Social inadequacy of large buildings
Incidence
A cathedral or church may be taken as an example of a large, but inviting building complex. Its various parts, the campanile, the altar, the nave, and so on are practical accommodations to its social purposes and groupings: the ministrants, the congregation, the choir, and the special services for weddings, funerals and baptisms. Similarly, a group of tribal huts or igloos are human too, because they also are a complex of buildings, not one centralized, mechanically assembled artefact imposing itself on human social structures. It is significant that the two entities that so often interfere with the individual's quality of life, namely government and the large corporations, have traditionally used the massive pilings of stone, steel and glass. This can be seen at the Kremlin and General Motors.
Claim
High-rise, monolithic buildings are a denial of the natural tendency of human institutions to comprise a complex of smaller institutions each with its own social structure. People living and working in such buildings are subject to greater stress and work dissatisfaction as they are forced to adapt their lives to the dissonance of such architecture.
Broader
Narrower
Aggravates
Aggravated by
Value(s)
Type
(F) Fuzzy exceptional problems