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Building Thinking Asking: what is 
the right way to do Philosophy of           

Architecture?

A panel discussion between Karsten Harries and SIR Roger 
Scruton moderated by Christian Illies

KARSTEN HARRIES: When I was asked to participate 
in this session, I was told our conversation had 
to do with “Building Thinking Asking: what is 
the right way to do Philosophy of  Architecture?” 
What does the title mean to the philosophy of  
architecture? The question of  course presupposes 
that there is the right way—I am not at all sure 
that there is.  

Philosophers have concerned themselves with 
all sorts of  things. They can write about sports, 
about the philosophy of  cooking, just about 
anything is suitable fodder for philosophers of  
different types. Now philosophers have concerned 
themselves especially with the different arts. This 
is what aesthetics stands for. And it has long 

Martin Düchs (L) introduced 
and Christian Illies (R) mod-

erated the panel discussion 
between Karsten Harries 

(CL) and Roger Scruton (CR)



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been recognized that architecture is one of  the arts. But it had also been 
recognized that architecture is the art that poorly fits with the other arts 
in many ways because it is so dependent on the demands that the world 
puts on architects. So it is essentially an impure art. At least if  you measure 
purity by a concern for beauty. So it is the one art that, perhaps more than 
any other, has to be sent into the world. That is to say, architecture has to 
recognize not only the physical neediness of  man that’s obvious, but the 
spiritual neediness of  man. That is more definitive.

So given an understanding of  beauty as ideally a self-sufficient 
presence, the sort of  understanding that we can trace back, for instance, 
to Baumgarten, architecture’s descent into the world must be considered 
as something like an unfortunate concession. The architect has to almost 
contaminate his concern for beauty, so understood. I think architecture 
invites us to question this understanding of  beauty, not just for architecture, 
but to question in general the understanding of  the work of  art as an ideally 
self-sufficient aesthetic object. Architecture’s descent into the world raises 
this question: must the understanding of  beauty not be questioned that 
has played such a powerful role in the evolution of  aesthetics; must it not 
be challenged? Should beauty have a different function? In this connection 
I have argued that beauty should be understood as re-presenting the 
beautiful object—here I appeal to Ernesto Grassi for support—that the 
beautiful object forces us to look again. The object re-presents itself.  It 
refuses to go away. And I think that when we go to Vierzehnheiligen and 
Banz Abbey we will have a chance to experience that effect of  beauty on 
these buildings. Their beauty forces us to look again. They won’t leave 
us alone. So I want to say that the philosophy of  architecture more than 
any other philosophy of  art invites us to rethink the nature of  beauty in 
general, also the essence of  aesthetics. 

I also want to raise some questions about the relationship of  
architecture and philosophy. For a long time architecture and philosophy 
have gotten along quite well without worrying too much about each 
other. And many architects today still do not worry about philosophy at 
all. Does that say something important?  To be sure, there is something 
like a ‘philosophy envy’ among a certain small group of  architects, or a 
theory envy, so that this group is open to philosophy in a way that invites 
questions. That deserves discussion.  But that’s a little bit different from 
my first point, so I think we probably should stop there. 

CHRISTIAN ILLIES: Thank you Karsten. I think, after having raised the issue 
of  beauty, we cannot possibly stop Roger from commenting on that.

ROGER SCRUTON: Everything that Karsten said was really interesting, I 



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don’t think I disagree with him in any way. But 
perhaps I should say a little bit about how I 
came about my interest in this topic, because it is 
unusual for an analytical philosopher to address 
aesthetics. Karsten is much more used to the phe-
nomenological and art historical way of  approach-
ing things, where the meaning of  architectural 
objects is clearly part of  how we experience them. 
Analytic philosophy, which was my training at 
Cambridge, or at least when I was growing up, 
largely ignored questions of  aesthetics. And cer-
tainly the idea that you should be interested in the 
objects around you was disapproved of. But I’ve 
always been interested in the objects around me. 
When I was sixteen and first became aware of  the 
world, it was architecture that principally impacted 
upon me. I was living in a little town, Marlow, 
on the River Thames near High Wycombe—in 
a scruffy little working class house for the work-
ing poor. And around me was the beautiful old 
English gingerbread town of  Marlow. However, 
the developers were at work pulling it all down 
and putting up their glass and steel facades and 
concrete girders. That awoke me to the idea that 
the world is perhaps not as permanent as I had 
hoped, and that all kinds of  evil 
forces were at work pulling it 
apart. That thought was deep 
in me throughout my career as 
an undergraduate. And when I 
started doing research in phi-
losophy I decided, yes, I will do 
aesthetics because maybe that 
would will help me to under-
stand what I felt when I had seen 
the uglification, as Kundera calls it, of  the world in 
which I was living. Eventually that led to my book 
on architecture. 

