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of  Architecture (ISPA). The society was founded in 2009 by Carolyn Fahey, and the 
journal was first published in 2014 by Tom Spector, Carolyn Fahey, Stefan Koller.

Architecture Philosophy proudly acknowledges the financial support from the Oklahoma 
State University School of  Architecture and the College of  Engineering Architecture 
and Technology that makes free distribution of  print copies possible. The journal 
also acknowledges the support from the Oklahoma State University Library for 
making the submission management software, the journal’s online presence, and its 
indexing in academic search engines a reality. 

Architecture Philosophy (ISSN 2372-0883) is published semiannually. Two parts form a 
volume. The subscription is free for digital copies, and print copies are available to 
society members at ISPA events. Visit isparchitecture.com for digital access to the 
journal’s content. 

The graphical layout of  the journal and the cover design are by Carolyn Fahey. The 
cover photo is by Tom Spector.

Copying
This journal is copyrighted by Oklahoma State University. For permission requests 
please contact the ISPA at isparchitecture@gmail.com.

© Oklahoma State University

Printed in the United States by Oklahoma State University.



Managing Editor
Tom Spector, Ph.D., University of  California - Berkeley

Editors
Carolyn Fahey, Ph.D., Newcastle University
Stefan Koller, Ph.D., Delft University of  Technology

Editorial Board
Philosophy
Rebecca Bensen-Cain, Ph.D., University of  California - Santa Barbara
Rafael de Clercq, Ph.D., Catholic University Leuven 
Noël Carroll, Ph.D., University of  Illinois
Paul Guyer, Ph.D., Harvard University
Christian Illies, Ph.D., University of  Oxford
Jeff  Malpas, Ph.D., Australian National University

Architecture
Andrew Ballantyne, Ph.D., University of  Sheffield
Ufuk Erosy, Ph.D., University of  Pennsylvania
Helen Mallinson, Ph.D., London Consortium
David Leatherbarrow, Ph.D., University of  Essex 
Graham Owen, M.Des., Harvard University
Nicholas Ray, M.A., University of  Cambridge

Contact
Web isparchitecture.com
Email isparchitecture@gmail.com



CONTENTS

Nathaniel Coleman 157The Myth of  Autonomy

135Editorial

139Noël CarrollArchitecture and Ethics: 
Autonomy, Aesthetics, Art

179Christoph BaumbergerThe Ethical Criticism of  
Architecture: In Defence of  
Moderate Moralism

247Interview: Andrew Ballantyne

231Paul GuyerMonism and Pluralism: The 
History of  Aesthetics and the 
Philosophy of  Architecture 

198Mark JensenAristotle, Autonomy, and Design 

214Felipe LoureiroThe Image in Power: Vilém 
Flusser and the craft of  
architecture

252Call for Papers: Wittgenstein 
Symposium



isparchitecture.com

Like the inaugural issue last summer, 
the present issue owes the lion’s share of  its 
contributions to an international conference 
held by the International Society for the Philosophy 
of  Architecture, the society behind Architecture 
Philosophy. Entitled ‘Autonomy Reconsidered’, 
the conference raised a host of  questions to 
both disciplines, indeed calling the disciplines 
to join their efforts in answering them:

Contemporary philosophy and architecture 
discourse alike marginalize the ethical dimension 
of  architecture.  Yet, it seems that the ethical 
dimension in both architecture and philosophy 
has been compromised because both disciplines 
have not established a clear interdisciplinary 
understanding of  autonomy. Together, and in 
service to both fields of  study, we must reconsider 
what autonomy means for both architecture and 
philosophy, or rather, for architecture philosophy.

Without consideration to design intent, societal 
(at times, utopian) agendas and programs, 
architecture is still largely deemed to be ethically 
‘neutral’ or silent. But is architecture ethically 
neutral? Is it ethically silent? Can ethical 
evaluation of  designs and built objects operate 
autonomously from evaluation of  the human 
agents that create them? Can a designer’s activity 
be considered autonomous, and hence allow for 
questions of  attribution and responsibility? 
Once we isolate the architectural, landscape, or 
urban designer from outside pressures, and only 
focus on her core métier – to what extent is 

Philosophy 
and architecture 

discourse alike 
marginalize the 

ethical dimension of 
architecture

“

”

AUTONOMY RECONSIDERED

CAROLYN FAHEY, STEFAN KOLLER & TOM SPECTOR



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that isolated activity autonomous? And if  an architect’s actions cannot 
be autonomous, would architecture stop having to answer to itself ?

Philosophical ethics has opened its purview beyond human action to 
animal ethics and environmental ethics, but has not yet found a way 
to expand its existing reflections to designed objects, particularly built 
ones. Perhaps in parallel to ethics, contemporary aesthetics discusses 
the moral repercussions of  art works with clear representational 
content – socially critical novels, figurative paintings – but has not paid 
closer attention to architecture. Is the lack of  attention in aesthetics 
due to architecture’s representational content being elusive, or because 
architecture’s aesthetic appraisal is taken to proceed autonomously from 
moral considerations? How would architecture be considered otherwise? 

1 

The conference’s call went on to, “invit[e] papers which probe these 
questions, or re-draw the assumptions behind them.” 

2 It is in that 
spirit that we present to readers the opening contribution, a keynote 
at that conference. In “The Myth of  Autonomy,” Nathaniel Coleman 
exposes and dissects foundational myths that, he argues, drive 
various autonomy projects in architecture to this day. Such projects, 
Coleman argues, operate on assumptions that cannot be upheld, and 
presuppose the unavailability of  architecture’s live relation to the 
social and the ethical. That unavailability comes into stark question 
once architecture’s relation to utopia is reconsidered: not autonomy, 
but its great other, merits reconsideration if  we are to redraw present 
day assumptions. Coleman’s authoritative tour de force across the 
prominent figures in today’s autonomy debates in architecture sets the 
stage for the journal issue more widely. Its claim that philosophers’ 
(especially Kantian) notions of  ‘autonomy’ are of  limited use in 
such concerns should certainly not stand unanswered for long.

Tackling the call for papers’ challenges to the philosophical 
community head-on, Noël Carroll and Christoph Baumberger 
also argue against the self-insulation of  architecture from ethical 
considerations, as Coleman does. Yet, they appear more conservative 
about the means required to get us there, while disagreeing between 
themselves on those means – thus inaugurating the proliferation of  
viewpoints and arguments this journal seeks to promote. Carroll and 
Baumberger’s implicit disagreements are delicate precisely because 
both authors are driven to a similar position: ‘moderate moralism’. 
Moderate moralism is a position Carroll himself  coined and 
developed for various art forms, but never before for architecture. 
The position’s validity – especially its claim to an internal relation 



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of  architecture to ethical values – both 
authors remind us, has vast consequences 
for how we build and design. Autonomism, 
once again, is found to be unsupportable. 
Will no one stand up for its defense?

This brings us to the papers of  Mark Jensen 
and Felipe Loureiro. Jensen considers autonomy 
from a different point of  departure. What, he 
asks, if  autonomy were primarily concerned, not 
with the status of  the object, but with the status 
of  its producers? Could their relative autonomy 
be an important determinant of  the quality 
of  the built environment? To consider these 
questions, Jensen draws from Aristotle’s ethics 
as a framework. Felipe Loureiro’s essay on the 
applicability of  philosopher of  media Vilém 
Flusser’s ideas to architectural images engages 
the topic of  autonomy indirectly by examining 
the increasing opaqueness of  the means of  
architectural image production – from hand 
drawing, to photography, computer images, 
and now protoyping – in contemporary times. 
While the means of  image generation becomes 
increasingly abstract, the decreasing distance 
between conception and production is blurring 
the distinction between design and craft. Could 
this development be bringing the modern-day 
designer’s unhappy choice between irrelevant 
celebrity or embedded anonymity back into 
some sense of  real control and significance? 

If  the journal’s inaugural issue introduced 
features not often encountered in an academic 
journal – follow up questions posed to authors 
or their targets, an interview, room for sidebar 
notes – the present issue inaugurates a further 
such feature central to the journal’s concept: 
the continuing of  conversations previously left 
open, as befits philosophical reflection. The 
second part of  Paul Guyer’s essay on monism 
and pluralism, and the interview with Andrew 
Ballantyne both take off  where we left them in 

Will NO ONE 
STAND UP FOR 

[AUTONOMY”S] 
DEFENSE?

“
”



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the previous issue. With both conversations having run their course 
thus far, we look to readers to pen questions of  their own – whether to 
join conversations already begun, or to start a fresh thread of  exchange. 

Endnotes

1. Fahey, Carolyn, and Stefan Koller, June 27, 2013, “Autonomy 
Reconsidered,” International Society for the Philosophy of  Architecture, 
http://isparchitecture.com/events/call-for-papers/



isparchitecture.com

ARCHITECTURE AND ETHICS: 
AUTONOMY, Architecture, art
NOëL CARrOLl

Introduction

This paper concerns the relation(s) between 
architecture and ethics. Perhaps needless to say, the 
intersections between architecture and ethics are 
manifold. Architects, for example, should not cheat 
their clients or endanger them by using substandard 
building materials. Nor should they take risky short-
cuts or evade building codes. They bear certain 
responsibilities for the safety of  the inhabitants 
of  their buildings. Their structures should stand 
firm. They should not collapse under predictable 
pressures. If  the client has paid for one kind of  
stone, the architect should not try to counterfeit it 
with a cheaper substitute. 

Architecture intersects so often with ethical 
issues that it is plausible to suggest that there 
are more connections between architecture and 
morality than there are in the case of  any other art 
form. 

However, while conceding this, it may also 
be said that a great many of  these relations do 
not have to do with architecture-as-architecture. 
Many, rather, concern architecture-as-business and 
the ethics thereof. Architects are business persons 
and, like all business persons, they should not, all 
things being equal, cheat their customers. Building 
Potemkin villages, for instance, is immoral. 

But, if  “business” sounds like too narrow a 
concept here, we might categorize the pertinent 
relations in question in terms of  architecture-as-
service. The architect is a provider – a provider of  
services – and her clients have the right to expect 



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that their contracts and their agreements with their architects will be 
fulfilled, including expectations grounded in prevailing social expectations, 
such as: that houses not fall down. 

The relevant ethics here are fairly generic – deriving from the kinds 
of  responsibilities any provider has to her clients, albeit with specific 
reference to the sorts of  contractual relations and social expectations that 
bind builders to those for whom they build. 

Nevertheless, admitting these connections between ethics and 
architecture-as-service leaves open the question of  the nature of  
the relation (or relations), if  any, between ethics and architecture-as-
architecture. This is the question I will address in this paper.

Architecture as Instrument

In order to engage the issues of  the relation of  architecture-
as-architecture to ethics, we need to get a handle on the notion of  
architecture-as-architecture. As a first approximation, let us think broadly 
of  an architect as a designer who constructs places – a person who shapes 
or builds environments – by arranging material forms, enclosing spaces 
and opening them. Conceived this way, architectural activity as such is 
patently related to ethics in that architects can be seen to be organizing 
spaces for morally assessable purposes. 

For example, designing airport terminals in such a manner that 
passengers are confused about how to find their way out of  the shopping 
area in search of  their departure gates is to be complicit in chicanery; as is 
designing shopping malls that effectively entrap the clientele so they keep 
circling the same stores, constantly tempted into buying something. 

Likewise designing highway overpasses so that they are too low 
to allow buses carrying poor people to travel to the parks and beaches 
frequented by the better-off  is another example of  designing space for 
immoral purposes. 

Of  course, spaces can also be organized for eminently righteous 
goals as in the case of  much contemporary green architecture. Similarly, 
Shigeru Ban’s designs for emergency disaster relief  habitats are creations 
of  indisputably great humanitarian value.1

Thus, there can be no question that architects as designers of  built 
environments can use their skills for good or ill, morally speaking. 
Nevertheless, those who are interested in the relation of  ethics to 
architecture-as-architecture – or architecture qua architecture – will protest 
that these are not the sorts of  examples that need to be explored. For, they 



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will argue that the relation of  architecture to moral 
or immoral purposes is an external relation. That is, 
it is the purpose of  the organization of  the space and 
not the design itself that is subject to moral assessment. 
And, furthermore, that purpose is external to the 
practice of  architecture qua architecture. This is not 
to say that the architect is not culpable if  he/she is 
complicit in implementing an immoral scheme. But 
his/her guilt is not, so to speak, architectural guilt. 
Or, maybe a related, but somewhat different way of  
getting at this general point is to say that the moral 
wrong in this case is attributable to the architect and 
not to the structure – i.e., not to the architecture.

Architectural Obligations

The very notion of  architectural guilt brings 
to mind, and possibly implies, that there must be 
something like architectural obligations. If  there 
were architectural obligations – commitments 
architects incur simply by being architects – they 
would secure an internal relation between ethics 
and architecture qua architecture inasmuch as 
these putative obligations would be internal to the 
practice of  architecture as such. Part of  what it is to 
be an architect, then, would be the responsibility to 
abide by said obligations. Any builder would have 
to live up to these duties and any building would 
have to meet the standards they imply. Failure to 
do so would be immoral. These obligations would 
constitute an ethics of  architecture qua architecture. 
The rhetoric of  such an approach is resonant in such 
phrases as “truth to the materials” and “structural 
honesty.”2 Some well-known candidates for alleged 
architectural obligations are: 

1) that architects should be “true to” or 
beholden to their materials.

2) that architects should practice structural 
honesty – that they should not mask the true 
structure of  their constructions.

3) that architects should embody or articulate 

The very 
notion of 

architectural 
guilt brings 
to mind, and 

possibly 
implies, that 

there must be 
something like 
architectural 

obligations.

“

”



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the spirit of  their age,

or even more radically,

4) that architects should by their buildings shape the spirit of  their 
age prospectively.

Let us look at each of  these proposals in turn. 

The requirement that architects should be true to their materials 
appears to rest supposedly upon the moral principle of  honesty. Don’t 
try to palm off  so-called crystal glass as true crystal, to cite an example 
of  Ruskin’s cited by Pevsner.3 Of  course, if  your client is paying for true 
crystal, there is an obvious moral infraction here in terms of  the ethics 
of  architecture-as-business. But what are the grounds for suspecting that 
there must be a moral infraction from the perspective of  architecture qua 
architecture? The worry seems to be that there is deception afoot. But 
suppose that it is freely advertised that it is crystal glass?

I suspect that those who maintain that architects are beholden to their 
materials will still contend that there is a breach of  architectural obligation 
in this case. But what could it be? What are the grounds for this alleged 
moral transgression? Maybe it will be proposed that, even if  it is widely 
advertised, many may still take the crystal glass for true crystal. But whose 
fault is that and, in any event, who is harmed and how? The “true to 
the materials” line of  thought sometimes makes it sound as though the 
materials have rights. Yet that’s just superstitious.

Similar objections may be leveled against the appeal to structural 
honesty. This is the idea that the built environment should show forth 
its structure. It should not hide it underneath ornament, for instance. It 
should not suggest that it bears its weight anywhere other than where it 
actually does. But again, it is hard to identify who is harmed if  the structure 
of  a building is not evident to your average observer. Is one harmed if  one 
takes the beams on the façade of  Mies van der Rohe’s Seagram’s Building 
to be its central weight bearing structure rather than the beams recessed 
behind them?

One may call for foregrounding the structure of  a building in the 
name of  clarity, but it is an equivocation to equate a taste for intellectual 
clarity with honesty in the moral sense.

Moreover, it cannot be a moral transgression to fail to make manifest 
the structure of  a building to outside observers since very often the 
structural supports are not visible to the naked eye – for example, the 
underground timbers upon which rest the Richardsonian Romanesque 
Trinity Church in Boston. Indeed, the view that there is a moral imperative 



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to reveal architectural structure appears to confuse 
a stylistic preference with an ethical concern. 

Hegel began his grand survey of  the history 
of  art with what he called the symbolic stage, 
which was best exemplified by the great pyramids 
of  Egypt. These structures, he claimed, revealed 
the level of  Consciousness’s self-understanding 
of  itself  at a very early stage, one whose lack of  
inwardness was putatively reflected symbolically in 
the limited interiority of  the pyramids. At least since 
Hegel, it has become common for art historians to 
approach artworks with an eye to establishing the 
way in which they articulate the spirit of  their age. 
Various architectural theorists have taken this role 
of  emblematizing the spirit of  the age as the brief  
of  architecture as such.4 It is not clear how this is 
a moral obligation, unless we endorse an extremely 
broad sense of  the notion of  ethics; perhaps it may 
be argued that when architecture performs this role, 
it provides a social good. However, if  this is the 
idea, then it makes it seem as though architecture 
cannot but help doing good all of  the time, since 
it is difficult to imagine the failure of  any work of  
architecture to reflect its time. Even something like 
Horace Walpole’s antiquarian fantasy Strawberry 
Hill reflected at least one strand of  his cultural 
moment. That is, since even nostalgic architecture 
will reflect its times, it seems impossible to fail in 
this regard which would place all architecture qua 
architecture on the side of  the angels. This not 
only seems too rosy an outlook, but also is too 
intellectually indiscriminate to be informative even 
on its own terms. Moreover, connected to the 
problem that all architecture reflects its time is the 
underlying fact that this is so precisely because there 
are so many different, often conflicting, tendencies 
going on during the same time period. It seems 
doubtful that there is ever a spirit of  the age in the 
sense of  a singular, all-encompassing theme. But if  
that is true, then the claim that architecture should 
articulate its age is an impossible obligation, since 

The ‘True to  
the materials’ 

line of thought 
sometimes 

makes it sounds 
as though 
materials 

have rights. 
Yet that’s just 

superstitious.

“

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there is no singular spirit to embody. Thus, to the extent that “ought” 
implies “can,” there can be no architectural obligation to emblematize the 
(one and only) spirit of  the times.

Not only have some argued that architecture should reflect the spirit 
of  the age. Some have gone further, contending that architecture should 
abet the development of  the age prospectively, bringing supposedly 
positive tendencies in the present into fruition in the future by means of  
built environments that reinforce and guide those tendencies.5 Much of  
the rhetoric of  modern architecture sounds this clarion call. In this case, 
structural honesty is sometimes invoked as a commitment to the kind of  
intellectual clarity associated with the rationality of  allegedly enlightened 
times. Truth to the materials of  modern industrial society – like steel – is 
linked to the notion of  being true to our times. Modern architecture, it 
was believed, not only reflects the emerging rational-industrial culture, but 
would hasten it as life in various machines for living and working would 
blossom into an enlightenment utopia, specifically a blue print utopia – to 
take advantage of  a very useful notion introduced by Nathaniel Coleman. 

(Parenthetically, there is a parallel dystopian story told about how 
this apotheosis of  so-called rationality contributes to the tyranny of  
instrumental reason and neoliberalism.)

The notion of  architecture’s obligation to being on the side of  history, 
of  course, inherits the liabilities of  its component parts, including the ideas 
of  truth to the materials, structural honesty, and the emblematization of  
the spirit of  the times. Just as there is no singular spirit of  the times, 
for example, there is no privileged path to the future, no end of  history 
to which the architect must be committed. As commentators like David 
Watkin have persuasively demonstrated, architectural modernism rides 
on the same faith in a teleological view of  history that Karl Popper 
discredited under the rubric of  historicism.6 History has no preordained 
narrative and, even if  it did, it is not clear how architects could know 
it. Consequently, it cannot be their moral obligation to realize it. Indeed, 
added to the epistemological limitation of  not being able to discern 
the course of  history, architects would also confront another epistemic 
roadblock, namely the lack of  the kind of  causal knowledge that would 
be required to influence the historical process in determinate, predictable 
ways. Think of  all of  the unintended consequences modern architecture 
has set in motion. So, even if  architects knew where history was headed, 
neither they nor anyone else knows how to get there. 

(This lack of  causal knowledge also bedevils dystopians, although 
in a different way. Juhani Pallasmaa claims that the privileging of  vision 



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in modern architecture leads to detachment and 
contemporary alienation.7 But that is an immensely 
complicated causal hypothesis, one so complex that 
it is hard to know how to even begin to isolate the 
variables needed to test it empirically.)

Of  course, so far I have only challenged some 
of  the leading versions of  the idea that there are 
architectural obligations. That does not conclusively 
prove that there are no such obligations. But it does 
shift the burden of  proof  to the friends of  the 
conviction that there are ethical obligations internal 
to the practice of  architecture. So, in the absence 
of  a creditable proposal from their side, it may be 
useful at present to pursue another tack in an effort 
to establish an internal relationship between ethics 
and architecture qua architecture. 

Art and Architecture

At this juncture, I propose to parse the notion of  
architecture qua architecture in terms of  architecture 
qua art. Architecture is a matter of  building 
environments but not all built environments are 
architecture. What makes a building architecture? I 
suggest that it is its claim to art status. 

Of  course, I need to say more about what is 
involved in a building’s possession of  art status. 
Nevertheless, it should be uncontroversial that 
it is by being considered art that buildings are 
commonly identified as architecture. That is, if  a 
built environment is art, then it is architecture. 
Thus, architecture-as-art is one – perhaps the 
most common – way of  satisfying the formula, 
architecture-as-architecture.

Moreover, if  this is acceptable, it suggests 
a straightforward way of  linking architecture 
qua architecture internally to ethics. Namely, 
architecture-as-architecture will be connected to 
ethics at least in the way or ways that art in general 
qua art can be connected to ethics. 

at this 
juncture, i 

propose to 
parse the 

notion of QUA 
architecture 

in terms of 
architecture 

QUA art.

“

”



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However, this strategy immediately faces a challenge, namely the 
contention that art is categorically separate from ethics. Call this view 
autonomism. Obviously autonomism must be tackled head-on before we 
can take advantage of  any putative link between art and architecture.

Autonomism

Autonomism is a viewpoint that begins to take its modern form in the 
eighteenth century in discussions of  beauty. Francis Hutcheson, borrowing 
the notion of  disinterestedness from the Earl of  Shaftesbury, characterized 
beauty as an immediate feeling of  disinterested pleasure. “Disinterested” 
for Hutcheson meant “independent of  personal advantage.” To find a 
building beautiful was to take pleasure in the mere sight of  it rather than, 
say, taking pleasure in it because it belongs to you. The disinterestedness 
of  the lover of  beauty, for Hutcheson, is just like the impartiality of  a 
judge in a court of  law. In both cases, they are required to issue judgments 
independent from their personal interests and advantages. 

Kant took on board much of  Hutcheson’s conception of  beauty – or 
what he, Kant, called free beauty – and argued that judgments of  free 
beauty (also known as aesthetic judgments) were based upon experiences 
of  disinterested pleasure. However, Kant expanded the range of  pertinent 
interests to be bracketed for the sake of  disinterest, encompassing purposes 
in general, including ethical ones, and reference to concepts, possibly, at 
least in part, because concepts are typically connected to purposes. 

Subsequently, interpreters, or perhaps more accurately misinterpreters 
of  Kant, erected a theory of  art upon Kant’s theory of  free beauty. 
Stated crudely, it presumed that the function of  art is to afford aesthetic 
experiences, experiences divorced from purposes, such as ethical ones, 
and that are instead valued for their own sake. This transmogrified into the 
art-pour-art (art-for-art’s sake) slogan in France, popularized by Benjamin 
Constant and Madame de Stael and which also provided the impetus 
for nineteenth century aestheticism as practiced by Pater and Wilde, the 
latter of  whom famously denied the relevance of  morality to literature, 
maintaining books were only well-written or not.  

Of  course, if  art, properly so called, is divorced altogether from purpose, 
that bodes ill for architecture’s claim to art status, since architecture is so 
wedded to serving ulterior purposes. This is why so often in nineteenth 
century hierarchies of  the arts, architecture’s status is typically demoted to 
the lowest art form on the totem pole, if  it is not disenfranchised entirely. 
Under earlier theories of  art, architecture suffered for not being imitative. 
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architecture was linked to non-aesthetic purposes 
and thus to uses and interests.

In the twentieth century, earlier art-for-
art’s sake tendencies were refined and worked 
into a theory called the aesthetic theory of  art 
which we can regard as the contemporary form 
of  autonomism. In rough outline, it holds that 
something is a work of  art if  and only if  it is made 
with the primary intention to afford aesthetic 
experience, which nowadays is generally conceived 
to be an experience valued for its own sake and not 
for some other purpose whether cognitive, moral, 
religious, political, etc. This theory can allow that 
architecture is an art so long as and to the extent 
that it is made with a primary intention to afford 
aesthetic experience, such as contemplation of  the 
visible form of  a building. But, at the same time, 
this theory severs architecture-as-art from ethics. 
The aesthetic theory of  art has been extremely 
influential among analytic philosophers of  art. 
Even those who would never profess allegiance to 
it outright show themselves to be under its sway 
when, for example, they consult their “intuitions” 
and find that art and ethics are necessarily twain.

However, despite the authority of  the 
aesthetic theory of  art, it fares badly empirically 
when weighed against the history of  art. Most 
art historically was and arguably continues to be 
made with primary intentions other than affording 
aesthetic experiences. Commissioned by churches, 
rulers, guilds, aristocrats and so forth most art has 
been made with the primary intention to serve 
religion, politics, cognition, morality and so on. 

Catholic painters for centuries composed their 
devotional pictures with the primary intention 
of  engendering reverence. They would have 
considered it blasphemous to suggest that their 
work be contemplated primarily for the disinterested 
pleasure it imparted to viewers. 

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dance called the Haka in which they stamp their feet ferociously, bulge 
their eyes, stick out their tongues and wave their arms aggressively for the 
purpose of  scaring off  intruders. Were the enemy to sit down and savor 
a Haka for the sake of  contemplative pleasure, the dance would be self-
defeating, since it was made with the primary intention of  driving away 
invaders in terror.8 Nor can the aesthetic theory of  art be repaired by 
dropping the requirement that the intention to afford aesthetic experience 
be primary because that will make the theory too broad. For example, 
almost every commodity in the industrialized world today is made with 
some intention to support what are called aesthetic experiences. Yet no 
one mistakes the cereal aisle in the grocery store for a modern day art 
gallery. 

So, the aesthetic theory of  art, at least as characterized thus far, is 
dubious. For our purposes, that removes a major barrier blocking the 
strategy of  extrapolating the relation of  architecture qua architecture to 
ethics via the relation of  art to ethics.

Art and Expression

To model the relationship of  architecture qua architecture to ethics on 
that of  the relation of  art to ethics requires saying something about how 
we understand art. Obviously I cannot elaborate on a full-scale theory 
about how to identify art in the middle of  the already large project of  
exploring the relation of  ethics to architecture. So allow me to cut some 
corners.

Let us say that pronounced expressivity is a pretty reliable symptom 
of  art status. By this, I do not mean to be defending some version of  
the expression theory of  art. I am not claiming that art is necessarily 
expressive; some art, like Duchamp’s readymade canine grooming comb, 
is not. Nevertheless, pronounced intentional expressivity is a fairly reliable 
symptom of  art. It is because the Haka projects such an intentionally 
pronounced and coherent aura of  fearsomeness and male aggressivity that 
we are provisionally disposed to classify it as dance art. 

Interestingly, from our point of  view, pronounced expressivity is also 
frequently cited as a mark of  architectural art. 

Paul Goldberger says: “Architecture begins to matter when it goes 
beyond protecting us from the elements, when it begins to say something 
about the world…”9 As is well known, Nelson Goodman thinks that 
buildings are architectural art when they mean. He writes, “A building is a 
work of  art insofar as it signifies, means, refers, symbolizes in some way.”10



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For Gordon Graham, architecture as such 
ideally expresses its function; he observes of  Marble 
Hall in Holkham Hall in Norfolk, England, that its 
elegance expresses its function, i.e. to display the 
elegance of  its owners.11

And Paul Guyer argues that Kant holds that all 
art, including architecture, involves the expression 
of  aesthetic ideas. For example, by way of  illustrating 
Kant, Guyer notes “that a (Protestant) church must 
keep its décor simple to induce the proper mood of  
humbleness.”12

Not all of  these characteristics of  the art of  
architecture amount to exactly the same claim, 
but they agree broadly in taking some measure 
of  pronounced expressivity, albeit understood in 
different ways, to be a sign of  architectural art. For 
example, it is the pronounced expressivity of  the 
curving colonnades, reaching out from St. Peter’s 
Cathedral in Rome, that prompts us to regard them 
as architectural art. For they gather together and 
embrace the crowds in the plaza in their “arms” in 
a way that is welcoming.

