When driving through Norway, where I have family, I enjoy looking out the widow and taking in the scenery. The endlessly rolling green hills, the frequent ancient viking mounds, the mossy forest floor- all of it is beautiful, especially in the spring. Some of the most fascinating additions to the scenery are the farmhouses. Many of these farms and the buildings on them are older than America (since its founding). The history and culture they boast is spectacular. Nearly all of them have decorative carvings unique to Scandinavia, or even grass covered roofs. I think these homes are great examples of buildings which show heritage, history, and heart. As I continue driving closer to the cities I begin seeing other types of homes. Sadly, I can’t help thinking of a dystopian novel as I pass the gray, black or brown boxes of homes. People pay ridiculous amounts of money to live in tissue boxes with neighbors in identical or similar houses on every side.
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Photo Credit: Marius Rua
What form of beauty does this sort of house show? Certainly not one of hardwork, fine craftsmanship, or historical value. Across the globe modern stylings for buildings have been gaining in popularity. My question: why? I believe it is important to recognize and appreciate different forms of culture from all around the world and by uniting international architecture in bland, boring, and undeniably uninspiring designs, we are slowly destroying each area’s ethnic artistic traditions.
It pains me to witness marvelous structures, carved carefully and with great detail, hundreds of years old, being torn down and replaced by simple geometric shapes. Back in the medieval ages it was common to begin work on a huge cathedral which you knew you’d never see finished. They took decades on these enormous places of worship in order to ensure that it was done right. To insure that the end product would both stand for centuries to come, and that it would bring beauty into the world throughout its entire lifetime. To me, it seems that modern design tells society that you don’t need to work hard in order to make money and be appreciated. In my opinion it shows that anything will be accepted, no matter how unimpressive. Not only will it be accepted, but it will be embraced; it will in fact replace.
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