Most people prefer traditional architecture
TL;DR
About twenty properly sampled visual preference surveys since the 1990s found that most people prefer traditional buildings to modernist ones. Every survey found over 60 percent for traditional, and many found over 85. The preference holds across age, gender, politics and class. Architects and other experts are the one group whose taste often runs the other way.
The article
- The method is simple. Show people two images and ask which they prefer. Early surveys compared photos that also differed in angle, weather and street width. So style alone could not explain the result. Better editing, and lately AI, now lets researchers change only the building treatment.
- Expert and lay taste split from the start. In David Halpern's 1987 study, students agreed on which faces were attractive. But architecture students rated buildings close to the opposite of everyone else. Studies in Canada, Britain, Chile and Portugal found the same gap.
- The first properly sampled survey, in 1998, found 94 percent of likely new-build buyers wanted one of the traditional house styles. A 2009 test of four real commercial buildings, two of them prize-winning modernist designs, gave the traditional pair 77 percent.
- Recent tightly controlled pairs keep giving the same answer. US federal buildings got 72 percent on average, with 70 percent of Democrats and 73 percent of Republicans agreeing. The Bath stadium got 74 percent, the Christ's College library 71, the M&S Oxford Street scheme 79, and Dutch AI-edited pairs averaged 82. Even 18 to 24 year olds chose traditional.
- Robert Kwolek admits the obvious objection. Groups that favour traditional design commissioned most of the surveys. Only about three dozen fully controlled pairs exist, all from Britain, the Netherlands and the US. Kwolek's provisional estimate is that 70 to 90 percent of people prefer traditional styles.
- That raises a puzzle Kwolek leaves open. Architecture schools teach almost only modernism, and more than 99 percent of architects work only in it. Britain has had hardly any traditional public commissions since the 1950s. The pattern holds even where planning rules are neutral on style.
Why it matters
Read the original for the image pairs. The argument rests on how controlled each comparison looks, and only the images let you judge that. It also gives the demographic breakdowns survey by survey. Kwolek works at Create Streets, which ran several of the studies, so keep that in mind.
The discussion
A big, heated thread, though few people disputed that the public likes old facades. The fights were over whether the photos were a fair test, whether to judge a building from the street, and what stops traditional building today. It slid into culture war twice, over brutalism and over who funds the research, and a moderator stepped in.
Cost, labour and who builds
One camp says modernism won on cost, because skilled labour now costs far more and developers build interchangeable units for investors. The other camp calls this a myth, since ornament was mass-produced from moulds by 1900 and modernist buildings often cost more and lasted less. And architects with a free hand and a big budget still pick the plain look. Others blamed parking minimums, fire codes and lost trades, including craftsmen killed in two world wars.
The reason you don't see ornate stonework is mostly that skilled labor is a lot more expensive today than it was a century ago.
By the end of the 19th century, all the building ornamentation that you can still see in European capitals, had been stadardized and was mass-produced…
Judging a building by its photo
The top thread argued that a facade photo measures the wrong thing. People who moved from a pretty 19th-century office to a glass tower preferred the tower, for its light and its working climate control. Others replied that old style and modern services are separate questions, and renovated old buildings fetch the top prices per square metre in Berlin. One commenter calculated that a fully glazed wall needs so much sun coating that it lets in barely more light than ordinary windows.
The Modernist building was better to *actually be in* in every way. Buildings are there to be used, not just looked at in pictures.
In fact, at least in my (small) city, fully renovated old buildings (where the scale of facades, windows, etc. is old, but the floor slabs, insulation, elevator, etc. are brand new) are where the most expensive flats per m2 are. Considerably more than in new buildings.
Rigged comparisons and survivorship bias
Many thought the pairs set luxury traditional against cheap modern, and in one image the 'traditional' side was simply newer, cleaner and repaved. Others said the 'traditional' renders were stone cladding on the same box, and that survivorship bias hides the slums of 1900. Defenders answered that some studies used award-winning modernist buildings, and that whole old villages of ordinary houses still look good. Some said people just like the familiar, but others noted that modernism has been the familiar style for 70 years.
It seems like these comparisons are more "expensive traditional design vs low cost modern design." None of their examples had what I would consider a single expensive and nice modern design.
The olden times were no stranger to slapdash, poor quality construction, but most of it has been demolished either due to having low perceived value or due to not lasting as long and people not doing the necessary lifecycle replacements.
Why architects see it differently
Explanations for the expert gap included in-group signalling, boredom with the familiar, and schools that teach design through massing, which hides ornament. rbanffy defended deferring to experts, comparing it to brain surgery, but others said taste is not a skill you can delegate. A long brutalism fight pitted 'material honesty' against the lived experience of UK council estates. Several noted that well-loved examples like the Barbican are exceptions.
It's probably some combination of the subculture effect (i.e., subcultures tend to develop their own in-group aesthetics) and as a functional shibboleth (i.e., being able to "appreciate" things average people don't has an in-group signalling function).
I'm not arguing against the use of specific materials, I am arguing against allowing the materials to dictate a heavily disliked outcome. Are we really saying "Everyone hates what we build now but we actually can't do any better"?
Who is asking, and why
Some readers saw an agenda, since Create Streets and the National Civic Art Society commissioned much of the research and have ties to the right. Another pointed out that Stripe, whose founder donated to Trump's campaign, owns Works in Progress. vintagedave said the preference is real but the right uses it as a gateway, and that sneering at popular taste only helps them. Others pushed back hard on reading racism into liking nice buildings, and the moderator warned the thread against ideological battle.
The National Civic Art Society is designing the White House State Ballroom [1] and Create Streets is a conservative influence group that likes speaking at Reform UK events [2].
We just have to avoid saying people have no taste, or referring to their preferences as 'pabulum'. That is condescending, makes normal people feel unheard, and then when someone does hear them on the innocuous subject of architecture, they pay attention to what else that person says.
Consensus
Most accepted that the public prefers traditional facades and that most new building is plain and disliked. They also agreed modern materials and services could be paired with better-looking exteriors, as renovated old buildings already show.
Dissent
A sizeable minority rejected the surveys as loaded comparisons distorted by survivorship bias. They argued that interiors, light and cost matter more than a street photo, and that experts have reasons the public does not see.