But I was hampered by my training, I have 
to say. Karsten was lucky, he wasn’t hampered by 
having a training in analytic philosophy. He looked 

To be 
sure, there is 

something like 
a ‘philosophy 
envy’ among 

a certain 
small group of 

architects

“

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at the ‘things themselves’ as Heidegger would say, or Husserl at least, and 
extracted from them his philosophical ideas. I had to come down from the 
scaffolding that analytic philosophy erects above everything and bring my 
logical distinctions to earth. I had to apply them to what I read about what 
architects say and what architectural critics say. But I was rescued by one 
particular architectural critic and that is Ruskin. I am sure you’ve all come 
across him—a slightly crazy but incredibly cultivated Victorian writer for 
whom architecture really was an expression of  the moral life. He had 
problems with women. But in architecture he saw the fruit of  what we are 
as human beings. He tried to express it in The Seven Lamps of  Architecture 
and in the wonderful book The Stones of  Venice. Those are books that 
everyone should read. I had the sense that this is what philosophy should 
be like. How could I bring my analytical training to bear on the kinds 
of  questions Ruskin was raising: questions about the spiritual, historical 
meaning, the social significance of  buildings, and the way in which for 
him the holy spirit enhances what we build? For Ruskin, buildings were 
not made of  stone; they were made of  some spiritual substance which 
happened to have borrowed stone temporarily in order to manifest itself  
to us. That’s a Hegelian thought, of  course. I am sorry to hear that Hegel 
fled from Bamberg. But his writings on architecture show that he wasn’t 
that sensitive to this particular art-form. In the end I came around to 
see that Heidegger’s wonderful essay on “Building Dwelling Thinking” 
contains deep truths that we analytic philosophers have to rediscover. It 
is very hard though, and we have a discipline that we have to fight against 
to rediscover those truths. So, I’ve been wrestling downwards from that 
great analytical skeleton to the place where Karsten has been “wallowing” 
successfully for some years.

HARRIES: For me, my interest in architecture is way older than my 
interest in philosophy, and it has continued to be a very intense interest. 
It began very early. It began—I recall the exact moment—it began when 
I was 7 years old—we had left burning Berlin and found a home in Bad 
Königshofen. There’s a church outside Bad Königshofen, the pilgrimage 
church Mariä Geburt in Ipthausen, and that church overwhelmed me. 
We were not religious. It was not a religious experience, and it wasn’t an 
aesthetic experience. It seemed as if  I had stepped into another world. 
As if  something touched me that I had not experienced. Nowhere in 
Berlin had there been anything like that.

Later, when I went to Munich to the Max-Gymnasium and saw 
churches like the abbey church of  Kloster Andechs, these churches 
repeated the experience to some extent. That intense experience of  18th 



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century churches in southern Germany antedates 
my interest in philosophy. I could imagine myself  
working today in art history—indeed in any number 
of  history studies. My interest in philosophy 
emerged partly because I was also very interested in 
mathematics. I tended towards philosophy because 
I thought it less confining.  After I had come to 
America with my parents, had studied at Yale, and 
begun to teach there, my colleagues in philosophy 
were more interested in painting as the purer art, 
but the architects felt the need for something like 
a philosophical core in our Architecture School’s 
undergraduate program.  So I was approached 
by the Director of  Undergraduate Studies Kent 
Bloomer—I had just published The Meaning of  
Modern Art and grown a little tired of  teaching 
this material. I was asked whether I would teach a 
beginning course in the philosophy of  architecture 
in the architecture school.  So that’s how it all began. 
The Ethical Function of  Architecture was, basically, the 
result of  my course notes. It was written very much 
in connection with the development of  that course. 
But it was not identical with it. Since the book was 
reasonably successful, it led to requests for lectures 
and essays that kept me going. 
In recent years I’ve done a lot 
of  other things, but have always 
drifted back to this topic.

