Edward Glaeser, profesor de economía en la Universidad de Harvard comenta en The New York Sun (The Modernism that failed?) el último libro del sociólogo, y profesor emérito de la misma universidad, Nathan Glazer. From a Cause to a Style (Princeton University Press) es una colección de ensayos donde trata de identificar las razones por las que el movimiento modernista ha fracasado en la arquitectura: "How did a socially concerned architecture come to be condemned, 50 years later, as soulless, bureaucratic and inhuman?".
Las respuestas de Glazer y de Glaeser combinan (y discrepan en ocasiones) en su explicación factores como la importancia del momento histórico, la eficiencia económica y “estética” y la densidad urbana. El principal, y polémico, mensaje es alertar sonre el peligro que supone que las élites políticas y artísticas decidan sobre la estética urbana:
If there is one area where Mr. Glazer and I disagree it is his view that "scale is a problem." The resurgence of New York, London, and Chicago, and the great, growing cities of Asia remind us of how valuable scale can be. Scale is not for everyone, but great towers enable vast numbers of people to reap the economic and social benefits from physical proximity. New York's skyscrapers are the infrastructure that enables the city's flow of ideas. And for those buildings, modernism is an efficient, attractive style. Millions of New Yorkers happily work and live in modernist towers. New commercial buildings in the city remain mostly modernist. Why not? People are willing to pay high prices for them.
Mr. Glazer's superb book explores an important aesthetic movement, but it is also a warning against delegating public control over construction to artistic elites. Modernism has its place in the panoply of architectural styles, and it is particularly appropriate for large buildings in megacities. It is not well designed for building public buildings or monuments that speak to most people. Public art needs to be selected for its appeal to its users, not for some ill-defined artistic merits, and Mr. Glazer has made this case well.
El modernismo puede haber fracasado por que la sociedad ya no lo necesita, por coste (su principal ventaja competitiva en el periodo entreguerras en Europa), y no lo entiende, como estética. Curiosamente su “fracaso” arquitectónico ha sido paralelo a su éxito indiscutible en el diseño de interiores. Ikea es el mejor ejemplo.