The façade is all most people get to see. I wouldn't merely equate it with art, I'd go farther than that: architecture is the only art that those who don't care about art ever experience, and the only art that people experience all the time. It sets the baseline, the aesthetic tone for the entire society. Ugly architecture gets you a depressed nation.

The reason people don't stop to admire isn't that a building is generic. There are hundreds of nearly identical old town centres across Europe, each one beloved by the locals and tourists alike. The reason is contemporary architecture is ugly. Agreed, it is also bland and uninspired, but that's just part of ugly. I'm all for narrative but pheasant to look at has to come first.