For much of history, urban planning as we know it didn’t exist. Sure, there were cities with zoning ordinances and building codes, but ones thoroughly planned from scratch with heavily controlled development are largely a recent phenomenon. So a few years ago, the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association (known as SPUR) assembled ten key illustrations to summarize the twists and turns planners took to get where we are today.

Illustrations like this one of the Garden City from the early 1900s are powerful things, able to distill complex ideas down into compelling graphics. The idea in this case was to create greenbelts for urban dwellers and keep urban centers limited to populations of just over 30,000 people. Along similar lines, Le Corbusier’s “Towers in the Park” vision incorporated vast open spaces, but instead of spreading out, it pushed up, proposing people live in towers. This idea heavily shaped urban design in America, and public housing projects in particular.

More known for his architecture than his urban planning ideas, Frank Lloyd Wright had a lot of thoughts on how people should live and work outside of the actual houses and offices he built. His ideas for things like Broadacre City were more rural than urban, taking large plots of land and turning them into family housing in which each person would live on an acre of land. If implemented, this idea would have turned the entire country effectively into a giant mega-suburb.

The street grid was not a modern invention as such, but it was deployed much more rigorously and often starting from scratch in American cities like Philadelphia that were essentially working from a blank slate. In many cities, grids were laid out regardless of complex topography, creating problems down the road. Linked together, some of America’s gridded cities have started to become something bigger — megaregions, alluded to by science fiction authors like William Gibson decades ago and increasingly a reality today.

On a more closeup scale, transects have been used to show spectrums of possibility for urban planners ranging, for example, from highly paved urban spaces to lush green areas, rendering visible different hybrid typologies in between. As cities grew up, they also employed setback principles to guide growth and maintain light access, which fundamentally shaped the skylines and on-the-ground experiences of major metropolitan areas.

A classic in any list of historical city maps, the Nolli Map drawn in the 18th century was incredibly ambitious for its time, detailing every last little aspect of Rome and providing a basis for comparing old and new forms of this famous city. Notably, it is a straight-on view — maps of its time often tilted things at angles, which distorted the geography, but this one became a precursor for what we think of as typical plan-type maps today.

At the other end of the spectrum are the psychogeographical maps developed by Situationists in the mid-1900s, which aimed not to depict the shapes of buildings and spaces in between but to instead document the subject experience of the city. It was in many ways a reaction against a Nolli-type approach as well as the rigorously rectilinear plans of people like Le Corbusier. Maps were drawn from memory and then used to understand the “psychogeography” of cities.

Finally, the most unusual selection of all: the so-called “hockey stick” chart. This captures an aspect of the history of cities, specifically: the effects of the industrial revolution on global temperatures. It’s a diagram not so much about how to physically build a city but the big-picture impacts to think about while designing one.

From Seattle to New York City, Minneapolis to Dallas, boxy apartment and condo buildings sporting bland facades, metallic or colored cladding and a generally flat aesthetic seem to dominate new urban developments these days. Surprisingly similar in style from one place to the next, they have been dubbed works of “developer chic” or “fast-casual architecture” and branded blandmarks or LoMo (Low Modern), generally by those critical of their appearance. Some of their look is a byproduct of “value engineering,” a stripping away of decorative flourishes for the sake of saving a few dollars (the bane of many artistic architects) but there is more to the story.

As with virtually any architecture, costs do naturally play a role as well in shaping these structures — ornate brickwork may look beautiful, but even as a decorative facade layer the material adds loads of weight and a lot of expense to a cheaper wood-framed building.  As for the stylistic convergence more broadly, much of this traces to economic and other factors that are essentially the same across cities in America and otherwise: high demand for affordable housing that has to meet a similar set of safety and other code requirements.

In many cities, housing is in short supply and a lot of area is zoned for single-family residential, forcing developers to fit as much housing as they can into whatever plots are left available. Where they do get built, these structures face restrictions often derived from international building codes, calling for formulaic approaches (for instance: a concrete base floor with five wooden floors on top) resulting in a roughly similar size and shape. Facades with portions that are recessed or pushed out are common features, too, again usually the product of local ordinances and design review boards that demand physical variety from facades.

