Authenticity

I am reading Creative Authenticity by Ian Roberts. I’ve only just started, so I haven’t made up my mind about it yet — perhaps it will improve as I wade deeper. One quote from the first chapter on searching for beauty aligns with my thinking of late:“Beauty doesn’t flourish in a culture that honors the bottom line above all. How can a significant architecture result when a corporation’s quarterly report, reflecting the sensible use of resources to build a new factory-a metal rectangle one-thousand feet by four-hundred feet by twenty feet—must first and foremost satisfy shareholders? It’s unthinkable that shareholders, instead of being concerned only with profit and performance, would be proud that their corporation built the most stunning corporate headquarters in fifty years in downtown Seattle or Minneapolis at the expense of their shares’ appreciation. Corporations serve a specific function, but because of how all-pervasive they’ve become, with their short-term profit mentality,…