SCRUTON: That’s very inter-
esting because, I suppose, I 
was awakened to the prob-
lems of  architecture by my 
experience of  seeing the town 
demolished. It wasn’t from great works of  art that 
I learned to care about building, but from ordinary 
natural streets. But they nevertheless were home, 
and there was something ‘unheimlich’ about their 
destruction. That really awoke me to the ethical 
significance of  architecture. Obviously Ruskin was 
writing about great works of  architecture, just as 
you write.  I spent some time in Rome after leaving 

   It wasn’t 
from great 

works of art 
that I learned 
to care about 

building, but 
from ordinary 

natural 
streets 

“

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university, and was overwhelmed by the fabric of  the city, and especially 
the Roman baroque and Borromini as its greatest exponent. But I came 
back with the thought that if  you can’t defend the ordinary, vernacular, 
uninteresting architecture which we all appreciate without noticing it, 
then you haven’t done architecture justice. The Americans see beautiful 
buildings from the past as landmarks and say to themselves, “This has 
got to be preserved.” So you’ll see a rather beautiful courthouse sur-
rounded by horrible towers of  mirror glass which completely destroy its 
character, and I want to say: “That wasn’t the point.” This courthouse 
only made sense because of  all the things that surrounded it. If  we can 
only treat architecture as a collection of  great works of  art then we have 
missed what really matters.

HARRIES: On that we completely agree. I do want to invite us to think 
a little bit more about how works of  architecture relate to the vernacu-
lar. For instance, my wife and I explored the area around Bamberg a bit 
and we noticed how the churches related to the red roofs of  the houses 
around them.  What moved us was the way architecture related to the 
vernacular—the way the roof  of  some church related to these other red 
roofs. There’s this important dialogue going on between the vernacular 
and works of  architecture. But sometimes the latter get in the way of  
more modest buildings.  These get blocked by these works of  architec-
ture, by works which refuse, really, to engage with the vernacular. There 
is a problem when you get a building that just sits in the city, doesn’t 
move, and doesn’t engage its surroundings in an important way. It just 
sits there and wants to be appreciated as a self-sufficient aesthetic object. 
What we are talking about, what I want to talk about, is that architecture 
should answer to, should speak to the vernacular. Buildings should rec-
ognize they are not just sitting alone. 

They should also respond to the weather. This can be seen with the 
strongest architecture in Central Europe—consider, e.g., Fischer von 
Erlach’s Italianate villas. It is interesting to look at the way his southern 
work was appropriated by Viennese architects. They realized that the 
weather made it impossible to create Italian forms in the north. The 
weather just wouldn’t allow certain domes or made their upkeep very 
expensive. The ice would tear them apart.  For the same reason, the fabric 
of  the French Cathedrals is not very suitable to the kind of  climate we 
have here. The baroque architecture in Southern Germany and especially 
the Austrian baroque is a beautiful answer to those who tried to build 
Italian architecture and failed to consider how the weather would tear it 
apart. And the result is the typical or what we think of  as the typical 



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South German and Austrian baroque. The weather 
comes into the picture, and that is to say, also, the 
vernacular.  This means that the architect should 
be sensitive to the climate, consider the way the 
vernacular relates to the climate.  The weather helps 
give works of  architecture their special voice.

ILLIES: You’ve both approached architecture 
from a very personal experience. But what role 
does philosophy play in this experience? Part of  
what you say could have been said without philos-
ophy. Is was simply about how educated people 
should approach architecture. That seems to raise 
no specific question for philosophy, rather, more 
generally, the problem of  aesthetic education. Or 
is there a specific role for philosophy in it? And 
what would that exactly be?

HARRIES: We can see the issue with our archi-
tecture students. There is the idea of  the work as 
something that we ought to discuss in isolation, as 
a beautiful object. They want to create a beautiful 
object by bounding space in certain ways.  That 
seems to be the task for many of  these students.  
And there is a presupposition here, namely the 
aesthetic understanding of  the successful work 
of  art as ideally a self-sufficient object.  It is here 
upheld, even if  there are concessions to functions 
and so on.  But I would 
challenge this. Here I think 
a philosopher’s task is a little 
bit like yeast.  He should raise 
questions that make archi-
tects more mindful. Some 
of  these questions involve 
philosophical assumptions. 
This is a self-critical function 
of  philosophy.

SCRUTON: I was going to say that there is an 
aspect of  philosophy which is neglected by archi-
tects and which should not be neglected because 
architecture is an application of  practical reason, 

            You’ve 
both 

approached 
architecture 
from a very 

personal 
experience. 

But what role 
does philosophy 

play in this 
experience?

