“It is now impossible, and has been impossible for over fifty years, for anyone to make a building which is beautiful or even agreeable. Whatever may be the reason for it, this is simply an historical fact; like the impossibility of travelling abroad nowadays without a passport, or the fact that no one could make a television set in the twelfth century. No one likes to look at a modern building, let alone live or work in it, and hardly anyone even pretends nowadays that they do like to.”

—David Stove, circa 1985