ABSTRACT
Despite the City Beautiful movement, aesthetic considerations have always been problematic in American land use planning. They involve questions of preference and taste on which opinions differ, as the following examples illustrate:
The American Institute of Architects’ choice of the best builder’s house of 1950 was refused a mortgage by the Federal Housing Administration. Again, the Veterans Administration imposed a $1000 design penalty on an architect-designed house in Tulsa, Oklahoma, that House and Home had displayed on its 1954 cover. The Pruitt-Igoe public housing, which starred in a TV vehicle when HUD Secretary George Romney had it blown up, had won an architectural award in its day.
