Now that we are rearming for war, we must not forget that what we build should be preserved for peace. Decision-makers in defence and politics must have the courage to demand classical beauty when new facilities are constructed. This guarantees that future generations will want to reuse the facilities for peacetime purposes.
It is hard to ignore that something happened to architecture after the Second World War. After all the war and misery, it was important to quickly and cheaply build housing for war refugees and those moving to the cities. "Form follows function" became the new mantra, and prefabricated concrete modules were introduced to rapidly assemble ready-made homes, offices, and institutions.
It became clear early on that these buildings were not popular. Why did everyone who had the means reject the housing of the future? The answer is that storage was being built, not homes. In the pursuit of rationality, the human being was reduced to a robot to produce or consume as efficiently as possible.
How did this come about? After the war, an ideology called "modernism" swept into the architecture schools. Crisis and the need for modernisation were used to push through this ideology and prohibit other ways of designing buildings.
This ideology, which dominates architecture schools with few exceptions, develops according to certain frameworks. Having first sought rational function, it moved on to cultivating narcissism. Architects are seen as avant-garde if they create "innovative" buildings, even if these do not harmonise with their surroundings. Innovation often means strange building forms generated with computer technology and asymmetric window placement.
Another cornerstone is the view of beauty as superficial and relative. For a modernist architect, beauty is something negative and subjective. Creating disharmonious and ugly buildings reinforces the identity of the avant-garde. Furthermore, they view contemporary human beings as fundamentally different from previous generations, which makes historical experience and knowledge problematic. Architecture students who take an interest in older building traditions are not infrequently questioned as ideologically suspect and potentially reactionary.
Resistance to modernist architecture has always existed, but has often been relegated to obscure cultural pages. Today, social media has created a global network that highlights and promotes new classical projects. Advocates of classical architecture do not seek a permanent nineteenth century but rather a fundamental understanding of how we shape our built environment. It is about creating buildings that are objectively beautiful and culturally expressive, harmonising with adjacent classical buildings. On the continent, particularly in France, the United Kingdom, and Germany, new classical styles have emerged, with Berlin as an example where a classically oriented city architect facilitates dialogue about the future of architecture.
Is this purely a matter of taste? Surveys show that the majority prefer classical over modernist architecture. Classical architecture is rooted in our biology and, through its ingenious design, instils a sense of security in our savanna-adapted brains, primarily through its combination of legibility and stimulation. We simply feel better in classical environments and classical buildings. If that were not reason enough, classical buildings are also considerably more climate-friendly.
This is not about materials but about the lifespan of buildings. We fight to preserve beautiful and culturally expressive buildings such as classical industrial buildings, grain mills, and gasometers, while offices and buildings from the 1980s are demolished without protest. Consider, for example, the Vaxholm Coastal Artillery Regiment (located on Vaxön island, eastern Sweden). The barracks continue to serve the public as residential apartments, because they are beautiful. Very few people will likely miss the Life Guards barracks in Kungsängen (central Sweden) if they were to be demolished tomorrow.
It may be argued that architects create what clients demand, but developers seek to maximise profit. Modernist architects do not offer added value that clients are willing to pay for, which leads to cost savings. Classical architects can offer beauty as added value, making it profitable to invest in architecture for higher sale prices. Many developers on the continent have discovered this, which is why classical construction is becoming increasingly common in cities such as Berlin and Paris.
The Swedish Armed Forces (Försvarsmakten) should have the courage to go against the modernist architectural establishment and build classically beautiful and expressive buildings. Beauty is not subjective but is based on our biological desire to easily read and be stimulated by our environment. This benefits both the wellbeing of current personnel and the environment of future generations. Just as yesterday's regimental buildings are cherished today, today's buildings can become tomorrow's cultural and historical treasures.
The choice is ours, but it will not happen without a fight.
Michael Diamant
Urban sociologist and founder of Arkitekturupproret (the Architecture Uprising movement)