Why historic preservation matters in today’s built environment

I sometimes wish I could time-travel—not to live in another century permanently, but just to drop in for a day or two. The reason wouldn’t be to escape the modern world (I’m quite content with antibiotics, electricity, and women’s rights). It would be to experience the built environment of the past. To walk down streets where schools, churches, homes, and courthouses were crafted with proportion, ornament, and pride, and to compare that experience to the strip malls, subdivisions, and flat facades that so often surround us today.

Of course, we can’t travel back in time. But we can look at historic photographs, preserved neighborhoods, and the buildings that have survived long enough to remind us that something changed. At some point, in my opinion, the built environment turned ugly. Of course, I don’t mean every building or every architect’s work—there have always been exceptions, and many modern designs are striking in their own right. I’m speaking about the everyday landscape most of us live in, where efficiency and uniformity dominate over beauty.

Why did this happen? I see three main reasons: economics and industrialization, shifts in architectural theory, and the rise of the automobile. Together, these forces reshaped communities across America, and they continue to influence how we build and preserve our surroundings today.

Industrialization and economics

Late 19th-century industrialization introduced mass-produced materials and construction methods that made it possible to build faster and cheaper than ever before. Over the past century and a half, the push for speed, efficiency, and return on investment, enabled by these industrial advances, has steadily tipped the balance away from craftsmanship and harmony and toward standardization, minimal ornamentation, and functionality above all else.

But industrialization itself didn’t erase beauty overnight. In fact, the late 19th and early 20th centuries were full of handsome buildings made with factory-made parts. Pressed tin ceilings, cast-iron storefronts, and machine-milled trim brought decorative detail to places where before it was absent. The design culture of the time still valued ornament and proportion. Mass production simply made beauty more accessible, allowing towns of modest means to have streetscapes that were lively, textured, and visually engaging.

The break came later. The Depression and World War II slowed construction, and when the postwar boom arrived, priorities shifted. Developers focused on speed and low cost to meet housing shortages and commercial demand. New materials were efficient, affordable, and easy to assemble, but visually spare. Ornament, proportion, and individuality were often sacrificed entirely, replaced with flat facades, repetitive patterns, and cookie-cutter layouts. Even civic buildings, schools, and shopping centers favored uniformity over character.

As land values climbed, especially in downtown areas, ornate smaller buildings were demolished for larger, more “modern” structures. Factories and warehouses became plain shells, stripped of brick detailing, cornices, and decorative touches. Working-class housing was packed tight and stripped to the essentials, losing the texture and rhythm that once gave streetscapes character. The cumulative effect—especially in the everyday built environment most of us encounter, from subdivisions to warehouses and strip malls—is efficiency without much visual pleasure, function without the richness and charm earlier generations took for granted.

The Tripp Warehouse building in Indianapolis, 1928. Note the symmetrical facade, 9 over 1 windows, and brick pilasters. Source: Bass Photo Co Collection, Indiana Historical Society.

A modern warehouse in Hendricks County, Indiana. Note the difference in proportions and window arrangement, as well as the lack of ornamentation when compared to the photograph above. Photo by Belloni Research Consulting.

Shifting architectural thought

Something changed in American architecture during the early twentieth century. For centuries, builders and architects looked backward for inspiration—borrowing from the Greeks, Romans, Renaissance, and beyond. The result was buildings that carried a sense of dignity and continuity. A courthouse or library could stand as both a civic monument and a piece of public art. Even modest homes had details that made them enjoyable to look at.

But in the 1920s and ‘30s, architectural ideas began to shift. Leading architects began to argue that ornament was distracting, that a building should reveal only its function and structure. Concrete, glass, and steel were celebrated not simply as materials but as symbols of a new way of thinking. Beauty, once tied to history, was redefined in more utilitarian terms: efficiency, novelty, and speed.

