“Spreadsheet architecture” exemplified by art with Peter Franklin article. (UnHerd.com)

Peter Franklin, at the website UnHerd.com, has written “The hideous spread of ‘spreadsheet’ architecture: It’s time to rise up against the uglification of our cities.” It knocks the ball out of the park. I have read many great articles on architecture that get a lot of things right, but few roll it all up in a single piece. Nathan J. Robinson and Brianna Rennix did it in Current Affairs, a left-wing journal, with “Why You Hate Contemporary Architecture” on Oct. 31, 2017. So here’s a toast to Peter Franklin and UnHerd.com.

But first, a timely quote I cannot resist: “Should modernist architects be involved in the rebuilding of Notre Dame? Yes, absolutely they should – they’d make fantastic gargoyles. After all, no one does ugly better.” And another: “Any other profession would be embarrassed to be overshadowed by the accomplishments of their forebears.”

Rather than express my admiration for Franklin’s essay in prose, I will use poetry – a list of all the points that he makes in one article that took me hundreds of articles and posts to make. That is the definition of poetry:

• Deadening ubiquity of modernist ugliness
• Beauty survives only in old architecture
• Unpopularity of modern architecture
• Modernism’s respectable code of silence
• “We’ve been conditioned not to resist”
• Tech progress could beautify the new
• Today’s wealth affords tomorrow’s beauty
• Old architecture attracts premium price
• Now should be architecture’s golden age
• But modernism is hoist on its own petard
• Architects streamlined out of architecture
• Streamlined process creates bland design
• Fewer parameters equals greater ugliness
• Blame lies with “form follows function”
• Banality of the functionalist credo proved
• Victims of “spreadsheet architecture”
• Also known as “form follows finance”
• Buildings actually look like spreadsheets
• Functionalism is the assassin of beauty
• Spreadsheetism makes Brutalism shine
• Developers now clash with communities
• Interests of ugliness versus local interests
• The power of developers could be resisted
• No one now believes new improves on old
• Preservation feeds on this lost expectation
• The old is thus more valuable than the new
• Modernists won’t inhabit modernist homes
• Lost faith in modernity damns architecture
• Modernists overshadowed by traditionalists
• Old architecture shames modern architects
• Future deserves beauty as much as the past
• Past time for people to rise up against ugly

Sheer poetry. Thank you, Peter Franklin.