Architectural criticism seems always to go in favor of the past, never for present building trends. I'm myself sometimes guilty of this. In the critics' and my own defense, some modern architectural is horrible. No good. Very very very bad. Like the new building of the theater "Etc."
Then I tried to think if I saw any modern construction that was pretty. I don't know if this is classically beautiful or truly, aesthetically pleasing - I don't feel like giving it an intellectual parsing - at the very least, I don't think it's quite as crazy as other things. And I will thus indulge my gut inclination to say "pretty."
To be perfectly honest, this is actually a turn of the century (1902-1903) mansion by the extremely famous (which is a relative term, as I'm sure most of my American readers don't know him) architect, Shekhtel'. I consider it a modern building inasmuch as the glass has been replaced, the plaster replaced five thousand times over, the interior redone...if both external and internal form have changed, and function has changed, how can there still be a monument?
Don't worry, I won't try to answer that question here. Yet. :D
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