This was a rejection of the idea that buildings should link us to tradition. The “machine age” taught that progress required cutting ties with the past. Instead of echoing Greece or Rome, new buildings were designed to feel unmistakably modern. The Depression and World War II accelerated this turn, with cost-cutting and mass production reinforcing the claim that ornament was unnecessary and even wasteful. Modernism wasn’t uniformly “ugly.” Many mid-century designs were intentionally aesthetic and continue to be celebrated today. Still, for much of the built environment, modernist theories translated into stark utilitarianism rather than enduring beauty.

These architectural ideas soon filtered into everyday life. The local bank no longer looked like a temple to stability but like a shoebox with tinted windows. The corner gas station, once dressed up with a gabled roof and terra-cotta roof tiles, was now little more than a steel canopy and a row of pumps, the building itself an afterthought. The neighborhood school traded its carved stone and lofty arched windows for bare brick walls and long strips of standardized windows. The message was clear: tradition was sentimental, beauty was optional, and utility was enough.

School in Cartersburg, Indiana, built in 1897 and razed in 1964. Note the mix of stone and brick, soaring central tower, wall dormers, and gables. Photo courtesy of the Guilford Township Historical Collection; Plainfield-Guilford Township Public Library.

New school building recently completed in Hendricks County, Indiana. Note the use of sheet metal, flat roof, and standardized windows not in proportion with the overall structure.

The impact of the automobile

The third major shift came with the rise of the automobile. The car didn’t just change how people moved from one place to another; it rewrote the rules of community design by pushing buildings farther apart, prioritizing roads and parking over walkable places, and eroding the kinds of spaces that once gave communities beauty and coherence.

Before the automobile, people got from one place to another by walking, riding on horseback or in horse-drawn carriages, and later by streetcars and trains. Because these modes of travel were slow and local, they naturally encouraged density. Shops, homes, and civic buildings clustered together within easy reach. Streets were narrower, scaled for people rather than machines, and public squares and sidewalks served as gathering places.

The rise of the car disrupted this pattern. Suddenly, distance no longer mattered in the same way. Where you lived or shopped didn’t have to be within walking distance or along a streetcar line—you could simply drive. That shift loosened the fabric of communities, spreading people and buildings farther apart and setting the stage for the sprawling, disconnected landscapes we know today.

Roads were widened and highways cut through neighborhoods, destroying walkable street networks. Parking demands forced businesses, churches, and schools to replace buildings with lots, while downtown blocks once filled with shops gave way to asphalt. Zoning laws then cemented the car’s dominance by strictly separating homes, businesses, and industry. Instead of compact neighborhoods where daily needs were close at hand, people now had to drive miles for groceries, schools, or work. The result was a fragmented environment designed for cars, not people.

Standard Oil Co. service station, Bedford, Indiana, c. 1920. Note the terra cotta roof tiles and pilasters flanking the entrance. Also note how close this station is to the houses behind it. © Indiana Limestone Company. Courtesy, Indiana Geological and Water Survey, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana. ILCO ID IN2181.

Modern gas station, Brownsburg, Indiana. Photo by Belloni Research Consulting.

Historic preservation protects past beauty

When I research historic homes and buildings for National Register of Historic Places nominations, I’m reminded that our ancestors didn’t just build for shelter or utility. They built for beauty, proportion, and community life. The very fact that so many historic homes, courthouses, and commercial buildings remain beloved today proves that older architecture speaks to something we still crave: places that feel rooted, human, and worth preserving.

Preserving historic architecture isn’t just about nostalgia. Instead, it’s about recognizing that charm, coherence, and craftsmanship add value to our lives. Protecting historic homes and neighborhoods allows us to hold onto environments that were built for people first.

The decline of beauty in the built environment didn’t happen overnight. It was shaped by industrialization and economic pressures, by architectural philosophies that rejected ornament, and by the automobile’s dominance over community design. My point isn’t that architecture today lacks creativity or beauty altogether. It’s that the broader landscape we live in has grown less coherent, less charming, and less human-scaled than the environments our predecessors built.

If we want future generations to inherit more than strip malls and highways, we need to value the historic buildings that remain. They remind us that the built environment can, and should, be more than functional. It can also be beautiful, enduring, and deeply human.