When Design Lost its Soul
Design has always been more than utility. For centuries, it was an outward expression of culture, identity, and the human imagination. Architecture once reached toward the heavens with ornate spires and gargoyles telling stories from above the streets. Automobiles once dripped with style, chrome grilles sculpted with pride and curves shaped as if they were rolling works of art. Everyday objects had presence, personality, individuality.
But look around today. Buildings rise like sterile glass monoliths, stripped of character. Cars glide by like indistinguishable pods, designed less to inspire and more to conform. What was once a craft infused with artistry has, in many ways, given way to a sterile minimalism. This isn’t the natural evolution of design, it’s the intentional subtraction of beauty. And in removing these flourishes, we’ve also chipped away at the joy of living among things that inspire.
Look at the architecture that defines our cities. If you travel through historic districts across Europe or even older American towns, you’ll see craftsmanship carved into brick and stone; intricate cornices, ornamented facades, windows framed with decorative ironwork. Even a row of modest townhouses built 150 years ago was rarely bland. Buildings were made to speak. They told you something about their time, their purpose, and their makers. Now look at the modern skyline of any major metropolitan area. Towers of anonymous glass and steel, box after box, piercing the horizon. While efficient and practical, they are also lifeless. The repetition feels deliberate, almost designed to erase distinctiveness. Every building looks like it could be picked up and transplanted into any city on Earth without changing its context.
Why is this happening? Modernism and minimalism once arose with noble intentions, to prioritize function, to clean design from unnecessary excess. It kicked off as an exciting change, but now it’s just become a bland style that everyone feels forced to follow. The aesthetic of “less” has been pushed so aggressively that it has extinguished the possibility of “more”. More storytelling, more cultural curiosity, more personality.
Automobiles are another striking example of this lifeless sameness, this purposeful extinction of beauty. Compare a mid-century Cadillac, Jaguar, or Alfa Romeo with many of today’s vehicles. Cars from the 1950s and 60s seemed almost alive with their sweeping fins, defined curves and chrome grilles shaped like jewelry. A car was not just transportation, it was aspiration on wheels, a moving sculpture representing both individuality and joy. Fast forward to today. The road is filled with SUVs shaped by wind tunnels into identical aerodynamic blobs. Sleek, yes. Efficient, yes. But soulless. Even luxury brands now struggle to differentiate their styling. One crossover looks nearly indistinguishable from the next, reduced to a formula of screens, touch panels, and smooth, futuristic panels that resist distinctive character. Perhaps no vehicle embodies this design void more than Tesla’s Cybertruck. Heralded as “radical,” it is radical only in its ugliness. Its cold, angular geometry feels like a parody of progress, a child’s sketch left unfinished in stainless steel. A literal rolling dumpster. Where automobiles once exuded warmth, aspiration, and one might even argue sexiness, the Cybertruck showcases design as shock value, not as beauty. It is not a machine meant to inspire pride or attachment, it is an unappealing design dressed up as innovation. This uniformity is not accidental. Automakers deliberately pursue designs that “offend no one.” The risk of standing out, of experimenting with wild form, is too economically dangerous. What’s left is a marketplace of muted silhouettes and grayscale palettes. A category that once symbolized the freedom of the open road now looks as imaginative as conveyor-belt sushi.
Many will argue that minimalism represents progress, with cleaner lines, digital simplicity and the stripping away of waste. But step back and reflect on the effect of this philosophy when applied relentlessly across industries. It not only produces objects that lack originality, it also reshapes our relationship to the physical world. I understand that when items are stripped to their barest essence, they can also be manufactured more cheaply, replicated at scale, and replaced with little attachment from the consumer. Understanding basic business, I get that. However, over time, this philosophy has caused us to fall into a mindset where we don’t repair or cherish our devices or tools anymore. We simply see them just as placeholders until the newer, slightly thinner version arrives. A person used to be proud to keep their grandfather’s radio, but who will say the same of a faceless black Bluetooth speaker with no personality?
When we wake up each day and walk through neighborhoods of same-looking apartment blocks, drive cars that blend indistinguishably into one another, and work in offices defined by anonymity, something vital in our spirit begins to shrink. Beauty makes us pause. It uplifts. It gives shape to memories. It says, this building, this vehicle, this object, was made with care by human hands and imagination. When design reduces everything to impersonal functionality, life itself feels flat, gray, and stripped of meaning.
Now, don’t get me wrong, we need not reject all simplicity. Clean lines and uncluttered elegance have their place. The problem emerges when those qualities become the only language allowed. Imagine cities where contemporary buildings included playful ornament, where architects felt empowered to weave symbolism back into stone and glass. Picture vehicles designed not solely in deference to aerodynamics, but as rolling canvases once more, daring to be flamboyant, daring to project imagination. Consider everyday objects, phones, lamps, chairs, that don’t merely vanish into environments, but stand proudly as artifacts with distinct identity.
Everyday objects have become sterile, mass-produced, exchangeable. And through it all, we, the humans who live among these things, have lost just a little bit more of the color and wonder that makes life worth savoring. I’m not suggesting that we have to make a complete return to the past, but a courageous reimagining of what design could be if allowed to embrace creativity again. Because a life without beauty is ultimately a life without nourishment for the soul. And slowly, we are starving.
