Reputations

I'm reading a reprint of the 2nd edition of Theodore Redpath's discussion of John Donne's "songs and sonets." One remarkable thing is how low Donne's reputation sank in the 19th century, almost falling out of the canon. Yet he now ranks as one of the landmarks of English poetry and prose, up there with Shakespeare and Milton. This made me think about architecture: what remains or is allowed to remain. In England, a considerable part of the built legacy of the postwar period - some arguably monstrous buildings by our current lights - is being demolished. Will the surviving remnants find adherents later, regretting the lapse in taste of an intervening generation, or are these buildings no longer useful? In a talk I heard last week, DEGW's Frank Duffy said that a building is "built time" - that is, it embodies a useful life. And the useful lives of many postwar buildings were often very short.