There's more to architecture than just the façade, which is what people are rating when they are just looking at photos of the exterior. The interiors, structure, and services, etc. of modern building are often far superior to older ones, and i suspect many 'ordinary' people would agree.
Yes, every time people get grumpy about modern architecture and look over to see if I agree I tell the story about how I used to work at a company in Boston which moved from a beautiful 19th century building to a soulless Modernist steel-and-glass skyscraper. And thank fucking god: the old building was too hot in the summer, too cold in the winter, had too little natural light, and was too cramped. The Modernist building was better to actually be in in every way. Buildings are there to be used, not just looked at in pictures.
I'm pretty sure that some kind of hybrid can be found where the exterior could look nice and the interior would be very nice as well.
Now, not every modern building has to look like a glass and steel colorless brick.
For example, I really like the look of Oodi [0], Helsinki's new library: it reminds me of wood covered with snow, and the interior is exactly what you would expect from a modern building (built in 2018).
[0]: https://oodihelsinki.fi/en/
Oodi is very much modern architecture. Nordics are full of pretty modern architecture.
The article reads like the author picked a conclusion and made things fit his opinion.
Le Corbusier: "A house is a machine for living in."
That doesn’t explain why the architecture students in the article prefer facades that the general public generally dislike.
It's not hard to make an old style building with modern amenities. I have a 1920s home and with like a few days of work it lives like a modern place. This is not some dichotomy.
> It's not hard to make an old style building with modern amenities
In my experience, the biggest issue is natural light - it's hard to beat glass walls when you need a structural skin with some windows where possible.
Right but that's not because modern architectural style has made the interiors better. It's mainly technological improvements that allow larger windows, bigger space, better insulation, etc.
You can totally have a traditional style building with a modern interior without a hint of brutalism or concrete.
Large windows are part of the modern aesthetic.
~1580, large windows: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wollaton_Hall
If it's my building, e.g. the building that I live in - I care more about the ease of maintenance and repair than any facade.
Because I spend 80% of my time indoors, and 20% working in the garden, so frankly don't even care what the building looks like.
Maybe only care that the property looks neat when it's time to sell.
As it stands, these studies are just cherry-picked navel gazing with extra steps. You can't design a study like this well. There are hundreds of thousands of buildings, and tens of thousands of variations of subjective preference. And all of those go out of the window as soon as practical concerns (like affordability) arise.
Am I hot or not architecture edition?
Nonetheless, I think it is a failure of architecture that modern design is ugly. It shouldn't be impossible to make good looking, practical, cost-effective buildings with all the options of materials and engineering that is available.
So let's start as the baseline of these 77 to 23 blowout victories by traditional architecture.
Now gradually substitute other modern designs until you can get more of a 50/50 agreement at least, and hopefully 60/40 in favor of modernism.
You could be right. Some of these might be cherry picked bad modern designs. From the article one of them looked like it should have the wicked witch of the West telling her pretties to fly out from their caves to go attack Dorothy. Another one looks like a massive collection of missile launch tubes.
Some designs I almost have to laugh at, when almost similarly disjointed mcmansion hell type monstrosities are snootily dismissed.