Why Aren’t All Buildings Beautiful?
Introduction
Have you ever asked yourself this question? Probably not. We generally accept that, on this earth, there is beauty and ugliness, just as there is good and evil – the one extreme making the other extreme easier to identify.
With this question as our topic, we presented a seminar at the OAA/RAIC Ottawa Conference, in May 2017. I wish I could tell you that we provided a definitive answer, but the best we could do was to come up with some encouraging leads. And thanks to our extremely animated audience, we also came up with new areas to explore.
True to our mission, we are looking at the question from two different viewpoints: a subjective angle (beauty is purely a personal matter) and an objective angle (it may be personal, but there is some solid science behind it). Whether you agree with our arguments or not, we hope that you will be encouraged to think about the question as often as possible.
A Subjective Angle
Do all buildings need to be beautiful? And, if so, who should decide what’s beautiful and what isn’t?
Ian Ellingham and I have been looking into this question for about a decade – Ian possibly longer – and finally, about five years ago, with the help of several other writers and researchers, we tackled the subject head on in a collection of essays: “Why Are (Some) Buildings so Ugly?”1
We weren’t aiming to eradicate ugly buildings, and to make sure that all buildings would be beautiful from now on – as if that were a realistic, or even a desirable goal – we were a lot more interested in finding ways to reconcile the difference between what pleases the general public (who aren’t afraid to call our work “ugly,” if they feel so inclined) and what pleases architects (who are more comfortable with words like “challenging,” and “thought-provoking”).
The topic is chronically under-discussed. But we felt then, and feel now, that an open conversation would help us, as a profession to understand why people might regard some of our work as ugly. After all, no architect sets out to design ugly buildings. That would seem to be counterproductive, possibly hostile. And yet ….
Architecture Should Never Be Reduced to a Discussion of How Buildings Look
Always live in the ugliest house on the street – then you don’t have to look at it.
– David Hockney
David Hockney’s statement depends on two poor assumptions. First, since ugliness, like beauty, is skin deep, it should follow that, in architecture, ugly is what you see on the outside, not what you experience on the inside. Second, ugliness is universal, so although beauty is a personal matter, ugliness is not: If you find something ugly, everyone else should too.
In reality, architectural design is extremely complex, involving an unbelievably broad range of considerations, of which beauty is one. Yet, there is a constant tendency, especially in the popular press and social media, to limit the discussion to nice versus nasty. Buildings are either beautiful or ugly, otherwise they aren’t noticed or discussed at all.
Should Architecture be Comforting of Confrontational?
Architecture may be an art – possibly even the mother of the arts.2 Many people think so. But if it is, then according to prevailing opinion, established a century ago, it has to invite an intellectual challenge. Edginess is in, cuteness and quaintness are out. Architects struggle over these competing ideals, but the wider majority is not conflicted at all: they prefer not to have their intellect challenged.
Artistic movements at the beginning of the twentieth century set out to liberate art from the constraints of beauty. It was a time of industrial progress. New icons such as automobiles and airplanes possessed a raw appeal that made beauty and style – the preoccupations of classical revival and art nouveau – seem frivolous. From now on, art wasn’t just a matter of personal taste. It was something that involved work.
In our Ottawa seminar, I asked the audience the following two questions:
How many think that a work of art should be comforting, and how many feel that it should be challenging? Show of hands – one choice only please.
How many believe that architecture is an art, and how many believe that it is a science? In this case you can make two choices. How many believe that it is both art and science?
Not surprisingly, the majority of attendees felt that art should be challenging. This coincides with research indicating that people with some art education (“experienced” viewers) hold this opinion, while those with little or no art education (“naïve” viewers – i.e., the vast majority of the general public) opt for comforting. The Ottawa audience consisted almost entirely of art-educated architects.
To the second question, the response was mixed, but the audience felt, on balance, that architecture was both an art and a science.
This is leads to the basic architectural conundrum: The public prefers attractive buildings, which means, by general consensus, that they should be pleasing to look at. But if architecture is an art, it is not required to be beautiful at all. And if it is a science, then aesthetics, by most definitions, is not even a consideration. Yet, the discussion of beauty and ugliness continues to dominate our relationship with the general public.
Beauty is Not Entirely in the Eye of the Beholder
We don’t all like the same things. Mostly, this can be chalked up to personal preference (I like it because I like it). But over the past two decades, research scientists have developed ways of predicting how we will respond to aesthetic stimuli. Simply put, scientists can tell us how to design buildings that people will like.3
Since the discussion of architectural aesthetics has acquired a fairly recent scientific pedigree, it is no longer possible – or useful – to discuss beauty in purely subjective terms. As one New Yorker cartoon put it: “I don’t know much about art, but I know what I’m supposed to like.”
Science is the pursuit of quantifying things. Everything can be counted. If you can’t count it, it may not actually exist. Even beauty can be counted. Art, on the other hand, is the pursuit of experience – counting doesn’t lead to beauty therefore, according to some poets and mathematicians, not to truth. For more on this subject, be sure to read Ian’s Objective Angle, starting on page 14.
