There are two schools of thought: those that think that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and those that think, like Steve Jobs famously quipped, that some people just have no good taste.There certainly aren't just two schools of thought. A third school would that a variety of aesthetics exist each serving a different purpose and each requiring some small or large amount of study to appreciate and each providing a somewhat different level of reward to those that study it - none of these are better or worse but learning none at is bad (like cuisines - even fast food can have its charms but fast food all the time is sad and unhealthy, etc). Some paintings are both immediately striking and can offer more as you study them but other might have just one or the other quality.
As far as the article goes, urban architecture has gone from traditional to high modernist to the present fair. The thing about, say, a building by one of the "great" modernist architects is it (usually) provides a fits organically with the environment quality while also providing more rewards and still offer a given place a "sense of place". Oppositely, a cheap contemporary building offers at best, only blending with the environment, it's only camouflage and some completely eliminates a sense of place from around the building. Ironically, the main way one can get a sense of place today through the truly bad examples of contemporary architecture, thing that fail as camouflage and stand out like a sort thumb.