How the World Became Ugly: The Loss of Civic Pride

The recent viral video "How Did The World Get So Ugly?" offers a stinging diagnosis of our modern built environment: the pervasive ugliness we see isn't an accident of taste, but the clear, physical manifestation of a cultural choice. We have sacrificed ordinary beauty and civic pride at the altar of convenience and efficiency.

The video makes its case by contrasting the functional with the aesthetic. Take the example of the London sewer system. The Victorians, facing a crisis of sanitation, built a massive, purely utilitarian infrastructure project. Yet, they infused it with a deep sense of aesthetic dignity. The Crossness Pumping Station, built simply to manage waste, was designed with the ornamental grandeur of a palace. This wasn't about cost-efficiency; it was about pride. It was a statement that the work was valuable, the workers deserved a beautiful environment, and the public was worthy of excellent design, even in the smallest details.

Contrast this with today. The video points to the ubiquitous air conditioning unit as the true symbol of our age. It's a miraculous technology, yet it’s slapped onto every façade without any attempt at integration or concealment. Why? Because the cost and effort of making it attractive can't be justified in the pursuit of maximum profit.

This is the core problem: modern design is dictated by the cheapest, fastest, and most convenient outcome. Our new buildings are highly efficient and technologically sound, but they are also, as the video concludes, "a little bit boring and unimaginative." They are merely containers for function, devoid of the stories, care, and civic pride that once defined even the most mundane public works.

The buildings we construct today shout a loud, disheartening truth: we no longer believe in the idea of a public that deserves ordinary beauty. We have accepted that our everyday, mass-produced environment must be purely functional and disposable.

This critique resonates acutely with the realities of rapid construction and urbanization in Kenya. As cities like Nairobi and Mombasa expand at breakneck speed, the pressure to house, commercialize, and industrialize often results in the triumph of the "cheap and fast" aesthetic.

1. Generic Design: New housing blocks and commercial centres frequently default to unadorned, rectilinear concrete boxes. While efficient to build and quick to populate, these structures lack durability, character, and connection to any distinct Kenyan architectural identity. They are buildings that could be anywhere, contributing nothing unique to the local urban fabric.

2. Sacrifice Over Style: Where the Victorians seamlessly blended modernity with tradition, much of modern Kenyan construction often ignores our rich, climate-appropriate building heritage. The aesthetic of anonymous concrete dominates, erasing the unique potential for design inspired by local materials and cultural styles.

3. Infrastructure as Art: Just as the Victorians showed pride in their sewers, Kenyan infrastructure projects, including roads, interchanges, and public buildings, must move beyond pure function. A thoughtfully designed pedestrian bridge or a beautifully finished market affirms the dignity of the citizens who use it. A cheap, functional-only job sends the opposite message.

The choice is ours. We can build efficiently and the capability to build beautifully, as the Victorian era proved that both could be mass-produced. We must, as a society and as a construction industry, decide to reintroduce care and intentionality into our projects. We must choose to build structures that not only solve our pressing needs but also express a deep sense of pride in the places we call home. We can build efficiently, but we must choose to do so beautifully.