Or consider the majestic central staircase in 
the Museum of  Modern Art in New York City. 
Its majesty marks with heightened significance 
and drama the experience we are about to have 
of  the museum’s magnificent collections. August 
and ceremonial, the stairway expresses the pride 
appropriate to the holdings it introduces.

Perhaps pronounced expressivity may even 
be an ingredient in a sufficient condition for 
architectural art status. However, be that as it may, it 
is enough for my purposes that there be a recurring 
internal relation between architectural art and 
pronounced expressivity. For inasmuch as certain 
expressive properties are ethically charged, their 
architectural projection will be ethically assessable. 

For example, the façade of  the Georgian 
doorway at 16 Bedford Square in London with its 
fanning window by Thomas Leverton radiates the 

So, the 
aesthetic 

theory of art, 
as least as 

characterized 
so far, is 

dubious

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most energetic hospitality, bursting with cheerful amiability, epitomizing 
the virtue of  sociability.13 Or, for architectural art on the dark side, consider 
the narrative relief  in the palace of  the Assyrian King Ashurbanipal which 
was designed with the express intention to celebrate the king’s wanton 
cruelty.14

Thus, we see that architecture qua architecture maybe related to 
ethics by way of  expression. The case goes like this: some art, including 
architectural art, is expressive. Some of  that expressive art, including 
architectural art, is ethically charged. If  some architectural art is ethically 
charged, then that architecture is potentially ethically assessable. Thus, the 
relation of  some architectural art to ethics can be internal because it is 
rooted in the nature of  architectural art. Consequently, there is at least this 
one way in which architecture-as-architecture is internally related to ethics.

Moderate Architectural Autonomism

Undoubtedly the autonomist will be suspicious of  the preceding 
maneuver. Thus far the autonomist has been represented as claiming 
that art is categorically divorced from purpose and use, including ethical 
purposes. This is a very radical position. But the autonomist, upon hearing 
the previous arguments, may retreat and regroup, counterattacking with a 
position that we can call “moderate autonomism.”

The moderate autonomist concedes that art may be made for many 
purposes, not only affording aesthetic experience, but also commanding 
reverence, advancing ideologies, bringing consolation, promoting virtue, 
rallying the troops, etc. Call ‘affording aesthetic experience’ the aesthetic 
dimension of  art. This dimension is allegedly distinct from the others 
just mentioned. Though these others can be considered legitimate features 
of  art qua art, they contrast with the aesthetic dimension. The former 
features of  the artwork are artistic features of  the artwork, but they are 
not aesthetic features. The aesthetic dimension is comprised of  properties, 
like form, that afford aesthetic experiences thereof  and which are valued 
for their own sake. 

Furthermore, the moderate autonomist maintains that only those 
aesthetic affordances are relevant when considering architecture qua 
architecture. If  there is an argument here, it probably relies upon severing 
aesthetics from purposes. And that will putatively segregate categorically 
the aesthetic properties of  the artwork from the artistic ones, including 
the ethical ones, in the process of  distinguishing mere building from pure 
architecture or architecture as such or architecture qua architecture. In this 
way, the moderate autonomist may recoup at least part of  her position in 



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the face of  the considerations that I raised earlier.

Moderate Architectural Moralism

According to the moderate architectural 
autonomist there is a categorical distinction to be 
drawn between the aesthetic dimension of  the 
architectural work of  art and the ethical dimension. 
The ethical dimension may be a legitimate part of  
the architectural artworks qua art, but it is not ever 
part of  the aesthetic dimension which is putatively 
the only dimension that counts in considering 
architecture qua architecture. One important 
corollary of  this view is that an ethical defect in a 
work of  architecture will never count as an aesthetic 
blemish in architecture qua architecture because the 
aesthetic properties are categorically distinct from 
the artistic ones, including the ethical ones. 

This is autonomism to the degree that it 
asserts that there is a domain of  pure architecture 
qua architecture where moral considerations never 
play a role. It is moderate autonomism because it 
allows that things like ethics, religion, politics, etc. 
are legitimate concerns of  art. They are just never 
aesthetically relevant where aesthetic relevance is 
what determines the domain proper of  architecture 
qua architecture.

Moderate Architectural Moralism is the 
rejoinder to Moderate Architectural Autonomism. 
The moderate architectural moralist contends 
that some works of  art, including some works of  
architectural art, feature moral defects that are also 
aesthetic defects, specifically formal defects. Thus 
the moderate moralist argues contra the moderate 
autonomist that the aesthetic dimension and the 
ethical dimension of  the arts, including some 
architectural art works, are not absolutely cleaved, 
since sometimes there can be an internal relation 
between the ethical dimension of  a given artwork 
and its aesthetic dimensions as evidenced by the 
possibility that sometimes an ethical defect in an 



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artwork can also count as – i.e., be identical with – an aesthetic defect.

The moderate moralist might proceed defensively, questioning whether 
the moderate autonomist’s argument for the categorical separation of  the 
artistic properties and the aesthetic properties can be advanced without 
begging crucial questions. However, the moderate moralist may also 
propose a positive argument on behalf  of  his conclusion. 

The first step in the moderate moralist’s argument is his definition of  
form: the form of  an artwork is its ensemble of  choices which realize the 
point or purpose of  the artwork. Formal features then are choices that 
contribute to the point or purposes of  the works. Architectural theorists 
should be familiar with this conception of  form, since it echoes the 
architectural slogan that form follows function. 

Next the moderate moralist points out that the point or purpose of  
many artworks is to engender emotional responses. The point of  a comedy, 
like Shaw’s You Never Can Tell, is to elicit comic amusement. Characters, 
situations, and plot coincidences are designed to that effect. 

Clearly architectural artworks often have the purpose of  provoking 
emotional responses. Both the interiors and the exteriors of  Gothic 
cathedrals are predicated upon instilling awe by means of  their vaulting 
spires and naves. They are literally designed to take our breath away and 
to reduce us to hushed silence. Often the mood or emotion we identify as 
expressed by a building is connected to the feeling it arouses in us. So in 
the case of  the Gothic cathedral, we say the cathedral is awesome. 

The emotions aroused in us by artworks do not arise by happenstance. 
They, like all emotions, are governed by certain conditions of  
appropriateness. The appropriate object of  fear is perceived danger. If  an 
object does not appear threatening to us, it is not an appropriate object of  
fear, and if  we are sound of  mind, it will not be frightening to us. One of  
the conditions for awe is that the object be perceived to be of  great size 
or power. If  the object does not meet this condition, the object will not be 
experienced as awesome.

These observations about the emotions have obvious applicability to 
the arts, including architecture, since artworks are often in the business 
of  eliciting emotional responses. Horror fictions, for example, are in the 
business of  provoking horror, a compound emotion of  fear and disgust. 
Thus, horror fictions must design characters to this end. Were one to 
present as the monster a figure like Casper the Friendly Ghost in what 
is intended as a genuine horror fiction that would be a failure in design 
because Casper is too nice to be scary and too clean to be disgusting. 
Casper would be a design choice that would be a defect because he 



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would fail to realize the purpose of  horror fiction. 
That is, the choice of  Casper would be a formal 
failure. Similarly to build out of  papier maché an 
architectural structure such as a triumphal arch, 
meant to project strength, would be a formal error 
since it would dissolve in even a mild rainstorm. 

But, what has this to do with ethics? Simply this: 
many of  the emotions are related to ethics either 
because they involve moral conditions – as anger is 
concerned with justice being done to me or mine; 
or they are moral emotions on their own terms, 
like righteous indignation. Eliciting these emotions 
requires meeting certain ethical conditions. If  these 
are not met, the intended emotion will not take 
hold and the artwork will fail in its purpose. 

For example, with respect to an Aristotelian 
tragedy the central character cannot be an evil, truly 
reprehensible character because we will not feel 
tragic pity for him, but joy at his being dealt his 
just desserts. To present the historical Hitler as the 
protagonist of  a play intended to elicit tragic pity in 
the Aristotelian sense would be a design error – a 
formal defect – because it involves the choice of  an 
element not suited for – in fact at odds with – the 
purpose of  the work. The audience is more likely to 
shout “well done” when calamity befalls Hitler than 
to shed a tear for him.

Moreover, notice that the formal error here 
is rooted in an ethical defect. Tragic pity depends 
upon an object that is morally undeserving of  the 
calamity that befalls him. The historical Hitler does 
not meet that condition. He deserves whatever 
he gets. To attempt to mandate tragic pity will 
encounter imaginative resistance on the part of  
morally sensitive audiences. The creator of  our 
abortive Hitler tragedy has a morally defective 
understanding of  what is required for tragic 
pity. Thus he makes the wrong design choice in 
constructing the protagonist of  his play. But this is 
simultaneously a formal error, precisely because it 



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is a moral error. Thus, sometimes a moral defect in an artwork is a formal 
defect just because it may block the audience’s intended emotive uptake. 

A similar possible scenario can be sketched with respect to architectural 
art. Imagine a memorial constructed after a bloody civil war between the 
As and the Bs. Made of  granite, it is divided into two equal halves that 
formally mirror each other. On the left slab are listed all of  the names of  
the fallen As. On the right side are all of  the names of  the fallen Bs. The 
structures are enormous, granting each side enormous gravity. Each side 
looks the same. The only differences appear when you get close enough to 
read the names which differ from one side of  the monument to the other. 
Otherwise, neither side of  the memorial diverges in appearance from 
the other. Neither side receives special architectural accent or emphasis. 
Architecturally the two sides are equal and the design calls upon viewers 
to feel sorrow equally for and to admire or honor equally the dead of  both 
sides of  the civil war. 

But, in point of  fact, one side – let’s say the Bs – were guilty of  
horrible atrocities, bombing civilians with poisonous chemicals, employing 
rape to demoralize and subdue villages that showed sympathy to the As, 
and worse. Many of  the names of  the fallen Bs on the memorial belong 
to known war criminals. For the morally sensitive viewer, the two sides 
of  the civil war are not deserving of  equal sorrow and honor. The Bs 
don’t merit sorrow at all. Thus the morally sensitive audience will resist the 
architectural rhetoric of  the monument. 

For that reason, the choice of  presenting the As and the Bs as equal 
visually is a formal error because it is a design choice that fails to realize 
or to implement the purpose of  the memorial. But it is simultaneously a 
formal defect because it both exhibits and mandates a morally corrupt 
point of  view – one that equates war criminals with the honored dead who 
opposed them. Thus, the uninflected handling of  the two sides of  the 
memorial represents a formal, aesthetic flaw, exactly because it embodies 
a morally defective viewpoint that undermines the purpose of  the work 
by thwarting audience uptake. Consequently, moderate architectural 
autonomism is false.

A Brief Summary

We began with the challenge to ascertain whether there might be an 
internal relation between architecture qua architecture and ethics. Although 
there may be more, we identified at least one such relation by construing 
architecture qua architecture as architecture-as-art. We then modeled 
the relation of  architecture to ethics on the relation of  art to ethics, 



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specifically with reference to art as expression. 
This led to the conclusion that architecture can be 
ethically assessable as architecture when it projects 
properties expressive of  moral import.

We then considered how a moderate 
architectural autonomist might respond to this 
conclusion and disputed that response by mounting 
an argument on behalf  of  moderate architectural 
moralism, the position that maintains that in some 
cases a moral defect in a work of  architectural art 
may be constitutive of  an aesthetic defect. 

Endnotes

1. See Dana Goodyear, “Paper Palaces,” The New 
Yorker, Volume XC, Number 23, August 11 and 18, 
2014: 66-75.

2. See: Joan Ockman, “Ethics and Aesthetics after 
Modernism and Postmodernism” in The Hand 
and the Soul ed. by Sandra Iliecu (Charlottesville: 
University of  Virginia Press, 2009), 45. Quoted 
in Stefan Koller, “Architects on Value” in Ethics, 
Design and Planning of  the Environment ed. by Claudia 
Basta and Stefano Moroni (Dordrecht: Springer, 
2013), 59. 

3. Quoted in David Watkin, Morality and Architecture 
Revisited (Chicago: University of  Chicago Press, 
1977, 2001), 108-9. 

4. See Sigfried Gideon, Space, Time and Architecture 
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1941); Nikolaus 
Pevsner, Pioneers of  the Modern Movement (London: 
Faber and Faber, 1936); Karsten Harries, The Ethical 
Function of  Architecture (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 
1997).

5. Pevsner, op. cit.

6. Watkin, op. cit.

7. Juhani Pallasmaa, The Eyes of  the Skin (Oxford: 
Wiley, 2005).

8. An alternative account of  the Haka was offered 

In some cases 
a moral 
defect in 

a work of 
architectural 

art may be 
constitutive of 

an aesthetic 
defect.

“

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at the conference on architecture and ethics in Delft in July of  2014. An 
audience member argued that the function of  the Haka was to present 
rivals with a performance that they assessed in terms of  how formidable 
the dancers appeared. However, even if  this, rather than the account 
offered above, is the correct account of  the Haka, it remains clear that 
the dance was not created with the intention to be valued for its own sake. 
Moreover, the same could be said about much of  the armor designed for 
European knights. It was made to strike terror in the hearts of  the enemy 
and not to deliver disinterested pleasure.

9. Paul Goldberger, Why Architecture Matters (New Haven: Yale University 
Press, 2009), ix. 

10. Nelson Goodman and Catherine Z. Elgin, Reconceptions in Philosophy 
(Indianapolis: Hackett, 1988), 33. See also: Remei Capdevila-Werning, 
Goodman for Architects (London: Routledge, 2013), 13.

11. Gordon Graham, Philosophy of  the Arts 3rd edition (London: Routledge, 
2005), 178-182.

12. Paul Guyer, “Kant and the Philosophy of  Architecture”, The Journal of  
Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Volume 69, Number 1 (Winter, 2011), 15.

13. See Alain de Botton, The Architecture of  Happiness (New York: Vintage 
Books, 2006), 99.

14. See Noël Carroll, “Art and Recollection” in Art in Three Dimensions 
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 171.



isparchitecture.com

The Myth of Autonomy
Nathaniel Coleman

Architecture, one would think, has its own validity. 
It needs no reference to any other discipline to make 
it “viable” or to “justify” its value. We might even 
question whether words like value or morals are 
applicable to an architectural style.1

My point is very different from e.g. Eisenman’s idea 
that architecture is self-centered and only concerned 
with its own formal-compositional issues. Eisenman 
posits that architecture should throw off  its concern 
with the world, abandon function and only concentrate 
on architectural form. [...] I am trying to formulate 
the overall rationality of  the discipline that necessarily 
involves the integration of  world-reference (function) 
and self-reference (form).2

In this article, the so-called ‘autonomy project in 
architecture’, as theorised by Ignasi de Solà-Morales 
(1942-2001); K. Michael Hays’s (b. 1952); Patrik 
Schumacher’s (b. 1961), of  Zaha Hadid’s office; 
and Pier Vittorio Aureli (b. 1973) is interrogated. 
In particular, the main aim of  this article is to 
reveal the project of  autonomy in architecture as 
a myth, especially in relation to the parallel myth 
of  an avant-garde (especially a neo-avant-garde) in 
architecture. However, it is important to underline 
that my interrogation of  ‘the myth of  autonomy’ 
has little to do with recent trends in anti-theory, for 
example as outlined by Jeremy Till (b. 1957) in his 
Architecture Depends (2009). 

Ultimately, the aim of  this article is to recover a 
critical-historical perspective that reveals the project 
of  orthodox modern architecture eschewed by 



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autonomists as itself  an earlier response to the same persisting disciplinary 
crisis that animates their efforts. Following on from this, Utopia is 
reintroduced as providing architects with a much more promising set 
of  tools for redeeming architecture than autonomy ever could. As I will 
argue, the most significant contribution Utopia can make to architecture is 
to return the social and political to it, which also provides a way to resist 
the formalist pull of  autonomy.  Renewal of  Utopia, and with it the social 
and political dimensions of  architecture, inevitably reveal(s) autonomy as 
a myth invested primarily in the dissolution of  just such a possibility. The 
great paradox of  autonomy in architecture is that it is duplicitous, using 
the inevitable impurities of  realization as a cover for impossible desires for 
purity as a means to liberate architecture from its obligation to communities. 
The apparent naiveté of  the modernist project as one of  engagement, as 
interpreted by architects such as Aldo van Eyck, is discarded in favor of  
disengagement as apparently the only realistic response.

Oppositions

In the introduction to The Oppositions Reader compilation he edited, Hays 
ruminates on why autonomy became such an important preoccupation 
of  so many of  the architect authors and theorists who contributed to 
Oppositions (1973-1984), the journal of  the Institute for Architecture and 
Urban Studies in New York City (1967-1984). However, he goes no further 
than raising the question, a move as provocative as it is frustrating:

For the essential contradictions between architecture’s autonomy – its self-
organization into a body of  formal elements and operations that separate 
it from any place and time – and its contingency on, even determination by, 
historical forces beyond its control subsumes all the ‘formal socio-cultural and 
political’ concerns into an all embracing dialectic. The conflicts of  formalism 
and determinism [...] seem almost symptomatic of  a deeper [...] social pathology 
[... .] One should ask not whether architecture is autonomous, or whether it can 
willfully be made so, but rather how it can be that the question arises in the first 
place, what kind of  situation allows for architecture to worry about itself  to this 
degree.3

Despite leaving readers without a definitive response to his question, Hays 
does offer several takes on autonomy drawn from the pages of  Oppositions. 
Even so, relatively convincing explanations for architects’ turn inward, 
away from material reality and the perplexing burdens of  their discipline, 
do exist. As the German philosopher of  hope Ernst Bloch (1885-1977) 
and the Italian architectural historian and theorist of  closure Manfredo 
Tafuri (1935-1994) have intimated, architecture as a ‘work’, akin to the 



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unique achievements of  the fine arts, rather than as 
an industrially reproducible ‘product’ – as French 
sociologist and philosopher of  cracks Henri Lefebvre 
(1901-1991) asserted – is all but impossible under 
capitalism. The failures of  orthodox modernism, in 
particular its ostensive social project and ultimate 
rejection of  this, left architects without a program 
or project for architecture and the city. Ascribing 
this failure to Utopia also left them without the 
tools for thinking their way beyond capitalism and 
modernism. Although these phenomena are often 
presented as a new condition particular to the crisis 
of  modernity after the Second World War, with the 
move toward autonomy seen as having taken a cue 
from the frontiers of  visual and performing arts. 
However, this understanding deprives narratives 
of  the terminal condition of  orthodox modernity 
of  a critical-historical perspective that might well 
reveal the project of  modern architecture eschewed 
by autonomists as itself  an earlier response to the 
same persisting disciplinary crises. Although Tafuri’s 
discussion of  Piranesi in The Sphere and the Labyrinth 
is very helpful in illuminating this predicament, to 
my mind, British architectural historian and theorist 
Joseph Rykwert’s (b. 1926) The First Moderns (1980) 
offers an even more lucid account of  the shift in 
direction for the discipline suggested here. Indeed, 
Rykwert, who was awarded the 2014 Royal Institute 
of  British Architects Gold Medal, pushes the 
origins of  this shift slightly further back than Tafuri 
does, to the end of  the Baroque and the period of  
the Rococo, in particular to Claude Perrault’s (1613-
1688) conceptualization of  ‘positive and arbitrary 
beauty’ – the division between the quantitative 
and qualitative in building. In light of  the dramatic 
consequences of  this, for Rykwert, the only way 
forward for the discipline of  architecture is to 
recuperate its enduring vocation: 

The nature of  our responses to the world of  artifacts, 
the way in which groups and communities appropriate 
space, occupies sociologists and anthropologists. And 

Utopia is 
reintroduced 
as providing 

architects 
with a much 

more promising 
set of tools 

for redeeming 
architecture 

than autonomy 
ever could

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we acknowledge these human scientists as important and wholly serious people. 
Yet their studies are, in the last reduction, almost inevitably problems of  form. 
This book [The First Moderns, 1980] recalls a time when the architect’s 
business was just that. Perhaps if  there is to be a place for the architect’s work 
within a future social fabric, he will need to learn how to deal with such problems 
again.4

Rykwert leaves us with a challenge at the end of  The First Moderns, 
rather than an answer: for architects to regain their lost place within the 
culture, they must reconnect with those aspects of  their discipline that 
once ensured this. Although not explicitly stated, this clearly reveals the 
project of  autonomy in architecture as a profound form of  alienation that 
deprives buildings of  many of  its associations and topics. While Rykwert’s 
reconstruction of  the preconditions that have led to the current situation 
of  the past forty to fifty years is decidedly wide-ranging, he does not exactly 
excavate the causes of  this condition, which Tafuri is more comfortable 
doing. As such, the significant socio-political import of  his argument is 
somewhat obscured. Perhaps the reason for this is that whereas Tafuri had 
lost all hope for architecture, Rykwert has remained optimistic, leaving it 
to those more pessimistic of  his readers to intensify the polemic his work 
suggests.

Indeed, my consideration of  autonomy in relation to architecture 
developed here is informed by the battle for an architectural soul (perhaps 
only my own) carried out – in spirit at least – in the triangulated space 
between the thinking of  Tafuri, Lefebvre, and Rykwert.5

The tension that exists between Tafuri’s theoretical world and 
Lefebvre’s is a product of  the friction between the former’s conviction 
that the world system of  capitalism is totally closed, and the latter’s belief  
in the generative potential to be drawn through the cracks that always exist 
in that never quite totally closed system. Rykwert provides the third point 
of  the triangle by being even more stalwartly optimistic than Lefebvre 
on the one hand, and unconvinced by Tafuri’s pessimism on the other. 
Arguably, the play of  architectural theory today continues to be carried 
out within the triangulated space created by the tensions identified above, 
even if  it tends to be imagined as operating within the altogether less 
determinate spaces of  Collage City, as conceived by architectural historian 
and theorist Colin Rowe (1920-1999), who, as Hays observes, suffered a, 
“deep disillusionment with the utopian mission of  [modern] architecture.”6 
Actually, of  the four theorists introduced just above, Rowe is the one 
who most believed, if  only half-heartedly, that autonomy – as a using of  
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architecture from its significant failings that came 
into view after World War II. 

Tafuri was also committed to autonomy in 
architecture, but did not share Rowe’s conviction 
that it could only be redeemed by formalism, which 
promised to quash its social and political content. 
Tafuri’s conception of  autonomy differs from 
Rowe’s as fundamentally a critique of  the tragedy of  
architecture under capitalist production. However, 
the inevitable self-indulgence of  the autonomy 
project in architectural practice, especially as 
advanced by the New York Five architects in the 
1960s and 1970s proved too much for Tafuri 
to take. Ultimately, he came to see the crisis of  
architecture as ‘a crisis of  ideology’. In light of  this, 
he came to assert that architects are powerless to 
resist their capture within the system of  capitalist 
production; as they are little more than technicians 
within a building industry, ensnared within the total 
closure of  the capitalist/neoliberal system.

It is in confronting Tafuri’s pessimism (valid as it 
might be) that the possibility of  the counter-spaces 
suggested by Rykwert, and more emphatically 
theorized by Lefebvre really cannot be ignored. 
Rykwert’s positivity, and, in particular, Lefebvre’s 
stubborn optimism, furnishes compelling antidotes 
to Tafuri’s resolute pessimism. As introduced above, 
Lefebvre could locate possibilities in even the 
most unpromising conditions of  the same system 
described by Tafuri as total; precisely because 
Lefebvre believed that systemic closure is never as 
total as it might appear: cracks in the system can 
always be detected, which reveals the apparently 
impossible as actually possible, even across the 
scant moments that separate the two. Paradoxically, 
Tafuri’s pessimism seems to me to have been, at least 
in part, an inevitable byproduct of  the ultimately 
frustrated hopes he placed in autonomy, no matter 
how short-lived, while Lefebvre’s work on space, 
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been impossible had he grounded his hopes for transformation, even his 
ideas on autgestion (self-management), in autonomy. The crypto-utopianism 
of  Rykwert and the more overt utopianism of  Lefebvre articulate an 
alternative to the project of  autonomy that long ago lost its political edge 
as a form of  resistance to the inevitable dissolution of  the engaged cultural 
work of  architecture when subsumed within the building industry as one 
of  the most extreme forms of  capitalist production. 

Tafuri, Lefebvre, and even Rykwert share serious doubts about 
the architect as expert, or advocate, or as guardian of  some imagined 
“communal imaginary” (at least in the present), rendering such a view 
difficult to sustain, unless the conventional professional mythologies of  
the architect are left unchallenged. Although Tafuri and Lefebvre shared 
a relative suspicion about autonomy and the avant-garde alike, what 
separates them are their respective ideas on the degree to which the total 
closure of  the given condition is actually final. As such, they differed on 
the relative value of  Utopia as well. 

In contradistinction to its reputation, Utopia is bound up with the real 
world on the ground (at least in Lefebvre’s conception of  it, and my own). 
As such, Utopia offers real possibilities for overcoming given conditions 
without exiting the everyday. Indeed, Utopia is actually nearly always about 
the everyday. But Utopia permits us to act on the everyday, and even exit 
given conditions, without necessitating the delusion of  either autonomy or 
a fictional avant-garde to imagine transformative alterity. The otherness of  
Utopia is always about return as well – the exit is necessary to re-imagine 
the present that will be transformed. Ultimately, concrete, or constitutive, 
Utopias mount a challenge to autonomy in architecture, to the repetition 
compulsion of  neo-avant-gardes without a cause as well. The alternatives 
that Utopia posits enlivens history and renews tradition by being a ‘handing 
over’ rather than a ‘handing down’: Utopia imagines how the past can be 
surrendered to the future by way of  renewed – reimagined – tradition.

Reading autonomy through Utopia, as I am doing here raises a 
paradox by which Utopia (in the way I understand it) although so 
commonly presented as impossibility or no place, inevitably problematizes 
the myth of  architectural autonomy. By returning the social and political 
to architecture, Utopia provides a way around the formalist pull of  
autonomy while retaining the hope of  freedom in the distanciated space it 
articulates, which autonomy must negate. The space of  utopian thought, 
though located elsewhere in space or in time, is always situated in the 
present as a critical appraisal of  and alternative to it. In this way, Utopia 
can never be autonomous, as its engagement with the context it attempts 



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to transform is always dialogical, interweaving self  
and other, individual and society. 

Autonomy must ultimately take the form 
of  a myth – in art as in life – because all works 
– especially architecture – and all people are 
always already embedded within a wider web of  
associations, primarily social. In this way, autonomy 
in architecture is arguably above all else a fairytale 
remarkably well-suited to transforming ideologies 
of  freedom, individualism, and neoliberalism into 
a myth, a self-soothing story that perpetuates the 
illusion of  agency (particularly evident in the endless 
cycles of  aimless neo-avant-gardes in architecture). 
Considered in this way, the shape autonomy 
has taken in architectural theory and practice as 
formalism begins to make sense, especially in the 
form of  spatializations of  disconnectedness from 
the social and political in architecture that autonomy 
entails. 

As developed immediately above, what I am 
proposing here might well seem to be at odds with 
framing the question of  autonomy in a traditionally 
Kantian way. For Kant, autonomy is to be valued as 
a form of  ethical understanding, in the sense that 
it presupposes some rational will. As noted Kant 
expert Paul Guyer notes, 

Above all, Kant was the philosopher of  human 
autonomy, the view that by the use of  our own reason 
in its broadest sense human beings can discover and 
live up to the basic principles of  knowledge and action 
without outside assistance, above all without divine 
support or intervention.7 

I am unconvinced that life on the ground bears 
this out as a real possibility. While such a belief  
may be seductive, how many people actually act 
in accordance with their own moral duty (or even 
their own best interests, rather than apparent self  
interest) independent of  a web of  social relations? 

Although autonomy in practice in architecture 
might be explained as the (morally) laudable effort 

Autonomy in 
architecture 

is arguably 
above all else 

a fairytale 
remarkably 

well-suited to 
transforming 

ideologies 
of freedom, 

individualism, and 
neo-liberalism 
into a myth, a 
self-soothing 

story that 
perpetuates 

the illusion of 
agency.

