The history of art appreciation shows that each generation has been unsuccessful in forecasting which current styles will eventually become admired. Many new works – be they ballet, opera, music, architecture, sculpture or painting – have been subject to ridicule from experts and amateurs, only to achieve the admired acclaim of subsequent generations.

The prolonged ridicule and rejection of the Impressionists, the vociferous objections of the Parisian artistic elite to the Eiffel Tower and Christopher Wren's belief that the architecture of the pointed arch, the flying buttress and soaring fan-vaulting was.

The product of a crude and cultureless society without artistic merit are some of the more notable examples of the unreliability of instant artistic judgment. Architecture is perhaps the artistic branch most vulnerable to society's instant and widespread judgment. History illustrates just how wrong it can be in its conclusions.