The BEAUTY Series: An Ongoing Discussion

We recently came across an intriguing article titled What Happened to Modernism? authored by Eric Corey Freed on the GreenExpo365.com blog.  The article coincided with Modernism Week, held in Palm Springs every year, this event spotlights the array of Mid-Century Modern buildings that Palm Springs has to offer.  You'll recall, Caron made a recent trip to PS that ended up being the same weekend as Modernism Week.  Needless to say, several of us are interested in attending next year.

Lest I digress...

The article, along with Caron's tales, got us discussing more about the role of modern, contemporary, non-traditional architectural form in buildings today and how it was so prevalent in the 50's and 60's both in Palm Springs and Las Vegas.  Housing tracts built during that era were unique reflections of the architecture of the time; clean, light-weight and well-connected with its surroundings.  The housing tracts of today don't even come close to making the same connection to current architectural trends.  At one time, even common, "everyday architecture" had pizazz.  Now everything attempts to look like a Tuscan-Villa-Spanish-Mission-stucco-and-concrete tile-hybrid-mashup of nonsense!

So, what happened to Modernism, or even modern-ism, or even being modern?