Why Don't We Live in an Art Nouveau World?

The essay asks why Art Nouveau, despite its enduring appeal, did not become the dominant architecture of modern cities. It situates the style - known in Catalonia as Modernisme - as a brief, experimental break from 19th-century historical revivals, marked by curves, asymmetry, nature-inspired ornament, and regional variation. The author challenges a popular “traditionalist” story in which people once built beautiful, decorated buildings until modernism abruptly replaced them with ugliness. That account oversimplifies architectural history, but raises a genuine question: if many people prefer ornamented buildings, why do wealthy societies mostly build spare, unornamented ones? Possible explanations range from costs and changing tastes to regulation, incentives, and professional norms. Rather than settle them all, the essay turns to Barcelona’s Modernisme and its shift toward the more restrained Noucentisme.

A visit to the Hospital de Sant Pau, designed by Lluís Domènech i Montaner and built between 1901 and 1930, complicates the idea that earlier builders always put beauty first. A dispute over whether to prioritize hospital operations or an architectural showpiece delayed practical facilities; the lavish administration building was completed first, and later pavilions received less ornament as funds ran short. The author admires Sant Pau’s mosaics, stained glass, gardens, and orange trees, but finds its decorative abundance tiring after the initial spectacle. Nature and light, rather than ornament itself, seem most valuable for patients’ well-being. Gaudí’s landmarks likewise feel best as exceptional experiments, not templates for whole cities: the world benefits from having them, but not from having more everywhere.