An aspect of our civilisation which I find both saddening and romantic is the steady decline of man-made structures. As they crumble back into the ground, the elements exert their force on the fabric of these attempts by men to achieve an extension to the short lives that we, as humans, have. Sixty to eighty years is fleeting compared to the longevity of man as the dominant, or dominating, life form on earth. And as such, the fact that we get anything done at all has to be a remarkable achievement. I find the world a beautiful place, and where man has not farmed, bull-dozed and built, changed and exploited the available "resources" the beauty is greater. The beauty of the ruin is a melancholic one. Perhaps one that recognising that we ourselves, individually, and as a civilisation, are fleeting. The appreciation of that decay an inner knowing that eventually we too will pass and evidence of our being will be swept away.
It is with that in mind that I mourn the passing of great monumental architecture. Great columns extending into the skies, great sculptures of our greatest leaders and scholars filling leafy glades and squares no longer being built. Indeed, the last movement that had any inclination to such architecture was the Third Reich. This was sad for many reasons. Not least because of the hideous crimes committed and the symbolism of budda being tainted, but also because the quality of the structures was as dubious as the quality of thinking behind their motives. Whilst many of the structures were destroyed in an attekpt to wipe them from the conciousness of the world, a practice of little merit I fear. Imagine tearing down all that previous regimes had created because it doesn't fit with your ideals regardless of their actual beauty. I can see the point of the antipathy towards all that facist Germany constructed, but it is still saddening.
I would love to live in a city as stunning as a set of Gotham City, and I see no conflict with the idea of a liberal society with strongly represented icons. Why can't we build something one hundred feet high with a footprint four hundred feet square simply to celebrate a moment of mental clarity, one of peace?
Of course these things cost money. And it would be obscene to spend tens of millions on such a thing where we have poor provision for education and health. So maybe my dream of a rebirth of monumentalism will have to wait until we have achieved a closer realisation of a utopia. But we have to change some things now. Millions are being spent on buildings having a useful life of less than a human being's life-time, the design of many being questionable too.