“

”



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to act ‘without outside assistance’, architecture is not philosophy, at least 
not in the sense that permits the purity of  argumentation in isolation from 
concrete experience and practices on the ground. So while arguments in 
philosophy might need not be troubled by the way in which the mundane 
inevitably taints practice, as architects we are so deeply embedded in the 
world that attempting to claim any such luxury is at best a misapprehension. 
Inevitably, as architects, only if  we are vigilant in attending to just how 
infrequently any of  us actually act in our own best interest, or on behalf  
of  the communities to which we belong, will we have any hope of  acting 
in remotely ethical ways. It is in this regard that autonomy as individualism 
(and as willful disengagement), inevitably suggests just the sort of  
isolation associated with formalism. Intriguingly, the idea of  freedom 
that best describes a wide range of  autonomy projects in architecture 
is transcendental (in the sense of  being a priori or preternatural), rather 
than empirical (in the sense of  being experiential or pragmatic).8 In this 
regard, perhaps the opposition ought to be more simply stated as the 
‘pure’ as opposed to the ‘impure’, which in terms of  Utopia could be 
indicated as the difference between the ‘abstract’ (transcendental) and the 
‘concrete (empirical). However, for these differences to have dialectical 
value, in terms of  defining an alternative idea of  freedom with regard 
to architecture, the concrete, empirical, or pragmatic would need to be 
thought of  as far more nuanced than technocratic understandings of  
them usually permit.

K. Michael Hays

Influenced by philosophical post-structuralism in their responses 
to the failures of  architects’ flirtations with positivist social science that 
so marked the orthodox modernism of  the post World War II period, a 
fair number of  the generation of  architects reaching maturity post-1968 
set for themselves the task, as Hays has put it, of  ‘thinking architecture 
back into its own.’ Interestingly, this group’s prevailing conception of  
architecture’s own imagined it as domain of  practice free of  social obligation 
and unfettered by the habits of  culture, of  comprehensibility and of  the 
everyday. Arguably, this fantasy of  a pure architecture remains dominant, or 
at least prevails as an aspiration for practice, what Hays calls the ‘autonomy 
project.’9 Given the association of  high-modern, or orthodox-modern 
architecture with Utopia, most of  the post-1968 generation of  architects 
wants to be as post-utopian as they are autonomous; indeed, many are 
categorically anti-utopian. 

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autonomy, architects as divergent as Aldo Rossi 
and Peter Eisenman, or Bernard Tschumi, Rem 
Koolhaas, and Zaha Hadid (amongst others) share a 
suspicion of  architectural sincerity of  the sort Aldo 
van Eyck detailed until his death in 1999, and which 
Rykwert continues to encourage. The counter-
projects of  still practicing architects as diverse as 
Tadao Ando, Deborah Berke, David Chipperfield, 
Herman Hertzberger, Renzo Piano, Tod Williams 
and Billie Tsien, and Peter Zumthor come to mind. 
Paradoxically, the first group attempt to escape 
Utopia by way of  inventing architectures in which 
some relative perfection is achievable, whereas 
the second group transacts in the transformative 
potential of  hope, while embracing hints at fallibility 
as a crucial humanizing characteristic (yes, arguably 
even Ando, Zumthor, and Chipperfield). 

Consciously or otherwise, I believe this tension 
reveals some sort of  awareness (in both camps) that 
autonomy is preternatural, only possible outside 
of  the realm of  “time and necessity” (as Alberti 
observed), or “place and occasion” (as van Eyck 
observed). Equally, as John Ruskin long ago asserted 
(and Le Corbusier practiced) perfection is reserved 
for the unknown or unknowable, or is achievable 
only when the problem is so reduced, or the aims 
set low enough, that it can be attained. Confirming 
this interpretation, Hays argues that the “autonomy 
project” entails freeing “architecture from the 
burden of  utility” necessarily so in “recognition 
of  the impossibility, or failure of  meaning” for 
an architecture inexorably compromised by its 
capture within the building industry that realization 
ironically exacerbates. It is for this reason that 
autonomists like Hays are not particularly 
interested in the actual reception of  built works. 
Only theories and theoretical (or visionary) projects 
have any chance of  freedom from the burden 
of  use and the destructive consequences of  the 
capitalist production of  building. In Hays’s view, 
architecture, in, “any traditional sense, such as van 

Autonomy as 
individualism 

(and as Willful 
disengagement) 

inevitably 
suggests 

just the sort 
of isolation 

associated with 
formalism.

“

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Eyck proposed,” is irredeemably lost, ostensibly leaving autonomy as the 
only authentic response.10

The troubling thing about the supposedly authentic response of  
autonomy is that it requires emptiness, or meaninglessness, for its 
achievement. As an example of  this, consider Tafuri and Francesco Dal 
Co’s assessment of  Louis I Kahn’s work:

[T]he new bases for architecture set up by Kahn are every bit as artificial as 
the myths and institutions in which he put his trust [...]. It is nostalgia that 
determines Kahn’s language. That determinism breaks with the modern tradition 
no less violently than does every attempt to confine it in the display cases of  
a museum. Kahn’s work inveighs against the reduction of  architecture to a 
negligible object.

But this signifies protecting the values from the process of  history by transfiguring 
them into symbols, by attempting to recover their arcane properties.11

While I might experience Kahn’s work as an audacious attempt to 
recuperate social meaning and comprehensibility in modern architecture, 
Tafuri and Dal Co necessarily see it as confirmation of  a false consciousness, 
in the sense that it is an attempt to resist the, ‘reduction of  architecture to 
a negligible object,’ as an inevitable consequence of  capitalist production 
and the flows of  history. In Tafuri and Dal Co’s terms, although resistance 
of  this sort might be possible because it exists, it is false – a myth – in the 
sense of  misleading us as regards the material, ideological and institutional 
processes of  capitalist society. The significance of  this is that, in Marxist 
terms, those conditions could only ever be overcome if  nothing diverts 
attention from the reality of  our circumstances under capitalism. While 
I have great sympathy for this position, I remain unconvinced by the 
prospect of  autonomy – of  a socially and politically empty architecture 
that retreats from reality and the everyday, as much as from Utopia – as the 
way to set the stage for what Ernst Bloch called “true architecture” that will 
only ever be possible when architecture emerges from the, “hollow space 
of  capitalism.”12 Although this might make me into a utopian socialist who 
encourages piecemeal attempts to willfully act upon history out of  step 
with its flows, rather than a scientific socialist, Deleuze and Guattari argue 
that, “[w]hat matters is not the supposed distinction between utopian and 
scientific socialism but the different types of  utopia, one of  them being 
revolution.”13 In my estimation, as practiced, autonomy is not a revolution 
but rather a restoration of  sorts in the sense that an empty architecture, 
whatever its claims to resistance, is an architecture fully coincident with 
the processes of  the capitalist production of  buildings. Without the edge 
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architecture is just another product to be exchanged. 

By the same measure, the autonomy project 
of  architecture is compensatory; a sad response 
to architects’ diminished authority and reduced 
influence within the building industry of  capitalist 
production, effected through a reduction of  
the tasks of  architecture primarily to formal or 
typological concerns. Thus, the autonomy project is 
less liberation than requiem.

Couched as a form of  resistance to the 
dominance of  capitalist production, autonomy in 
architecture is more convincingly a symptom of  the 
very condition it purports to resist. In point of  fact, 
autonomy in architecture constructs an apologia 
for solipsism, radical individualism, self-indulgence, 
and a negation of  the social and other external 
forces that shape architecture and which it shelters, 
to say nothing of  the web of  associations of  which 
it is part. Clearly, nothing could be more consistent 
with the logic of  products. Though I feel closer 
in spirit to Lefebvre and Rykwert, this pessimistic 
conclusion is closer to Tafuri, who, as Hays observes, 
“found architecture in a double bind. To the 
extent that architecture can function in a capitalist 
society, it inevitably reproduces the structure and 
codes of  that society in its own immanent logics 
and form.”14 Escape becomes capture, suggesting 
that the choice is between either capitulation or 
transformation, rather than between determinism 
or autonomy. Summarizing Tafuri, Hays notes: 
“When architecture resists, when it attempts to 
reassert its own disruptive voice, capitalism simply 
withdraws from service, relegates it to the boudoir, 
so that demonstrations by architects of  their works’ 
autonomy and degraded life become redundant 
and trivialized in advance.”15 Indeed, for Tafuri, 
the, “return to pure architecture,” that capitalism 
necessitates, is little more than a return, “to form 
without utopia [...] to sublime uselessness.”16

The autonomy 
project is less 
liberation 

than 
requiem.

“
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Ignasi de Solà-Morales 

For Ignasi de Solà-Morales (1942-2001), the autonomy project really 
begins to take shape in the aftermath of  the rebellions of  1968. For 
him, in its present form, this condition is describable as, “our present 
panorama of  incertitude and desolation.”17 Indeed, the self-absorption 
suggested by the very desire for an autonomous architecture arguably only 
becomes a preoccupation in periods of  crisis, or of  “pessimism.”18 In 
Morales’s view autonomy entails, “the disappearance of  all reference to 
anything beyond the universe of  artistic products’ themselves.”19 What 
is more, “the idea’ is put ‘before the materiality of  the object […]. The 
process is more important than the work of  art. More important than the 
finished, isolated object are the ideas [that] made it possible.”20 Although 
for Morales the preceding describes what he calls “plastic arts,” a similar 
condition exists for architecture, in which its autonomy is “based on the 
body of  theory intrinsic to it.”21 In a passage that highlights the limitations 
of  thinking of  theories and projects as autonomous from construction – 
from the built reality of  building – Morales describes the experience of  
visiting a constructed building designed by Italian architect Aldo Rossi 
(1941-1997), as opposed to the genuine pleasure of  seeing his drawings 
and other representations: 

The sense of  disillusion experienced by many upon seeing a Rossi building 
constructed on an actual site and from concrete materials derives from the fact 
that the building thus asks to be considered objectively or functionally, while its 
author tries to call instead to the process revealed in his drawings, so that the 
construction of  the building is an episode in an architectonic discourse understood 
as autonomous and thus indifferent to construction or use.22

In such work, including that of  the architects Peter Eisenman (b. 1932), 
Michael Graves (b. 1934), Richard Meier (b. 1934), John Hejduk (1929-
2000), and Charles Gwathmey (1938-2009) considered in the 1971 book 
the New York Five, “[t]he idea, defined by sketches, not by built work 
overtakes the importance of  the ‘real thing.”23 The desire for ‘the autonomy 
of  the discipline’ of  architecture is a symptom of, “the failure of  modern 
architecture,” that apparently joins this grouping of  architects together.24 
As described by Morales, the architecture of  autonomy is characterized by, 
“the evocation of  impossible architectures, of  ruins, of  spatial absurdities, 
and of  conceptual paradoxes,” indicative of  a, “loss of  confidence in the 
possibility of  a truly buildable and culturally valid architecture.”25 The 
internalized work of  automist architects is, “concerned purely with syntax 
[the composition or arrangement of  architectural elements]: semantics 
[the meaning of  architectural elements that emerges from assemblages of  



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them, and from their metaphoric power] constitute 
not so much a goal to be reached as a point from 
which to depart.”26 Here, Morales returns our 
attention to the association between autonomy and 
a draining away of  culturally associative content in 
architecture, in response to the crisis of  architecture 
(and modernity) as a crisis of  meaning and ideology, 
and as a symptom of  the capitalist production of  
buildings.

Pier Vittorio Aureli (b. 1973) – The Project of Autonomy

For Aureli, the key aim of  what he calls “the 
project of  autonomy” is to intensify the difference 
between “present thinking” and “past thinking.” 
In this sense, “autonomy” is that process by which 
the apparent uniqueness of  the present can know 
itself  as distinct from the past and from tradition, 
even if  both become tropes that autonomists 
“mess” with. However, while Aureli is interested in 
autonomy as a project of  international architectural 
culture in general, his main preoccupation is with 
emphasizing its Italian origins and the multiplicity 
of  expressions within that context, which is to say, 
that while it might be convenient to identify Aldo 
Rossi with Tafuri, for Aureli they are different in 
the way that Rowe and Eisenman are. Although 
the subtlety of  this might be elusive, it is surely 
reasonable to argue that historian/theorists (Tafuri 
and Rowe) will be different from practitioner/
theorists (Rossi and Eisenman). At the very least, 
the former could make a much more convincing 
claim to autonomy than the latter: history and 
theory exist in the realm of  texts, which are much 
less costly or risky to produce than buildings 
are. On the other hand, architecture is always 
implicated in the dominant culture and bound to 
its modes of  production. As such, the construction 
of  architecture always renders it already far too 
compromised – by association – to lay any claim 
to autonomy of  any substantive sort. It is precisely 



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this compromised position that implementation foists upon architecture 
that encouraged a range of  autonomists to initially turn away from 
making buildings toward the construction of  theories and representations. 
However, even these activities, in particular the crafting of  supposedly 
autonomous representations, are quickly subsumed within the logic of  the 
provision of  products and of  consumption. The beautiful representations 
of  architect theorists may have been free of  the ‘burden of  use’ because 
they could, or would, never be constructed, but this did not inoculate them 
from quickly becoming objects of  exchange, far from autonomous in any 
convincing sense. One need only think of  the importance of  the Leo 
Castelli Gallery in SoHo New York City in this regard during the 1970s 
and early 1980s. Many architects’ reputations were made, and building 
careers ultimately launched, on the basis of  first producing apparently 
autonomous representations. It is in this regard, as Aureli observes that 
“capitalism evolves to disarm [...] resistance.”27

Aureli’s argument, it is worth noting, obtains to a small architectural 
elite that is not representative of  architecture as generally practiced. Nor 
does his argument particularly relate to the individuals who conventionally 
populate buildings. Indeed, this is likely the point: autonomy of  any sort 
that actually proceeds to some real form of  resistance presupposes isolation 
from the mainstream. It is in this regard that autonomy is countercultural, 
which ostensibly confirms it as a critical practice of  a sort. Though only 
for so long as it is not named as a style or consumed as one. The near 
impossibility of  actually achieving this turns on the duration of  the cycles 
of  style that autonomy is part of  having – paradoxically – become shorter 
and shorter since the 1970s. Although Aureli offers something of  a history 
of  autonomy in architecture – from the 1960s onward – with an emphasis 
on Italian currents, it seems to me that the main aim of  his project is to 
locate, or more precisely, to carve out, a place for his own practice by 
laying claim to an inheritance from the Italian Autonomists, in the belief  
that this would actually make practice – his own – possible in the midst of  
capitalist production. Thus, his observations about the convictions of  the 
Autonomists appear to mirror his own hopes: 

[The Autonomists’ Project was] not about the destruction of  capitalist culture 
and bourgeois history per se but, on the contrary, [it was rather about] their deep 
analysis and instrumental use. Autonomy was not the creation of  politics and 
poetics ex nihilo but rather an audacious effort to appropriate the political realm 
in order to construct an alternative to capitalist domination.28

The peculiar thing about Aureli’s reading, or perhaps of  the strain 
of  autonomy he is interested in, is that its aims are, according to him, 



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“postpolitical” rather than “political”, which to me 
seems a sure recipe for failure.29 Clearly, attempting to 
act upon capitalist production in some postpolitical 
manner comes just a bit too close to the myths of  
the end of  history that underpin the neoliberal 
project today. However, in telling the story in this 
way, Aureli brings us close to a truer condition, 
that of  melancholia, of  a sense of  exhaustion and 
despondency in the face of  the apparent failure 
and defeat of  communism, and of  the Left more 
generally, particularly in their inability to offer up a 
compelling alternative to the entrepreneurial spirit 
and chameleon-like wiles of  capitalism. Indeed, in 
Aureli’s view Autonomy’s target was not so much 
capitalism as it was communism and the Left, in the 
belief  that through the antagonism of  autonomy, 
capitalism could be transformed (somehow from 
within). But how this could be achieved – disengaged 
from politics – remains a mystery. Nevertheless, 
Aureli is clear: he wants to, “attempt to extract from 
[the] history [of  the project of  Autonomy] what is 
still valid today.”30 Achieving this clearly presents a 
significant problem in a context where autonomy 
suggests a particular attitude, or style, as much as 
a retreat from many of  the multiple problems that 
make up architecture, for example, encounters with 
place and use. Ultimately, for Aureli, by the time the 
autonomy project in architecture was exported to 
the Anglo-American context it arrived as an already 
spent force, suggesting aesthetic innovations of  
a formalist sort, rather than any radical political 
initiative. As such, the very conditions of  extreme 
commercial production that autonomy professed 
to counter quickly consumed it within its own 
capitalist logic. Nevertheless, Aureli looks to, 
“autonomia as a way to establish long-term 
responsibilities and solid categories by which to 
counter the positivistic and mystifying ways that 
social and political development comes to be seen 
as evolutionary progress.”31 While I certainly agree 
with the necessity of  doing just this, the “autonomy 

Ultimately, 
the myth of 

the autonomy 
project maintains 

the status quo 
by which utopia 

must still be 
renounced.

“

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project” in architecture must inevitably turn-in on itself  to become both 
self-justifying and self-indulgent, little more than a compensation for the 
near impossibility of  socially rich and significant architectural practise 
with the reach of  capitalism. Ultimately, the myth of  the autonomy 
project maintains the status quo by which Utopia must still be renounced, 
including the commitment to transformation it speaks, and the real social 
and political engagement it requires. In this renunciation, the architect can 
also maintain his or her fiction of  some special status in the making and 
remaking of  the world, despite all of  the evidence to the contrary that 
persistently debunks this myth.

Patrik Schumacher

Patrik Schumacher, who teaches at the Architectural Association 
in London, is a director in the office of  Zaha Hadid Architects; his 
prominence in UK architectural education and position in Hadid’s office, 
as representative of  so-called starchitect practises, are the key reasons for 
considering his take on the autonomy of  architecture here. The main 
shortcoming of  Schumacher’s writing on architecture is that to make his 
point he presumes an either/or situation of  either grand master narratives, 
or none. As such, his argument is totalizing and lacks subtlety. His tone 
suggests that the current system of  cultural production really is as closed 
as the absolute fragmentation he posits would ensure. He associates master 
narratives with the social renewal projects of  Utopia, evident, according to 
him, in the urban projects of  orthodox modern architecture. Overcoming 
master narratives, with a putative realism, entails, as with most autonomists, 
doing away with Utopia. According to Schumacher, the current condition 
reveals, “the all too evident impossibility of  designing a new world,” not 
least, he argues, because the current condition, “indicates how far utopia 
has been left behind.” In this regard, Schumacher observes, “two related 
tendencies that conspire to frustrate any straightforward utopian impulse 
within architecture and design: 1. The dissolution of  the utopian politico-
cultural discourses of  emancipation and social progress [...].” And, “2. 
The increasing autonomy and self-referential closure of  the discipline 
of  architecture, as expressed [...] in the [...] work and writings of  Peter 
Eisenman.” He continues, “while [i]t might seem that [...] architecture 
withdraws into itself  because no compelling social project exists that 
could inspire and direct architectural speculation [...], there is another way 
one could theorise the relationship between these two phenomena.”32 On 
the basis of  the argument developed in the preceding pages of  the present 
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is that the withdrawal of  architecture into itself  
is indeed a symptom of  having, “no compelling 
social project,” to, “inspire and direct architectural 
speculation.”

In Schumacher’s view:

[t]he tendency towards architectural autonomy 
might be understood as a moment of  an overall 
societal process of  differentiation, whereby social 
communication fragments into a series of  autonomous 
domains – the economy, politics, the legal system, 
science, art etc. – establishing self-referentially closed 
subsystems within society. Each of  these autonomous 
discourses contributes, in its specific way, to the overall 
social process. But this overall social process – society – 

does no longer have any control centre over and above 
the various increasingly autonomous communication 
systems. The differentiated discourses establish their 
own sovereign independence with respect to their 
underlying values, performance criteria, programmes 
and priorities. In this sense the various subsystems 
operate self-referentially [...] in a kind of  self- 
referentially enclosed autonomy.33

According to Schumacher, such fragmentation is 
to be welcomed precisely because the condition of  
autonomy facilitates, “the ability to experiment with 
adaptations to a turbulent environment on many 
local fronts simultaneously, without the need to 
synchronise all moves, and without running the risk 
that failures rip too deep into the social fabric.”34 
Moreover, his belief  is that such fragmentation 
protects architecture because, “design rationality 
too can neither be reduced to nor controlled by any 
other than its own logic.”35

Schumacher’s discourse depends on a large 
degree of  overconfidence in the supposed logic 
of  his statements. Nowhere is this arrogance more 
pronounced than in his naïve and out-of-date 
statements on Utopia that are, admittedly, fairly 
typical of  primitive understandings of  the concept, 
and which stubbornly persist in architecture theory: 



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The self-referential closure of  the differentiated subsystems of  societal 
communication spells the end of  utopia. Utopia as a coherent project and 
blueprint, i.e. as the wholesale reinvention of  society integrating politics, law, 
economy and architecture, breaks up in the face of  an insurmountable complexity 
barrier [...]. Today society has no address, no centre and no opportunity to 
generate a binding representation of  itself  and its destiny.36

The preceding begs the question as to whether or not Utopia must be 
blueprint to articulate reinvention. An alternative position arising from 
with the discipline of  utopian studies and beyond is that the blueprint 
Utopia is just one, albeit unfortunate, utopian possibility amongst others. 
Examples of  these alternatives include “Utopia as method” as Ruth 
Levitas understands it, as a way of  thinking about and working toward the 
“possible-impossible” as Henri Lefebvre described it, or the taking of  the 
first resolute, though by no means certain, steps toward the realization of  
alternatives that would be “constitutive” rather than “pathological”(of  a 
blueprint utopian sort), in Paul Ricoeur’s sense.37

Amongst the many peculiar aspects of  Schumacher’s thinking is his 
conviction that:

[a] mark of  the self-referential closure of  architecture is that design decisions 
are tightly knit to their kind and only obliquely/indirectly [...] refer to external 
demands and circumstances [...]. Political, legal or financial concerns are not 
immediately architectural concerns.38

The sheltered vision of  architecture this encourages only serves to further 
separate architecture from the everyday and to absolve architects of  their 
obligation to communities and individuals. As construed by Schumacher, 
autonomy liberates architects to a space of  unobstructed self  involvement 
of  an “art-for-art’s-sake” sort which only confirms the disconnect between 
architects and their architecture from everyday life while contributing to the 
transformation of  buildings and cities into little more than a collection of  
branded commodities. As with so many architects, Schumacher’s ultimate 
defense for such a disconnected view of  architecture is the cultural capital 
that attaches to some imagined association with a putative avant-garde: 

The distinction of  avant-garde versus mainstream, merely commercial 
“architecture”, remains constitutive for the discipline. Only innovative, 
generalisable contributions [...] that are deeply entangled in the autopoeitic 
network of  architectural communication [are considered]. The degree of  
autonomy that architectural discourse has established by differentiating itself  
from the immediacy of  everyday talk about buildings [...] should grow with the 
overall complexity of  society.39



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In Conclusion

Although Tafuri could see only false 
consciousness – and certain failure – in attempts to 
act upon history, when acting within history is seen as 
the only possible option, the risk is that the results 
will be as self-serving as they are anti-utopian. But 
what other possibility could there be if  attempts to 
act upon history are seen as being out of  step with 
its flow, and thus supposedly doomed? Moreover, 
if  acting within history entails doing away with 
Utopia, acting upon history is fundamentally utopian. 
Resigning oneself  to history as determinant also 
risks becoming self-serving by absolving architects 
from being critical and acting critically. This 
conundrum leads me to a passage from Deleuze and 
Guattari’s What is Philosophy?, with which I would 
like to conclude, as I believe it captures many of  the 
strands I have been developing in this paper while 
helping us to imagine how to reconcile our desires 
for freedom with our simultaneous capture within 
webs of  social association, by way of  Utopia:

Actually, utopia is what links philosophy with its own 
epoch, with European capitalism, but also already 
with the Greek city. In each case it is with utopia that 
philosophy becomes political and takes the criticism of  
its own time to its highest point. Utopia does not split 
off  from infinite movement; etymologically it stands 
for absolute deterritorialization but always at the 
critical point at which it is connected with the present 
relative milieu [...]. In utopia (as in philosophy) there 
is always the risk of  a restoration, and sometimes a 
proud affirmation, of  transcendence, so that we need to 
distinguish between authoritarian utopias, or utopias 
of  transcendence, and immanent, revolutionary, 
libertarian utopias [...]. The word utopia therefore 
designates that conjunction of  philosophy, or of  the 
concept, with the present milieu – political philosophy 
[...].40

if acting 
within 

history 
entails doing 

away with 
utopia, acting 

upon 
history is 

fundamentally 
utopian.

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The quote above establishes an apparently irresolvable paradox for 
architecture: if  the autonomy project in all of  its myriad guises actually 
reveals an attempt to be free of  Utopia, it is precisely this self-deceiving 
attempt at escape that renders architecture irrelevant and ensures its 
conclusive separation from culture – in Adolf  Loos’s sense – and 
from everyday life. Conversely, it seems, then, that Utopia holds out a 
potential resolution to the problem of  renewed purpose and relevance for 
architecture, fortifying it to act against the solvent of  capitalism, the very 
same condition that inspired most of  the doomed attempts at architectures 
of  autonomy in the first place.

Endnotes

1. Philip Johnson, “Where Are We At?”, Architectural Review, CXXVII, 
September 1960, pp. 173–75, reprinted in Philip Johnson Writings (New 
York: Oxford University Press, 1978), p. 100.

2. Thomas Schumacher, “On Parametricism: Georgina Day interviews 
Patrik Schumacher” (2012), available at http://www.patrikschumacher.
com/Texts/On%20Parametricism_.html

3. K. Michael Hays, ‘Introduction’, Oppositions Reader (New York City, 
Princeton Architectural Press, 1998), p. ix. 

4. Joseph Rykwert, The First Moderns: The Architects of  the Eighteenth Century 
(Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1980), p. 470.

5. For more on Tafuri, Lefebvre, and Rykwert see N. Coleman, Utopias and 
Architecture (Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2005), and Nathaniel Coleman, 
Lefebvre for Architects (Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2015). I have also 
considered the importance of  Tafuri, Lefebvre, and Rykwert, as outlined 
here, in numerous journal articles.

6. Ibid., p. xi.

7. Paul Guyer, “Kant, Immanuel”,  in E. Craig (ed.), Routledge Encyclopedia 
of  Philosophy, (London: Routledge 1998/2004), retrieved June 16, 2014, 
from http://www.rep.routledge.com/article/DB047

8. See Paul Guyer, “Kant on the Theory and Practice of  Autonomy”, 
Social Philosophy and Policy 20.2 (July 2003), pp. 70-98, here p. 98. 

9. K. Michael Hays, “The Textualization of  Architecture, 1978–1986” (talk 
presented as plenary speaker at Text & Architecture, An International Word 
& Image Conference, Paris, 26–28 June 2003, organized by the University 
of  Paris, 7 Denis-Diderot/College of  the Holy Cross, Worcester, MA, 26 



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June 2003). 

10. K. Michael Hays, “Textualization”, ibid.

11. Manfredo Tafuri and Francesco Dal Co, Modern 
Architecture, trans. Robert Erich Wolf  (New York: 
Harry N. Abrams, 1976), p. 402.

12. Ernst Bloch, “Building in Empty Spaces”, in The 
Utopian Function of  Art and Literature: Selected Essays, 
trans J. Zipes and F. Mecklenburg (Cambridge, 
Mass.: MIT Press, 1988), pp. 187-190. 

13. Deleuze and Guattari, op. cit., p. 100.

14. Hays, “Introduction”, Oppositions Reader, p. xiv.

15. Ibid.

16. Manfredo Tafuri, Architecture and Utopia: Design 
and Capitalist Development (1973), trans. Barbara 
Luigia La Penta (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 
1976), p. ix.

17. Ignasi de Solà-Morales, “From Autonomy to 
Untimeliness” (1991), in Differences: Topographies of  
Contemporary Architecture, trans. Graham Thompson 
(Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1997), p. 73.

18. Ignasi de Solà-Morales, ibid., p. 73.

19. Ibid., p. 74.

20. Ibid., p. 74.

21. Ibid., p. 75.

22. Ibid., p. 77.

23. Ibid., p. 77.

24. Ibid., p. 77.

25. Ibid., p. 82.

26. Ibid., p. 77.

27. Pier Vittorio Aureli, Project of  Autonomy: Politics 
and Architecture Within and Against Capitalism (New 
York City: Princeton Architectural Press, 2008), p. 
9.

28. Ibid., p. 14.



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29. Ibid., pp. 9-11.

