The Future of Web Design is Hidden in the History of Architecture

Ornate and mesmerizing

Gothic architecture transformed stone into gravity-defying spectacles. 

CSS and Flash were the stained glass of web design. Once the fundamentals were in place, we started pushing materials beyond their reasonable limits. The early Flash and CSS sites amazed us with pixels.

Clean, logical, and precise

Renaissance architecture called for a return to Classical logic. Simple geometric forms replaced ornate complexity. Designs became cleaner.

It’s magical how alike the recent “flat design ” movement is to the Renaissance.  

Twisting all the rules

Being logical and precise is entertaining for only so long. Eventually, we’ll just start breaking rules. In architecture that meant breaking Classic elements and twisting them into complex forms. Baroque designs were emotional and theatric.

Harkening back to the past

Everything eventually comes full circle. Once we progress enough, we start to glorify our Classical beginnings and go full retro. 

Neoclassical web design is a ways ahead. The old Yahoo website still looks so wanting to us, not sacred. But in a few year's time, it’ll be cool again. 

After neoclassical, It will likely be some kind of Neoromanesque or Neogothic. Something Neo. Art continually repeats itself in the form of revivals. 

Eventually, new technology and a new worldview will change everything to such an extent that we can’t even imagine it today. 

Western architecture can teach us about the evolution of web design. They are both forms of art, and both progressed similarly, building on the past and reacting to it.

The following factors define both.

• They both serve as places where other people visit.
• They're engineered to do a practical job.
• The evolution of technology limits this engineering.
• They're still art.

Simple, limited structures define this era. It was quite something to get the structures in place.

The World Wide Web also started off as a very simple structure.