Why is Modernism Still Cool?

There is a web site called The Cool Hunter. They feature a variety of different styles in art and design, but only one kind of architecture: modernism. The modernist tree house above was on their front page just a minute ago when I went to check.

Is the music of the 1950s cool? the clothes? the movies? No.

So why is architecture of the 1950s still cool?

For at least the past 400 years, the styles favored by the elite have varied. Many critics have said that they change because of a cycle of innovation and immitation. The rich, stylish people on the cutting edge adopt a new style because it sets them apart. But then everyone else starts to immitate them, and within a few years what once distinguished the rich and stylish is now being worn by everyone. The rich and stylish therefore move onto something else, and look with horror on what they enjoyed a few years ago.

Then the rich and stylish fell for modern architecture. One might expect that soon everyone else would fall for it and then the rich and stylish would move on to something else. That didn't happen, because everyone not in the narrow world of the rich and stylish hated modern architecture and still hates it. So a fondness for it never spread. The rich and stylish found that in this one area they did not need to keep adopting new styles to distinguish themselves from the masses. They could just keep extolling modernism, because everybody else hated it so much.

Seen this way, it is not mysterious that elite architects and the billionaires who hire them stick with modernism. The more the masses hate it, the easier it is to signal that your are not a peasant by building something modern, preferable with at least a hint of brutalism. So we have ended up in this weird place where the famous architects are all modernists and the public rages against their awful creations, but the rich keep hiring them precisely because the masses hate their creations so much. Q.E.D.