To some critics, these cookie-cutter creations represent an aesthetic crisis. To others, they seem like harbingers of gentrification. As any urbanist knows, though, a lack of affordable housing is a serious and pervasive problem neither caused nor solved by architects as such. Architecture critic Kate Wagner looks at the situation pragmatically, arguing that “affordable mid and high-rise towers are the most effective way to house the greatest number of people on the smallest parcel of land, something that’s desperately needed in places like San Francisco, where the value of land is so high.”

For those who would point to the much-discussed failures of 20th-century mass-housing attempts, she writes: “Modernist public housing was not the failure of architecture it was the failure of people—through racial prejudices, misguided and poorly thought out policies, ugly politics, and economic greed, people caused the public housing of the past to fail.” Additionally, a lot of lessons learned from that era are incorporated into even the most boring of boxy apartments, including mixed-use programs that activate areas and bring in more than just residents.

More broadly, there is a case to be made that what was once more of an art has become something of a science, whatever one’s opinion of the effects. Architects have always been in the business of balancing aesthetics and pragmatics, form and function, but increasingly their work is constrained by outside forces, including but not limited to client budgets, safety considerations and municipal rules.

Over the long term, the sometimes-shoddy construction materials and methods of this currently trending typology may be the seeds of its undoing. It’s possible these will be looked back on as a mistake. Maybe, though, the same thing will happen here that has with other approaches and styles over architectural history: people will come to appreciate the beauty and functionality in what currently seems mundane if not abhorrent. In the meantime, architects can only do so much — it’s up to cities and their citizens to accept reality or rethink entrenched paradigms and consider the merits of changing zoning limitations, restrictive codes and perhaps also the benchmarks by which we judge architecture to be good or bad.

Minimalism is chic and trendy, but sometimes, there’s nothing more satisfying than blotting out bland and boring surfaces with bold splashes of color and pattern. That’s especially true when the structure in question is an eyesore, abandoned or weighed down by the baggage of a difficult past. Giving architecture a maximalist makeover with colorful paint can utterly transform not just the buildings themselves but their entire communities, creating a ripple effect of cheerfulness. These vivid modifications are carried out for all sorts of reasons: easing the impact of blight, celebrating a change in the city’s fortune, preserving cultural traditions or simply for the love of art.

Reviving Abandoned Structures

Madrid-based artist Okuda San Miguel has quickly developed one of the most instantly recognizable styles in street art history with his massive paint projects and sculptures. His murals scale skyscrapers, his interiors have transformed church interiors into incredible skate parks and his faceted three-dimensional creations have played starring roles in major festivals, but of all his dazzling projects, his transformations of abandoned buildings make the biggest visual impact. They include turning a sad, deteriorating house in Arkansas into a “universal chapel,” giving an old abandoned church in Morocco a vivid yellow makeover covered in his signature animal faces and painting two enormous skulls onto an abandoned castle in Loire Valley, France for the LaBel Valette Festival.

Atlanta-based artist and muralist Alex Brewer, better known as HENSE, is often commissioned to apply his pleasingly chaotic and colorful style on abandoned and neglected structures all over the world. One of his best-known projects adds a watercolor effect to an old church in a downtrodden neighborhood in Washington DC with the aim of calling attention to the area’s potential as the city’s next bustling arts district. Another massive mural coats the exterior of a warehouse in Richmond, Virginia for the RVA Festival, and a third splashes across a historic building with a boarded-up facade in Atlanta.

Created for Philadelphia mural project “We the People,” which envisions each of its six murals as “a seed of hope for a bright future,” NTEL’s NATIV NTELIGENCE wraps around an entire block of currently empty buildings to provide a reminder of the “nourishing potential of the space.”

Tel Aviv’s derelict and abandoned Dolphinarium building, which was the scene of a 2001 suicide building, got a wild new look in 2015 courtesy of street artist Dede. The shape of the building was just too perfect to pass on turning it into a gigantic set of wind-up choppers.

