"Geometrical fundamentalism" aims to impose simple geometrical solids such as cubes, pyramids, and rectangular slabs on the built environment. This defines a characteristic of twentieth-century architecture and planning. The more complex, connective geometry found in pre-twentieth-century architecture and in the architecture of traditional cultures is destroyed. Geometrical fundamentalism is in part responsible for the resentment the rest of the world feels against the industrialized western nations, because it replaces traditional buildings and cities with structures that are perceived as alien. A philosophy about geometrical shapes thus has an enormous socio-economic impact, by generating forces against globalization. The modernist movement promised a radical new utopian society based on a fundamentalist belief in elementary abstractions, which created the now-familiar global ills of environmental disorder.
www.math.utsa.edu/ftp/salingar.old/fundamentalism.html