37 ‘Then Vs. Now’ Pics Of Houses On Google Maps That Made The Internet Seriously Mad

The fact is that people enjoy being surrounded by beautiful and inspiring architecture and designs. And it’s painful to see architects, designers, and builders remodel buildings that are already full of spirit, character, and uniqueness into something bland, boring, safe, and, well, for a lack of a better word, modern (derogatory).

There are lots of different reasons why this is happening, but the top two are probably money and short-sightedness. It’s cheaper to create something run-of-the-mill with cheap(er) materials. And the people in charge of the designs don't consider the impact of their work as much as they should.

However, there’s another problem, too. It’s not enough to make a building look unique: it also has to coherently fit into its surroundings. The aesthetics have to make sense for the area.

As Dezeen points out, you can see innovation being stifled in the architectural field. “Architecture is at the mercy of a deeply conservative insurance industry, which is resistant to building with anything other than the most familiar materials. Add to this the building and planning regulations in some countries that entirely discourage innovation and do not even ensure energy efficiency or good quality and you have a system that strips joy or invention from the industry, leaving no spaces in between.”

Furthermore, there’s this sense that, ultimately, architects will “go where clients pay them.”

It would be a mistake to claim that it’s only now that we’re seeing soulless architecture take over. Bland and dreary contemporary architecture has been an eyesore for decades and decades.

A piece in Current Affairs argues that contemporary architecture gives “most regular humans the heebie-jeebies.”

“Let’s be really honest with ourselves: a brief glance at any structure designed in the last 50 years should be enough to persuade anyone that something has gone deeply, terribly wrong with us. Some unseen person or force seems committed to replacing literally every attractive and appealing thing with an ugly and unpleasant thing,” Adrian Rennix and Nathan J. Robinson explain in Current Affairs.

“The architecture produced by contemporary global capitalism is possibly the most obvious visible evidence that it has some kind of perverse effect on the human soul. Of course, there is no accounting for taste, and there may be some among us who are naturally deeply disposed to appreciate blobs and blocks. But polling suggests that devotees of contemporary architecture are overwhelmingly in the minority: aside from monuments, few of the public’s favorite structures are from the postwar period,” they write.

“And when it comes to architecture, as distinct from most other forms of art, it isn’t enough to simply shrug and say that personal preferences differ: where public buildings are concerned, or public spaces which have an existing character and historic resonances for the people who live there, to impose an architect’s eccentric will on the masses, and force them to spend their days in spaces they find ugly and unsettling, is actually oppressive and cruel.”

However, just because a building is aesthetic, artsy, and (over)designed doesn’t automatically mean that the architect cares much about the needs of the people. It might be a way for them to flex their ego.

Rennix and Robinson stress the fact that everyday good architecture should focus on the needs of the people, not the building itself. However, their needs or wants aren’t always considered. For one, people’s homes should be comfortable and fit in with their surroundings, instead of being the architect’s way of showing off or making the project all about themselves.

“Architecture’s abandonment of the principle of ‘aesthetic coherence’ is creating serious damage to ancient cityscapes. The belief that ‘buildings should look like their times’ rather than ‘buildings should look like the buildings in the place where they are being built’ leads toward a hodge-podge, with all the benefits that come from a distinct and orderly local style being destroyed by a few buildings that undermine the coherence of the whole.”

The @homechange6 TikTok account, which shows how some people’s homes have gotten worse over time, has seen massive success online. At the time of writing, around 23.9k people follow the curator’s account on the video-sharing platform.

On top of that, all of the posts shared on the account have amassed a whopping 3.7 million likes. The curator stresses that they keep all the addresses private so as not to create trouble for the owners of these properties.