30. Ibid., p. 12.

31. Ibid., p. 83.

32. Patrik Schumacher, “The Autopoeisis of  Architecture”, in LATENT 
UTOPIAS - Experiments within Contemporary Architecture (Vienna/New York: 
Springer Verlag, 2002). Available online at: http://www.patrikschumacher.
com/Texts/Autopoeisis.htm. Interested readers are encouraged to 
see also an earlier treatment of  Schumacher’s thinking on Utopia and 
contemporary architecture in my article ‘Utopia Beyond Amelioration’, 
Boundaries 8 (April-June 2013), 4-11.

33. Schumacher, “Autopoeisis”.

34. Ibid

35. Ibid.

36. Ibid.

37. See Ruth Levitas, Utopia as Method (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 
2013); Nathaniel Coleman, “Utopia and a New Romanticism”, in Lefebvre 
for Architects (Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2015), pp. 18-52; and Nathaniel 
Coleman, in Utopias and Architecture (Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2005), 
pp. 10-11, 29, 38-39, 52, 56-62, 237-38.

38. Patrik Schumacher, “The Autopoeisis of  Architecture,” in LATENT 
UTOPIAS - Experiments within Contemporary Architecture (Vienna/New York: 
Springer Verlag, 2002). Available online at: http://www.patrikschumacher.
com/Texts/Autopoeisis.htm.

39. Patrik Schumacher, ibid.

40. Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, What is Philosophy? [1991], trans. G. 
Burchell and H. Tomlinson (London: Verso, 1994), pp. 99-100.



The Ethical Criticism of Architecture: 
In Defense of Moderate Moralism

CHRISTOPH BAUMBERGER

The practice of  architectural criticism is 
supercharged with ethical evaluations. We praise 
certain works of  architecture for their sustainability, 
their inspiring and enlivening character, their 
encouragement of  an autonomous and satisfying 
life for their users, or their contribution to the 
peaceful cohabitation of  different social or ethnic 
groups. We criticize other works for the harm they 
cause to the environment, for their negative impact 
on the health or well-being of  human beings, for 
the morally reprehensible attitudes they convey or 
the morally despicable functions they serve. Such 
assessments of  architectural works are of  an ethical 
nature, or at least possess an ethical dimension. I 
take this feature of  architectural criticism seriously 
and wish to address two questions1: Do ethical 
assessments of  architectural works have any bearing 
on their value as works of  architecture? And how 
is the ethical value of  an architectural work related 
to its aesthetic value? The answers I defend are, 
roughly, that the ethical value of  an architectural 
work has a bearing on its architectural value, and 
that the ethical and aesthetic value of  such a work 
have a bearing on each other. More precisely:

1) A work of  architecture will in some cases 
be architecturally flawed (or meritorious) due 
to the fact that it has ethical flaws (or merits).

2) A work of  architecture will in some cases 
be aesthetically flawed (or meritorious) due to 
the fact that it has ethical flaws (or merits).

3) A work of  architecture will in some cases 
be ethically flawed (or meritorious) due to the 

moderate 
moralism claims 

that the relations 
between the 

ethical value and 
the aesthetic and 

architectural 
value Are 

invariant and 
symmetric.

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fact that it has aesthetic flaws (or merits).

In claims 1 to 3, “work of  architecture” is to be understood in a very 
broad sense, including works of  artistic as well as of  everyday architecture, 
and buildings as well as other elements of  the built environment, such as 
bridges and squares.2 Such a broad notion of  an architectural work suits 
my purpose since buildings and other elements of  the built environment 
can – regardless of  whether they are artworks or not – be judged from an 
ethical as well as from an aesthetic point of  view, and it certainly makes 
sense to assess their overall value, what I call “architectural value”.3 The 
questions about the relation between ethical, aesthetic and architectural 
value arises thus for architectural works in the broad sense. Moreover, this 
broad notion is of  great importance since our built environment contains 
much more than buildings, and most of  what it contains are not (or, at 
least, are not typically considered to be) artworks.

In this article, my main concern is to defend claims 1 to 3. In my 
argument I will mention particular works of  architecture, but any detailed 
examination of  specific works is beyond the scope of  this article and will 
have to wait for another occasion. Before I defend my three core claims 
(sections 2 to 4), I first further specify the proposed view these claims 
substantiate, distinguish that view from opposing views and explain what 
is at stake in holding the view (section 1).

1. Moderate moralism

Claims 1 to 3 define what I call moderate moralism with respect to 
architecture. It is a form of  moralism for two reasons. Firstly, it claims that 
there is some ‘interaction’ between ethical assessments of  architectural 
works and their aesthetic and architectural assessments, where claims 1 
to 3 define the nature of  that interaction. This distinguishes moderate 
moralism from autonomism, which holds that ethical flaws or merits are 
never aesthetically and/or architecturally relevant; either because it makes 
no sense to morally evaluate works of  architecture (radical autonomism), 
or because the ethical assessment and the aesthetic or the architectural 
assessment of  an architectural work never interact (moderate autonomism). 
Secondly, moderate moralism claims that the relations between the 
ethical value and the aesthetic and architectural value are invariant and 
symmetric, i.e. positive ethical qualities are always associated with positive 
aesthetic and architectural qualities and negative ethical qualities are 
always associated with negative aesthetic and architectural qualities. This 
distinguishes it from contextualism, which agrees with moderate moralism 
that the ethical value of  a work of  architecture can have a bearing on the 



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aesthetic and architectural value, but takes it to be a 
contextual matter whether an ethical flaw or merit 
is aesthetically and/or architecturally meritorious or 
defective. According to contextualism, the relations 
between ethical, aesthetic and architectural values are 
complex and invertible, i.e. negative ethical qualities 
can in certain cases be associated with positive 
aesthetic or architectural qualities, and vice versa. In 
this respect, moderate moralism is more demanding 
than contextualism.4  What makes it nonetheless a 
moderate form of  moralism is that it does not claim 
that ethical assessments of  architectural works and 
their aesthetic and architectural assessments always 
interact.

My use of  the terms in italics differs from their 
usage within the recent debate on the relationship 
between art, aesthetics and morality.5 This is 
partly due to the fact that I deal with architecture 
whereas the recent debate is focused mainly on the 
representational arts, such as literature and painting. 
The main difference is that moderate moralism or 
(as Berys Gaut calls it) ethicism is usually defined 
only by a claim regarding the influence of  the 
ethical on the aesthetic, i.e. by a claim of  type 2. 
In particular, it does not involve anything which 
corresponds to the distinction between aesthetic 
and architectural value, and thus no claim of  type 
1. The value of  a piece of  literature or a painting is 
its aesthetic or, maybe, artistic value, but the value 
of  architectural works in my broad sense is, as we 
will see, not exhausted by their aesthetic value, and 
it cannot generally be identified with their artistic 
value since most buildings and other elements of  
the built environment are not artworks. Moreover, 
moderate moralism as it is usually defined does not 
include any claim regarding whether the aesthetic 
value of  a work has a bearing on its ethical value. 
But this question, addressed in claim 3, is especially 
pressing in the case of  architecture since due to their 
public character architectural works unavoidably 
affect people’s well-being. Hence my version 

My version 
of moderate 

moralism is more 
ambitious than 

the view is often 
characterized.

“

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of  moderate moralism is more ambitious than the view is customarily 
characterized as being.

Whether architects should regard themselves as moderate moralists 
has important implications for how they should conceive of  their 
profession. If  moderate moralism is correct about the relation between 
ethical, aesthetic and architectural values, then ethical considerations 
belong to the core of  architecture and must play a crucial role in design, 
planning and construction processes. Architects cannot dismiss ethical 
criticisms of  their works as irrelevant or misguided in principle. Moreover, 
they cannot defend ethical flaws of  their works by arguing that these flaws 
contribute to the aesthetic worth of  the works, as would be possible if  
contextualism were right; at most, they can argue that the ethical flaws in 
question are neither aesthetically nor architecturally relevant.

Before I turn to claims 1 to 3, here is what I mean by ethical, aesthetic 
and architectural values of  works of  architecture. Firstly, I construe the 
ethical in a wide sense, according to which it concerns normative questions 
regarding what is morally right or wrong, as well as evaluative questions 
regarding the good life. Thus the ethical value of  an architectural work 
includes its positive or negative contributions to the good life and the 
well-being of  people, as well as its promotion or violation of  moral rights 
or duties. Secondly, the aesthetic is also to be understood in a wide sense, 
according to which it concerns questions regarding aesthetic experiences 
and properties (aesthetic questions in a narrow sense), as well as questions 
specifically regarding artistic architecture, for instance, about artistic style, 
expression, genre and art-history. Beside its capacity to yield aesthetic 
experiences (aesthetic value in the narrow sense), the aesthetic value of  an 
architectural work with art-status thus also includes, for example, stylistic, 
expressive and art-historic qualities, which contribute to the artistic value 
of  the work. Aesthetic value cannot generally be identified with artistic 
value since we can aesthetically experience buildings and other elements 
of  the built environment which are not artworks. Such structures can thus 
have aesthetic value (in the narrow sense) even if  they do not have artistic 
value. Finally, I construe architectural value as the total value of  a work 
of  architecture as such. It includes all qualities appropriate to consider 
when evaluating an architectural work. Aesthetic properties are certainly 
among these qualities, but even in the case of  architectural works with art-
status they do not exhaust them. Thesis 1 claims that at least some ethical 
properties should also go into an overall evaluation of  an architectural 
work. I leave it open which further properties or values constitute 
architectural value, but it seems likely that utility,6 durability, social values 



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and cognitive values are also among the qualities 
that should be considered in an overall evaluation 
of  a work of  architecture. Architectural value can 
thus not be equated with the aesthetic or the artistic 
value of  an architectural work.

2. Ethical value and architectural value

Claim 1 states that architectural value partly 
depends on ethical value in such a manner that 
a work of  architecture will in some cases be 
architecturally flawed (or meritorious) due to the 
fact that it has ethical flaws (or merits). This might 
seem uncontroversial if  the architectural value 
represents the total value of  an architectural work. 
However, autonomists raise two objections against 
this first thesis. According to the first objection, 
we morally assess people (their actions, motives, 
intentions and characters), but it makes no sense 
to morally evaluate artifacts such as architectural 
works. Moral evaluations of  such works, so the 
objection goes, are based on a category mistake 
since moral criticism assumes moral responsibility 
and thus moral agency, but architectural works have 
no mental states and can thus not be moral agents.7

However, such artifacts as laws and 
constitutions, for instance, are also subject to moral 
evaluation. Hence, there is no general objection 
against artificial products of  human activity being 
subject to ethical assessment. Moreover, a closer 
look at critical practices reveals that we can and do 
morally evaluate architectural works.8 Firstly, we 
morally evaluate such works with respect to their 
planning, design, and construction processes. A 
building can, for instance, be ethically criticized 
due to a violation of  moral rights during its 
construction phase, at least in certain instances.9 
Secondly, we morally evaluate architectural works 
with respect to their impact on the environment. 
A building can, for instance, be ethically criticized 
due to its disproportionate emission of  pollutants, 



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energy consumption, and waste of  resources. Thirdly, we morally evaluate 
architectural works with respect to their impact on individuals and society. 
A building can, for instance, be ethically criticized because it negatively 
influences the health, well-being, or behavior of  individuals, and because 
of  its negative social ramifications. Finally, we morally evaluate architectural 
works with respect to their functions, symbolic meanings, and forms. 
Clearly, such aspects can be ethically evaluated regarding their impact on 
human beings and the environment. However, there may be reasons for 
ethically evaluating them regardless of  their impact. Some functions seem 
to be ethically objectionable, regardless of  whether they actually impair 
any person’s well-being. The symbolic meaning of  a building that expresses 
morally abject attitudes seems to deserve a negative ethical evaluation, 
regardless of  its actual influence on people. And Nigel Taylor has argued 
that the form of  a building which has obviously not received requisite care 
is ethically objectionable, regardless of  how it actually influences the well-
being of  persons.10 The first three ways to morally evaluate architectural 
works determine their extrinsic ethical value, since such evaluations 
concern the conditions under which the works are developed, as well as 
their causal effects. The last one establishes the intrinsic ethical value of  an 
architectural work, since such an evaluation concerns features of  the work 
itself, regardless of  how it affects people and the environment. Within the 
debate about the relation between ethical and aesthetic values of  artworks, 
the ethical value is often restricted to the intrinsic ethical value which, 
in turn, is typically construed solely in terms of  the ethical features of  
attitudes that the artwork manifests.11 However, such a conception of  
ethical value is too narrow for architecture and rules out consequentialist 
considerations from the beginning.

Thus there are senses in which judging architectural works along ethical 
lines appears reasonable and is common practice. But how should such 
ethical judgments be interpreted? It has been argued that such judgments 
should be re-described as evaluations of  what is done through the works 
by those who have participated in their realization and maintenance, and 
can be meaningfully considered responsible for.12 According to this view, 
the ethical appraisal is primarily directed towards people who commission, 
design, construct or use an architectural work, and only obliquely towards 
the work itself. Others have argued that we can at least take particular moral 
assessments of  architectural works at face value if  we distinguish between 
moral responsibility and moral accountability. From such a perspective, 
an architectural work itself  can be morally accountable, even though it 
cannot be made morally responsible due to its lack of  moral agency.13 My 
answer to the first objection against claim 1 does not require any decision 



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as to which strategy is more promising.

The second objection against claim 1 grants 
that architectural works can be morally evaluated, 
but insists that the ethical cannot be architecturally 
relevant since some architectural works are 
good or even great works of  architecture, even 
though they are severely ethically flawed. Some 
(architecturally) great works are ethically flawed 
due to a violation of  moral principles during their 
planning and building phase; perhaps corruption 
was involved, or exploitation, or discrimination, 
forced labor, even the use of  slaves, as is the case 
for the Egyptian pyramids. Other great works are 
ethically problematic due to harm they cause to the 
environment, as is the case for minimally insulated 
modernist buildings with ecologically wasteful 
heating systems. Further great works are ethically 
deficient due to negative impacts on the health 
or well-being of  humans, either due to immoral 
intended use (as with the Roman Coliseum), or 
due to functional unsuitability (as in case of  Mies 
van der Rohe’s Farnsworth House, where comfort 
is sacrificed for the sake of  aesthetics). There also 
exist great buildings that are ethically flawed due 
to morally objectionable attitudes or views they 
express; an example is Giuseppe Terragni’s Casa 
del Fascio, which is often described as symbolizing 
fascist ideologies.14

This objection applies only to an extreme 
moralism, according to which architectural value 
is exclusively determined by ethical value. Such 
extreme moralism is implausible since we evaluate 
works of  architecture with respect to a wide variety 
of  qualities, such as their beauty, originality, site 
specificity, durability, functionality, or clarity. A 
moderate moralist should be a pluralist with regard 
to architectural value and acknowledge that, beside 
ethical values, architectural value also encompasses 
aesthetic, design, and use-values, as well as art-
historic, social and cognitive values, among other 



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things. Then he can hold that a building is architecturally flawed as it is 
ethically flawed, but that it has many architectural merits, which make it a 
good or even great work of  architecture overall.15

3. Ethical value and aesthetic value

The main argument for my second claim – that an architectural 
work will in some cases be aesthetically flawed (or meritorious) due to 
ethical flaws (or merits) – is that it best suits our evaluative practices. This 
can, for instance, be demonstrated with reference to the role functional 
considerations play in architectural criticism.

Such considerations are crucial for evaluations of  architectural works 
since architecture is essentially functional. It does not only deal with shapes 
and forms, but these shapes and forms must be arranged such as to provide 
a suitable framework for specific human activities. As I have pointed 
out, functional considerations have a bearing on the ethical evaluation 
as functional suitability of  an architectural work can influence the well-
being of  its users. We can, for example, praise a building ethically for 
spatial adequacy and user-friendliness. However, functional considerations 
frequently influence also the aesthetic evaluation of  an architectural work. 
It is widely assumed that we can, for example, aesthetically praise a building 
due to its functional beauty.16 A building can be functionally beautiful if  
it is, and also appears, fit for its function, since the expectations triggered 
by our knowledge of  its function appear to be satisfied. Thus many Art 
Nouveau residential buildings appear to offer a place suitable for living. A 
building can also be functionally beautiful if  it exhibits a pleasing tension 
with respect to its function, given that it fulfills its purpose yet shows 
some surprising features in relation to its functional category. Mies van 
der Rohe’s Boiler Plant at the Illinois Institute of  Technology, for instance, 
functioned well though its tower-like chimney and high clerestory windows 
made it look more like an early church. Finally, an architectural work can be 
functionally beautiful if  it is elegant with respect to its function, by meeting 
our expectations and fulfilling its function in efficient or ingenious ways. 
Robert Maillart’s Salginatobel Bridge, for instance, crosses a steep valley 
in a bold and elegant manner without employing unnecessary elements. 
In this way, functional adequacy (or inadequacy) can be an ethical as well 
as an aesthetic merit (or flaw) of  an architectural work. Hence, there are 
ethical merits (or flaws) of  architectural works that constitute aesthetic 
merits (or flaws). This is what 2 claims. 

In the remainder of  this section, I further defend my second thesis 
by addressing four objections. The Irrelevant Dimensions Objection insists 



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that not every ethical flaw of  an architectural 
work is aesthetically relevant: A building during 
construction of  which human rights of  workers 
have been violated, or a building which uses 
materials produced under inhuman conditions, 
may be ethically flawed, but it is doubtful whether 
such a building is consequently aesthetically flawed. 
This, however, is not an objection against my 
second thesis, since 2 only claims that ethical flaws 
or merits of  architectural works will in some cases be 
aesthetically relevant. Moderate moralism postulates 
only that an architectural work is aesthetically 
flawed (or meritorious) when it contains an ethical 
flaw (or merit) which is aesthetically relevant.17 
This raises the question whether there are general 
conditions of  aesthetic relevance with regard to 
architecture. It seems unlikely that there exist strict 
criteria, but we might hope to find symptoms of  
the aesthetic relevance of  ethical flaws or merits. 
As a rough idea, an ethical flaw or merit tends to 
be aesthetically relevant if  it is essentially connected 
to at least one main feature of  architectural works; 
frequently mentioned candidates for such features 
are (a building’s) form, function, structure, and 
meaning.18 An ethical flaw is essentially connected 
to such a feature if  the feature could not have been 
realized or maintained in morally legitimate ways, 
or if  the flaw consists of  ethically problematic 
aspects or effects of  this feature. A general account 
of  aesthetic relevance is certainly desirable, yet not 
necessary to argue successfully for 2.

Autonomists (as defined in section 1) often 
invoke another argument against 2: the Aesthetic 
Attitude Objection. It claims that ethical flaws or 
merits of  an architectural work are never aesthetically 
relevant because we adopt an aesthetic attitude when 
we assess works aesthetically, and this attitude is 
insensitive to moral considerations.19 The aesthetic 
attitude is generally characterized in terms of  
disinterested attention to the aesthetic object. It has 
been questioned whether such a specific aesthetic 



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attitude exists,20 but even if  it does, a dilemma arises. Either the aesthetic 
attitude is understood as precluding any appeal to functional considerations, 
or it is understood in some other way. In Jerome Stolnitz’s approach, for 
instance, disinterestedness requires a deliberate withholding of  concepts 
so that the very attempt to conceptualize an object in terms of  its function 
is incompatible with adopting an aesthetic attitude.21 If  the attitude is 
understood in these terms it is too narrow for capturing everything that 
is aesthetically relevant, since functional considerations are aesthetically 
relevant. Alternatively, the aesthetic attitude is understood in such a way that 
it may include an appeal to functional considerations. According to Glenn 
Parsons and Allen Carlson, for instance, disinterestedness only requires an 
object to be appreciated for its own sake rather than for some personal 
benefit it may signify, but this does not entail experiencing an object 
without applying any concepts to it.22 If  the attitude is understood in this 
manner it need not be insensitive to moral considerations, since functional 
considerations are ethically relevant. Hence, the aesthetic attitude is either 
too narrow or not necessarily insensitive to moral considerations.

A third objection against my second thesis has been put forward 
by contextualists (as defined in section 1). They claim that ethical flaws 
of  works are sometimes aesthetic merits at the same time.23 One major 
argument for this view is the Immoral Function Objection. As we have 
seen, an architectural work may be aesthetically meritorious when it is 
functionally beautiful. However, an architectural work can be functionally 
beautiful with respect to an immoral function. In such a case, the work is 
aesthetically meritorious due to the fact that it is ethically flawed. Thus, the 
ethical flaws of  architectural works may be in some cases aesthetic merits. 
An argument along these lines has been put forward by Andrea Sauchelli. 
His example is the Basilica of  Saint Peter in Rome. A critic of  Catholicism 
might argue that it has the immoral function of  promoting an ideological 
worldview that harmfully influences moral education. However, the critic 
might, at the same time, appreciate the ingenuity and adequacy of  the 
Basilica’s design to the end of  fulfilling this immoral function. The critic 
might argue that the Basilica is functionally beautiful with respect to an 
immoral function, thus illustrating a building’s ethical flaw that at the same 
time is an aesthetic merit.24 In such cases, though, it is not the ethical flaw 
as such that promotes the aesthetic merit. The aesthetic merit is based on 
the function, not on the immorality. In contrast to a comedy that achieves 
its humor by means of  the immorality of  its point of  view, the Basilica 
does not succeed aesthetically due to its immoral function, but due to a 
function that just happens to be immoral. Hence the example does not 
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Sauchelli himself  ponders such an answer to 
his objection against moderate moralism.25 This 
may indicate that we should construe his objection 
as an instance of  another objection against 2, i.e. 
the Inseparability Objection.26 According to moderate 
moralism, some moral flaws are aesthetic flaws, so it 
seems that the removal of  such moral flaws should 
lead to aesthetic improvement of  the work – but 
this is not the case. An aesthetically commendable 
feature of  an architectural work (e.g., its functional 
beauty) may depend on its moral flaws (i.e., having 
an immoral function). Hence removing the moral 
flaw (replacing the immoral function by a morally 
good one) would not necessarily aesthetically 
improve the work, since it might then no longer be 
functionally beautiful. However, as Gaut stresses, 
moderate moralism does not claim that removal of  
a moral flaw invariably leads to an aesthetically better 
work. Moderate moralism is formulated in terms of  
the pro tanto principle that an architectural work is 
aesthetically flawed when it contains ethical flaws; in 
other words, that ethical flaws of  a work diminish its 
aesthetic value.27 But moderate moralism does not 
hold that removing an ethical flaw must – all things 
considered – aesthetically improve the work. The 
reason is that removing the ethical flaw (namely, 
replacing the immoral function) might remove 
some other aesthetic merit depending on that flaw 
(namely, its functional beauty). Thus, moderate 
moralism agrees with contextualism that removing 
a moral flaw might not aesthetically improve 
an architectural work, all things considered, but 
moderate moralism insists that, when a work is 
ethically flawed, it is aesthetically flawed, too.28

Let me illustrate this claim by using the example 
of  the Farnsworth House. According to moderate 
moralism, the house is aesthetically flawed due to 
the fact that it is ethically flawed because of  its 
functional unsuitability. However, this claim does 
not imply that improving the user-friendliness of  
the house will improve it aesthetically. This will 

Moderate 
moralism does 
not claim that 

the removal of 
a moral flaw 

invariably 
leads to an 

aesthetically 
better work.

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hardly be the case since the house achieves its remarkable beauty precisely 
because it distills habitability to the breaking point. That many aesthetic 
qualities of  the house depend on its user-unfriendliness does, however, 
not imply that it is the ethical flaw which makes the house aesthetically 
appealing. The kind of  beauty the house exhibits may only be achievable 
at the cost of  the ethical flaw of  being functionally unsuitable, but the 
ethical flaw is not among the features that we aesthetically appreciate. (I 
here presuppose that not all beauty a building can have is of  a narrowly 
functional variety.) Moreover, the claim that the house is aesthetically 
flawed due to its ethical flaw is compatible with claiming that it is excellent 
from an aesthetic point of  view and a great work of  architecture. The 
aesthetic flaw constituted by its ethical flaw is clearly outweighed by other 
aesthetic merits of  the house.

4. Aesthetic value and ethical value

Debates regarding relations between ethical and aesthetic values 
usually discuss whether the ethical value of  a work can influence its 
aesthetic value. The converse question – whether the aesthetic value of  a 
work can influence its ethical value – is rarely discussed.29 My third thesis 
affirmatively answers this further question; here is an argument:

P1) An architectural work is ethically flawed (or meritorious) when it 
impairs (or promotes) human well-being.

P2) Since living in an aesthetically appealing environment is essential 
to human well-being, an architectural work will in some cases impair 
(or promote) human well-being due to aesthetic flaws (or merits).

C) An architectural work will in some cases be ethically flawed (or 
meritorious) due to its aesthetic flaws (or merits). (Thesis 3.)

All three steps of  this argument are pro tanto claims. The influence of  an 
architectural work on the well-being of  human beings is not the only factor 
to determine its ethical value. For instance, the work can also be ethically 
flawed because it contributes to violation of  moral rights. And having 
aesthetic merits or flaws is not the only factor to determine whether a 
work promotes or impairs human well-being, or whether it is ethically 
meritorious or flawed. The work can, for instance, also promote human 
well-being and be ethically praiseworthy because it is structurally safe and 
suits its function. Furthermore, P2 and C are qualified as relevant in some 
cases, since not all aesthetic merits and flaws are sufficiently significant to 
be ethically relevant or have serious impact on human well-being.

This argument leaves three big questions to address. The first two 



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concern P1, the third P2. Firstly, whose well-
being should be considered in ethical evaluation 
of  an architectural work? For fairness’ sake, this 
must encompass all persons affected by the work. 
Due to their public character, architectural works 
affect even the well-being of  persons not directly 
involved in constructing or using them. Due to 
their durability, they affect people for a long time, 
often over many generations. Hence not only the 
well-being of  architects, workers, and users should 
be taken into consideration, but also the well-being 
of  neighbours and passers-by, for instance; and not 
only the current well-being of  people, but also their 
future well-being – even the well-being of  future 
generations.

Secondly, what does it mean to promote or 
impair the well-being of  affected human beings? This 
depends on the account of  well-being.30 According 
to a “desire-satisfaction” account, well-being lies 
in the satisfaction of  one’s informed desires, that 
is, desires one would have if  one were fully or at 
least sufficiently informed about one’s situation. It 
is likely that these desires include the desire to live 
in an aesthetically pleasing environment, as well as 
much more specific aesthetic preferences, which 
may vary across persons and cultures. The main 
problem with such accounts is that people may 
desire things that run counter to their own (and 
other people’s) well-being, and they may hold such 
desires even after being properly informed of  such. 
“Objective list” accounts, on the other hand, hold 
that well-being lies in possession of  all or most of  
the goods to be found on a list, which is objective 
in the sense that its items contribute to our well-
being even if  we do not desire them. Most lists 
proposed in the literature contain an aesthetic asset 
– “aesthetic experience,”31 for instance, or “the 
awareness of  true beauty.”32 A frequent objection 
to such accounts is that they ignore reasonable 
differences among people as to what well-being 
consists of. This objection can be accommodated 

The kind of 
beauty the 

house exhibits 
may only be 
achieveable 
at the cost 

of the ethical 
flaw of being 
functionally 

unsuitable, but 
the ethical flaw 

is not among 
the features 

that we 
aesthetically 

appreciate.

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to some extent by admitting that the listed goods can often be realized in 
very different manners. 

