My passionate hate for domes and circular designs in architecture
Since I was a child, I have always been interested in architecture. Each style conveys a message, and holds a piece of history that includes a story
about the social movement at that time*. I do like Greco-Roman, brutalist, and post-modernist architectures. Examples include the Austrian Parliament, the Portland Building, the Beverly Hills Civic Center, PPG Place, and Art Tower Mito, to name a few.
*: Examples include the abomination of soviet realism and AKhRR that has largely advocated for communistic heroism, which is a bastardization of actual artistic heroism (see The death of Socrates, 1787).
However, I claim that domes and circular designs do NOT belong to any architecture.
Buildings have sharp edges. Not only because they enclose the message of the design by having an end to the building which gives value to the message itself**, but also because edges are consistent on the nano- and macro-visual level. To be more specific, the molecular structure of sharp edges aligns with the visual intent. You can (theoretically, at least) have a 90deg angle on the molecular level and the visual level, which defines an edge.
By that definition, circular design is not consistent. You cannot have a circular design on the molecular level, but that message is not carried on the macro-visual level. There is a contradiction. In other words, circular designs insist upon themselves by claiming to be infinitely-sided, while they're physically not.
You cannot have an infinitely-sided structure on a physical level.
Additionally, if you were to draw some geometric construction lines to compartmentalize the building, domes and other circular stuff would be constructively isolated from the rest of the structure, appearing as an auxillary unneccessary piece to add a hypocritical message on a physical level.**: If you had a manifesto or a book that does not end, the content becomes meaningless. Having an end to a piece of art or literature encloses the message itself.
Even thinking about replacing domes with something else that conveys the same inconsistent message is like thinking about how would we replace a lump of cancer. Lumps of cancer should not exist! We should not replace domes with anything because we feel there is a gap in the conveyed message, because there is no gap!
In fact, the usage of domes to symbolize the sky or higher beings is an utter failure. It infantilizes the general public and advocates for more specious idealization of the divine. This is not an elitist take, but rather an acknowledgment of how reactionary we have become in regards to the artification of divinity and the silent conformity to the idea of using circular structures to symbolize the metaphysical.
Want to finalize the top of a building because you feel it's bald? TRIANGLES!!!