'How did the world get so ugly?' A video criticizes the 'boring' modern urban aesthetic

In the world of art, design, and architecture, there has been a long-standing debate about the balance between aesthetics and functionality.

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We live in a world where functionality has won the battle over aesthetics, especially in urban design. This is particularly evident in buildings constructed in any city since the 1960s and 1970s, when what we might call architectural "ugliness" took over, filling our cities with buildings that lack even the slightest grace and beauty.

We need to understand the reason why this happened. That "ugliness" arose from the need to construct a large number of buildings in a short period of time. The demographic "baby boom" that occurred in the middle of the last century led to a huge demand for housing and contributed to its cheapness, leading to dull facades. Cheap, quickly constructed buildings were needed, a premise that still leads to architectural slops today, but to a lesser extent, due to the current demographic crisis and the lower demand for housing compared to the aforementioned decades.

On this topic, Sheehan Quirke, known on Twitter as @culturaltutor (with 1.7 million followers), has published an interesting YouTube video entitled "How did the world get so ugly?", in which he criticizes modern urban aesthetics as "ugly" and "boring" and points out the values ​​it represents compared to the beautiful Victorian style that was applied in the city of London in the 19th century:

You can see here some of the examples of Victorian aesthetics that Quirke uses in the video. Some are monumental buildings, such as the British Parliament.

Quirke also gives examples of Victorian street furniture, such as the famous lampposts on London's Victoria Embankment, designed by architect George John Vulliamy in 1870 and featuring dolphin-shaped ornaments. They are still in use today.

One of the most unique examples in the video is the Crossness Pumping Station, built between 1859 and 1865 as a sewage treatment plant for the City of London. Its interior is decorated like a palace. Today, it's a museum.