Making architecture easy

Since at least the nineteenth century, debate has intermittently flared up around the question of what styles of architecture we should build. Surely a style's being old per se is not the thing that matters? If a new style were invented that had all the merits of the old styles, and that enjoyed their broad and deep popularity, surely any sensible traditionalist should be in favour of it? This is of course a continuum rather than a binary, and it allows that an easy style may encompass the odd challenging work, and a challenging style the odd easy one. What a volume builder or a minor architect needs is a style that is easy to use, with repeatable elements and straightforward compositional rules of thumb - a style that is easy to get right without genius or even talent. An easy style, enjoyable on a basic level with minimal effort, is naturally suited to this; a challenging style, opaque and perhaps forbidding without work from its audience, is less so. What makes an easy style? There is no short answer to this question. The case for easy styles is perhaps best summarised by returning to a comparison with music.