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Vladimir_M comments on Pro-nice and anti-nice - Less Wrong Discussion
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OK, since I'm writing this on LW after all, I guess it's time to recognize that I've long passed the boundary from rational argument to an impassioned propagandistic defense of my own view in a value- and taste-laden controversy.
I've never seen these buildings that you describe, so I can't make any final judgement about them. It could be that these are indeed some genuine cases of modernist architecture working well, though I still suspect that it's a matter of having such a spectacularly good space that it's extremely hard to ruin it even with the ugliest architecture imaginable. (To quote William Whyte, "Given a fine location, it is difficult to design a space that will not attract people. What is remarkable is how often this has been accomplished.") But, yes, it might be that these buildings are really much better than I though modernism could ever be. (On the other hand, judging by what can be seen on the web, these Salk Institute spaces look pretty damn desolate.)
What I still don't doubt, though, is that the average practical results of traditional architecture are far better than the average practical results of modernism. This seems to me overwhelmingly obvious from virtually all the examples I can think of, which includes everyday sights from several cities I've lived in that feature a mix of both.
These things tend to only be overwhelmingly obvious once one has picked a disputable success measure. Do these different styles cost the same to build, does one allow higher population density than the other, is demographics confounding things in some other way, what about the effects on people who don't spend time at the places themselves but see the buildings from far away or in pictures?
Well yeah, obviously this entire conversation has been about totally subjective questions of taste. Nothing wrong with that though, as long as no one is fooling themselves into thinking it's something other than that.
kodos96:
Still, I think that it makes sense to ask whether traditional or modernist architecture on average does a better job creating spaces that will satisfy the subjective tastes of the majority of people, for which the best evidence are people's revealed preferences and attitudes. In this sense, there is an objective question here after all.