Why don't we settle for just straight lines and pure utilitarianism in our homes today and still insist on decorating them? We spend about as much awake time at work as home. Why did business stop caring about what was thought within the community, or by the workers?

Sure, some was projecting success, or the confidence of their age, but there seems to have been an expectation things would last. As an awful lot has. Half of many city's buildings are well past a century, little built post-war is likely to get that far.

It was an age where they were trying to leave things better - to their definition of better. Now it seems we're in an age of leaving things cheapened, not necessarily cheaper, but more profitable.

I'm not a fan of the current lowest cost beats all fashion.