A third big question arises relative to subjective preferences, which 
include aesthetic propensities: Which qualities of  an architectural work 
count as aesthetic merits, and which are considered aesthetic flaws? This 
may vary with culture and age, but also within a culture during a certain 
age. There is, for instance, often a divide between the aesthetic assessments 
of  experts and those of  laypersons. Architects and architectural critics 
tend to find certain forms, materials and styles beautiful, which laypersons 
may find ugly and unfriendly; and laypersons tend to find buildings 
aesthetically appealing, which experts may criticize as banal or kitschy.33 
Taking aesthetic preferences of  laypeople as authoritative might lead to 
a banal repetition of  conventional structures; in many contexts, retro-
architecture which imitates a well-established and popular style of  
the past may be what best fits the aesthetic preferences of  the general 
public. Letting experts determine what is considered an aesthetic merit 
means adopting a paternalistic attitude. Both are undesirable stances. 
Since architectural works are part of  our living environment, aesthetic 
preferences of  people who use public spaces need to be taken into 
account in planning contexts as well as in political decisions regarding 
land-use. These aesthetic preferences, however, should not be regarded 
as simply given and unchanging, as laypersons may learn from experts 
who are more experienced in dealing with aesthetic questions. To navigate 
an intermediate course between uncritical satisfaction of  laypersons’ 
aesthetic requirements and a paternalistic approach demands dialogue 
between architects and the public, and presents an educational challenge 
to architects and architectural critics.34

Conclusion

I have proposed a broad notion of  architectural value which includes 
all qualities appropriate to consider when evaluating a work of  architecture. 
It is beyond dispute that aesthetic properties are among these qualities. 
My first thesis claims that at least some ethical properties are also among 
the qualities that should be considered in an architectural evaluation. My 
second and third theses concern relations between the ethical and the 
aesthetic value out of  the values involved in composing the architectural 
value. These theses claim that the ethical and the aesthetic value interact in 
such a manner that an architectural work will in some cases be aesthetically 
flawed (or meritorious) due to the fact that it is ethically flawed (or 
meritorious) and vice versa.35



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Endnotes

1. However, I do not take for granted that, every 
time architects or architectural theorists use morally 
supercharged terminology, the evaluation is of  an 
ethical nature. Since Vitruvius’ age, architects and 
architectural theorists have often used ethical terms 
in order to justify aesthetic preferences – e.g. when 
claiming that it be a moral duty to design buildings 
true to their materials, not hiding structural 
support, and expressing the spirit of  their period. 
See Maurice Lagueux, “Ethics versus Aesthetics 
in Architecture,” The Philosophical Forum 35 (2004): 
124-133.

2. “Work of  architecture” is often understood in 
a much narrower sense and reserved for works of  
artistic architecture, which are distinguished from 
mere buildings. Nikolaus Pevsner, e.g., opens his 
Outline of  European Architecture (Harmondsworth: 
Penguin, [1948] 1957, 23), with the famous remark: 
“A bicycle shed is a building; Lincoln Cathedral is a 
piece of  architecture.”

3. What I mean by ethical, aesthetic and architectural 
values is further explained at the end of  section 1.

4. Technically, the difference between moderate 
moralism and contextualism is as follows. Moderate 
moralism takes the value relations to be invariant 
and symmetric; according to contextualism, they 
are complex and invertible.

5. See, e.g., Noël Carroll, “Moderate Moralism”, 
British Journal of  Aesthetics 36 (1996): 223-238; 
Berys Gaut, Art, Emotion and Ethics (Oxford: 
Oxford University Press, 2007), ch. 3; Alessandro 
Giovannelli, “The Ethical Criticism of  Art: A New 
Mapping of  the Territory,” Philosophia 35 (2007): 
117-127. Giovannelli’s taxonomy has been adapted 
to architecture by Andrea Sauchelli, “Functional 
Beauty, Architecture, and Morality: A Beautiful 
Konzentrationslager?” The Philosophical Quarterly 62 
(2012): 128-147. 



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6. It could be argued that we should not be concerned with utility when 
evaluating a work of  architecture as such because a building’s usefulness is 
disturbingly malleable over time while other features such as its beauty may 
endure. (Thanks to Tom Spector for raising this objection.) However, I do 
not think that the variability of  a feature is a good reason not to consider 
that feature in an evaluation of  an architectural work. Furthermore, in 
evaluating a work, we should distinguish between its intended and its actual 
function. An architectural work may have fulfilled its intended function, 
even though it is no longer in use (as in case of  ancient temples), or it may 
function well, even though it did not fit the originally intended function (as 
in the case of  Zaha Hadid’s Vitra fire station).

7. Cf. Sauchelli, “Functional Beauty,” 138.

8. See Christian Illies and Nicholas Ray, “Philosophy of  Architecture,” in 
Philosophy of  Technology and Engineering Sciences, Vol. 9, ed. Anthonie Meijers 
(Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2009), 1199-1256; Warwick Fox, “Architecture 
Ethics,” in A Companion to the Philosophy of  Technology, ed. Jan Kyrre Berg 
Olsen, Stig Andur Pedersen and Vincent F. Hendricks (Chichester: Wiley-
Blackwell, 2009), 387-391.

9. Under which conditions can we say that the architectural work itself  is 
morally flawed in such cases? James Harold has suggested a counterfactual 
test for narrative artworks that can be adapted to architecture: The 
violation of  moral rights during the planning and construction phase of  
an architectural work influences its moral evaluation if  the same work 
could not have been realized without violating moral rights. See James 
Harold, “On Judging the Moral Value of  Narrative Artworks,” The Journal 
of  Aesthetics and Art Criticism 64 (2006): 259-270.

10. Nigel Taylor, “Ethical Arguments about the Aesthetics of  Architecture,” 
in Ethics and the Built Environment, ed. Warwick Fox (London: Routledge, 
2000): 163-206, here 201-205.

11. See, e.g., Gaut, Art, 6-9.

12. See Sauchelli, “Functional Beauty,” 138-139.

13. For the distinction between responsibility and accountability see 
Luciano Floridi and J.W. Sanders, “On the Morality of  Artificial Agents,” 
Minds and Machine 14 (2004): 349-379.

14. See, e.g., Simona Storchi, “’Il Fascismo è una casa di vetro’: Giuseppe 
Terragni and the Politics of  Space in Fascist Italy,” Italian Studies 62 (2007): 
231-245.

15. Cf. Gaut, Art, 64-65.

16. See Sauchelli, “Functional Beauty.” In contrast to Sauchelli, I assume 



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that simply looking, without being, fit for function 
is not an aesthetic merit. A more elaborated 
treatment of  functional beauty should distinguish 
between intended and actual functions (see endnote 
6). For slightly different conceptions of  functional 
beauty than Sauchelli’s, see Glenn Parsons and 
Allen Carlson, Functional Beauty (Oxford: Oxford 
University Press, 2008), and Larry Shiner, “On 
Aesthetics and Function in Architecture: The Case 
of  the ‘Spectacle’ Art Museum,” The Journal of  
Aesthetics and Art Criticism 69 (2011): 31-41.

17. Cf. Gaut, Art, 83.

18. The notions of  form, function and structure are 
widely debated and defined in very different ways 
within architecture theory; for a good overview, see 
Adrian Forty, Words and Buildings: A Vocabulary of  
Modern Architecture (London: Thames & Hudson 
2000). An in depth study of  the varieties in how 
and what buildings ‘mean’ is provided in Christoph 
Baumberger, Gebaute Zeichen. Eine Symboltheorie der 
Architektur (Frankfurt a/M: Ontos 2010).

19. Cf. Gaut, Art, 81-82.

20. See George Dickie, “The Myth of  the Aesthetic 
Attitude,” American Philosophical Quarterly, 1 (1964), 
56-65. For an overview of  the debate provoked by 
Dickie’s article see James Shelley, “The Concept of  
the Aesthetic,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of  Philosophy 
(Fall 2013 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), http://
plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2013/entries/
aesthetic-concept/.

21. Jerome Stolnitz, Aesthetics and Philosophy of  Art 
Criticism: A Critical Introduction (Boston, Mass.: 
Houghton Mifflin, 1960), 35.

22. Parsons and Carlson, Functional Beauty, 25.

23. Positions committed to this claim are 
sometimes labeled “immoralism.” See Matthew 
Kieran, “Forbidden Knowledge: The Challenge 
of  Immoralism,” in Art and Morality, ed. José 
Luis Bermúdez and Sebastian Gardner (London: 



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Routledge, 2003), 56-73.

24. Sauchelli, “Functional Beauty,” 143-144. He admits that in some cases 
(such as Nazi extermination camps) immoral functions are perceived as 
so hideous that we are unable to aesthetically appreciate these buildings as 
functionally beautiful in virtue of  their immoral functions.

25. Sauchelli, “Functional Beauty,” 146.

26. Cf. Gaut, Art, 59-60.

27. A pro tanto aesthetic principle specifies the contribution an aesthetically 
relevant feature makes to the aesthetic value of  a work, but it does not 
determine whether the work is aesthetically good, all things considered. In 
this way, the moderate moralist’s pro tanto principle that ethical flaws of  an 
architectural work diminish its aesthetic value leaves open the possibility 
that an ethically flawed work is aesthetically good overall. This will be the 
case if  the work has aesthetic merits which outweigh the aesthetic flaws of  
the work constituted by its ethical flaws (see the last paragraph of  section 
1).

28. Cf. Gaut, Art, 57-66.

29. While one could find historical examples, the matter is rarely discussed 
in the contemporary literature. An exception is Robert Stecker, “The 
Interaction of  Ethical and Aesthetic Value,” British Journal of  Aesthetics 45 
(2005): 138-150.

30. Cf. Ibo van de Poel, “Can We Design for Well-Being?” in The Good Life 
in a Technological Age, ed. Philip Brey, Adam Briggle and Edward Spence 
(New York: Routledge, 2012), 295-306. For the distinction between 
“desire-satisfaction” and “objective list” accounts of  well-being see also 
Philip Brey, “Well-Being in Philosophy, Psychology, and Economics,” in 
the same volume, 15-34. 

31. John Finnis, Natural Law and Natural Rights (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 
1980), 60.

32. Derek Parfit, Reasons and Persons (New York: Oxford University Press, 
1984), 499.

33. Cf. Robert Gifford, Donald W. Hine, Werner Muller-Clemm, D’Arcy 
J. Reynolds JR, Kelly T. Shaw, “Decoding Modern Architecture: A 
Lens Model Approach for Understanding the Aesthetic Differences of  
Architects and Laypersons,” Environment and Behavior 32 (2000): 163-187.

34. See Sabine Roeser, “Aesthetics as a Risk Factor in Designing 
Architecture,” in Ethics, Design and Planning of  the Built Environment, ed. 
Claudia Basta and Stefano Moroni (Dordrecht: Springer, 2013), 93-105.



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35. I thank Stefan Koller, Tom Spector, and 
an anonymous reviewer for their constructive 
comments and suggestions.



ARISTOTLE, AUTONOMY, and DESIGN: 
Ancient Wisdom and the Modern 
home
Mark Jensen

In the discipline of  architecture, we can 
distinguish at least three different questions related 
to autonomy. First, we can ask about the autonomy 
of  the concepts and judgments made by architects 
and philosophers of  architecture. Does architecture 
possess conceptual frameworks and principles of  
judgment that are logically independent of  other 
disciplines, such as ethics, aesthetics, engineering, 
and politics? Second, we can ask about the 
autonomy of  the architect herself  in her practice. 
Are her designs constrained by persons and factors 
outside of  her control? Finally, we can ask about the 
autonomy of  citizens who live in spaces designed 
by architects. What possibilities or constraints are 
actualized by the design of  a space for those who 
dwell in it?

Hidden among these questions are two 
different conceptions of  autonomy. The conception 
presupposed by the first question is concerned with 
the independence of  architecture as an area of  
theoretical investigation. A discipline is autonomous 
when it can be carried out independently of  other 
disciplines. A discipline that lacks autonomy is one 
that depends on other theoretical domains for its 
investigation. The conception presupposed by the 
second and third questions, however, is concerned 
with the autonomy or freedom of  the people 
involved, both architects and those who occupy 
their dwellings.2 Here, an architect is autonomous 
or free to the extent that her designs are within 
her control; an occupant is autonomous or free to 
the extent that she faces no external constraints 

the conception 
presupposed by 
the second and 
third questions, 

however, is 
concerned with 

the autonomy or 
freedom of the 

people involved, 
both architects 

and those who 
occupy their 

dwellings.

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in attempting to live according to her own rational plan.3 The problem 
for architects and occupants who lack autonomy is not dependence on 
something else but rather a restriction on their freedom to access their 
respective goods.

My aim in this paper is to explore this second conception. Is it possible 
that we as designers and occupants – are not realizing all of  the goods that 
could be available to us? Do current practices in residential architecture 
restrict the freedom of  designers and occupants? It is my view that we 
have good reasons to answer these questions in the affirmative. In order 
to vindicate my judgment, I will develop a critical approach grounded in 
the anthropological, social, political, and architectural analysis of  Aristotle. 
Central themes in Aristotle’s thought, especially his accounts of  eudaimonia 
(happiness), arêtê (virtue), and phronêsis (practical wisdom), have been 
rehabilitated by contemporary moral philosophers and find support among 
contemporary moral psychologists.4 Insofar as Aristotle’s thought in these 
areas retains theoretical and practical significance, it seems possible that 
other aspects of  his thought, especially his accounts of  the oikos (house) 
and the polis (city-state), are worthy of  renewed attention as well.5 To be 
clear, my primary aim in this paper is not interpretive: while the reader will 
gain some insight into Aristotle’s views on the topics in question, my aim 
instead is to develop a critical approach to architectural practice that draws 
upon some of  the compelling aspects of  Aristotle’s thought.

Aristotle’s recent rehabilitation among moral philosophers was 
motivated by worries about the reigning Enlightenment orthodoxy.6 
Similarly, the best way to appreciate the appeal of  an account of  freedom 
in architectural practice based on Aristotle will be to begin by drawing 
a contrast with the Enlightenment. This discussion occupies Part 1 of  
the paper. In Part 2, I develop my critical standpoint. Finally, in Part 3, 
I point out ways in which our contemporary architectural and urban 
planning practices inhibit the realization of  important goods and sketch 
some avenues for improving the current state of  affairs in accord with 
my approach. I also return to the distinction between the two different 
conceptions of  autonomy that I laid out at the very beginning, arguing 
that my exploration of  the second question has implications for how we 
think about the first.

1. Autonomy and the Enlightenment Tradition

In the Western Enlightenment tradition, autonomy is self-governance. 
The autonomous person is ruled by her reason; she is not controlled by 
the internal influences of  passion and appetite or the external influences 



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of  custom and culture.7 Understood in this way, 
autonomy lies at the heart of  the liberal tradition 
of  Western individualism. It is the only legitimate 
basis for political authority.8 It is the proper 
achievement of  mature people in mature societies.9 
With their correlative respect for the autonomy of  
others, mature autonomous citizens are reasonable, 
democratic, tolerant, and just.10

Despite its many virtues, the Enlightenment 
account of  autonomy strikes many of  us as too 
thin. In the first place, there is little explanation for 
how it is that we as individuals and groups achieve 
autonomy. Apart from notable outliers such as 
Locke’s discussion in Some Thoughts Concerning 
Education, Rousseau’s meditations in Emile, and 
Mill’s personal reflections in his Autobiography, little 
attention is paid to the specific task of  cultivating 
autonomous people. In the philosophical tradition, 
mature, autonomous citizens are typically taken 
as given. The problem here is of  course that real 
people are not like this. We were children once; we 
are adults now; and we will be senior citizens later. 
Human life is a succession of  stages with different 
challenges, standards, and requirements for self-
governance at each stage. An account of  autonomy 
that leaves out this dimension is not adequate.

In the second place, the account of  autonomy, 
especially in its Kantian and neo-Kantian versions, 
is tied to an account of  self-governance that appears 
to be too abstract. For Kant, the autonomous 
person is the person who makes moral judgments 
on the basis of  a universalization procedure.11  

It seems to me, however, that moral judgments 
cannot be made on the basis of  a universalization 
procedure alone. Moral judgment also requires a 
pre-deliberative canon of  norms including ideals, 
functional descriptions, principles, practices, and 
habits. To be sure: I’m not defending a particular 
account of  the pre-deliberative canon. My point 
is merely that the contents of  a good life marked 

do current 
practices in 
residential 

architecture 
restrict the 

freedom of 
designers and 

occupants?

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by excellent moral judgment cannot be determined on the basis of  an 
impartial rational procedure alone.

The implication of  these concerns, it seems to me, is that we need a 
more robust account of  autonomy. This not to reject the Enlightenment 
tradition altogether: several aspects of  the tradition seem to be correct. 
For example, autonomy of  the sort that matters to us is a condition that 
human beings achieve when things are going right for us – it is a mark of  
human flourishing. It is something we achieve in varying degrees. In this 
way, autonomy is not a necessary or basic characteristic of  the human 
condition; it is instead something that we must figure out how to get for 
others and ourselves.

2. Autonomy and Aristotle

Aristotle begins with a very different understanding of  human 
flourishing and a correspondingly different account of  self-governance. 
In developing my approach, I will focus on three specific aspects of  
his analysis: (i) his account of  the fundamental unit of  human life, (ii) 
his account of  the good life in community, and (iii) the way he employs 
the “doctrine of  the mean” in the context of  architecture. These three 
elements will give us tools sufficient to sketch an account of  freedom 
sufficient to sustain a critique of  contemporary architecture – especially 
contemporary home design and construction.

2.1 The Fundamental Unit of Human Life

The concept of  the “fundamental unit of  human life,” is the concept 
of  the proper starting point for an investigation into the human species 
from the perspective of  philosophical anthropology. Finding this 
fundamental unit requires some care: we can err too small by focusing on a 
component and err too big by focusing on an aggregate. Aristotle regards 
the household as the fundamental unit of  human life and identifies its 
elements with a quote from Hesiod. The household includes: “a house, a 
wife, and an ox for the plow.”12 Abstracting a bit, let’s call these elements 
(i) one’s residence, (ii) one’s intimate relationships, and (iii) one’s tools for 
one’s work.13

We should notice immediately the contrast between Aristotle’s starting 
point and that of  the Enlightenment. Aristotle does not begin with the 
abstract rational individual. He begins instead with a person in context. 
From Aristotle’s perspective, the Enlightenment approach that begins 
with the bare individual is bound to fail in the same way that the biologist 



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is bound to fail who attempts to make sense of  
ants by starting the investigation with a single ant 
confined to a specimen jar. The component part is 
mistaken for the whole unit.

Aristotle’s more inclusive starting point lays the 
groundwork for our account of  human freedom. 
The extent of  one’s freedom will depend on the 
degree to which one achieves success appropriate 
to one’s residence, relationships, and work. For 
example, as physical beings, we require shelter from 
the elements in the world that threaten our bodies. 
As developmental beings, we require relationships 
with more mature people to help us grow. And 
as dependent and aspirational beings, we need 
avenues through which we can work to meet our 
unmet needs. Together, it seems right to say that 
the degree to which we are free depends in part 
on the degree to which we have found success in 
building a dwelling, establishing a social network, 
and finding meaningful work.14 Contrapositively, 
to the extent that these three tasks are challenges 
for us, our freedom is constrained and our lives 
are characterized by a kind of  servitude. In other 
words, the idea of  self-governance for Aristotle is 
one that presupposes natural dependence on others 
and modifications to the environment.

This insight is not especially profound; we 
might regard it as a philosophical adaptation of  
Maslow’s hierarchy of  needs.15 However, it seems 
to me that the relationship between these three 
elements of  basic human life and human freedom 
is more complex. It is also the case that freedom, 
at least to some degree, is necessary in order to 
achieve a degree of  success in these three elements. 
In other words, these elements, together with 
freedom, are symbiotically related. For example, 
in order to secure a residence that will enable my 
family to flourish, I require successful work. And 
in order to secure successful work, I require a 
secure residence in which or from which to do it. 



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And both of  these observations presuppose that I can make choices with 
respect to my residence and my work that are free from the constraints 
that would keep me from making reasoned choices that reflect my own 
moral, philosophical, or religious account of  the good life in the context 
of  my community.

We can conclude then that the Aristotelian account of  freedom begins 
holistically and in situ. To be a human being is to be located in a place, 
intimately connected to others, and involved in work. Autonomy in the 
more robust sense that I am developing here both requires and enables 
success with respect to these basic elements of  human life. One is free to 
the extent that one can pursue one’s account of  the good life.

2.2 The Good in Community

While Aristotle regards the household as the fundamental unit of  
human life, he does not regard it as the complete focus of  an investigation 
into human affairs. By itself, a household is not self-sufficient. On his 
view, households are naturally organized into villages and a group of  
villages together constitutes a city (polis).16 Only when we build a city do 
we achieve a self-sufficient human community, and, in turn, the proper 
focus for a comprehensive investigation.17 In other words, to understand 
and then evaluate human affairs we cannot but make reference to the city. 
Villages, households, and citizens are all constituents of  a city in their own 
fashion; their activities cannot be understood without reference to the city 
as a whole.

Now to say that a city is constituted by its citizens is not to say that a 
city is simply composed of  citizens. If  that were so, the good of  the city 
could be measured purely in terms of  the individual success and failures of  
its citizens. Instead, the good for the city is a common good. It is achieved 
when each of  the citizens in the city performs his or her specific function 
well. Consider Aristotle’s claim about the chief  good at the beginning of  
the Nicomachean Ethics:

And since it [political science] uses the other sciences concerned with action, and 
moreover legislates what must be done and what avoided, its end will include 
the ends of  the other sciences, and so this will be the human good. For even if  
the good is the same for a city as for an individual, still the good of  the city is 
apparently a greater and more complete good to acquire and preserve.18

As Aristotle will explain in more detail, the function of  the citizen is 
given not only in terms of  her function in the context of  the fundamental 
unit. Citizens’ also have functions attached to their roles in the village, 



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and in turn, their roles in the city.19 In Aristotle’s 
ideal constitution, the government assigns these 
roles according to citizens’ stages and capabilities. 
It seems to me that we need not follow him in 
assigning these roles involuntarily, but we must 
follow him in recognizing that the obligations 
associated with excellent citizenship extend beyond 
one’s obligations in the household. 

We must take care in describing the relationship 
between the household and the city in much the same 
way that we took care in describing the relationship 
between the constituent elements of  the household 
and the freedom of  the individual. The flourishing 
city is certainly one in which all of  the households 
are flourishing as well. But it does not follow that 
a city of  flourishing households is sufficient to 
realize a flourishing city. In other words, the success 
of  individual households in achieving their private 
goods does not guarantee the achievement of  all 
of  the common and public goods associated with a 
flourishing city. Insofar as citizens identify with the 
good not only of  their household but also of  their 
city, citizens’ pursuits will include a range of  private, 
public, and common goods. As always, the starting 
point for these pursuits will be citizens’ dwellings, 
relationships, and work. As a result, our final 
account of  these elements must be further tailored 
to suit the further goods that these elements both 
require and enable. Importantly, free citizens are 
not defined in terms of  the absence of  government 
interference.20 Instead, free citizens are those who 
are enabled by the city to accomplish their good and 
who, at the same time, enable the city to achieve its 
common and public goods. 

2.3 The Golden Mean

The “golden mean” is a central theme in 
Aristotle’s moral and political thought. In many 
activities and pursuits, we achieve excellence when 
we find the mean between extremes of  excess and 

The 
aristotelian 

account of 
freedom begins 

holistically 
and in situ.

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deficiency. Courage, for example, is the moral virtue concerned with our 
feelings of  confidence in the face of  a threat.21 Courage is found in the 
mean between excessive feelings of  confidence (the vice of  foolhardiness) 
and a deficiency of  feelings of  confidence (the vice of  cowardice).

Aristotle doesn’t say much about architecture. But the few comments 
he does offer on the subject reflect a more generalized application of  the 
doctrine of  the mean. First, with respect to the organizational plan for 
houses in a city, Aristotle says: 

Where private dwellings are concerned, the modern Hippodamean scheme of  
laying them out in straight rows is considered pleasanter and more useful for 
general purposes. But when it comes to security in wartime, the opposite plan, 
which prevailed in ancient times, is thought to be better. For it makes it difficult 
for foreign troops to enter and for attackers to find their way around. Hence the 
best city-state should share features of  both plans. This is possible if  the houses 
are laid out like vine “clumps,” that is if  certain parts and areas are laid out 
in straight rows, but not the city-state as a whole. In this way, both safety and 
beauty will be well served.22

Notice here that Aristotle is concerned with both form and function. For 
the purposes of  aesthetics, he regards straight rows as superior. For better 
defense, irregular arrangements make it difficult for invaders to succeed. 
While this discussion departs from Aristotle’s usual way of  employing the 
doctrine of  the mean, he is clearly following a middle path here between 
an extreme concern with aesthetics and an extreme concern with specific 
function. This moderate path will best achieve excellence in city planning.

Aristotle’s predilection for moderation can also be found in his 
reflections on residential design, at least by implication. In describing the 
design of  the city, he says, “…it should be large enough to enable the 
inhabitants to live a life of  leisure in a way that is generous and at the 
same time temperate.”23 Aristotle’s overall aim is to describe a happy city 
where the citizens live flourishing lives together. Flourishing citizens, in 
turn, are citizens who live excellently; living excellently, in turn, is a matter 
of  performing activities virtuously. It would be consistent with Aristotle’s 
argumentative approach, I think, to extend this remark to residential 
design. Residences should be big enough to enable citizens to be leisured 
(that is, free to pursue the liberal arts and the social virtues) but not so big 
as to encourage vices of  excess such as ostentatiousness and wastefulness.

In other words, happiness will not be found in a life preoccupied with 
maintaining one’s estate. Such a life would be similar to the hypochondriac 
or the germaphobe: people who’ve made an end out of  something that 
should rightfully be regarded merely as a means to an end. Residences for 



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Aristotle are the tools of  their occupants, not the 
purposes of  life for the occupants. The homeowner 
who does nothing with his life but work on his 
home misses out on the complete human good and 
contributes little to the common good. Interestingly, 
just as residences are not the ultimate ends of  their 
occupants, nor are residences the ultimate ends of  
their designers. Residences are designed and built in 
order to enable their occupants to pursue the good, 
including the individual, common, and public good. 
In this way, an architect is a good architect if  she 
designs and builds residences that accomplish these 
aims. She contributes to the common good of  the 
city. She is free qua architect insofar as she identifies 
with the common good of  the city, this good 
informs her practice, and she is not encumbered by 
external constraints on her practice. 

Finally, it’s not just the size of  the residence 
that has an effect on the extent of  our freedom. 
The design of  the residence can also have an 
effect. Aside from the studies that show that our 
environment can affect our mood and productivity, 
we know from our own experience that the nature 
and quality of  our surroundings can profoundly 
affect the vitality of  the talking, living, and working 
that we do in them. Together with an excellent 
architect and builder, we believe that we could 
construct for our household a space that could 
maximize the capabilities of  our household and 
thereby greatly increase the degree of  freedom with 
which we could achieve an excellent (and thereby 
happy) life in community with others.

2.4 A Model of Autonomy in Architectural Practice

Let us now synthesize the themes that we’ve 
developed above. First, consider the residence. 
At bottom, residences are tools: they are spaces 
designed to enable us to flourish in the context 
of  our relationships, our work, and our leisure. 
The good residence is one in which our freedom 

the homeowner 
who does 

nothing with his 
life but work 

on his home 
misses out on 
the complete 

human good and 
contributes 

little to the 
common good.

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is enhanced. At the same time, the design of  the residence must reflect 
the circumstances of  our household and its responsibilities with respect 
to the city more broadly. A good residence increases the freedom of  its 
occupants to pursue the good life in community. But like all of  our tools, 
we prefer those that do more than answer to our functional needs – we 
prefer those that answer to our functional needs in a way that we find 
aesthetically pleasing.

Next, consider the architect. We do not assume that every citizen 
will be a master of  design and construction. In the excellent city there 
will be division of  labor. Some citizens will be excellent at design and 
construction; the flourishing life is one in which they are free in the city 
to design and construct residences (etc.) that enable households and the 
city to flourish. Given what we’ve said above, the design and construction 
process must be a rational partnership. The architect brings expertise and 
experience to bear while the occupants bring aesthetic preferences and an 
account of  the particular goods and pursuits attached to their household. 
The ultimate aim of  the partnership is to produce a dwelling that conforms 
to the description above.

Finally, we must qualify this account by noting that, as human beings, 
there is no one perfect designed space in which we will be enabled to 
flourish for our entire life. At different stages in our life, we will have 
different functional requirements, together (perhaps) with developing 
aesthetic judgments. So either our residences must be flexible or our city 
must offer a range of  choices. Both of  these options involve the risk of  
limitations to our freedom.

3. Contemporary Architecture

3.1 A Critique of Current Practice

How does this ideal match up with our current realities? We should 
note first that this entire vision is available to the wealthiest members 
of  contemporary society. Architects and builders exist who could, in 
partnership with homeowners, design and build dwellings that reflect 
and enable freedom in this sense. I frame this first claim counterfactually, 
however, because in most cases those homeowners who can afford to 
realize this model fail to achieve it. They build without regard to the 
common and public good of  the community, seeking instead to isolate 
themselves in enclaves with other wealthy people. They also build large, 
wasteful, ostentatious homes that enable vice and inhibit virtue. At the 
same time, the socioeconomic realities of  contemporary markets act as 
disincentives to architects and builders to partner with middle and lower 



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classes in pursuit of  freedom in the sense I describe 
above.

