While my karma might get incinerated with this quote, it is incisive on traditional architecture. The author is reviled by many.
“Yes, God damn it, the Parthenon!”
The ruler struck the glass over the picture.
“Look,” said Roark. “The famous flutings on the famous columns—what are they there for? To hide the joints in wood—when columns were made of wood, only these aren’t, they’re marble. The triglyphs, what are they? Wood. Wooden beams, the way they had to be laid when people began to build wooden shacks. Your Greeks took marble and they made copies of their wooden structures out of it, because others had done it that way. Then your masters of the Renaissance came along and made copies in plaster of copies in marble of copies in wood. Now here we are, making copies in steel and concrete of copies in plaster of copies in marble of copies in wood. Why?”
It's amusing to watch the movie version of The Fountainhead and see what are supposed to be Roarke's buildings. He likes the pedestal style, where the first floor is mostly open-work columns around a small lobby. Turns out this is terrible in cold or windy areas. Wind hits the side of the building and is forced down into the area around the lobby. Doors are forced shut by wind pressure. People are knocked off their feet. A strong wind in snow produces a horizontal blizzard.
The Meteorology Building (bldg 54) at MIT was built that way, with all of the above problems. Much embarrassment. Later, much computational fluid dynamics and, in 2019, a rebuild of the plaza level with more walls.
Because it looks good.
I dont prefer traditional architecture because I have high standards, I just hate all these rectangular-prism concrete stripmalls and loglo highways.