How Buildings are Discussed Affects How They are Perceived
Architects and laypeople have very different ways of thinking about and talking about architecture. There is too little common ground and insufficient common language. This makes the general public feel ignored, as though architects live in a separate world. If a goal of the profession is to open the dialogue between professionals and non-professionals, then our best hope is to establish, at the very least, a mutually understood language.
Ultimately, our goal is not necessarily to distinguish beauty from ugliness, but to find out why some buildings, especially those that architects seem to like, are perceived as ugly by members of the general population. Is it possible that by improving our communication, we can improve perceptions of our work and, ultimately, of our profession?
A Quick Refresher on Architectural Discussion
For over two millennia, architects have had the same mantra: firmitas, utilitas et venustas, or “make it stand up, make it useful, make it nice.” Later, Sir Henry Wotton translated venustas as delight, which was inspirational, but inaccurate. Venustas refers to physical beauty (the quality of the goddess Venus). Buildings, according to Vitruvius and to architects for the next two millennia, have to look good.
1. firmitas, utilitas et venustas
2,000 years ago, Marcus Vitruvius Pollio in his work De Architectura, proposed that good architecture possessed these three fundamental virtues, later translated into English as “firmness, commodity and delight.” This template has endured into the 21st century.
2. Until the late 19th century, architecture was a popular topic of discussion.
At the time that Canada became a country, architectural discussion revolved around styles and ideals of beauty. Anyone could – and did – participate in the discussion.
3. Early in the 20th century, beauty became detached from art.
Now, discussions about art and architecture became the private domain of philosophers, artists and architects.
4. Architecture and design became attached to utility.
Beauty became a function of usefulness, not artistic tastes. Form followed function. Many architectural movements ensued.
5. Postmodernism pushed back.
Among its accomplishments, Postmodernism reintroduced building aesthetics. The discussion of appearances resumed within the profession, but the general public didn’t know what to think.
6. New architectural forms continue to challenge conventional ideas about beauty.
Other considerations, including sustainability, experiential design, branding, etc. introduce ideals that are neither conventionally aesthetic nor necessarily functional. New forms are experimental and “challenging.” The public remains alienated and baffled.
Public Vocabulary
One of the things that caught our attention when we first started researching this topic, was the language that laypeople are prepared to use when describing buildings they don’t like. When they like a building, they tend not to talk about at all.
In 1989, HRH The Prince of Wales added a royal dimension to the discussion when he famously described the proposed extension to the National Gallery in London as something resembling “a monstrous carbuncle on the face of a much loved and elegant friend.”
Clearly, Prince Charles exercised great care in selecting the word “carbuncle.” A carbuncle is beyond ugly – better described as hideous and grotesque. “Ugly,” on the other hand, is a word more suitable for commoners to use. It is a short, powerful word that adds little to a conversation. Instead, it replaces conversation with a summary judgment. Ugly is not a word that architects use.
Here are a few “ugly” comments from the popular press:
Monumentalism gone monumentally wrong, this hubristic conceit…is one of Montreal’s biggest eyesores. Beauty may be only skin deep, but ugliness, at least in this case, goes from top to bottom.”
– Christopher Hume, in Mark Kearney and Randy Ray eds. Canadian Book of Lists. Toronto: The Dundurn Group, 1999, referring to Montreal’s Olympic Stadium by Roger Taillibert, 1976
Last week, for the first time in months, my work responsibilities took me to Bloor St. I walked along, aghast at the ugly, cheap-looking monstrosity…”
– Nicholas Mawer, Toronto, May 5, 2007, The Toronto Star, referring to the Michael Lee Chin Crystal at the ROM in Toronto
With the addition of words like “hubristic,” “eyesores” and “monstrosity,” the discussion is easy to recognize as visceral, rather than intellectual. As columnist John Barber points out, it’s not so much the buildings that are ugly, it’s the discussion.
Name That Building
At the Ottawa seminar, we presented the audience with a quiz. Which well-known historical buildings have been described as follows:
“It is to be regretted that ages are likely to elapse before [it] will fall down.”
“A toilet bowl,” “A hangar for flying saucers,” “an inverted potty”
“The back of a refrigerator, “a $200 million erector set”
Described as “useless and monstrous,” a well-known writer often ate lunch there, because it was the only place where he could avoid looking at it.
“an architectural joke, an eyesore, an anachronistic intrusion [...] and a megalomaniacal folly”
“Sweet jeezly nonsense”
See answers at end.
Professional Vocabulary
When it comes to furthering architectural discussion, architects are often even less successful than the general public. Where the public resorts to visceral, emotional, sometimes aggressive language, the profession falls back on alienating intellectuality.
Here are a few examples:
… a vibrant typological experiment, transforming the intellectual/social agitator.
– World Architecture News
The experience of the park will change not only relative to environmental or seasonal doctrines, but also relative to economic or industrial doctrines.
– A competition entry
This speculative section anticipates necessary organizational strategies based on prior analysis, hybridization and successional anticipations.