Outside of  the wealthy, most of  us select from 
and live in residences that neither are the product 
of  genuinely autonomous architecture nor enable 
freedom for occupants. In the first place, many 
of  us cannot make significant alterations to our 
dwellings because we do not own them. Even in 
the United States, the ownership rate is below 
sixty-five percent.24 In the second place, even when 
we have some choice among possible houses or 
apartments, our options are nearly all one form 
or another of  mass housing. Mass housing is, by 
definition, designed without contact and therefore 
without input from those who will occupy it. To be 
sure: designers of  mass housing are constrained by 
the market – the market requires that they produce 
units that people will select among a range of  
choices. But since the architects of  mass housing 
must cater to a wide range of  people, they must 
produce designs that are suited broadly.

This problem could be overcome if  our building 
methods for mass housing permitted greater 
flexibility for configuration and reconfiguration. 
Unfortunately, our contemporary designs and 
building methods permit very little change on 
a macro level. Occupants can add furnishings, 
detailing, and color to a unit but they have little 
opportunity to create or adapt their main spaces to 
better match the distinctive aesthetic and functional 
characteristics of  their particular household. Macro 
level aesthetic and functional characteristics – the 
ways in which the beauty of  the unit as a whole 
might be tailored to match the household – are 
inaccessible without great cost. The autonomy of  
occupants is significantly constrained.

It is no better for the architects and builders 
of  mass housing than it is for the occupants. In 
addition to having no direct connection to the 
eventual occupants of  the dwellings they design and 

a good 
residence 

increases the 
freedom of 

its occupants 
to pursue the 

good life in 
community.

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construct, they are rarely permitted to add furnishings, ornamentation, 
color, and other details to their products. In other words, they are not 
really permitted to finish designing and building a residence. Market 
forces require them to build residences that are incomplete from a design 
standpoint. Note that the problem here is not merely that of  not seeing 
a design plan through to its full realization. It is instead the problem that 
the architect is not permitted to fully design a residence. Since she does 
not know the occupant, even a fully designed but not fully built structure 
would fail to satisfy the needs of  a mass housing market that requires 
broad appeal. In this way, the architect too is constrained in her freedom 
with respect to the full use of  her expertise in service of  the good of  the 
community and its citizens. 

3.2 Elements of a Solution

It is possible that the problems I suggest above all reduce to problems 
of  economic class. Even in a flourishing capitalist economy with 
redistributive policies that create a broad and flourishing middle class, it 
might be that the kind of  freedom and flexibility that I defend is available 
only to the wealthiest members of  society. A more optimistic attitude 
would hold that with creative thinking, sound government policy, and 
motivated entrepreneurship we could make progress.

Supposing that my model provides an attractive starting point for 
rethinking contemporary practice, it seems clear that at least the following 
three improvements would need to be made. First, we need to increase 
the flexibility of  the residences that we design. Given that households and 
their needs are constantly evolving over time, we must design and build 
residences that can be more easily configured and reconfigured to fit 
the conditions necessary for a flourishing household. To be sure: some 
changes in the nature of  a household will require changing residences. 
But changing residences is highly disruptive to the household and ought 
to be minimized for the sake of  their pursuit of  the good. Second, we 
need to find ways to enable households to make use of  the full spectrum 
of  talent that architects and builders have to offer. Achieving a complete 
design offers benefits for both the architect whose full talents are utilized 
and the occupants whose dwelling will be better suited to achieving their 
goods. Finally, we must find a way to reduce the costs associated with 
flexibility and complete design in order to expand the possibilities for a 
wider segment of  the population. Insofar as greater numbers of  architects 
and occupants can better achieve their goods, the common good for the 
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3.3 Two Conceptions of Autonomy Revisited

At the outset, I noted that the autonomy of  
architecture as a theoretical discipline is different 
from the autonomy of  the architect and the 
occupant. The latter two forms of  autonomy 
concern the realization of  specific goods while the 
former concerns disciplinary independence. The 
critical perspective that I develop here implies that 
architecture qua theoretical or academic discipline 
cannot be independent. Architecture serves the 
good of  the city and thus stands subordinate to 
politics, broadly construed. Of  course, this follows 
only in the context of  the Aristotle-inspired ideal. 
If  cities and other forms of  community have no 
common good or telos, then architecture could 
be independent as a discipline. In a world of  this 
sort, there is no such thing as a building out-of-
place since there would be no organizing principle 
from which to render the judgment in question. But 
insofar as we still find ourselves making judgments 
of  this sort, we still find the Aristotelian perspective 
or something like it attractive.

Acknowledgement

The views expressed in this presentation are those 
of  the author and do not necessarily reflect the 
official policy or position of  the U.S. Air Force, 
the U.S. Department of  Defense, or the U.S. 
government.

Endnotes

1. An earlier version of  this paper was presented at the 
2nd International Conference of  the International 
Society for Philosophy of  Architecture: Autonomy 
Revisited, on July 11, 2014.

2. A discussion of  the concepts of  autonomy and 
freedom naturally invites the distinction between 
negative liberty and positive liberty.  (For the 

in a world of 
this sort, there 
is no such thing 
as building out-

of-place since 
there would be 

no organizing 
principle from 

which to render 
the judgement in 

question.

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canonical paper, see Isaiah Berlin, “Two Concepts of  Liberty,” in Four 
Essays on Liberty, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969.)  Insofar as my 
account has roots in Aristotle, it is best seen as part of  the positive liberty 
tradition.  However, it seems to me that the account I develop here can 
avoid the slippery slope to dogmatism and tyranny that was the chief  
concern of  Berlin.

3. For a contemporary discussion of  the idea of  a rational plan, see John 
Rawls, A Theory of  Justice, Revised Edition (Cambridge: Mass.: The Belknap 
Press of  Harvard University Press, 1999), pp. 358-365.

4. See for example Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue, 3rd Edition (Notre 
Dame: Indiana, University of  Notre Dame Press, 2007), Rosalind 
Hursthouse, On Virtue Ethics (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 
and Daniel Russell, Practical Intelligence and the Virtues (Oxford: Clarendon 
Press, 2009).  For virtue theory and moral psychology, see Nancy Snow, 
Virtue as Social Intelligence: An Empirically Grounded Theory (New York: 
Routledge, 2010) and Christian Miller, Character and Moral Psychology (New 
York: Oxford University Press, 2014).

5. Some work has already been done to re-appropriate Aristotle for politics. 
See Aristide Tessitore, ed., Aristotle and Modern Politics: The Persistence of  
Political Philosophy (Notre Dame, Indiana: University of  Notre Dame Press, 
2002).

6. See for example MacIntyre, After Virtue, pp. 51-61.

7. See Immanuel Kant, Groundwork for the Metaphysics of  Morals, edited by 
Lara Denis (Orchard Park, NY: Broadview Press, 2005), pp. 98-102.

8. See John Locke, “Second Treatise of  Government,” in Two Treatises 
of  Government, Student Edition, edited by Peter Laslett (Cambridge: 
Cambridge University Press, 1988), §99 (p. 333).

9. See Immanuel Kant, “Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment 
[1784],” translated by Thomas K. Abbott, in Basic Writings of  Kant, edited 
with an introduction by Allen W. Wood (New York: The Modern Library, 
2001), pp. 133-141.

10. John Rawls paints a thorough picture here. See Rawls, “The Idea of  
Public Reason Revisited,” in John Rawls, Collected Papers, edited by Samuel 
Freeman (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1999), pp. 573-615.

11. Kant, Groundwork, p. 81.

12. Aristotle, Politics, 1252b10.

13. Notice that I have framed my discussion of  our dwellings, relationships, 
and work as abstract types, rather than specific tokens.  In Aristotle’s Politics, 



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the specific tokens include a patriarchal marriage, 
and slaves (human tools) if  you have the money 
for them. We can accept the view that our thinking 
about human anthropology begins with dwellings, 
relationships, and work without being required to 
accept his specific account of  the household.

14. Recently, Andrew Ballantyne has argued that 
architecture must be concerned with the habits of  
the occupants in their everyday lives.  (See Andrew 
Ballantyne, “Architecture, Life, and Habit,” The 
Journal of  Aesthetics and Art Criticism 69(1) 2011: 
43-49.) On this point, Ballantyne and Aristotle are in 
agreement.  However, Aristotle and contemporary 
neo-Aristotelians might worry that Ballantyne’s 
appeal to pragmatism will not provide him with 
the normative justification that he needs for “an 
appreciation of  the fitness of  the match between 
place and the ethos…” (p. 48). They might suggest 
that a neo-Aristotelian approach would provide 
what he needs.

15. Abraham Maslow, “A Theory of  Human 
Motivation,” Psychological Review, 50(4): 370–396.

16. There is an excellent monograph on this 
relationship. See D. Brendan Nagel, The Household 
as the Foundation of  Aristotle’s Polis (New York: 
Cambridge University Press, 2006).

17. Aristotle, Politics, 1252b27.

18. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Second Edition 
(Kindle Edition), translated and annotated by 
Terence Irwin (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing 
Company), p. 2.

19. Aristotle, Politics, 1329a2ff.

20. Cf. Berlin, “Two Concepts…”  As I noted 
above (note 2), I am defending a version of  positive 
liberty.

21. Cf. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 1115a7ff.

22. Aristotle, Politics, 1330b25.

23. Ibid, 1326b30.



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24. Robert R. Callis and Melissa Kresin, “Residential Vacancies and 
Homeownership in the Second Quarter 2014,” U.S. Census Bureau 
News, http://www.census.gov/housing/hvs/files/currenthvspress.pdf.  
Accessed August 1, 2014.



The Image In Power: Vilém Flusser 
and the craft of architecture
Felipe Guimarães de Souza Fernandes Loureiro

The use of  3D renderings – computer-
generated images which can look very realistic, some 
of  them being easily mistaken for photographs 
– is widespread in both architectural practice and 
education. At first glance, these images seem to be 
incredibly useful for the communication between 
architects, clients and the general public, since they 
appear to offer a very clear and detailed vision of  
the final ‘product.’ However, my experience as 
a practising architect led me to believe that this 
apparent accuracy is misleading, and that it can 
actually be counter-effective. The realism of  these 
images forces architects to be highly precise about 
aspects that were only supposed to come up at later 
stages, and they can also trick clients into approving 
a “beautiful picture” instead of  a clearly expressed 
architectural idea.

In addition to these concerns, the indiscriminate 
use of  these images seems to reinforce the idea 
that a building – or space, in broader terms – is 
mainly something to be experienced visually, and 
that a good building or space is one in which our 
eyes are constantly looking at ‘good pictures.’ This 
picturesque understanding of  architecture not only 
neglects the haptic experience of  space, flattening 
volumes into surfaces and space into perspectives, 
but it also reduces the work of  the architect to the 
composition of  pictures. As an architect, I cannot 
feel at ease with this reduction, and this unsettling 
led me to pursue a deeper understanding of  the way 
we experience architectural images.

In his 1985 book Ins Universum der technischen 
Bilder,1  Czech philosopher Vilém Flusser presents, 

This picturesque 
understanding 

of architecture… 
reduces the 
work of the 

architect to the 
composition of 

pictures.

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“a model of  cultural history” consisting of  five rungs that symbolize 
different moments, each one being defined by a specific medium which 
prevailed in, “the task of  transmitting information crucial to society and 
to individuals.”2 At first, we could only express ourselves and transmit 
any kind of  knowledge through our actions. Then, through the creation 
of  objects, we could perpetuate these actions, leaving their imprints in 
artifacts which could still speak for us when we were no longer present. 
These objects have thus created culture, and were the first medium for 
transmitting and perpetuating it. Later on, images which depicted or 
symbolized objects and actions became even more relevant than the 
objects themselves. These images, such as cave paintings, are what Flusser 
calls traditional images. They were eventually supplanted, around 4000 years 
ago, by linear texts, which explained images, creating what he calls the 
“historical level.” Much more recently, texts have collapsed, “into particles 
that must be gathered up. This is the level of  calculation and computation, 
the level of  technical images,” or images created by apparatuses such as 
cameras, computers and TV sets.3 

This model gives us an image of  a linear process in which Man is 
constantly stepping back from the direct experience of  the world, going 
deeper and deeper into abstraction. However, though new rungs are added, 
the previous ones are not lost or forgotten – they are simply different 
worlds, created and shaped by different media. Figure 1 is an attempt to 
sum-up and illustrate Flusser’s model.

figure 1: Flusser rungs.



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Flusser calls the fifth rung, shaped by the 
prevailing of  technical images, “a new, dimensionless 
level, one to be called, for lack of  a more positive 
designation, ‘posthistory.”4 The term “posthistory” 
rises from the notion that History was created by 
writing, whose linear logic shaped the dominant 
ontology of  an era, and that the prevalence of  
technical images – which are non-linear, but rather 
two-dimensional – marks the end of  History. Today, 
the logics of  linear writing no longer apply to the 
way we experience culture, and this experience 
influences the way in which we perceive reality as 
a whole. Regarding the production of  images, for 
instance, technical images are made by envisioners, 
whereas traditional images were created by image 
makers.

The gesture of  the envisioner is directed from a particle 
toward a surface that can never be achieved, whereas 
that of  the traditional image maker is directed from 
the world of  objects toward an actual surface. The 
first gesture attempts to make concrete (to turn from 
extreme abstraction back into the imaginable); the 
second abstracts (retreats from the concrete). The first 
gesture starts with a calculation; the second starts with 
a solid object.5 

Photographers, for instance, work through an 
apparatus – a camera – and they, “can only desire 
what the apparatus can do. Any image produced 
by a photographer must be within the program of  
the apparatus.”6  The apparatus is itself  a kind of  
medium through which the envisioner works and 
thinks, since, “not only the gesture but also the 
intention of  the photographer is a function of  the 
apparatus. […] a human intention works against the 
autonomy of  the apparatus from the inside, from 
the automatic function itself.”7 

Photography provides us with a great example 
of  how we work through and with apparatuses in 
order to create technical images, but it also gives 
way for a confusion regarding the essence of  these 

This model 
gives us an 
image of a 

linear process 
in which Man 

is constantly 
stepping back 
for the direct 
experience of 

the world

“

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images. Photographs can be seen as snapshots of  reality, which arise, 
“through the capturing and holding of  approaching particles or waves 
from the environment,” but these depictions are essentially different from 
those made through traditional images.8 This can be easily understood if  
we consider their essential similarity with computer-generated images:

The photographer visualizes a house as houses seems to be in the outside, objective 
world. Then he takes an apparatus in hand to “grasp” (with concepts such 
as “perspective” or “shutter speed”) what he has visualized. The apparatus 
calculates these concepts automatically, and the photographer presses a button 
to release the machine to carry out these calculations, making the vision of  the 
house into an image. The computer operator visualizes an airplane as one might 
be found in the outside world. Then he takes an apparatus in hand […] to 
“grasp” what he has visualized […]. The apparatus calculates these concepts 
automatically, and the computer operator presses on the keyboard to make the 
apparatus carry out these calculations, making a visualization of  an airplane 
appear on the screen. The same power to envision is at work in both cases, that 
of  the photographer and of  the computer operator, only it is more evident with the 
computer operator, who is more conscious than the photographer of  this power.9 

At first, these two kinds of  images seem to be very different: the photograph 
of  the house can be seen as a depiction, while the airplane drawing could be 
understood as a model. However, they are both models. In the example above, 
Flusser is talking about an activity which was created by an apparatus – 
there were no photographers before there were cameras – and another 
which already existed, but that was re-created by the use of  an apparatus. 
Architects and designers have always worked with handmade drawings, 
and now most of  them use computers for drawing. We can say that the 
handmade drawings were traditional images, and that they were depictions 
of  what the designer or architect had in mind – they were depictions 
of  visions, and these image makers knew how to build these images. On 
the other hand, anyone can take a picture without understanding how a 
camera works, and how photographs are built. The camera is what Flusser 
calls a black box – a mysterious apparatus that blindly, “transforms the 
effects of  photons on molecules of  silver nitrate into photographs.”10  It 
is opaque, impenetrable.

Referring to his own work process, Flusser describes the functioning 
of  his typewriter, which can be clearly understood and seen as an extension 
of  his fingers: “I can watch as each pressed key sets a hammer in motion 
that strikes the intended letter onto the page and how the carriage moves 
to make way for the next letter.”11  The typewriter is transparent, and Flusser 
seems to believe that this transparency makes it adequate for the craft 



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of  writing: “When I write, I write past the machine 
toward the text.”12  This happens because the 
typewriter is not a medium, but only a tool. The 
medium is linear text, which can be handwritten, 
typed, carved in stone, etc. The act of  typing was 
obviously created by the typewriter, but apparently 
writers learned to use it as instinctively as their 
predecessors used their hands and tools. Writers 
have not become ‘typists.’

On the other hand, an opaque apparatus does 
something, which we do not understand, in a way 
that is invisible to us. Its working has no connection 
or resemblance to human actions, only its interface 
can be recognizable. Analyzing the development of  
human-computer interfaces, Bill Verplank argues:

Piaget described three stages of  learning. We are born 
with ENACTIVE or kinesthetic knowledge; we 
know how to grasp and suck. At a certain age we 
pay more attention to how things look; our ICONIC 
thinking is mistaken for example by a tall glass as 
“more.” Only at a certain age do we understand 
conservation; then we are ready for SYMBOLIC 
thinking. […] The development of  human-computer 
interfaces has followed the opposite path. The first 
interactive computers used teletypes (TTY) and the 
style of  interaction was a dialog of  symbols; I type 
and the computer types back at me. […] with the 
invention of  mouse and bit-map display, the iconic 
graphical “direct manipulation” interface became the 
dominant style. This progression suggests that the next 
stage is enactive interfaces.13 

It is interesting to see that Flusser’s model for 
cultural history is quite similar to Piaget’s model for 
human development, and how human-computer 
interfaces apparently developed in the opposite way, 
becoming increasingly intuitive. With touchscreens 
and gesture recognition, this interaction seems 
much closer to the way we interact with concrete 
objects, but the process has become even more 
opaque, since we do not even have to know how 

The camera 
is what 

Flusser calls 
a black 

box […]. It is 
opaque, 

impenetrable.

“

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to operate the apparatuses – they can read us, understand our gestures, 
decode and compute them. The apparatus offers a field of  possibilities, 
through which we can browse by repeating recognizable gestures – thus, 
to a certain extent, it is the apparatus which operates us. It can capture 
and translate our apparently instinctive gestures, but we have to ‘speak’ its 
language.

The ‘direct manipulation’ interface is still dominant, and the 
opaqueness of  the apparatuses is transferred to the images they generate. 
Flusser states that technical images can never be true nor false – they 
can only be regarded as probable or improbable. This notion becomes quite 
clear if  we consider how easy it is to manipulate technical images. With 
Photoshop and other similar software, photographs can be edited in a 
radical but imperceptible way. We can only tell that a photograph was 
edited when the editing goes too far, making it look improbable. This reveals 
how the “reality” of  technical images is misleading, which led Flusser to 
state that “the basis for the emerging universe and emerging consciousness 
is the calculation of  probability. From now on, concepts such as ‘true’ and 
‘false’ refer only to unattainable horizons, bringing a revolution not only 
in the field of  epistemology but also in those of  ontology, ethics, and 
aesthetics.”14 

This revolution has surely affected architecture in many different ways. 
In his 1982 essay Architecture as Drawing, Alberto Pérez-Gómez describes 
the development of  architectural drawing throughout history, focusing 
on the Renaissance notion that architectural drawings were images of  an 
architectural idea, “implying ‘look’, ‘semblance’, and ‘form.”

While the traditional builder, a primeval poet (from the Greek poiesis, to make) 
made his thoughts into building through the implementation of  an operational 
geometry (in the original sense of  giving human dimension to external reality), 
the Renaissance architect articulated the necessarily “abstract language” of  
walls, openings, and columns in architectural drawing, by means of  plans 
(ichnographia), elevations (orthographia) and profiles or sections.15

These drawings were never understood as pictures of  the future building 
– they represented an idea, “to be fulfilled in the building.” Since most 
architects were deeply involved in the construction process, they were also 
responsible for turning this idea into reality. Thus, architectural drawings 
formed, “an autonomous realm of  expression,” somehow independent 
from architecture itself  - but always aiming for it.

During the 18th century, the development of  descriptive geometry 
allowed architects to elaborate geometrically precise drawings. Architects 
could then distance themselves from the building site, drawing, “universal 



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projections that could […] be perceived as 
reductions of  buildings, creating the illusion of  
drawing as a neutral tool that communicates 
unambiguous information, like scientific prose.”16  
We can thus say that descriptive geometry is the 
“mother” of  photography, since these drawings 
created the same illusion created by photographs 
– that of  an impartial, direct depiction of  reality. 
These “realistic” drawings have freed architects from 
the craft of  building, turning them into “efficient 
designers.” Thus, the craft of  the architect changed 
from conceiving an architectural idea – that could 
be communicated through the abstract language of  
drawings – and getting it built, to conceiving and 
creating drawings that illustrated how parts of  a 
building should be built. This is why, following the 
development of  descriptive geometry, architects 
like Boullée and Ledoux created another meaning 
for architectural drawings:

Their drawings constituted a set of  theoretical 
projects that they assumed to be true architecture, in 
opposition to their actual buildings. Not surprisingly, 
both architects felt that architecture was deeply akin 
to painting. Thus architecture became primarily the 
making of  the drawing (or the model), the same poetic 
act that has always magically revealed the truth of  
reality.17 

The emphasis on this relation between architecture 
and painting may signal an attempt to keep the craft 
of  architecture close to traditional imagery, protecting 
it from the proto-technical images created through 
descriptive geometry. Thus, at this point, we can say 
that there were two kinds of  architectural drawings: 
instructional drawings made for the construction 
site and poetic drawings made for the expression 
of  “true” architectural ideas. Although the poetic 
drawings to which Pérez-Gómez refers illustrated 
utopian, sometimes “unrealistic” buildings, actual 
buildings were still conceived through similar 
images, that is, from images of  architectural ideas. 

Flusser states 
that technical 

images can 
never be true 

nor false – they 
can only be 

regarded as 
probable or 
Improbable.

“

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If  we compare them with those made by Renaissance architects, the only 
difference would be that these images were now developed and divided 
into a set of  instructional drawings which would guide the construction 
process.

Today, most architectural drawings are made through apparatuses, and 
even handmade drawings are inserted into a world dominated by technical 
images. Figure 2 below combines the process described by Pérez-Gómez 
with the model presented by Flusser. The visualization of  this combination 
seems to highlight the fact that the current role of  architectural images 
does not seem to be quite clear.

In a 1990 lecture held in Budapest, Flusser states:

The idea was that image should document politics. But, in the first half  of  the 
XX century, and more strongly after the Second World War, this relationship 
began to change. All of  the sudden, politics were made in order to get into 
an image. The purpose of  politics was an image – the purpose of  the Arabs 
hijackers of  airplanes was to be taken in television. Politics is aimed at being 
taken in an image.18 

To a certain extent, the same inversion happened to architectural images. 

figure 2: timeline of architectural drawing.



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Now, it is the picture that generates the building. 
Photo-realistic 3D renderings “look” real, as if  
they were photographs taken in the future, after 
the building is complete. Thus, these images are 
“models for photographs,” and not depictions 
of  architectural ideas. While most architectural 
drawings aim to represent a building which will only 
exist in the future, these images try to represent 
photographs that can only be taken in the future.

In a New York Times article on the role of  
renderings in the real estate market, Elizabeth 
A. Harris states that “the real purpose of  these 
drawings is not to predict the future. Their real 
goal is to control it.”19  This idea of  controlling 
the future by providing an apparently objective 
vision of  it can be traced back to the 18th century 
architectural drawings, and has reached its peak 
with the apparent photorealism of  computer-
generated images – which look even more objective 
and ‘neutral.’ However, to a certain extent, these 
images only exist as instructions to be interpreted 
by apparatuses. They have the same logic of  
the instructional drawings which made possible 
the creation of  industrial design – they are a set 
of  instructions, the numerical description of  a 
composition. This is the logic of  programming, 
the internal logics of  the apparatus which is, at the 
same time, tool, surface, and frame.

Becoming envisioners, architects have lost 
the connection to the craft of  image-making. 
This affects the expression, representation and 
communication of  architectural ideas, and also the 
construction of  the ideas themselves. Descriptive 
geometry created the theoretical background for 
the emergence of  photography, and technical 
images as a whole, since its “neutral” depiction is 
something like an apparatus; it is a system that is 
already somehow “outside” of  the architect’s mind, 
and through which he must work, keeping himself  
inside a limited field of  possibilities.

the same 
inversion 

happened to 
architectural 

images. Now, it is 
the picture that 

generates the 
building.

“

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The role of  the architect, like we usually see it now, is still the one forged 
in the 18th century. By working through and with descriptive geometry, 
architects are almost like industrial designers, the main difference being 
that construction has remained a much less automated process. Industrial 
design, including not only the design of  industrial products but of  the 
machines themselves, was only possible after the creation of  descriptive 
geometry – and, if  we see it as a “mental apparatus,” we can say that 
this apparatus has created industrial designers, as much as the camera has 
created photographers. After all, how could one conceive a machine to 
manufacture a product without being able to predict and translate the 
shape of  the product with extreme precision? The machine had to be 
programmed.

Following the process described by Pérez-Gómez, we can sketch a 
progression that starts with the traditional builder, the primeval poet who 
worked directly on the building itself, develops into the role of  the builder/
artist/intellectual of  the Renaissance, who worked with abstract drawings 
while still being deeply involved with building, and moves forward to 
the efficient-designers of  the Enlightenment, who made instructional 
drawings in their studios, detached from the construction site. Figure 3 
demonstrates a growing separation between thinking and building, which 
was mediated by drawing.

Now, we give instructions to an apparatus that “draws” instructional 
images, which will then be interpreted by the builder. However, with 
3D printing, another apparatus is responsible for the production of  the 

figure 3: Architecture’s increasing abstraction.



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object itself. In this case, a software – which can be 
the same the designer uses for drawing – decodes 
and transmits instructions for the apparatus which 
is going to mold, cut, or sculpt the object. Thus, 
there is no need for dialogue between different 
people – architect and builder, or designer and 
production engineer; the dialogue happens between 
apparatuses, and it is obviously opaque to us. All the 
designer needs to do is to give instructions to the 
software. Thus, we can say that this technology 
frees designers from having to create instructional 
drawings – they can focus exclusively on the 
creation of  the object, of  its form.

In a fairly near future, 3D printers may become 
widespread, so that anyone will be able to design 
and print (build) objects. Thus, no instructional 
images will be needed at all. Would anyone need 
designers then? Or should we expect designers to 
be the ones creating the best conceptual models 
for printing? The dialogue between apparatuses 
may free architects and designers from the need to 
create instructional images, but can this freedom be 
demeaning to their practices? Bill Verplank believes 
that the development of  enactive interfaces can 
bring us closer to the objects we shape, like the 
traditional builder mentioned by Pérez-Gómez:

This direct engagement with the materials, producing 
immediate results, is what makes for a craft tradition. 
There is no time to step back and plan or abstract 
and analyse. We need no principles, textbooks or 
classrooms, only studios. Masters pass on their 
practices to apprentices; the only learning is by doing.

The introduction of  architecture and engineering as 
distinct from construction and manufacture made 
explicit the role of  drawings and design. Are we 
returning to craft and forgetting design? 

20 

Verplank seems to consider craft as a practical 
skill learned through imitation and repetition, and 
design as an intellectual activity for ‘anticipation 
and reflection.’ Many of  us may share this notion, 

the dialogue 
happens 
between 

apparatuses, 
and it is 

obviously 
opaque to 

us.

“

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only using the word “craft” when talking about a hands-on activity such 
as woodworking or shoemaking. These craftsmen use different tools 
and different gestures, whereas computers are now the main – if  not 
the only – tool for intellectual work. Architects, engineers, lawyers and 
accountants work in similar workstations – desks with computers – and 
repeat the same gestures – typing and clicking. Thus, in physical terms, 
these activities have been leveled. These professionals work with different 
software, which provide different possibilities, but they are all envisioners. 
Their work is seen as a set of  intellectual activities that can be reduced to 
the logics of  programming – to information processing, to computation. 
Thus, while working, they can only imagine what was already imagined by 
the programmer, and this limitation can be really damaging to the poetic 
dimension of  creative work.