“

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about which philosophy has something to say. Consider the questions: 
“why do this?” “why add that detail?” “why go on in this way?” Phi-
losophers have had a lot to say about those questions. For example, 
they have distinguished reasons about means from reasons about ends. 
Architecture was invaded by the functionalist heresy at a certain stage, 
which made all practical reasons into reasons about means. Functional-
ism was part of  the utilitarian disease, which had a long gestation period 
in the nineteenth century. Ruskin was battling against that disease. Of  
course there are important means to our ends, but there are also the 
ends themselves. We have to understand them. We have to reason about 
them. When you lay a table, for example, or when you put your clothes 
on in the morning, you are not reasoning about means, you are reason-
ing about ends. You are saying: “How should this be, in itself ?” “How 
should it be and therefore how should it look?” And you are always, as 
Kant says, looking for agreement in judgment. You try to imagine the 
others into the arena with you. Of  course Karsten is right, weather is 
always important. Function is always important. But function is not the 
end of  the architect.

HARRIES: This relates to something we said before. We spoke of  the 
vernacular and how it makes you feel at home.  And you need to feel 
metaphysically at home.  And when you spoke of  laying out a table for a 
nice meal, somehow this makes us also feel more at home in that room. 
That’s an accomplishment. And it is an accomplishment if  we build and 
from the very beginning keep in mind that function; if  we build not just 
to provide shelter, but bound space in such a way that we feel somehow 
more at home. 

SCRUTON: Yes.

HARRIES: It is crucial to bound space in such a way that we feel some-
how more at home, not that we necessarily will feel more spiritually at 
home.  But that remains an important function of  architecture.

ILLIES: You criticized the idea of  the self-sufficient aesthetic object, 
which removes architecture from exactly that function.  But is that not 
also a problem of  all aesthetic decisions? When I say, “The window has 
to be exactly there, because there it is right. It cannot be an inch further 
to the left. This is its place,” am I already moving too much towards the 
self-sufficiency of  the object and away from the homeliness? It must be 
like this because it has exactly the right light, or something like that. Is 
there some sort of  tension between these two forms of  thinking?

SCRUTON: Yes. Now you see, when you are doing philosophy, or phi-
losophy about architecture, you are asking the question: “How do you 



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reason about the intrinsic rightness of  something? 
What are the constraints? Is it just that you are 
trying to create a home, or is it about something 
else?” To me, that is what aesthetics is about. And 
I think analytical philosophy is probably in need of  
correction here. However, I may be the only one 
who thinks that. [Laughs]  The question you raised 
puzzles me. Inter-
estingly enough, 
Wittgenstein in 
his few remarks 
about aesthet-
ics, fixes on that 
very example. He 
thinks of  a door. 
What guides me 
in designing and 
making a door? 
And he says, you 
don’t ask whether 
it is beautiful or 
not. You ask: “is 
it right? does it 
look right to you?” 
“does it fit in?” 
The functionalists 
think they can set-
tle such questions 
by procedures 
and that’s what’s 
wrong with them. 
When there is 
no procedure for 
answering a question, there may be a real question 
nevertheless.

HARRIES: Here we must recognize how condi-
tioned the question of  what is right or wrong is by 
historic circumstances.Take the example of  Vier-
zehnheiligen.  Balthasar Neumann had planned a 
cruciform basilica with the altar to the Fourteen 
Saints to be placed in the crossing, as one might 

figure 1: Vierzehnheiligen, 
banz, germany



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expect.  But the architect in charge of  executing Neumann’s plans, 
Gottfried Heinrich Krohne, whose own earlier design had been rejected, 
missed the sacred place by quite a few yards by moving the church to 
the east, which caused the sacred spot to fall into the nave.  Apparently, 
this Protestant architect did not take it to be all that important: what 
did a few feet matter.  But they did matter. What was to be done?  The 
executed plan hints at the ingenious solution at which Neumann arrived.  
He made things right.  Here you have an understanding of  what is right 
that is very different from the sense of  right that would be part of  a soci-
ety that doesn’t bring the religious into the story.  Neumann could not 
say, “Oh it doesn’t matter, a few yards to the east or the west”—because 
here the architecture had to respond to precisely this very specific sacred 
place. 

We no longer reckon with place in that way.  Take the example of  a 
house.  The place has significance for any number of  reasons.  And then 
you ask, “What’s right?” There is no simple answer.  It depends on the 
context in which the question gets raised and then different answers will 
be given in a different context. 

