In times of economic and ecological frugality, is there still room for excess? While it can sometimes be condemned for the costs it generates and the environmental footprint it leaves, excess in architecture is also, in some ways, the last bastion of creativity. Without excess, there would be no Brasília and no Sagrada Família, nor Al‐Khazneh or Córdoba, Pompidou Centre in Paris or Chrysler Building in New York. Without excess, no Louvre Abu Dhabi nor Elbphilharmonie. Whether bigness, classicism, boldness, ambition, delirium or exaggeration, excess, so condemnable today, is missing in this hour of sacrosanct frugality. Without it, what would become of avant‐gardes?