No Ads Add Peace

On screen one day, there was a picture of a vast hall with a ceiling high above. In its lofty upper spaces, there were cupolas ringed with decorative borders and lighting that spread a gentle aura of quiet peace. Below, the marble flooring was great circular rings in shades of cream laced with pale green. Pillars lined endless halls that disappeared into a dim perspective beyond. The walls were large silver shingle tiles spilling down to what were rails. Aha, I thought,  a railroad station! It could have been a royal ballroom for all of its glowing creamy beauty. Why did I love this elegant sweep of marble hall? What made it appealing?  And then I realized there was not a single sign. You and I have seen spacious stations in the world that, even when filled with hoards of people passing and crossing their large venues, they seem to absorb footsteps and voices and the general clatter of travel in their palatial expanses. But what if all the people were gone, would they still inspire in us,  their artistic genius? Not if, as in most major stations, they have a myriad of signage everywhere spotting the walls and spoiling the visual peace. Not the signs that inform travelers of times and locations, but of silly matters such as where to dine and who is starring and what kind of thing to eat or drink or wear. This miasma of trivial print and picture ruins one's right to enjoy a building that was carefully engineered to welcome visitors and offer memorable farewell to those leaving. We plaster the walls with inane advertising for things we aren't at all interested in as we go rapidly along. We read the clutter of ads out of a natural reaction to become informed. But this heap of signage trash that comes at us from every public place and transportation vehicle, not only invades our eyes but also our psyches and we seem to have no sense to try and end it. Think how fine it would be if all advertisements in public places were banned. Think that we could actually see what we pay for. And yes, we all pay for the stations and buses and trains and streets in tickets and passes and taxes. It's ours and yet we ignore how ugly signs are. Unless they are specifically for your safety or useful information, they are simply a visual nuisance. I hear you say, but we are a free enterprise society and this is how commerce makes it. I say, no thanks. Keep your ads where ads should be, not shouting at me from the architecture. I want to see structures in their entirety, what the designers want us to enjoy. There are now entire high rise buildings covered with see-through netting that plasters our eye sweep with the faces of actors and chocolate bars and politicians. I experienced this first, in Eastern Europe travelling down main streets and boulevards with  horrendously large netted ads that completely hid buildings that lay behind. Where were the historical monumental building fronts we all came to experience? They were hidden behind chocolate bars five stories high and mugs of actors ten stories tall. Think of the peace and silent joy in a world without ads assaulting our visual landscape? We deserve to know the verticals, horizontals and scope of our visual man-made views as they were created for us to appreciate. When will we get that purity back? Or do we care?