A phenomenon which rapidly expanded with the rise of the architectural style made dominant in the '50s and '60's by Le Corbusier. Upon visiting Manhattan, Le Corbusier said the skyscrapers were too small, and would probably still think so. He preferred huge projects with simple geometric design. This combination of size and shape led to buildings, and whole urban areas, being designed without forethought to how form should follow function. The result was often that large parcels of space, both inside and outside of buildings, served no immediate purpose. The best example of this style that I know of (although it was not designed by Le Corbusier) is Boston City Hall. It is a hulk of a building on stilts, made up of squares and rectangles, in the middle of an expansive concrete savannah that once was a neighborhood of meandering narrow streets much like the nearby North End.