Beauty in the eye of the beholder

I find most of the hideous too, but at least they are different!

Love McIntosh's Willow tea rooms. Now looks much the same as it did in 1965, when DH and I got engaged there - to much cheering from the staff and customers.

Yes the Willow Tea Rooms aren't exactly cutting edge as they were when first designed a century ago!

They're not traditional but they are striking! I like the school and the V&A Dundee

I’m with Blinko on this. Would have liked to see more photos of each though.

I like to see different periods of architecture. I live in a very modern apartment, one daughter in a 1930s house, my London daughter in a Georgian terrace, my son in a Modernist apartment, and my youngest daughter in an Edwardian villa, all very different, but all with their own charm. I’m a member of the 20th Century society, but also appreciate Nash, Wren and other old masters.

Love the Willow tea rooms but, the others, to my eye, are either ugly or boring.

Even today architectural students study the work of Vitruvius, who was a Roman author, architect, civil engineer and military engineer during the 1st century BC, and is known for his multi-volume work entitled De architectura. His discussion of perfect proportion in architecture and the human body led to the famous Renaissance drawing by Leonardo da Vinci of Vitruvian Man.

Vitruvius is famous for asserting that a structure must exhibit the three qualities of "firmitatis, utilitatis, venustatis" – that is, stability, commodity, beauty. These are sometimes termed the Vitruvian virtues or the Vitruvian Triad. No building should be judged on the basis of just one of these qualities.

Nowadays "firmitatis" or structural stability, is left more to the work of structural engineers who architects rely on to ensure that a building can be safely constructed and will not fall down.

To many practicing architects "utilitatis" , sometimes, translated as "commodity", is the starting point for design. The architect is presented with a site and a brief, with the brief describing how the building is to be used and how it may have to adapt to future uses. We also need to design buildings that are truly sustainable and add, not detract from our environment. Quite a number of eye-catching prize-winning buildings by famous architects have later been criticised because they did not function as well as they should.

The final quality "venustatis" or "beauty, is the most difficult to assess, as it is to some extent, as the OP says, in the eye of the beholder. A building may be judged in relation to its context - geographical, cultural, historical. There are some aesthetic guidelines for design, but the definition of beauty can never be exact. A truly beautiful building will also be structurally sound and appropriate for its use. Visual appearance, both interior and exterior, may be delightful, but building cannot be truly beautiful unless all three qualities - of firmitatis, utilitatis, venustatis, are integrated in total harmony.

The RIAS is, I think looking for the most beautiful building in its entirety, not just for the one with the most aesthetic appeal.

Architects are a strange breed

I cannot stand modernism and brutalism in architecture and am sure the inappropriateness of these horrible eyesores and their imposition on the natural and built environment increases feelings of oppressiveness and alienation in individuals. Architects today are responsible for ruining our irreplaceable and beautiful environment just as, in contrast, architects sin the past added to the natural beauties.

Look at any list of ‘ten/twenty/a hundred best towns and they are always market towns or small cities full of listed and lovely old buildings. Well off and successful people flock to them, buy the houses and move mountains to preserve the beauty whilst modern architects give themselves prizes for destroying the public spaces and buildings which are not so happily protected.

I wager that the ten Scottish prize winners will also be winning prizes in the ‘ten worst eyesores’ or the ‘crap towns’ categories when voted for by the public on whom they have been inflicted.

Increase
In the past
‘Ten...best towns’

Sorry!

Very useful historical background Varian. The way buildings are used nowadays are quite different from hundreds of years ago, and notions of beauty do change over the years. How sustainable and Eco the building is, should be of particular importance these days. I wonder what Leonardo would be designing if he practiced now? Not the buildings of the past I guess. I am disappointed that the housing estates mushrooming around so many towns display no originality but continue to be cheap replicas of past eras.

The spiky roof at the school looks more ornament than useful - it is not shielding the children from the sun in the picture and, as others have said, will hardly be a shelter from rain, or chill winds. What a waste of money when a more practical architectural design for the school would probably have cost far less and left more money in the budget to be spent on other schools or equipment.

Why do so many modern buildings try to resemble factories, aircraft hangars etc?
Have we seen some of these monstrosities on Grand Designs? I see no beauty in most of them.

The tea rooms looks rather pleasant.