In the past, there was no separation between art and architecture. It was unthinkable, in former times, to construct a major building without including art as an integral component. This was true until fairly recently. Then, with the advent of the “international style” in architecture and the simultaneous adoption of avant garde styles of art which mystified (and repulsed) the majority of potential viewers, the link was broken.
Architects were encouraged to exalt their efforts over those of other artists, stripping away everything that was not necessary for the building to function. Architects seem to have been schooled in a rigidly puritanical abhorrence of art, where it would interfere with the perception of their building’s form as function. “Less is more” is still their mantra, and so, predictably, they give us more and more of less and less. The sorry sterile state of the built environment in our newer urban centers is the result.
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Now it is the turn of the architects to wither away. Soon computers will be able to accomplish the few architectural functions they have not already mastered, and architects will find themselves as marginalized as artists have now become; unless and until they rediscover the artistic roots of their profession.
[edit] Interview to ANDREW WERBY (sculptor). Art and Architecture – a Link Destroyed. United Artworks. Retrieved from http://users.lmi.net/~drewid/Art_and_Architecture.html