Brazilian philosopher Olavo de Carvalho has developed the “Theory 
of  the Four Discourses,” which consists in the idea that “human discourse 
is a unique potency which can be actualized in four different ways: 
poetics, rhetoric, dialectics and analytics (logic).”21 This theory is based 
on his interpretation of  the overall structure of  Aristotelian philosophy, 
considering that the differences between the four discourses lie in the 
human intentions behind each one of  them. Like Flusser, Carvalho also 
provides a model in which different eras were created by the prevalence 
of  one of  these discourses, which had, at the time, a recognized authority 

figure 4: three models.



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over the other three. This model also illustrates 
an increasing abstraction, a distancing from 
concrete experience which follows towards an 
analytic worldview, “scientific reason emerges 
as the supreme fruit of  a tree which has poetic 
imagination as its roots, planted in the soil of  the 
sensible nature.”22 

This does not mean, however, that we live in 
an analytical age devoid of  poetic discourse. In fact, 
this gradual movement from the poetic imagination 
all the way to logical ‘certainty’ pervades all creative 
work. Carvalho argues that “Poetics correspond 
[…] to the ‘first level’, to the connection between 
the data captured by the senses and the universe 
of  discourse. The bridge between ‘world’ and 
‘discourse.”23 Thus, when we are creating, we 
are turning our impressions of  the world into 
discourse, that is, into something that can be thought 
and communicated. This is why Carvalho states that 
“Poetry belongs, therefore, to the genre of  mimesis, 
it is a form of  imitation, and its specific difference 
is that it does not imitate what has happened (like 
History, for instance), but what is possible. The 
imitation of  the possible is the definition of  poetic 
work.”24 

We can then say that all creative work begins 
with the imitation of  the possibilities in which 
the work will develop. Architects and designers 
begin their work not by envisioning images or 
manipulating form, but by discovering and selecting 
possibilities in which – and with which – to work. We 
can only discover possibilities by imagining them, 
and everything that can be imagined can become a 
possibility. When working with black boxes, we can 
surely use our imagination to discover possibilities 
inside those provided by the apparatus, but we are 
necessarily limiting our imagination, which was 
open to the whole of  reality – as captured by our 
sensitive nature – to the program of  the apparatus.

When we draw through apparatuses, we are 

when we are 
creating, we 
are turning our 

impressions of 
the world into 

discourse

“

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necessarily creating a gap between thinking and drawing. Actually, we are 
not really drawing, but only giving instructions to an opaque, mysterious 
black box which will draw for us. Even though enactive interfaces can make 
this process more direct and intuitive, there is still this gap, this barrier – 
we are still losing something along the way. Pérez-Gómez refers to the 
platonic concept of  Chora, which is, “both cosmic place and abstract space, 
and is also the substance of  human crafts. […] It is the ‘region’ of  that 
which exists.”25  When we design through apparatuses, the computer is not 
just a substitute for the pencil – it is actually a substitute for the pencil, the 
paper and, ultimately, a “virtual” substitute for Chora. Apparatuses try to 
create a virtual Chora, an immaterial region for that which exists – but only 
exists as information, as numbers which can be rearranged into images. Its 
hidden functioning emulates the aura of  mystery that one can sense in the 
dimension of  the possible, but it cannot really emulate the complete realm 
of  possibility, the reach of  the imaginable.

In any creative work, the process of  imagining never stops, and it 
is actually made not only through thinking, but also through testing and 
prototyping. Architects and designers draw to visualize what they imagine, 
and to test possibilities. These drawings are not “printed ideas” – snapshots 
of  what they are envisioning in their minds – but part of  the process of  
imagining, of  unraveling possibilities. Irish architect John Tuomey, for 
instance, draws inspiration from the ‘constellations’ of  drawings made by 
Carlo Scarpa, who filled pages with small conceptual sketches in which he 
tested many variations of  the same solution. Scarpa stated: “I want to see 
things, that’s all I really trust. I want to see, and that’s why I draw. I can see 
an image only if  I draw it.”26  Palladio’s sketches for the reconstruction of  
the Baths of  Agrippa, for instance, are of  the same nature. These drawings 
have 400 years between them, but their similarities allow us to believe that 
the process behind them was fairly the same. At least in this conceptual 
stage, Palladio and Scarpa worked in a very similar way – they were not 
thinking and drawing, but thinking through drawing.

Computers and 3D printers may seem to free us from a secondary 
activity which is – or at least was – part of  the intellectual activity of  
design. However, this activity is not secondary – it is actually what makes 
design a craft. There is no design without drawing, especially without the 
kind of  drawing which works as a way of  thinking, “imagining, shaping, 
seeing, all at the same time.”27  This kind of  drawing can never be delegated 
to apparatuses, since these black boxes can never be poetic in the sense 
of  making reality transparent to us. Architecture does this in a deep and 
direct way, by shaping the world in which we live. 



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The emergence of  parametricism may lead us to 
believe that, in the future, the work of  an architect 
can actually be reduced to just inserting data into a 
software, which will then create forms.28  However, 
architecture cannot be reduced to a set of  choices, 
to data processing. Any creative work develops in 
what Jorge Luis Borges calls, “the ambiguous time 
of  art,” or, “In real time, in history, whenever a man 
is confronted with several alternatives, he chooses 
one and eliminates and loses the others. Such is 
not the case in the ambiguous time of  art, which is 
similar to that of  hope and oblivion. In that time, 
Hamlet is sane and is mad.”29 

Architectural design is a creative, poetic activity 
based on reflection and synthesis, and achieved 
through drawing and visualization. Apparatuses can 
surely be very useful for architects, as long as they 
do not let themselves be “tricked” by the apparently 
unbiased, objective outputs made by these devices 
– and they also should not use them for tricking 
others. As Flusser puts it: “From the standpoint 
of  so-called common sense, technical images are 
objective depictions of  things out in the world. 
The critical project is to show that in defiance of  
common sense, they are not mirrors but projections 
that are programmed to make common sense 
appear mirror like.”30 Architecture is indeed a craft, 
responsible for creating a connection between our 
lived-world and our culture, making some aspects 
of  reality transparent to us. Its scope is that of  the 
imaginable. This scope should not be reduced, and 
it just cannot be programmed.

ENDNOTES

1. Vilém Flusser, Into the Universe of  Technical Images 
(Minneapolis: University of  Minnesota Press, 2011).

2. Ibid., p. 5.

3. Ibid., p. 7.

4. Ibid., p. 15.



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5. Ibid., p. 21.

6. Ibid., p. 20.

7. Ibid., p. 20.

8. Ibid., p. 42.

9. Ibid., p. 43.

10. Ibid., p. 16.

11. Ibid., p. 24.

12. Ibid., p. 36.

13. Bill Verplank, “Interaction Design Sketchbook”, p. 22, accessed August 
09, 2014, http://www.billverplank.com/IxDSketchBook.pdf

14. Flusser, Into the Universe of  Technical Images, p. 17.

15. Alberto Pérez-Gómez, “Architecture as Drawing”, JAE, Vol. 36, No. 
2 (Winter, 1982): 2-7.

16. Ibid.

17. Ibid.

18. “Vilém Flusser - Television Image and Political Space in the Light of  the 
Romanian Revolution”, YouTube video, 24:32, posted by “Klenov Vasiliy”, 
May 31, 2011, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFTaY2u4NvI

19. Elizabeth A. Harris, “Idealized or Caricature, Architectural Renderings 
Are Weapons in Real Estate”, The New York Times, August 26, 2013, accessed 
August 09, 2014, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/27/nyregion/
architects-renderings-as-a-weapon-in-real-estate.html?hp&_r=1&

20. Bill Verplank, “Interaction Design Sketchbook”, p. 2, accessed August 
09, 2014, http://www.billverplank.com/IxDSketchBook.pdf

21. Olavo de Carvalho, Aristóteles em Nova Perspectiva: Introdução à Teoria dos 
Quatro Discursos (São Paulo: É Realizações, 2006), p. 26. Translation by the 
author.

22. Ibid., p. 43.

23. Ibid., p. 105.

24. Ibid., p. 137.

25. Alberto Pérez-Gómez, “Chora: The Space of  Architectural 
Representation”, in Chora Volume One: Intervals in the Philosophy of  Architecture, 
edited by Alberto Pérez-Gómez and Stephen Parcell (Montreal: McGill-
Queens University Press, 1994), pp. 1-34.

26. Carlo Scarpa, in Carlo Scarpa. The Complete Works, edited by 
Francesco Dal Co and Giuseppe Mazzariol (New York: Rizzoli, 1985), p. 



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164. Cf. John Tuomey, Architecture, Craft and Culture 
(London: Gandon Editions, 2008), p. 14.

27. Bill Verplank, Interaction Design Sketchbook, 
unpublished ms. dated December 1, 2009, retrieved 
August 09, 2014, from http://www.billverplank.
com/IxDSketchBook.pdf.

28. See Patrik Schumacher, “The Parametricist 
Manifesto”, presentation at the 2008 Venice 
Biennale, retrieved August 10, 2013, from http://
archpaper.com/news/articles.asp?id=4623.

29. Jorge Luis Borges, “The False Problem of  
Ugolino,” in Selected Non-fictions. Volume 1 (New 
York: Viking Penguin, 1999), pp. 277-281.

30. Vilém Flusser, Into the Universe of  Technical Images 
(Minneapolis: University of  Minnesota Press, 
2011), p. 49.



MONISM AND PLURALISM: THE HISTORY 
OF AESTHETICS AND THE PHILOSOPHY 
OF ARCHITECTURE

PAUL GUYER

Part I of  this essay appeared in Vol. 1, No. 1 of  
Architecture Philosophy. 

In Part I we observed several examples of  
how the one-sided cognitivism of  German Idealist 
aesthetics led to reductionist conceptions of  
architecture and in turn to negative assessments of  
the value of  architecture. In Part II, I now turn to 
one nineteenth-century treatment of  architecture 
that is pluralistic rather than monistic and thus in 
at least some ways points to the possibility of  a 
more satisfying aesthetics of  architecture. I refer 
to the theory of  architecture adumbrated by John 
Ruskin in The Seven Lamps of  Architecture, which 
even though it must be shorn of  some of  the 
Romantic assumptions long ago pointed out by 
Geoffrey Scott,1 nevertheless offers at least a model 
for (what Part I identified as) a synthetizing rather 
than separatist approach to architecture.   

3. A Pluralist Approach to Architecture: Ruskin

The Seven Lamps of  Architecture, first published in 
1849, thus three decades after Schopenhauer’s World 
as Will and Representation and the commencement of  
Hegel’s lectures on aesthetics in Berlin, is notorious 
for its conclusion that there are only four styles 
suitable for contemporary architecture – the Pisan 
Romanseque, the early Gothic of  the Western 
Italian Republics, the Venetian Gothic, and the 

i want to 
suggest that we 

can interpret 
the lamps of 

power and 
beauty as 

ruskin’s versions 
of the beautiful 
and the sublime.

“

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Y

ER

English earliest decorated.2 This is hardly the aspect of  the work that I 
wish to discuss, let alone defend. A fortiori I have no intention to defend 
his even more restrictive remark in the Preface to the second edition of  
the Seven Lamps that “I have now no doubt that the only style proper for 
modern northern work, is the Northern Gothic of  the thirteenth century, 
as exemplified in England, pre-eminently by the cathedrals of  Lincoln and 
Wells,” let alone to defend the even more strident remark of  this Preface 
that “there are only two fine arts possible to the human race, sculpture and 
painting,” so that “What we call architecture is only the association of  these 
in noble masses, or the placing them in fit places.”3 I cannot reconcile this 
last remark in particular with Ruskin’s statement in the original text that 
“perfect sculpture may be made a part of  the severest architecture; but 
this perfection was said at the outset to be dangerous.” Ruskin continues:

[T]he moment the architect allows himself  to dwell on the imitated portions, 
there is a chance of  his losing sight of  the duty of  his ornament, of  its business 
as a part of  the composition, and sacrificing its points of  shade and effect to the 
delight of  delicate carving. And then he is lost. His architecture has become a 
mere framework for the setting of  delicate sculpture, which had better all be taken 
down and put into cabinets. It is well, therefore, that the young architect should 
be taught to think of  imitative ornament as of  the extreme of  grace in language; 
not to be regarded at first, not to be obtained at the cost of  purpose, meaning, 
force, or conciseness, yet, indeed, a perfection -- the least of  all perfections, and yet 
the crowning one of  all…4

Here Ruskin makes it clear that the merits of  sculpture, which might 
certainly include their cognitive significance as imitations, should only be 
part of  the larger complex of  aims in architecture, which, like language, 
can please us through formal properties like conciseness and emotional 
impact or force as well as through its semantic content. A passage like 
this suggests that Ruskin’s fundamental position is that we should take a 
synthesizing rather than separatist approach to architecture, seeing it as 
involving our cognitive powers in play as well as work and engaging our 
emotional and conative powers as well. 

A statement like, “It has been my endeavour to show [...] how every 
form of  noble architecture is in some sort the embodiment of  the Polity, 
Life, History, and Religious Faith of  nations,”5 also suggests that Ruskin 
takes a multivalent approach to the pleasures of  architecture. I do not 
want to take this statement too literally, but to take it as exemplifying the 
attitude that the experience of  architecture is complex, not restricted 



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to a single form of  cognition as the German 
Idealists had just argued, but involving and at best 
fusing a wide range of  human values and sources 
of  pleasure. In particular, I want to suggest that 
Ruskin’s seven “lamps” – sacrifice, truth, power, 
beauty, life, memory, and obedience – can, without 
too much distortion, be associated with the three 
sources of  aesthetic pleasure identified in the 
course of  the eighteenth century – cognition 
as such, the free play of  the mental or cognitive 
powers, and the experience and expression of  
emotion – all three of  which were synthesized in a 
complex account of  aesthetic experience by at least 
a few authors, such as Kames (whose Elements of  
Criticism remained a common textbook in American 
colleges throughout the first half  of  the nineteenth 
century, although I cannot say if  that was true for 
Ruskin’s Oxford in the 1840s). Specifically, I want 
to suggest that we can interpret the lamps of  power 
and beauty as Ruskin’s versions of  the beautiful and 
the sublime, both of  which from a Kantian point 
of  view involve freely playing cognitive powers, the 
former imagination and understanding, the latter 
imagination and theoretical and practical reason; 
that the lamps of  truth but even more those of  
life, memory, and obedience bring out elements 
of  straightforward cognition rather than the free 
play of  cognitive powers in the experience of  
architecture; and that the lamps of  sacrifice but also 
life, memory, and obedience highlight emotional 
dimensions of  the experience of  architecture.6 
Throughout the discussion of  the seven lamps, I 
suggest, Ruskin’s tacit argument is that all of  these 
lamps are sources of  pleasure in the experience of  
architecture, and that there is no reason to restrict 
our experience – or the buildings that produce it 
– to any one or any proper subset of  these lamps.

Ruskin introduces both the lamps of  power 

Ruskin’s tacit 
argument is 

that all these 
lamps are 
sources of 

pleasure in the 
experience of 
architecture, 

and that there 
is no reason to 

restrict our 
experience.

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and beauty at the start of  the chapter explicitly devoted to the former, 
stating that 

In [...] reverting to the memories of  those works of  architecture by which we have 
been most pleasurably impressed, it will generally happen that they fall into two 
broad classes: the one characterised by an exceeding preciousness and delicacy, to 
which we recur with a sense of  affectionate admiration; and the other by a severe, 
and, in many cases mysterious, majesty, like that we felt at the presence and 
operation of  some great Spiritual Power.7

Ruskin signals the association of  his two lamps with two basic eighteenth-
century categories in the very act of  stating that his understanding of  
them also goes beyond the simple distinction between the beautiful and 
sublime: 

the difference between these two orders of  building is not merely that which there is 
in nature between the beautiful and the sublime. It is, also, the difference between 
what is derivative and original in man’s work: for whatever is in architecture 
fair or beautiful, is imitated from natural forms; and what is not so derived, but 
depends for its dignity upon arrangement and government received from human 
mind, becomes the expression of  the power of  that mind, and receives a sublimity 
high in proportion to the power expressed.8 

These statements are rich in historical resonances. The initial claim that 
beauty is something delicate to which we respond with affection while 
the sublime is something powerful to which we respond with awe is, of  
course, reminiscent of  the way Edmund Burke distinguished between them 
ninety years before the Seven Lamps.9 The claim that beauty consists in the 
imitation of  natural forms of  course reminds one of  Batteux’s thesis that 
the single principle of  all the arts is imitation, but I think a more proximate 
antecedent for Ruskin would have been Archibald Alison’s Essays on the 
Nature and Principles of  Taste of  1790, reissued in 181110 and thus presumably 
still in circulation when Ruskin was young,11 the thesis of  which is not 
that similarities between works of  nature and works of  art are important 
because they allow the latter to be a means of  cognition of  the former, 
but rather that we enjoy “associations” between art and nature that allow 
the pleasures of  the latter to be carried over in non-rule-governed ways 
to the former; in other words, Alison’s theory of  the associations between 
art and nature is a version of  the Scottish idea of  free play, published 
in the same year as but entirely independently of  Kant’s version of  the 
theory of  free play, according to which the mind freely plays back and 
forth between art and nature. I think that this free, associationist rather 



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than strictly cognitivist interpretation of  artistic and 
architectural beauty is evident in Ruskin’s following 
chapter on beauty when he states that “I do not 
mean to suggest that every happy arrangement of  
line is directly suggested by a natural object; but 
that all beautiful lines are adaptations of  those 
which are commonest in the external creation; that 
in proportion to the richness of  their association, 
the resemblance to natural work, as a type and help, 
must be more closely attempted.”12 Meanwhile, 
Ruskin’s account of  the lamp of  power, namely 
that we enjoy powerful works especially because of  
their suggestion of  the power of  the human mind 
or minds behind their creation, stands in a tradition 
going back to Thomas Reid, who asserted, although 
about beauty, that “it is in the moral and intellectual 
perfections of  mind, and in its active power, that 
beauty originally dwells; and that from this as 
the fountain, all the beauty which we perceive in 
the visible world is derived,”13 and before him to 
Shaftesbury, who held that our pleasure in the 
outward forms of  objects is grounded in “the Forms 
which form, that is, which have Intelligence, Action, 
and Operation.”14 But in this case, too, it seems 
to me, Ruskin is not arguing that we appreciate 
sublime works of  architecture because they give 
us actual knowledge of  the intentions of  the 
human minds that created them, but because they 
suggest the power of  the human mind in a more 
general way. In both the cases of  power and beauty, 
then, it seems to me that Ruskin is arguing that 
we enjoy suggestions and intimations rather than 
determinate cognition, and so these two lamps can 
be associated with the eighteenth-century theory 
that in the beautiful and the sublime we enjoy the 
free play of  our cognitive powers rather than actual 
cognition, perhaps especially with the associationist 
version of  this theory.

in both the 
cases of 

power and 
beauty, then, 

it seems to me 
that ruskin 
is arguning 

that we enjoy 
suggestions 

and intimations 
rather than 
determinate 

cognition.

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The lamp of  truth, by contrast, would seem to suggest a more 
straightforwardly cognitivist account of  aesthetic pleasure: if  truth is 
adequatio rei et intellectus or correspondence between representation and 
object, we would enjoy a true representation because of  the information 
it gives us about its object. Here, however, we have to proceed with some 
caution, because Ruskin’s suggestion seems to be more that we enjoy 
truthfulness rather than truth in architecture, sincerity rather than information15: 

“That indignation which we profess to feel at deceit absolute, is indeed only 
at deceit malicious. We resent calumny, hypocrisy, and treachery, because 
they harm us, not because they are untrue.”16 Ruskin’s thesis is not that we 
should dislike architecture that misinforms us of  some truth, conversely 
that we should like architecture simply because it correctly informs us, but 
rather that we should dislike architecture that intentionally deceives us, 
above all about its own materials and structure, because we dislike being 
intentionally deceived, and conversely enjoy architecture that deals with 
us honestly, because we like to be dealt with honestly. This is the premise 
of  Ruskin’s thesis that we should condemn architecture that disguises the 
nature of  its materials: not because we need to acquire from architecture 
some information about the nature of  its materials or the natural forces 
that govern them that we do not otherwise have (as Schopenhauer’s 
account might suggest), but simply because we dislike being handled 
dishonestly. And this premise is important because it is what allows for 
the distinction that Ruskin makes between deception and imagination, 
his claim that “a communicated act of  imagination” is “no lie,”17 and the 
allowance he makes that for non-exhibition of  underlying structure in 
what we recognize to be intended as a work of  imagination rather than 
a piece of  information, thus his claim that “The architect is not bound to 
exhibit structure” but that if, in Gothic vaulting, “the intermediate shell 
were made of  wood instead of  stone, and whitewashed to look like the rest, 
– this would, of  course, be direct deceit, and altogether unpardonable.”18 
Ruskin’s distinction between imagination and deception would also allow, 
I think, for some common ground between him and Geoffrey Scott, who 
defended the use of  stucco to mask the underlying brick in Renaissance 
architecture against Ruskin’s preference for the honest display of  stone 
in Gothic architecture on the purely aesthetic ground that it allows for 
pleasing patterns of  line and light that could not otherwise be achieved19: 
if  a building can be understood as intended as a work of  imagination 
rather than a presentation of  fact, then there is room for the enjoyment 
of  decorated rather than displayed structure on Ruskin’s as well as Scott’s 



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account; indeed, here Ruskin’s otherwise outrageous 
suggestion in the Preface to the second edition of  
The Seven Lamps that architecture must ultimately 
exploit the means of  painting or sculpture could be 
used in his defense.

Ruskin’s discussion of  “The Lamp of  Truth” 
also includes his notorious argument that even 
in his own nineteenth century an architecture of  
wood, stone, and masonry is preferable to one of  
iron. He writes that the art of  architecture:

having been, up to the beginning of  the present 
century, practised for the most part in clay, stone, 
or wood, it has resulted that the sense of  proportion 
and the laws of  structure have been based [...] on 
the necessities consequent on the employment of  those 
materials; and that the entire or principle employment 
of  metallic framework would, therefore, be generally 
felt as a departure from the first principles of  the 
art. Abstractedly there appears no reason why iron 
should not be used as well as wood; and the time is 
probably near when a new system of  architectural 
laws will be developed, adapted entirely to metallic 
construction [...] . [But architecture’s] first existence 
and its earliest laws must depend [...] upon the use 
of  materials accessible in quantity, and on the surface 
of  the earth, that is to say, clay, wood, or stone: and 
as I think it cannot but be generally felt that one of  
the chief  dignities of  architecture is its historical use 
[...] it will be felt right to retain [...] the materials and 
principles of  earlier ages.20

On the one hand, this seems like sheer conservatism, 
adequately confounded by, for example, the 
accomplishment of  Mies van der Rohe in works like 
the Illinois Institute of  Technology campus and the 
Seagram Building in finding incomparable elegance 
in the structural forms of  steel (and glass). On the 
other hand, Ruskin’s comments suggest that we find 
a genuinely cognitive pleasure in architecture as a 

if building can 
be understood 

as intended 
as a work of 

imagination 
rather than a 

presentation of 
fact, then there 

is room for the 
enjoyment of 

decorated rather 
than displayed 

structure on 
ruskin’s as 

well as scott’s 
account.

“

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form of  history, as giving us insight into the past, and that this should not 
be entirely forgotten in the face of  other sources of  pleasure. This leads 
us to “The Lamp of  Memory,” which can also be understood at least in 
part as an expression of  the cognitive aspect of  architectural experience.21

The lamp of  memory seems like the most straightforward expression 
of  a cognitivist aspect in Ruskin’s conception of  the sources of  architectural 
pleasure. Specifically, Ruskin argues that architecture is a medium for 
knowledge of  the human past. “Architecture is to be regarded by us with 
the most serious thought. We can live without her, and worship without 
her, but we cannot remember without her [...] there are but two strong 
conquerors of  the forgetfulness of  men, Poetry and Architecture.”22 But 
Ruskin’s conception of  the cognitivist function of  architecture as a vehicle 
for memory differs from that of  the German Idealists in several key ways. 
Unlike Hegel, Ruskin does not conceive of  architecture as a – doomed 
– vehicle for metaphysical knowledge, nor, like Schopenhauer does he 
conceive of  it as a – not necessarily doomed – vehicle for knowledge of  the 
fundamental forces of  non-human nature; he conceives of  it specifically 
as a vehicle for knowledge of  human history. And then it should also 
be noted that architecture serves human memory in several ways, partly 
intentionally but also partly unintentionally. Ruskin begins his discussion 
of  the “Lamp of  Memory” with the case of  buildings whose decorations 
are “animated by a metaphorical or historical meaning,”23 buildings whose 
ornamentation is thus intended to carry a message about a people and 
their present and past to the future. But he also argues that buildings are 
witnesses to history in ways that could not have been intended by their 
original builders, that the glory of  a building may be: 

in its Age, and in that deep sense of  voicefulness, of  stern watching, of  mysterious 
sympathy, nay, even of  approval or condemnation, which we feel in walls that 
have long been washed by the passing waves of  humanity [...] it is in that golden 
stain of  time, that we are to look for the real light, and colour, and preciousness 
of  architecture; and it is not until a building has assumed this character, till it 
has been entrusted with the fame, and hallowed by the deeds of  men, till its walls 
have been witnesses of  suffering [...] that its existence [...] can be gifted with [...] 
language and life.24

Here Ruskin claims that buildings are witnesses to the human deeds that 
play out within and before them, much of  which of  course cannot have 
been foreseen by the original builders and may even undermine their 
intentions in all sorts of  ways, and that we who come later can read this 



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history in the buildings as they stand, well-preserved 
or ruined or in between, before us. Ruskin also 
notes that can get a sense of  non-human history 
from buildings as well, from the “superinduced 
and accidental beauty [...] of  the rents, or fractures, 
or stains, or vegetation, which assimilate the 
architecture with the work of  Nature, and bestow 
upon it those circumstances of  colour and form 
which are universally beloved by the eye of  man.”25 
Buildings thus yield us knowledge of  the general 
processes and specific events of  both non-human 
and human history.

Now Ruskin’s last remark about the universally 
beloved color and form that are produced by 
natural processes suggests that in actual experience 
the cognitive significance of  architecture cannot 
be separated from what might have been thought 
of  as its purely aesthetic dimension; and since it 
would also be artificial to separate the historical 
significance of  architecture from our emotional 
response to human history, the argument of  
“The Lamp of  Memory” suggests that all three 
aspects of  the experience of  art distinguished 
in eighteenth-century aesthetics are in fact fully 
merged in the experience of  architecture as Ruskin 
conceives it. But before I turn to the emotional 
dimension of  the experience of  architecture, let 
me just mention that there are cognitivist aspects 
to Ruskin’s accounts of  the lamps of  “Life” and 
“Obedience” as well. Ruskin uses his chapter on 
“The Lamp of  Life” to begin the argument that he 
will continue in the famous chapter on “The Nature 
of  Gothic” in The Stones of  Venice that we love the 
evidence of  the creativity of  all involved in the 
creation of  a work of  architecture, the stonecutters 
as well as the master mason or architect, as itself  
the product of  the various lives of  all these people, 
their “accidental carelessnesses of  measurement” 

Ruskin’s 
conception of 

the cognitivist 
function of 

architecture 
as a vehicle for 
memory differs 

from that of 
german idealists 

in several key 
ways.

