our son and his beautiful wife were here for a visit a couple of weekends ago, and we were talking about Grand Central Terminal. bear with me; i hope to tie this in eventually, lol.
have you ever been there? it's gorgeous! i used to take the train down to NYC with the kids, but never left the station. just waited for them to have fun in the city. brought coffee and people watched, read a book, walked around enjoying myself.
so we were saying in times past, people used to think not only of function when they built a church, a house, or even a train terminal, but also of form. my husband was in the restoration business, and i've seen old houses with carvings around the fireplace, moldings, etc. that were such a pleasure to behold, and just restful to be around.
postmodern architecture seems only to care about function. i think we all lose with that. Penn Station used to be almost as pretty as Grand Central, and now it's been "updated" to steel and glass. sad!