I don't think that any of the other "famous architects" measure up to Wright, but I do like a lot of the work done by Calatrava, Hadid, and I.M. Pei. Examples below:

https://images.adsttc.com/media/images/5850/5b9b/e58e/ce32/8...

http://cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/191120080400-04-zara-h...

https://desmoinesartcenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/IM...

Interesting to look at and liveable are orthogonal qualities at best and opposite at worst. One of those is truly important for inhabitants of a building, while the other is truly important to the architect's reputation. I'll let you guess which I think is which.

Personally, I'm tired of architecture being treated as a grotesque form of sculpture.

One of these is not like the other.

I've been in a few IM Pei buildings, and even worked in one. They were pleasant places to be and functional. I have the utmost respect for him. He's had a few buildings where the function was art (e.g. galleries), so they didn't follow that, but it made sense. He's had a few failures too.

But on the whole, I have the utmost respect for him as an architect.

Good to hear he's one of the orthogonals then :) at least occasionally

Calatrava is also well known for projects that go over budget and aren't designed with usage in mind.

Form over function.

That last one looks like an alligator enclosure at a zoo.

That was probably partially due to poor image selection on my part. Here's one that I think is a slightly better representation of the building:

https://mir-s3-cdn-cf.behance.net/project_modules/max_1200/3...

I think that while the building uses a lot of elements of brutalist style, it also does a good job incorporating natural light. The art in the picture below doesn't isn't particularly compelling to me, but I like the architecture:

https://live.staticflickr.com/1742/42628537001_fe8a195275_b....

is this the museum in Pasadena?

Des Moines

https://desmoinesartcenter.org/about/architecture/i-m-pei/

First picture shows a huge hall with no place to sit, no place to relax if you are hard of walking. No condensation places for people to hang onto and have a conversation or a break.

Piggy backing on the Wolfe link:

The criticisms of modernism in the 70s were already very precise and perceptive. See also for example Jane Jacobs or Christopher Alexander. However, instead, it pushed us into the pageantry of post-modernism, which, even though less bad, didn't really create a paradigm shift. It still conceived the building-proper as a sculpture, with all the idiocy that implies.

Architects tend to hate Christopher Alexander, but he is loved by everyone else. His debate with Eisenman is pretty classic.

Prince Charles is hated on by architects for the same reason. His book “harmony” is a deliberation about the types of buildings and town structures that produce vitality. I was skeptical but it is a great read.

As a wise man once said:

“That’s, like, just your opinion, man”.

I for one think if you’re hoping to build X number of apartments in Y space, where Y is priced at downtown Toronto land prices, then you’re going to make variations of a box (or a Gherkin, but then it’d be a gherkin).

Of course, Forma isn’t a cube, there’s a lot of texture there; there’s contrast and light.

But, that just, like, my opinion, man

At least brutalism gave us (at least here, in Eastern Europe) relatively cheap mass-housing projects (I’m writing from an appartment located inside one of those buildings right now), not that much cheap mass-housing projects coming from the stararchitects of today.

I liked my commie box when I lived in one. There is something to be said for having money left over after paying rent.

Having trouble finding early designs since the promotions of the finished building have buried earlier coverage of the project, but these buildings started out with a much more organic look and got turned into boring boxes along the way. Value engineering and all that. Also the fact that most of his designs start out disconnected from the realities of construction.