“

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as well as their “proposed departures from symmetrical regularity, and the 
luxuriousness of  perpetually variable fantasy.”26 But there is another, or 
perhaps more general argument here, that “no inconsiderable part of  the 
essential characters of  Beauty depend [...] on the expression of  vital energy 
in organic things, or on the subjection to such energy, of  things naturally 
passive and powerless”; the “vivid expression of  the intellectual life which 
has been concerned”27 in the production of  architecture is one instance of  
this, but so might be the evidence of  organic but non-human life in, say, 
the limestone used in a building. The presupposition of  Ruskin’s argument 
is that of  course we must in some way understand the expression of  life in 
any of  its forms in architecture before we can respond to it in other ways. 
A similar assumption underlies Ruskin’s argument in his final chapter on 
“The Lamp of  Obedience.” His argument here is that architecture can 
be an expression of  freedom, as opposed to mere chaos, only if  it is an 
exercise of  “Restraint” within a style28 – it is in this context that he makes 
the claim earlier mentioned that there are only four styles suitable for 
modern building.29 But of  course to work within a style, even to innovate 
within it and test its limits without exceeding them, the architect has to 
understand the style and its laws; so freedom in design and construction, 
which might be associated with the eighteenth-century idea of  free play, 
also has to be associated with knowledge. The necessity of  connecting 
rather than separating free play and knowledge is also on display in this 
passage, which begins the penultimate section of  the final chapter of  The 
Seven Lamps of  Architecture:

It is almost impossible for us to conceive [...] the sudden dawn of  intelligence and 
fancy, the rapidly increasing sense of  power and facility, and, in its proper sense, 
of  Freedom, which such wholesome restraint would instantly cause throughout 
the whole circle of  the arts. Freed from the agitation and embarrassment of  
that liberty of  choice which is the cause of  half  of  the discomforts of  the world; 
freedom from the accompanying necessity of  studying all past, present, or even 
possible styles; and enabled, by concentration of  individual, and co-operation 
of  multitudinous energy, to penetrate into the uttermost secrets of  the adopted 
style, the architect would find his whole understanding enlarged, his practical 
knowledge certain and ready to hand, and his imagination playful and vigorous 
[...].30

Here knowledge is argued to be a necessary condition of  free play. 
That might mean that knowledge is not a source of  pleasure in its own 
right, but only a means to the pleasure for both architects themselves and 



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the audiences for their work over time that comes 
from the playful and vigorous imagination. But, as 
we have seen, the knowledge of  both history and 
the laws of  non-human as well as human nature 
that we can get from architecture is also, in Ruskin’s 
view, a source of  pleasure in its own right. So there 
is no danger that knowledge will be reduced to a 
mere means for the pleasure that comes from free 
play: both are sources of  architectural pleasure in 
his view.

Finally, I return to Ruskin’s recognition of  
the emotional dimension of  our experience of  
architecture. As I already suggested, it would 
be entirely unnatural to separate our emotional 
response to human deeds and for example 
“suffering” from our cognition of  them, and 
likewise artificial to separate our emotional 
response to manifestations of  human freedom 
from our knowledge of  the laws or style or other 
laws that furnish the constraints within which 
freedom can be meaningfully exercised; so the 
emotional aspect of  the experience of  architecture 
is implicit throughout Ruskin’s treatment of  its 
cognitive dimensions in the lamps of  memory and 
obedience. It would be equally implausible to leave 
out the emotional aspect of  architectural experience 
from “The Lamp of  Power,” Ruskin’s version of  
the sublime: his statement there that,

In the edifices of  Man there should be found reverent 
worship and following, not only of  the spirit which 
rounds the pillars of  the forest, and arches the vault 
of  the avenue [...] but of  that also which reproves 
the pillars of  the earth, and builds up her barren 
precipices into the coldness of  the clouds, and lifts her 
shadowy cones of  mountain purple into the pale arch 
of  the sky; for these, and other glories more than these, 
refuse not to connect themselves, in his thought, with 
the work of  his own hand [...].31

the 
presupposition 

of ruskin’s 
argument is 

that of course 
we must in 
some way 

understand 
the expression 

of life in any 
of its forms in 
architecture 

before we can 
respond to it in 

other ways.

“

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makes clear the emotional impact of  the sublime in architecture on the 
author, but on the author only as a representative of  us all: we cannot 
think of  “the works of  God upon the earth” and “the dominion over 
those works which has been vested in man” as “intellectual Lamps of  
Architecture” without also experiencing a profound emotional response.32

But the emotional dimension of  architectural experience has been 
on display since the outset of  Ruskin’s book, beginning with the first 
“Lamp of  Sacrifice.” This refers to the “spirit which offers” especially for 
“devotional and memorial architecture” “precious things, simply because 
they are precious; not as being necessary to the building, but as an offering, 
surrendering, and sacrifice of  what is to ourselves desirable.”33 Through 
using precious materials in our – public rather than merely private – 
buildings, we “exercise self-denial for the sake of  self-discipline”34 – and 
express our need to honor, for Ruskin of  course specifically our need 
to honor God.35 The need to express self-discipline and honor must be 
grounded in our feelings or emotions, not just our desire for pleasure but 
in a wide range of  other, first-order emotions. And in response to works 
of  architecture that express such feelings in their creators similar feelings 
may be and surely often are expressed in subsequent spectators of  those 
works, even those who do not share the beliefs of  the original creators – 
even one who does not share the belief-systems of  their creators cannot 
fail to be stirred by the Chartres or the Suleimanya of  Sinan or the St. 
Matthew Passion of  Bach, although of  course the experience of  such 
a spectator can hardly be identical to that of  the original creator of  the 
work or its originally intended audience. As Ruskin concludes “The Lamp 
of  Sacrifice,” the creators of  such works, “have taken with them to grave 
their powers, their honours, and their errors; but they have left us their 
adoration,”36 that is, their emotion, which we, for all our differences, with 
them and amongst ourselves, cannot but at least to some degree agree 
with.

So Ruskin actually begins his work with an emphasis on the emotional 
dimension of  our experience of  architecture and by implication of  aesthetic 
experience more generally. But we have seen that as his argument unfolds, 
he equally emphasizes the pleasure of  sheer cognition through architecture 
as well as of  the vigorous play of  the human imagination in architecture, 
and further the ways in which all three of  these dimensions of  aesthetic 
experience are not merely intertwined but are also interdependent. So 
I conclude that Ruskin’s Seven Lamps is a paradigmatic expression of  a 



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synthesizing rather than separating approach to 
aesthetic theory in general and architectural theory 
in particular, and that although a century and three-
quarters on, we can hardly feel constrained by his 
particular stylistic dictates, an enduring benchmark 
for the complexity of  aesthetic ambitions we should 
have in architectural practice as well. 

Endnotes

1. Geoffrey Scott, The Architecture of  Humanism, 
first edition 1914, second edition 1924 (New York: 
Scribner’s, n.d.), especially Chapter V, “The Ethical 
Fallacy.”

2. John Ruskin, The Seven Lamps of  Architecture, 
introduction by Sir Arnold Lunn (London: J.M. 
Dent & Sons, 1907), p. 213.

3. Ruskin, Seven Lamps, p. xxii. 

4. Ibid, p. 137.

5. Ibid, p. 203.

6. My interpretation of  The Seven Lamps thus 
differs from that offered by Cornelis J. Baljon in 
“Interpreting Ruskin: The Argument of  The Seven 
Lamps of  Architecture and The Stones of  Venice,” 
Journal of  Aesthetics and Art Criticism 55 (1997): 401-
14.  Baljon argues that all seven “lamps” are forms 
of  associations of  ideas, thus that the work stands 
entirely within the tradition of  eighteenth-century 
Scottish “associationism,” represented above all by 
the 1790 work of  Archibald Alison (see p. 403), while 
Ruskin then broadens his approach to architecture in 
The Stones of  Venice.  Without controverting Baljon’s 
claim that Ruskin’s philosophical knowledge was 
(proudly) confined to the British tradition and 
excluded German aesthetics from Kant to Hegel (p. 
401), I would suggest, indeed already have suggested 
in my comments about the work of  Kames, that the 
British or even the Scottish tradition is broader than 



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associationism alone, and that Ruskin’s work is more fruitfully read against 
the background of  the threefold division of  cognition, play, and emotion 
that I have suggested. 
7. Ruskin, Seven Lamps, p. 69.
8. Ibid, p. 70.
9. See Edmund Burke, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of  Our Ideas of  
the Sublme and Beautiful (1757, second edition 1759), edited by J.T. Boulton 
(London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1958), especially Part One, sections 
VII-XI, XIX.  See also Baljon, p. 403.
10. Archibald Alison, Essays on the Nature and Principles of  Taste, 2 vols. 
(Edinburgh: Bell & Bradfute, 1811).  See Baljon, p. 403.
11. Baljon goes beyond this weak statement and calls Alison’s work, “a 
particularly rich source of  inspiration,” for Ruskin (p. 403).
12. Ruskin, Seven Lamps, p. 104.
13. Thomas Reid, Essays on the Intellectual Powers of  Man (1785), edited by 
Derek R. Brookes (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2002), Essay 
VIII, “Of  Taste,” p. 602. 
14. Shaftesbury, The Moralists, Part III, section II, in Characteristicks, vol. 
II, p. 107.
15. For a general discussion of  this distinction, see Bernard Williams, Truth 
and Truthfulness (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002).
16. Ruskin, Seven Lamps, p. 30.
17. Ibid, p. 33.
18. Ibid, p. 35.
19. See Scott, Architecture of  Humanism, chapter IV, “The Mechanical 
Fallacy,” e.g., pp. 103-7.
20. Ruskin, Seven Lamps, pp. 39-40.  
21. Baljon suggests that Ruskin thought iron architecture lifeless and thus 
should have included his argument against it in “The Lamp of  Life” (p. 
403).  This overlooks Ruskin’s argument for our historical attachment 
to stone rather than iron construction, which would suggest that if  his 
argument against iron architecture should have been included anywhere 
other than in “The Lamp of  Truth,” then it should have been in “The 
Lamp of  Memory.”  But had he done that, Ruskin would have spoken 
too soon: riding now across a great late nineteenth- or early twentieth-
century railroad bridge such as the Hell’s Gate in New York or the Firth of  
Forth bridge in Scotland is certainly an experience redolent with historical 
significance.  
22. Ruskin, Seven Lamps, p. 182.
23. Ibid, p. 182.
24. Ibid, pp. 190-1.



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25. Ibid, p. 197.
26. Ibid, p. 160.
27. Ibid, p. 150.
28. Ibid, p. 205.
29. Ibid, p. 213.
30. Ibid, pp. 213-14.
31. Ibid, p. 71.
32. Ibid, p. 70.
33. Ibid, p. 9.
34. Ibid, p. 10.
35. Ibid, p. 11.
36. Ibid, p. 28.



Trying to think in a connected 
sort of way: Part II

Andrew Ballantyne in conversation with stefan koller

Part I of  this interview appeared in Vol. 1, No. 1 of  
Architecture Philosophy. 

Question: There seems to be something important 
to you at the level of  pure methodology, regardless of  the 
philosophical content engaged. Is that something that you 
think is peculiar to philosophy or is philosophy one of  the 
disciplines that might bring method to architecture? Why is 
method not already inherent to architecture as an academic 
discipline? Why is the methodological stringing together of  
content not already inherent to architecture as an academic 
discipline?

Answer: It’s not that thinking is especially isolated 
in philosophy, or in architecture, or in anywhere 
else. I don’t think that thinking in architecture is 
necessarily less rigorous than in other places. I 
think thinking in architecture is very rigorous about 
certain sorts of  things, but equally rather lax, or 
typically rather lax, in some other ways. 

That’s probably true of  all disciplines, but we 
have different ways of  making use of  information, 
different ways of  thinking about things, or coming 
close to thinking about things. I put things on a 
scale ranging from common sense at one end of  the 
scale to perhaps something more like logic thought 
at the other. When you’re dealing with common 
sense, it’s not philosophical thinking, you’re 
recognizing a pattern of  events and assuming that 
that pattern of  events will repeat itself  the way it 
did when you encountered it the last time. Most of  
the time, that kind of  recognition works. 

So with everyday activities we can deal with 
common sense and yesterday and today and 

thinking in 
architecture is 

very rigorous 
about certain 

sorts of things, 
but equally 

rather lax, or 
typically rather 

lax, in some other 
ways.

“

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tomorrow, are fairly similar and we can go through them in a similar way. 
Not by thinking out the situation afresh but by remembering what we 
did yesterday and the day before, and in fact we stop thinking about it, 
we just go through our routine, habitual patterns, and everything is fine 
and everything continues the way it did. But if  we want to change things 
or we’re faced with a fresh problem, then we have to do a different sort 
of  thinking, which may involve an element of  recognizing patterns from 
what we did before. Also, you need to make some sort of  analysis, maybe 
have some sort of  creative response to what it is. Maybe it’s a matter of  
logical deduction, but there’s a different kind of  thinking that goes on. 
That’s the kind of  thinking that it’s important for me to engage with when 
I’m writing. 

I don’t have to do that every day in every way. I wouldn’t get through 
the day if  I did. A lot of  things I just do as routine. When it’s a matter of  
academic work, academic thinking, then you do have to think. Philosophy 
is good at prioritizing that sort of  thinking discipline. Actually Michel 
Tournier described philosophers as the professionals of  thought. He 
studied philosophy as a student alongside Deleuze, and it took him 
completely by surprise when he failed the exams that Deleuze passed. He 
went on to become a novelist and won the Prix Goncourt, but there’s a 
wistful tone when he talks about philosophers. Thinking is their business 
and they show you how to do it. There’s other ways of  doing it, but 
philosophy is good, it’s rigorous, and it really makes you think. The other 
person I really like on that subject is David Hume, who describes himself  
being sent into depression by the isolation that comes with rigorous 
philosophical thinking. He says that if  he needs a remedy for that, it’s easy 
to find. He just seeks out company – a game of  backgammon – and all his 
philosophical problems disappear. He regains the will to live or whatever 
it is. He was a sociable person. We’re all sociable people, and we feel good 
and comfortable with the world if  we’re engaged with conversation and 
so on. That doesn’t get you thinking philosophically. In order to think 
rigorously and logically, you do have to withdraw and internalize. It’s 
quite an isolated process. Maybe there are philosophers who can conduct 
Socratic dialogues with others, but for me that kind of  conversation makes 
best sense if  you think of  it as articulating the different voices in your own 
head. Maybe I haven’t met the right people. But I recognize what I do as 
feeling like what Hume describes. So you need to be able to do that and 
then to function as a human being, you need to come out of  it.

Hume’s punch line is his remedy for the depression that comes with 
philosophical work is carelessness and inattention. He says, “for this 
reason I rely entirely upon them.” His method is a method of  carelessness 



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and inattention, but that’s a method for living, not a 
method for doing philosophy.

Q: How extraordinary to bring out the contribution of  
philosophy in that light when it’s philosophy that kind of  
temporarily puts ordinary life and common sense on hold, 
as in Hume. Nothing ultimately, if  you narrowly attend to 
it, even the collision of  billiard balls, makes sense anymore 
and you have to relapse into custom to even be able to get by. 
It makes philosophy pull away from common, ordinary life.

In one of  your most recent works, “Architecture, Life, 
and Habit” you use the work of  some philosophers, or 
your own philosophical thought, to reorient thinking about 
architecture from this remote disengaged aesthetic touristic 
contemplation. Towards an understanding that, in dealing 
with building, we deal with the people that inhabit them, and 
the life that shapes around them. The work becomes a new 
pragmatist aesthetics of  architecture which looked as if  the 
philosophy pulled a customary architectural historian back 
into engaging with the life that surrounds these buildings – 
the common life.

A: Of  habits that become so habitual that you’ve 
lost sight of  them, which become the things that 
shape your world.

Q: It seems to run in the opposite direction of  the 
Humean relation to philosophy, where philosophy is 
something that pulls you out of  ordinary life. Then there’s 
the Wittgensteinian way of  pulling you back in and enabling 
you to engage with it. In a sense that is not everyday in the 
sense of  being common or habitual, but in reconnecting you 
to something that maybe through habit or academic study or 
even a design attitude to the built object has removed it from 
its built, lived reality.

A: Yes. I’d hoped that one could find a way to 
aestheticize the everyday activity and find value in 
it. And enjoy doing everyday things by waking up to 
them. It may be going against that idea of  thinking 
through withdrawal. It’s withdrawn thinking but 
turned in on the activity of  living and perhaps being 
more sociable. 

What lies at the heart of  that article, is that 

In order 
to think 

rigorously 
and logically, 

you do have to 
withdraw and 

internalize. 
It’s quite an 

isolated 
process.

“

”



AP . vol 1 . No 2 . 2015

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a
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architectural discussion ought to begin with ordinary things and daily life 
and branch out from there. I think too much of  the time we’re faced 
with architectural discussion that begins with an admiration of  form or 
something. These things can be quite demanding or difficult or even get in 
the way of  ordinary life. They stand apart from it. They’re special in some 
way and it’s nice that they’re special, they’re challenging in that sort of  way. 
But for sanity’s sake, there just has to be a way of  valorizing things that 
you have to do anyway. Why not make that the substance of  what you do 
rather than something that has to be awkwardly fitted in afterwards?

Q: Does that also entail that you would not follow the distinction that many other 
writers have tried to make between architecture with a capital “A” on the one hand 
and mere building (in German, bauen as opposed to Baukunst) on the other hand?

The second is the vernacular, or the ordinary utilitarian domestic-level but 
culturally significant building. On the other hand, you’ve got some things that are much 
closer to the fine arts or architecture at least tries to align itself  with the lofty ambitions 
of  the artistic. Would you not want to draw a distinction precisely to avoid us having 
this split attitude?

A: I really don’t want there to be that separation. I want it to be a 
sliding scale – if  anything – where you begin with the ordinary things 
that you have to do and then find special intensifications of  those things 
that makes them out of  the ordinary, that makes them more pleasurable, 
or dramatic, or whatever it is. They’re rooted in something meaningful. 
They’re not separated. Otherwise, you get this split and it starts feeling 
like there’s a separation between everyday activity and aesthetic sensibility. 
I really want them to be connected. I want my life to be full of  wonderful 
aesthetic experiences.

Q: Everything you say is the complete opposite of  Schopenhauer. The reason for 
that is that you strike me as someone who is very optimistic and cheerful and that 
means also for you that these aesthetic experiences, especially when they are of  buildings, 
ought to be life-affirming in a broader sense than just having an uplifting experience of  
contemplation.

For Schopenhauer the idea is that life is full of  woe and suffering and then aesthetic 
experience of  architecture is one of  the very few things that enable us to pull out of  this 
life of  suffering. So I’m also wondering to what extent these very fundamental decisions 
and your attitude towards how to approach architecture and ordinary building relates 
to a larger understanding of  human life? Because in your work that emerges clearly 
at several junctures, but where exactly does that come from for you? What’s the entry 
point of  that? Is it already the reality of  how you encounter the buildings, or is there an 
independent philosophical view that brought you to this?

A: I wonder. It’s a conviction. Where do convictions come from? I 



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do think that a lot of  aesthetic experience is 
unconscious. A lot of  what we do all the time is 
unconscious and of  course philosophical reflection 
is conscious. If  you’re trying to think about 
everyday experiences and why you feel good about 
having done something one way or another, what is 
it you’re dealing with?

A lot of  the time you’re dealing with something 
that’s unconscious, at the moment of  your 
decision-making. You’re deciding to sit at this table 
rather than on that sofa, but why are you deciding 
that? What are the issues that you’re rehearsing? 
You’re not entirely conscious of  what they are but 
somehow one is more comfortable, the other feels 
better adapted to the task at hand.

There’s a big element of  unconscious stuff  
going on and what is that? There’s all kinds of  things 
we’ve got to get right before we can start worrying 
about aesthetic issues in a conscious sort of  way. 
For example, things like heating and lighting, they 
just have to be dealt with in some way. If  you’re in a 
house that’s too cold to be comfortable then there’s 
no way you’re going to be dwelling on the elegance 
of  its proportionsfor too long, you’ll be moving on 
or wrapping yourself  up.

Q: So, it would be like addressing, or talking about 
concrete building considerations as heating, lighting, and 
construction more broadly. To what extent do you think 
philosophy could contribute to our understanding of  such 
things?

A: Nothing at all. I think that they’re more or 
less preconditions. If  we can’t get enough food to 
survive, we don’t worry about the meaning of  life. 
The meaning of  life becomes very clear: it’s to get 
food. I don’t think that philosophy would help us 
to find food in that sort of  emergency, but with 
more leisure and forethought – well, if  your job is 
to teach philosophy then it would be philosophy 
that was putting food on your table. And then in the 
most ambitious restaurants there’s certainly room 
for a philosophy of  food, which has quite a lot of  

it is 
astounding 

just how 
uninformed 

they are about 
the actual 

details, say, of 
a painting, a 

piece of music, 
or a building.

“

”



aesthetic content and very little discussion about nutrition.
Q: What do you think authors, especially young authors, going into architecture 

philosophy right now should be aware of ? What can they learn from what is currently less 
than perfect, or just plain bad?

A: On the one hand you have philosophers, even aesthetic philosophers 
whose very business it is to write about art, where it is astounding just how 
uninformed they are about the actual details, say, of  a painting, a piece of  
music, or a building. On the other hand, you have architecture historians who 
are greatly accomplished in mopping up every last detail about a work of  art, 
but fall flat when they raise more general issues. Admittedly, I have painted 
the extreme end points on a wide spectrum – but there is a lot of  room in 
between these that is still left unexplored. And that is where I think a great 
deal of  interesting work remains to be done.

Andrew Ballantyne’s books include

Key Buildings From Prehistory to the Present: Plans, Sections and Elevations, 2012

Architecture in the Space of  Flows, 2012 (co-edited by C. Smith)

Deleuze and Guattari for Architects, 2007

Architecture Theory: A Reader in Philosophy and Culture, 2005

Architecture and Experience: Radical Change in Spatial Practice, 2004

Architectures: Modernism and After, 2004

Architecture: A Very Short Introduction, 2002

What is Architecture?, 2002

Architecture, Landscape and Liberty: Richard Payne Knight and the Picturesque, 1997

Andrew Ballantyne and Stefan  koller



isparchitecture.com

About the Authors

Noël carroll is Distinguished Professor of  Philosophy at the City University of  
New York.

Nathaniel Coleman is Reader in History and Theory of  Architecture at Newcastle 
University. 

Christoph Baumberger is a Senior Research Fellow at the ETH Zürich’s Institute of  
Environmental Decisions.

mark jensen is Associate Professor of  Philosophy at the United States Airforce 
Academy.

Felipe loureiro is a practising architect with Rio Arquitetura in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Paul Guyer is Jonathan Nelson Professor of  Philosophy and Humanities at Brown 
University.

Image Credits

Diagrams: Felipe Loureiro
Andrew Ballantyne and Stefan Koller: Carolyn Fahey



Given the wealth of  new ways of  conceptualizing building, its practice, and its 
meanings, this call for papers prompts authors to reconceptualize the notion of  
buildings’ functions in terms of  use, particularly as is described in Wittgenstein’s 
use theory. 

By engaging one of  philosophy’s richest and most formidable postmodern 
thinkers -– Ludwig Wittgenstein – the discourse surrounding function can move 
away from architecture’s Modernist paradigm that has largely defined how we 
think about and deal with questions relating to function. Wittgenstein – who 
remains largely undealt with by the architectural discourse, but whose work has 
nevertheless had ample development from within the philosophical discourse 
– provides genuine contributions to the understanding of  use and meaning. 
Specifically, the Wittgensteinian notion of  meaning as use moves the discussion 
away from mechanical or systematic notions grounded in scientific enquiry, and 
instead focuses analysis on the particular context or language-game within which 

AP . vol 1 . No 2 . 2015

CALL FOR PAPERS: 
International Wittgenstein SYmposium

W
itt

ge
ns

te
in 

Ho
us

e, 
vi

ew
 fr

om
 St

re
et

KEYNOTES:
James Conant, Professor of Philosophy, University of Chicago
Ákos Moravánszky, Professor of Architecture Theory, ETH Zürich
Simo Säätelä, Professor of Philosophy, University of Bergen
Paul Wijdeveld, Author of Ludwig Wittgenstein, Architect

USE VALUE IN ARCHITECTURE:
RECONCEPTUALIZING
BUILDINGS’ FUNCTIONS

Wittgenstein House
Vienna, Austria
17-18 AUGUST 2015



isparchitecture.com

a building partakes. Thus, the hope is to utilize Ludwig Wittgenstein’s theory of  
meaning to achieve radically alternative analyses of  building’s use, thereby allowing 
for productive re-engagement with one of  architecture’s most fundamentally 
philosophical questions.

Lines of  enquiry may include:

• Does a building mean in isolation from humans? Does a canonical building 
mean outside of  its local socio-cultural context? Or does a building only mean 
within the architectural discourse that has canonized it?

• Within Wittgenstein’s use-theory, does the distinction between building and 
architecture exist? In which contexts does this distinction hold meaning? Is the 
distinction still meaningful today?

• What is the use value of  building in contemporary society? Are there new use 
values in building that suggest a shift in the trajectory of  the building practice, 
of  society, of  culture?

• Does building itself  challenge commonly accepted theories of  meaning? 
Does building itself  challenge commonly accepted readings of  Wittgenstein’s 
use-theory? Are there specific instances in which building can be shown as 
revealing limitations in Wittgenstein’s theory of  use?

• Does Wittgenstein’s use theory supplant notions of  the symbolic? Or does it 
give symbolism renewed significance? How do different types of  architectural 
symbolism figure in Wittgenstein’s use theory?

The symposium will take place between the 17th and 18th of  August 2015 in the 
famous Wittgenstein house in Vienna, Austria. Given the unique and incredibly 
inspiring setting, space is limited. 

Abstracts should be between 300 and 500 words. All submissions are due by 01 
May 2015 submitted in RTF file format to isparchitecture@gmail.com. 

For questions regarding the call for papers or the symposium please contact the 
acting editor for the issue and event organizer, Dr. Carolyn Fahey at carfahey@gmail.
com. Refer to the ISPA website for the most up-to-date information regarding the 
event’s organization.

A selection of  the papers will be published as a special issue in Architecture Philosophy. 
Symposium delegates who wish to be considered for inclusion in the special issue 
will be asked to submit papers between 5,000 and 7,000 words by 01 December 2015. 
More details regarding full paper submission will be provided at the time of  the 
event. In the meantime, detailed submission instructions for Architecture Philosophy are 
available in this printed journal as well as on the ISPA website at isparchitecture.com.



AP . vol 1 . No 2 . 2015

Architecture Philosophy conducts double-blind reviews of  all papers submitted. Each 
paper is reviewed by one philosophy expert and one architecture expert. Reviewers 
are members of  the editorial board and are asked to evaluate submissions according 
to the following criteria:

Appropriateness to the field of architecture philosophy
Does the paper acknowledge and/or build on existing scholarship in both 
architecture and philosophy?
Does the paper acknowledge existing scholarship in philosophy and architecture 
respectively?

Philosophical analysis
Is philosophy engaged directly?
Is there an argument?
Is there analysis of  the claims made?
Is the logic of  the argument presented explicitly?
Are the paper’s arguments valid and sound?

Architectural analysis
Is architecture engaged directly?
Is architecture’s relevant history/contemporary situation acknowledged?
Is architecture’s history/contemporary situation dealt with accurately?

Originality
Is this paper a contribution to knowledge?
Does the paper present new ways of  solving philosophical problems 
in architecture (philosophy) or does it engage architecture to illustrate 
philosophical problems?
Does the paper present new ways of  engaging architecture and the built 
environment?

Presentation
Is the paper written in English to general academic writing standards for the 
humanities?
Does the paper follow the journal’s submission guidelines?

review criteria



isparchitecture.com

Please direct all submissions and general inquiries to isparchitecture@gmail.com. 
There are no deadlines for submissions, unless otherwise announced (e.g. special 
issue, conference proceedings, etc.).

submission Types
Authors are invited to submit full papers, response pieces, and book reviews. Full 
papers should be between 4,000 and 5,000 words with a 200-300 word abstract, 
response pieces should be between 500 and 1,500 words, and book reviews between 
1,000 to 2,000 words.

General Formatting
All submissions should be presented in accordance with the University of  Chicago 
Style. Papers should be RTF documents, 12 point font, Times New Roman, double-
spaced, and with no additional or otherwise unique formatting. References should 
be manually placed in brackets (e.g. [1], [2], and so on) with full citation information 
placed in the references section at the end of  the document.

Photo Guidelines and Image Permissions
Images should be at least 300 dpi and read well in greyscale prints. The images should 
be submitted as individual files (TIFF or JPEG), in combination with proof  of  
copyright permission. Authors are responsible for obtaining image permissions, and 
are asked to have done so prior to submitting their papers for review. The Oklahoma 
State University image archive is also available for use. Please send inquiries about the 
OSU image holdings to Prof. Tom Spector at tom.spector@okstate.edu.

The papers published by Architecture Philosophy are protected by copyright. The 
content must not have been previously published and cannot be republished without 
the permission of  the journal’s copyright holder. The copyright holder is Oklahoma 
State University.

Authors are responsible for obtaining copyright permission for the use of  images 
in their papers. Original images created by the author are acceptable, and copyright 
access to the Oklahoma State University image archive is available to the journal and 
its authors. In most cases, authors will be seeking image permissions and are asked 
secure image permissions on their own before submitting their paper for review.

submission guidelines


