It's a pretty common term to describe this style of architecture. Maybe it's not the preferred one but it has good explanatory power (like Greek and Roman) that people understand.
> Let say so.. but even then you must realize that these buildings serve extremely different purposes?
Sure, but that would provide explanatory power for the Notre Dame Cathedral and it's function, but wouldn't provide explanatory power for the design of Boston City Hall. If you redesigned Notre Dame Cathedral in brutalist style architecture, it would fail in its purpose. Whereas if you designed Boston City Hall in French Gothic style (or whatever you wanted to call it) it would just be a very nice looking office building. [1]
> Maybe it's not the preferred one but it has good explanatory power
I don’t think so. Neoclassicism or classicism (which is what I assume these people might be thinking about) were influenced by Greek and Roman architecture to some degree but in no way is the US Capitol for instance is an example of Greeco-Roman architecture.
> Saint-Quentin, Aisne
It’s also tiny and not space efficient. You would have to scale up a building like that to monstrous level to fit 10000+ employees inside and I’m sure it wouldn’t look good or be very conformable to work in.
I’m not exactly defending the Boston City (though I also don’t think it’s the ugliest public building in the world) but in general sacrificing function for form is not exactly the best approach when we’re talking about buildings constructed using public funds.
> redesigned Notre Dame Cathedral in brutalist style architecture, it would fail in its purpose.
To be fair the purpose of the Notre Dame Cathedral no longer exists, or rather has changed dramatically (from a socio-political centre of power to a primarily tourist attraction)
That's besides the point - it's just an example, and, as far as I know still used. You can visit Europe, think Edinburgh or something, and see lots of really good looking buildings that are used for modern day purposes quite well without needing to be torn down and converted into some other bland architecture.
> You would have to scale up a building like that to monstrous level to fit 10000+ employees inside and I’m sure it wouldn’t look good or be very conformable to work in.
Or maybe 10,000+ people shouldn't work inside of the same building? Idk. But I see no reason a building can't be, say, "modern" on the inside and look good on the outside. I'm also unsure why we seem to need to solve for the specific use case of "10,000+ people" and use that as the guideline for architectural decisions - don't we just use big box skyscrapers for that? Though even some of those (older ones) look quite nice. I think I'm more on the side of buy-once cry-once here.
> but in general sacrificing function for form is not exactly the best approach when we’re talking about buildings constructed using public funds.
I think this is one of the really confusing points here. Boston City Hall did sacrifice function for form. It's not just how the building looks on the outside but how it functions in its built environment. For Boston City Hall the answer is "not really". For Notre Dame even solely as a tourist attraction it is more functional on a square foot basis than Boston City Hall is. Granted, it's hard to directly compare both of these buildings so I'd be open to other discussions about that.
I'm also not sure why you are asserting that there is a trade off we need to make. Ugly buildings get torn down. Probably cost more over the long run just for that. Regarding public funds, we should take pride in our country and our civilization. One of the most visible ways to do that is through architecture and by building places that people care about. You can see this reflected in tech offices which focus on "good design".
> To be fair the purpose of the Notre Dame Cathedral no longer exists
Sure that's fair though it certainly got a hell of a good run in the original purpose. But that it eventually "retired" to a tourist attraction speaks to the power of the architecture. Nobody in the world is visiting Boston to take pictures in front of Boston City Hall. It'll "retire" to the demolition list.
Going back to your comment about money, I bet Notre Dame has made a lot more money for Paris than Boston City Hall has made for Boston. (Acknowledging that these are hard to compare and open to comparing different buildings)
It's a pretty common term to describe this style of architecture. Maybe it's not the preferred one but it has good explanatory power (like Greek and Roman) that people understand.
> Let say so.. but even then you must realize that these buildings serve extremely different purposes?
Sure, but that would provide explanatory power for the Notre Dame Cathedral and it's function, but wouldn't provide explanatory power for the design of Boston City Hall. If you redesigned Notre Dame Cathedral in brutalist style architecture, it would fail in its purpose. Whereas if you designed Boston City Hall in French Gothic style (or whatever you wanted to call it) it would just be a very nice looking office building. [1]
[1] I believe this building functions as a city hall though I could be mistaken, you can find other examples as well if you wanted to. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint-Quentin,_Aisne