new york, florence, and pisa.

New York, though designed by many people over long periods of time, looks beautiful because the grid layout of the streets were designed by a few engineers. The efficiency of the grid streets makes it beautiful. By contrast, the old cities like Rome and Florence are beautiful because there are single buildings that have ornate art on them. In New York, nobody builds those old beautiful buildings with gargoyles and flying buttresses on them… instead, they make glass and steel towers, which are ugly but efficient. These towers, combined with the street pattern, makes for a beautiful city. For a building designed by a lot of different people, look at the leaning tower of pisa. Later engineers tried to stabilize the place, and the result is that the building leans, and also curves to try to reduce the leaning. The place was re-designed so many times, even closed for renovation, to try to stabilize the structure. But the result is that the thing is ugly, and no additional pillars or bells or gargoyles can fix that.