"That's the one," he says, pointing across the river. "Thirty-six barrels of gunpowder should do the trick."

The UK parliament building looms large in the distance, all sharp GothicCharacterised by gloom, mystery and horror. towers and tall glass windows. "The Palace of Westminster?" exclaims his companion.

"No, silly," he points again. "That concrete atrocityAn extremely cruel or terrible act., right there!" Amid the historic buildings, a new monument to Britain's rich architectural history is being built. It travels upwards towards the sky in a heap of grey concrete and haphazard glass.

This could be the Guy Fawkes of today, setting London's ugly buildings on fire to save its residents from eyesoresThings that are ugly to look at. .

There is no shortage of ugly buildings to catch one's eye. Previous winners of the Carbuncle Cup, awarded annually to terrible architecture, have included London's "Walkie Talkie" on Fenchurch Street, Vauxhall Tower and Saffron Square in Croydon.¹

The Czech-French novelist Milan Kundera wrote of the "uglification" of our world. We are housed in concrete blocks. We visit monochromaticOnly one colour. supermarkets for mass-produced food. We walk down identical streets. Some think our cities are increasingly becoming traps.

The psychologist Daniel Berlyne theorised that all of our behaviour is motivated by the desire for new information. Because of this, many urbanists believe that passers-by are most stimulated by colourful and active locations, with positive psychological effects.² Boring buildings make bored people.

But others say that a nice appearance is not the only thing that makes a building functional or worth preserving. Sometimes function comes above looks.

Do we need to lose our sentimental attachment to our buildings and start anew? It may be the best aestheticConcerned with an artwork's beauty. Aesthetics is the branch of philosopher that explores art, beauty and taste. choice. But with our cities rapidly expanding and a housing crisis already raging, it is unlikely this will come any time soon.

Yes: If we can prove that boring buildings are harming our mental health and causing boredom and stress, we should just knock them down. We need to create and preserve only the architecture that makes us happy.

No: We should not only preserve those parts of history that appear aesthetically pleasing. Every building, every stone is a mark of our shared past. We preserve them to remember the years gone by, not just because they are nice to look at.

Or... The rejection of modern architecture is the sign of a movement against modernity altogether. Many of those who criticise modern architecture are cultural conservatives who want to take us back into an idealised past. We must resist this movement.