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“Those who have made architectural beauty their life's work know only too well how futile their efforts can prove. After an exhaustive study of the buildings of Venice, in a moment of depressive lucidity, John Ruskin acknowledged that few Venetians in fact seemed elevated by their city, perhaps the most beautiful urban tapestry in the world. Endowed with a power that is often as unreliable as it is inexpressible, architecture will always compere poorly with utilitarian demands for humanity's resources. How hard is it to make a case for the cost of tearing down and rebuilding a mean but serviceable street. How awkward to have to defend, in the face of more tangible needs, the benefits of re-aligning a crooked lamppost or replacing an ill-matched window frame. Beautiful architecture has none of the unambiguous advantages of a vaccine or a bowl of rice. In construction will hence never be raised to a dominant political priority, for even if the whole man-made world could, through relentless effort and sacrifice, be modeled to rival St Mark's square ...[ ..] , we would still often be in a bad mood.” — Alain de Botton