I found it full of substance, with the main takeaway that architects are designing for other architects instead of the people who use the building.

I see plenty of parallels to software development, where there is a common tendency to design around engineering prowess instead of user experience.

It's interesting. Apparently, in mid-to-late 20th century, the discipline of architecture was bursting with self-described architects who rarely, if ever, had buildings created.

They instead focused on architectural 'theory', which meant anything from phenomenological approaches to space (Gaston Bachelard), to 'Architecture as Metaphor' (see book with same title by Kojin_Karatani, a critical theorist), hell, even theory-fiction (Benjamin H. Bratton).

A whole generation (or two, three?) of theorists have spent lots of time intellectualizing and philosophizing what, for a long time, seemed to be a design-oriented, practical discipline.

I wish I had sources for this -- it's only through informal conversations with practicing architects and theorists that I learned these things.

I thought that's exactly what the "Overcoming Fears" section of TFA did, to wit: the fear of (1) beauty [which is for "sentimental traditionalists"], (2) ornament, (3) tradition [because tradition requires effort, or you get 'McMansion'], (4) symmetry, and (5) [and most pertinent in my mind] looking foolish in the eyes of other architects.

> Postwar architecture has been characterized by fear and taboo. Architects are terrified of producing so much as a fluted column, because they believe their peers will think they are stupid, nostalgic, and unsophisticated.

Come on! There is absolutely no attempt to understand or level with contemporary architecture. It is pure ranting.

Or this gold nugget:

>It should be obvious to anyone that skyscrapers should be abolished. After all, they embody nearly every bad tendency in contemporary architecture: they are not part of nature, they are monolithic, they are boring, they have no intricacy, and they have no democracy. Besides, there is plenty of space left on earth to spread out horizontally

Yeah, walking around Manhattan or Hong Kong Island is boring and monotone.

> Come on! There is absolutely no attempt to understand or level with contemporary architecture. It is pure ranting.

This is getting it backwards: why should we have to understand or level with contemporary architects? Buildings are for the enjoyment of everyone. The whole complaint here, which is supported by sources, is that architects won't understand or level with us, and assume that our wants are kitschy plebian sentimentalism which can be handwaved away.

> Yeah, walking around Manhattan or Hong Kong Island is boring and monotone.

You say this sarcastically, but I think it's actually true. The only reason walking around Manhattan isn't boring is because it still has enough pre-war architecture that hasn't been torn down. Walking around the downtowns of e.g. Vancouver or Seattle, is quite boring, and I'm saying this as an overall-happy Seattle resident.

We've been demanding that people "level with" contemporary architecture since the 1950s, when I think they'd really like to just have a picnic or go to work without feeling like they're trapped in a maze of damp concrete.

> Yeah, walking around Manhattan or Hong Kong Island is boring and monotone.

That got me too. Even if they were boring and monotone, at least the skyscrapers are all confined to one area. The author's proposed solution seems to be "let's take all this ugly and spread it around over a few dozen more square kilometers".