Brightening Places of Poverty, Monotony & Blight

Poor communities simply don’t have the resources to maintain an outward appearance that the rest of the world finds “acceptable.” When you’re struggling to get by, fresh paint jobs, nice landscaping and even simple building maintenance is often a lower priority by default. But, with the permission and participation of the people living in those communities, projects that aim to revitalize them with a bit of color and care can make a big difference in general morale. The purpose isn’t necessarily to make these neighborhoods more palatable to wealthier people, but to show that they, too, are worthy of beauty and art. While projects like this can run the risk of glossing over deep systemic inequality, they’re beautiful when handled with sensitivity and awareness.

These large-scale mural projects can dramatically alter the mood of a neighborhood while bringing its inhabitants together to take an active role. Examples include German Crew’s transformation of Las Palmitas, Mexico, covering 224,280 square feet of architecture with neon colors, and a series of awesome painting projects by Haas & Hahn throughout Brazil’s favelas.

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In Indonesia, teacher Kampung Pelangi used $22,000 worth of paint to infuse the village of Semarang (which was a slum not so long ago) into a vibrant tourist destination (though it’s not clear whether the town’s poor residents were displaced.)

And in Mumbai, waterfront slums that are home to millions of people have grown far more colorful thanks to the efforts of art teacher Rouble Nagi.

In 2016, Haas & Hahn brought their “FavelaPainting” project back to their home city of Amsterdam to call attention to the need for safe and livable refugee housing. Currently, many refugees are housed in former prisons and other buildings “that have long been an eyesore in Amsterdam’s skyline.”

“The project aims at transforming the buildings, both in- and outside, in order to create their new identity as a new home to the refugees. It will offer opportunities in form of skill training, network building and job opportunity, while empowering the participants to ‘make the place their own.’”

But sometimes it’s little more than monotonous surroundings and a lack of color that prompt colorful architectural makeovers. The isolated and incredibly cold Siberian town of Ust-Yansk combats the potentially depression-inducing wash of gray and white winters with bright colors on the buildings’ roofs after a recent restoration project.

Tirana, the capital city of Albania, wasn’t in a great place before artist-turned-mayor Ed Rama took office. Low on funds, high on crime and suffering from a plague of corruption, the city was also visually bleak. Rama decided to paint one of the saddest-looking buildings a bright orange, and the community loved it. Once he had painted a few more structures in a similar way, a larger movement took off, with international artists turning entire city blocks into works of contemporary art.

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Maximalist Makeovers Transforming Architecture With Vivid Paint Jobs

Looking a bit like an architectural Transformer in the middle of taking on a new form, this Highland Park home by the firm Urban Operations takes a highly structured, geometric approach to occupying a hillside. There are no organic forms or curves following the contours of the land; rather, the house seems to exist in tension with the topography that surrounds it, as if it’s ready to fold into a different shape altogether in the event of a landslide or earthquake.

The 2,400-square-foot house features three volumes that step from the top of the hill to its base. Stuccoed white planes seem to fold, expand, retract and crack open to reveal peeks at a dark gray volume underneath, creating an illusion of potential movement. Angled cutaways reveal rooftop decks, terraces, stairwells and entranceways.

The architects dug into the hillside at 4752 East Baltimore Street to partially embed the new house, giving it an anchor. They based the roof deck on villas designed by Le Corbusier, giving the residents views of Griffith Park in the foreground and the San Gabriel Mountains in the background.

“The design marries strategic hillside engineering with a series of stepped programmatic volumes, which are then sliced and folded at various code-generated orientations in order to produce a unified holistic design,” they explain.

The three-bedroom, 3-bath house is now up for sale by Urban Operations architect John Southern for $1.3 million.

