From Forster, Kurt W. "Why Are Some Buildings More Interesting Than Others?" 
Harvard Design Magazine, Winter/Spring 1999.

Let's examine this conclusion in detail, shall we?

> Architecture of every kind answers to purposes, but we also make 
> distinctions between the kind and the quality of purposes. Utility is only 
> one among our expectations, and rarely the main, and indeed never the only 
> purpose. 
I suppose I can accept the idea that 'interesting' architecture fulfills more 
than one purpose, but I think it is a flawed rationale to believe that 
utility can be anything BUT the foundation of architecture. Buildings, unlike 
other artistic endeavors, MUST function for the purpose in which they were 
built. A building without a use is landfill- no matter how strong its 
'imaginative transmission' is. Double that for buildings or structures that 
fail-- no partial credit there. 

> Where architecture merely aligns itself with its own 
> conditions—exhibiting little more than economy, efficiency, and ambition—it 
> fails to mediate between its own material existence and our need to locate 
> ourselves in the world. Only acts of imaginative transmission allow us to 
> figure out how we came to fall into the place we occupy and what prospects 
> lie before us.
Vernacular architecture is, I believe, a far more telling bellwether of 
'material existence' than any highly designed architectural fantasy, as 
quoted directly from the BP dictionary: "Forms and appearances as a result of 
the function of the process of living. Design being directed by the functions 
of life, both social and
physical and not by the whims of style," (lovely description.) Any type of 
'imaginative transmission' is ONE architect's version of past and future, and 
that is certainly NOT the "ONLY" [emphasis mine] avenue by which I can find 
my place in the world.

> The value we attribute to any building also implies a 
> recognition of imaginative acts.
I really don't think so. In a historical and artistic sense, buildings are 
valued as representatives of their style, representatives of events or times, 
or for their contribution to historical understanding. To quote another famed 
BPer "indeed, the buildings themselves are rarely looked at. Rather, they 
involve memory, sentiment and not-in-my-backyard." 

> Imaginative buildings speak about the realm 
> of nature as a domain of civilization, not as something infinitely removed 
or 
> heedlessly replaced, 
"Heedlessly replaced"... Obviously he doesn't live in the New York- New 
Jersey metropolitan area...

> and they engage our senses by means of ingenious 
> inscriptions of many-layered meanings no one can grasp, much less exhaust, 
> at a glance.
To state that, unless one studies a building exhaustively one can't relate to 
it, is pure university-separatist elitism. The beauty of architecture is that 
EVERYONE experiences it at some level. We all live in buildings, and we all 
have experience with them. The ability to compare that experience makes 
'buildings' a universal language that unifies people rather than separating 
them. In my opinion, great buildings are those that can do both: fulfill one 
at a glance, and continue to produce many layers of meanings. THAT is what 
makes some buildings more interesting than others.

But since I'm not a Harvard-trained architectural theorist, I wouldn't 
suppose my opinion might count. To paraphrase Dr. Seuss, the star-bellied 
Sneeches that can read 'encoded' buildings, must be far more able to 
appreciate 'interesting' buildings.