In the great arc of human civilization, cities have always been more than just habitats. They are the material embodiment of a people’s values, dreams, and collective memory. For centuries, urban architecture was a celebration of order, proportion, and harmony—a mirror of cosmic ideals brought down to earth. From the grand colonnades of Athens to the domes of Florence, beauty in the urban fabric was not an aesthetic afterthought; it was a moral imperative.
However, with the upheavals of the twentieth century, a profound rupture occurred. Architecture abandoned its humanist and classical lineage, and in its place emerged a series of modernist styles (e.g., Bauhaus, International Style, Brutalism) that prized efficiency, novelty or ideological purity over beauty. In this turn, urban aesthetics began to die.
To speak of “beauty” nowadays is virtually taboo in architectural discourse. The word has become suspect, associated with nostalgia, reactionary sentiment or superficiality. However, this suspicion belies a deeper cultural sickness: we have forgotten that beauty is not mere ornamentation. It is a source of meaning, a civilizing force, and an expression of the metaphysical longing of human beings for order and transcendence. By sacrificing beauty on the altar of progress, we have more than disfigured our cities—we have wounded the soul of civic life itself.
The modernist rupture did not occur in a vacuum. The industrial revolution, the mechanization of life, and two catastrophic world wars created a climate ripe for radical rethinking. The classical idiom, once seen as the eternal language of architecture, came to be viewed as outdated or politically compromised. A new generation of architects, inspired by the machine, the factory, and the ideal of the tabula rasa, sought to reinvent the city from scratch.
At the forefront of this movement was the mantra of functionalism—the belief that “form should follow function”. Ornament was denounced as “crime”, as Adolf Loos famously put it. The architect became an “engineer of social efficiency”, not a “poet of space”. In theory, this shift aimed to strip away the excesses of past architecture in favor of honesty and clarity. In practice, however, it gave birth to a sterilized, dehumanized aesthetic. Buildings lost their symbolic vocabulary; they ceased to speak to the citizens that they housed.
Indebted to the Bauhaus School of Walter Gropius, the International Style reduced architecture to abstract, rectilinear forms, devoid of local identity or cultural memory. Cities across the globe began to look indistinguishable, their skylines a collage of anonymous glass towers. The guiding aesthetic became sameness masquerading as modernity. Place-making gave way to placelessness; tradition was erased by ideology.
This drift continued and intensified in the rise of Brutalism, which emerged in the postwar era. Its massive concrete structures were justified as expressions of raw honesty and egalitarian spirit, especially in social housing. Yet the reality was one of alienation. Brutalist buildings, with their fortress-like facades and monolithic scale, inspired not awe but despair. In their pursuit of “truth through material”, they forgot the emotional needs of the people who would live among them.
As the twentieth century wore on, architecture succumbed increasingly to the cult of novelty and provocation. Where modernism once claimed moral seriousness, its postmodern and contemporary successors embraced a more playful—or cynical—aesthetic. However, the rupture with the past remained intact. Classical motifs were now quoted ironically, and buildings became exercises in self-referentiality or visual shock. The goal was no longer to uplift or dignify human life, but to produce a statement, a brand, a spectacle.Today, many modern cities resemble “children’s rooms filled with clumsy toys”—towers twisted into pretzels, museums shaped like shards of glass, public spaces adorned with sculptures devoid of meaning or context. There is a pervasive sense of chaos—not a creative chaos, but one born of disregard for continuity, harmony or coherence. The urban environment has become a space of aesthetic noise, where each building, whether defined as “deconstructivist” or “high-tech” in style, screams for attention, yet no symphony emerges.
Underlying this phenomenon is a philosophical nihilism—the idea that the past has nothing to teach us, that tradition is oppressive, and that meaning itself is suspect. However, when the built environment reflects this belief, it transmits a dangerous message to those who inhabit it: that we are rootless, isolated individuals living in a landscape without memory or purpose.
The loss of beauty in our cities is not merely a question of taste. It is a moral and cultural crisis. Human beings are not machines. We do not thrive in environments designed solely for utility or efficiency. We need symbols, stories, rhythm, and harmony. We need a sense of belonging—not just socially, but aesthetically. Architecture is more than shelter; it is pedagogy. It teaches us how to live, what to value, and what we are part of.
English philosopher Roger Scruton wrote that beauty “is not just a subjective thing but a universal need of human beings”. It is not optional. It civilizes our gaze, ennobles our experience, and gives dignity to the spaces where life unfolds. The classical tradition understood this deeply. Its columns and courtyards, arches and domes, were not arbitrary decorations but embodiments of proportion, grace, and meaning.
When we walk through a traditional European piazza or along a colonnaded avenue, we feel a sense of repose. These spaces were designed with the human scale in mind. They invite community, contemplation, and joy. They do not scream for attention; they whisper truths. They endure. By contrast, many modern urban spaces repel human presence. They are anti-social, anti-human, and, ultimately, anti-civilization.
All is not lost. Amid the ruins of modernism’s promises, a quiet renaissance is emerging. Across the world, a small but growing number of architects and urbanists are rediscovering the principles of traditional architecture. Movements such as New Urbanism, New Classical Architecture, and human-scale urbanism are challenging the hegemony of the glass box and the concrete slab.
These movements recognize that beauty is not incompatible with modern life. Rather, it is its deepest necessity. They advocate for buildings that respect local traditions, that respond to climate and culture, and that place the pedestrian—not the automobile or the abstract concept—at the center. In doing so, they affirm that cities should not be experiments, but homes.
Examples abound: in Poundbury, England, a model town built under the direction of Luxembourgish architect and planner Léon Krier, traditional architecture has been fused with modern needs. In places like Seaside, Florida, or Val d’Europe outside Paris, urban planners have proven that harmony and beauty can be economically viable and socially enriching. Even in major cities like Washington D.C. or Paris, classical civic buildings still command respect and admiration, reminding us that the public yearns for dignity in design.
What is needed now is not a return to the past in a literal sense, but a recovery of its principles—proportion, unity, symbolism, and reverence for the human spirit. Architecture must once again become an ethical and cultural endeavor, not merely a technological or economic one.
The twentieth century may have killed urban beauty, but it did not destroy the human longing for it. This longing remains—buried perhaps, but alive—in every traveler who feels peace in an old square, in every child who marvels at a cathedral, in every citizen who looks at their city and asks, “Why must it be so ugly?”
Posterity will judge us harshly. The choice is not between “innovation and tradition”, but between “rupture and continuity”, “alienation and belonging”, “despair and dignity”. Beauty is not a luxury of the past; it is the scaffolding upon which a humane future should be built.
To restore beauty is not reactionary. It is reconciliatory—in the truest sense of the word: a turning back to foundational truths, not to flee the present, but to rebuild it with purpose.
If cities are to become homes again—and not just zones of production and consumption—they must be shaped by more than utility. They must be shaped by care, memory, and meaning. The death of beauty was not inevitable. Its resurrection is our task.