“The exquisite hillside modern places you in prime Highland Park with sweeping views and effortless urban access. Stepping gracefully up sloping topography, the spacious home presents a dramatic profile designed around the concepts of open flow and seamless integration with the outdoors. Custom wood and tile craftwork are abundant; the kitchen is outfitted with a center island, waterfall quartz countertops and a pro-grade appliance suite. Strategically located light-wells flood the home with sunlight. Second-level bedrooms access decks and an at-grade patio which transitions into a yard landscaped with native species”

Japanese architecture may be most closely associated with natural, lightweight materials like wood and paper, but Japan is also home to some of the world’s most incredible concrete architecture, and the two styles aren’t as disparate as they first appear. The nation’s love for a seemingly cold, unyielding material evolved out of resilience after war and natural disasters, and though the character of concrete contrasts with the organic sensibilities of tatami mats, shoji screens and hand-hewn timber, it’s not necessarily at odds with it.

Buildings in Japan are often engineered to be disposable, with an average lifespan of 25 years. Frequent earthquakes and high humidity take a heavy toll on architecture, without a doubt (though this limit was actually imposed by the country’s Land Ministry to boost the economy). Of course, not every building in Japan is razed for a new beginning after a seemingly arbitrary period of time – but the high turnover does increase demand for young architects, stimulating creative experimentation.

Japan first turned to concrete after the 1923 Great Kanto earthquake, in which 447,000 wooden houses burned. Depending on how it’s built, concrete isn’t necessarily more earthquake-proof than other materials (and earthquake building codes are still evolving today) but at least it won’t go up in flames. As it turns out, concrete is particularly well-suited to the region, offering thermal mass, resistance to moisture and versatility of form.

The devastation and subsequent Westernization of World War II ushered in a new wave of concrete while irrevocably changing Japan’s society and culture. Outside influences like the budding Brutalist architectural movement came crashing in, colliding with Japanese traditions. Le Corbusier’s National Museum of Western Art in Tokyo (1959) – his only building in the Far East – was completed with the assistance of Japanese apprentices, including Kunio Maekawa and Junzo Sakakura, and helped shape the more radical concrete architecture that was soon to come. Maekawa himself designed concrete landmarks like the Fukushima Education Center (1956).

The 1950s and 1960s brought a cascade of concrete wonders by outsiders and native Japanese architects alike, including Kenzo Tange’s Kurashiki City Hall (1957), Kiyonori Kikutake’s Sky House (1958) and Antonin Raymond’s Gunma Music Center (1961). It also saw the rise of Metabolism, Japan’s own Modernist answer to post-war rebuilding, which famously produced gems like Kisho Kurokawa’s Nakagin Capsule Tower (1972). The Olympic Games in 1964 further transformed Tokyo as scores of new buildings were commissioned, chief among them Tange’s sweeping Yoyogi National Gymnasium.

Critics of concrete architecture might say that its popularity during this period began to erode Japan’s cultural and religious connection to nature, citing particularly “harsh” examples like Toyo Ito’s windowless White U House, but others see it in a different light – literally. Early Japanese Modernists noted the way concrete retained the wooden imprint of its formwork, and how its sculptural qualities allowed them to frame natural surroundings and play with light and shadow in entirely new ways. Its simplicity implies a certain purity associated with Shinto philosophies.

This connection is clear in the work of Osaka-born self-taught architect Tadao Ando, who built on the metaphorical foundations of Kenzo Tange’s legacy. A master of concrete, Ando skillfully sets its rawness and asceticism against the stark brilliance of natural light. Even when a structure doesn’t seem to be part of the natural world, nature can be embedded deeply within it, especially when it acts as a cathedral to hold, uplift and celebrate it. For Ando, who blended the simplicity of concrete with Japanese traditions like tatami module layouts, it’s not unlike clay in the hands of an artist, achieving forms that simply aren’t possible in wood.

That same experimental spirit flows through contemporary concrete structures. Today, concrete enables architects to continue playing with unexpected shapes, unconventional layouts and dramatic cantilevers in spaces of domestic intimacy and somber reflection. From Ryue Nishizawa’s plant-framing Garden & House to the futuristic House in Abiko by Fuse-Atelier, the material continues to shine even in all its supposed dullness.

For more concrete wonders in Japan, check out the Concrete Tokyo Map by Blue Crow Media, which identifies 50 standout structures (including a few oft-overlooked examples.)

Top image: Shinjuku Ruriko-in Byakurenge-do by Kiyoshi-Sei Takeyama + Amorphe