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Complete PICLE corpus of essays by Polish advanced EFL students (330,000)
/^t/Surprisingly enough, on the verge of the 21st century people also find themselves emptied of their creative abilities. Computers perform a lot of work for us so we do not have to think but just press the buttons. Shops are filled with 'ready-to-eat' food so we do not have to devise our own recipes but just switch on a microwave oven. However, some do believe scientific development fosters human creativity. They say that special Computer Aided Design (CAD) programmes help to visualise architectural designs better. But, even if thanks to technology, new improved construction materials continue to be invented and higher and higher buildings erected, does it really mean that technological development encourages creativity? Not necessarily. If, again, we investigate the last one hundred years in the history of architecture, we will soon discover that, in fact, as technological development progressed the quality of architectural design started to decline. The Eiffel Tower - a famous Parisian landmark and technological masterpiece in building-construction history - may serve as a good example here. Built of wrought iron in 1889, the construction aroused a lot of scepticism and no little opposition on aesthetic grounds. For the next few years the tower was considered the ugliest construction in the world. But we do not really have to date back to the late nineteenth century when the development of building construction was still at a relatively low level in comparison with the one we have today. The evidence of our poor creative abilities is to be found all around us - blocks of flats we are living in, those simple boxes made of reinforced concrete, speak for themselves.