There’s a lot of talk around about “beauty”. Social media is littered with posts of golden, old, sun-drenched buildings, in which some self-appointed wise man hands down aphorisms on their “spiritual significance”. They come with lamentations that we live in fallen times, that our “morally depraved” society has thoughtlessly tossed away a treasury of beautiful design, sometimes also with a side order of supremacist dog whistle – the buildings in question being mostly classical or Christian rather than Islamic or Hindu – and incel-arousing appeals to “traditional manhood”.
To which one might say, yes, a Parisian boulevard, or a gothic cathedral, or a Greek temple, is beautiful – we can all see that – but why the zero-sum game? Why not see the beauty in modern buildings? Why only in buildings that have pointed arches or classical columns, or some other signifier of tradition?
