a revival of classical architecture and undoubtedly exerted influence on policy makers in connection with the Executive Order on Promoting Beautiful Federal Civic Architecture. In the proud youth of the republic, it was natural to draw government buildings as if they were destined to last forever, radiating the same kind of timeless authority that distinguished the prototypes of antiquity. Architecture, however, like most other institutions of Western civilization, has become a battleground for politicians, from the right and the left. Symbols of Greco-Roman legacy, together with Christianity — the very foundations of our society — are under attack.

Some phenomena and trends in society are believed to portend the imminent demise of civilization. It is like interpreting the self-destructive, morbid behavior of a person. Observations may revolve around self-hatred, depraved excesses, and the ominous denial of everything that is good in life, e.g. the beauty of the world. As it happens, a striking aversion to beauty would seem to be at the root of twentieth-century modernism—from the very beginning, modernism has behaved like a disease of the soul. As the symptom of an underlying, life-threatening melancholy. Our entire civilization is suffering.

It is customary to date the aesthetic collapse of the West to the interwar years. Interpreted as a purgatory, disciplinary, and — ultimately — necessary retaliation against the intellectual avant-gardes for the atrocities of World War I, the implacable attack on tradition became a turning point in modern history. The motley crew of rebels, who came together to storm the existing culture, invoked the unforgivable sacrifice of young soldiers and the dream of a reborn world. Actually, however, the standard-bearers of (Italian) futurism anticipated the course of events just after the turn of the century, shaking up accustomed notions of sublimity and equanimity in academia. The ground was, so to speak, ripe for change before the war broke out. By all accounts, the West had already become unsure of itself and showed the first signs of fatigue.

For the rest of society, the significance of this aesthetic rebellion against beauty is hard to exaggerate. Although ordinary people, busy with work and family affairs, took a long time to realize what was going on, intellectual positions in the public debate were sharply drawn. Manifestos against the aesthetic ideals of the past emanated from an elitist circle of politically inflamed architects and artists. In the West, the punishment for being “reactionary” and loyal to architectural or artistic traditionalism — rather than a Jacobin death sentence — fell in the form of biting sarcasm, ridicule, and ostracism from the exclusive society of “good taste.” The wide-ranging break-up was led by debauched eccentrics in false alliance with social entrepreneurs and totalitarians: the true pragmatists of this world.

Much to the chagrin of the imagined saviors of humanity, who would free ordinary people from the shackles of the past, the modernist idiom is said to have driven a wedge between the elite and the people. In that sense, it is not particularly democratic — or sympathetic, for that matter. Previously, well-known (originally Greco-Roman) stylistic elements, not least organic motifs with an intuitive appeal to the senses, were graciously presented to them, though in variable constellations, whether they were studying a building or a piece of art, and they were entitled to an opinion. After the breakthrough of modernism, ordinary people of the West, though citizens with civil and political rights, have been reduced to deplorable outsiders — “uninitiated” as it were. Their choice is between feigning enthusiasm, being false to themselves, or speaking up and risking condemnation as ignorant.

Since the Athenians convened to make political decisions in the 6th century BC, Westerners have trusted each other with the necessary abilities, regardless of education, to judge in both aesthetic and ethical matters. From early on, there has been an assumption that we, as humans (and citizens), have an equal right to interfere in public affairs and be consulted. Departing from aesthetic universalism, granting everybody an ability (and the right, not least) to judge the beautiful, the ugly, and everything in between, modernism introduced the “conditional judgment”: the requirement to have something like counter-intuitive, theoretical insight as an initiate for valid appreciation of a building or piece of art. With the rejection of immediate, sensual beauty in both architecture and art, as opposed to esoteric — and nonsocial, eccentric — experiences of geometric purity or whatever, intellectual classes of initiates and non-initiates, respectively, came into existence. It was all very snobbish and contrary to the political dogmas of the time.

As indicated, the change in architecture and art did not take place in a cultural vacuum, but was part of a larger political-moral change in the West — and Russia. For historical reasons, the eccentrics made common cause with the revolutionaries. People with a hostile attitude towards the West as the hearth of capitalism, imperialism, and colonialism were responsible for driving the revolutionary process.

To be honest, it can really seem like a mystery what ensured the triumph of modernism in the West. A long time ago, some architects and artists imagined that they had to take personal responsibility, engage politically, and help transform society; seeking radical solutions, they allied themselves with the revolutionaries. Others refused to submit to party discipline and surrender their spiritual independence; in pursuit of self-gratification, they continued to struggle against authorities in the broadest sense. However, what could be the psychological explanation for the emergence of a consistently beauty-renouncing style within architecture and art? How did the idea arise for a human society deprived of the organic elements that, in a more or less stylized form, remind us of our origin in nature? Why at all subject humanity to a forced alienation in its immediate surroundings? Why, indeed, renounce beauty and deny ourselves?

The majority of us are not robotic androids who can be stationed indefinitely on prefabricated, airtight, and sterile bases anywhere in space. As little as we tolerate long-term residence in suburban high-rises without losing sight of purpose and jeopardizing our equilibrium. In such environments, we become alienated, languish, and die. We love the dirty earth as we know it, with trees, leaves, and fruits. As humans, rooted in the earth and its crops, we depend on the experience of nature around us in order to thrive. It is about our well-being. We are constantly looking for the beauty in each other and the world around us. With our human emotionality intact, we refuse to settle for over-sized stables in concrete and steel as if we were speechless animals. When the Greeks and Romans laid the foundation for Western civilization, they were careful to integrate the forms of nature into the decoration of their cities. It was a source of harmony in the midst of metropolitan society. Thus, they never departed from nature, but took it with them.

The spread of architectural modernism in the world may look like the result of an evil conspiracy. In the West, however, architects make a living by supplying the products that are in demand on the market; unlike the socially and politically engaged architects from the interwar period, they are not concerned with educating humanity, but with making money. If we are therefore to accuse somebody of the aesthetic impoverishment of our cities, it should be (1) the elected officials, who despise the symbols of Western civilization or simply continue to be snobbish about what they themselves do not understand, and (2) the private companies who put profit above all other considerations. Modern architecture is industrial architecture. It alienates and degrades ordinary people.

The bloody war of attrition that, according to historians, gave the impetus to modernism was a tragedy. Banishing beauty from public space is one of the greatest disgraces of our time. It testifies to the melancholic weakness of our society and opens the West to the invasion of the barbarians. Interpreted in the right historical context, modernism is the face of cultural suicide. Its alien monoliths that rise above the ruins of our inner cities are like the sarcophagi of human spirit. Are we really witnesses to the last convulsions of civilization? Or could it still be in our power to reverse the trend and build beautifully anew?

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