"Mechanistic contemporary style"

"I would argue . . . that our mechanistic contemporary style is based on the same Victorian presuppositions that undergirded the Gothic revival more than a century ago: it results, that is, from a self-conscious attempt by the architect to invent a style that will express what he presumes to be the unifying spirit of his age and that will at the same time (paradoxically enough) propagate and inculcate that same spirit in a recalcitrant populace which grievously lacks it and reveals, instead, a distressing inclination toward the emotional irrationalities of nationalism and of war."

Norris Kelly Smith, "Frank Lloyd Wright: A Study in Architectural Content," 1966.

The buildings in the photos are from around the same time as this book. Smith's quote, in context, is dismissive of this project and of the architecture that is the result of it.