Is postmodernist architecture ugly, irresponsible or both?

We are taught not to use certain words in architecture school, for instance "beautiful" or "ugly". Beauty or lack thereof is supposedly a subjective thing. Beauty, during Greek and Roman times, was something architects and builders were allowed to pursue. Classical architecture was governed by formulas that could supposedly achieve beauty in a building. The modernists continued to use the ideas of balance and proportion in architecture while detaching it from unnecessary decoration. Postmodernists objected to the rigidity, lack of self-expression and detachment from context of the modernists’ international style. Postmodernist architects decried the rules established by the modernists and in some cases, seemed to break the rules for no reason other than to break them. The problem is that architecture isn’t art. Architects have a social responsibility to design buildings- especially public ones that are fit to be seen in public. Rather than embracing vernacular commercialism as architecture, like Venturi and Scott-Brown, architects are challenged to not only learn from what exists but to offer something better. If only architects had to take a Hippocratic Oath!

Peter Eisenman- "City of Culture", Santiago de Compostela, Spain

Michael Graves- "Denver Public Library"- Denver, Colorado

Kengo Kuma- "M2 Building"- Tokyo, Japan