– A competition entry
These are just a few examples of professional and academic language that seems designed to obscure, rather than explain. In the worst cases, architectural language can be counter-persuasive. Does “a vibrant typological experiment” sound like something you want to live across the street from? Examples like this appear in publications and public presentations all the time.
The danger in using architectural language goes slightly further than merely excluding the public from the discussion. It also sometimes reveals that the very process of design can be alienating. Words intended to advertise a building’s virtues may instead make it sound unsettling.
Even worse, fanciful architectural jargon can sometimes lull designers into believing that they are producing something quite marvellous, which in the context of the language being used, it may well be. But to the layman, without the big words, and without the architectural theory behind those words, it’s just another ugly building.
There is therefore an onus on architecture to communicate in a way that, while it may be appreciated on many levels, is accessible, rather than conceived in a private language that only the cognoscenti can appreciate.
– Christian Illies and Nicholas Ray, in “An Aesthetic Deontology,” Architecture Philosophy, Vol. 2, No. 1
Ethical Considerations
Do architects bear any ethical responsibility to create “pleasant” buildings, or to at least think about it?
There is a funny thing about taste. When we see something we find ugly, we don’t just view it as unpleasant, or even intellectually disturbing. We often experience an emotional response: this isn’t right; it’s making me angry. Aesthetic judgments, it seems, are linked to a personal moral code of right and wrong. Creating an unattractive building is like public rudeness, or thoughtless behaviour. It affects our sense of justice and morality (there is also research to back this up). This is why we sometimes resort to language that is equally rude, such as “ugly,” “toilet bowl,” or “monstrous carbuncle.”
In the Architecture Philosophy essay quoted above, Illies and Ray argue for an “Obligation to Accessible Beauty.” In a nutshell (with apologies for reducing their welldeveloped argument), the authors suggest that if the goal of architecture is to address human needs, it must consider all legitimate human needs.
To their description of five varieties of beauty in architecture – formal, functional, contextual, time related and intellectual – they add the following:
[…] the Obligation to Beauty can also be supported by a moral argument of a different variety, one motivated by a concern for human well-being. If we (morally) must promote human well-being, then this includes all human needs and desires. After all, that is why buildings should be functional – because as vulnerable, dependent animals, we need a safe and warm and healthy place to live.
– Ilies and Ray
Conclusions
There are no easy answers to the questions that are raised when we discuss architecture and beauty. But maybe the questions that have been raised will lead to a clearer understanding of the issues involved. As my fifth-year design professor repeatedly told us: a problem clearly stated is half-solved.
How much should architects care about how their buildings will be perceived by the general public? Do we have an obligation of any kind professional, social or moral?
In the 21st century, is architecture (among other things) an art form? If so, it should hallenge its audience. What about the many millions who are unwilling participants in this art lesson, and would prefer not to be challenged?
What became of firmness, commodity and delight? Do they still apply, and are they listed in the right order?
Unavoidably, architects think about buildings in a different way than most people do. This is a very good thing, because architects identify problems and explore possibilities that escape other people. The question is: how can these concerns be conveyed to the general public without sounding pompous and aloof?
Is it possible to devise a common vocabulary that would allow architects and the public to elevate the discussion beyond the visual aspects of architecture, to the emotional, intellectual, moral and spiritual dimensions, without offending or alienating each other?
Can we ever return to those days, at the end of the nineteenth century, when architecture was on everyone’s mind and no one felt uncomfortable discussing it?
References
1. OAA Perspectives, Fall, 2012.
2. A claim attributed to Frank Lloyd Wright
3. For example, in 2003, the Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture began exploring “neuro-architecture” as a way to connect neuroscience and the study of behavioural responses to the built environment. (www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00866/full)
Answers to Quiz
Too bad it won’t fall down: The Washington Monument, Washington DC, 1885, by Robert Mills and Thomas Lincoln Casey. The quotation is from the American Architect and Building News. –Page 8
An inverted potty: Guggenheim Museum, New York, 1959, by Frank Lloyd Wright. Quotations are from http://listverse.com/2010/10/21/10-notable-buildings-people-hated/ –Page 12
The back of a refrigerator: Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, 1977, by Piano and Rogers. Quotations are from http://listverse, op. cit. –Page 12
The only place you don’t have to look at it: Eiffel Tower, Paris, 1889, by Gustave Eiffel. The story, regarding Guy de Maupassant, has been widely reported and frequently misattributed. Prior to construction, Maupassant and 46 other Parisian literary and artistic notables sent a letter of protest to the Minister of Public Works. (WIKI) –Page 11
An architectural joke: The Louvre Pyramid, Paris, 1989, by I.M.Pei. The quotation is from “Louvre Pyramid: The Folly that Became a Triumph,” Elizabeth Evitts Dickinson, 2017 AIA Honor Awards –Page 13
Sweet Jeezly nonsense: Sagrada Família, Barcelona, 1882–2010, by Antonio Gaudí. The quotation is by Professor James Acland, taken from my first year architectural history notes, U of T, 1962. –Page 9