SCRUTON: What animated me when I wrote The Aesthetics of  Architecture 
was in part the sense that people give phony answers to the question, 
“What is right?” They invent something like Corbusier’s Modulor, in 
order to justify the nonsensical things that they do. I think we should rec-
ognize that people take refuge in systems, when it is precisely the systems 
that are wrong. Alberti wrote beautifully about this when he said that 
what matters in architecture is the appropriate. He hardly ever uses the 
word “beautiful” or any equivalent of  it. But the appropriate object in 
the appropriate place matters and that should guide architecture. For that 
it is very hard to find rules. Maybe you are saying that the rules have to 
be constructed post facto. We generalize from what has been successful. 
That’s what the rococo style in this room exhibits. No architect, I hope, 
had anything to do with this—a local builder did it.

HARRIES: It’s not rococo.

SCRUTON: Late baroque, then.

ILLIES: The problem I have with “feeling at home” is that some 
people feel at home in buildings I think they shouldn’t feel at home 
in. Especially in the standard architecture of  today—with its appalling 
inappropriateness.

HARRIES: Since you mentioned it, I think this is a good place to pur-
sue this question, a question that Heidegger has discussed in “Building 
Dwelling Thinking”. First of  all, he gives us a very broad definition of  



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‘building.’ And he points out that philosophy and 
architecture, both in a sense, have built—one in 
a conceptual space, the other one in a real space.  
From the very beginning people have tried to ori-
ent themselves in space by bounding it in various 
ways to make themselves feel at home. And they 
have not just done that by building in the literal 
sense by raising structures, but they have also 
done so conceptually, mainly through language, 
by slowly controlling their environment. They are 
both ways of  grappling with the task of  making 
this world into a home. This need has been a fact 
from the very beginning and it remains a need 
architecture must meet to prove itself.

SCRUTON: I think that the word ‘wohnen,’ which 
is in the title of  Heidegger’s essay, could also be 
translated as “settlement.” I think that’s really 
what he had in mind, and that’s something that 
all human beings need. We are, naturally, settled 
beings. We can be launched into nomadic existence 
in desperate situations. But our natural condition, 
and that is especially true of  European civiliza-
tion, is settling in one place. And maybe the story 
of  Romulus and Remus, of  how the settler took 
advantage over the wanderer, 
tells us something. Settling 
means having boundaries, 
and recognizing within those 
boundaries that we are sharing 
things. We don’t share every-
thing. We don’t share our wives 
and children and the rest of  
our domestic assets. Neverthe-
less of  the things we do share the most important 
is often the temple—which is the mark of  our 
settlement. That is why with Heidegger we can say 
that it’s important to get the sacred place to be in 
the right place.

HARRIES: I am surprised to hear you quoting 
Heidegger!

We are, 
naturally, 

settled beings
“

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SCRUTON: I am an educated man! [Laughs]

HARRIES: Today it seems to me that we face, thinking of  architecture, 
two challenges: One is the increasing scarcity of  space. I think that archi-
tects are still profligate in their use of  space because they don’t realize 
that space is becoming a scarce resource. I think that this is something 
that architects can learn from history: to reckon with space as a scarce 
resource. We aren’t just talking about cars and air pollution, but space 
itself. And the other challenge is in a way an opposite challenge. We 
are liberated, as never before, by the digital revolution. It opens up an 
entirely new space. So there is a tension here between, on the one hand, 
the increasing scarcity of  space and, on the other hand, that opening up 
of  space which promises a new freedom. There is the call of  freedom 
that speaks on the one side. And there is the opposite call to be settled 
in one place. I think the successful architecture of  today should not try 
to find a solution in the middle, but has to recognize that that tension 
is part of  a successful life. That we cannot have it one way or the other, 
that that thought shortchanges us. So we have to give space to freedom, 
and also to the need to have a home. We need both. Without that we 
impoverish ourselves.

SCRUTON: I think that one of  the things that troubled me when I first 
started thinking about this is an incident that occurred in 1979, I think, 
when I published The Aesthetics of  Architecture. I was reading Gideon’s 
book Space, Time and Architecture. I thought here was somebody who 
didn’t really understand physics and who is playing around with con-
cepts beyond his grasp. He made it look as if  architecture is simply 
about space and not about that much more important thing, which is 
the boundary that encloses space. Gideon gave the sense of  conquering 
the world, of  opening up and of  making it our own, when in fact all the 
great architecture we know from the past history was putting boundaries 
around space, making it smaller. People had to make it smaller in the 
Middle Ages. Those little hilltop towns in Italy, which everybody loves, 
contained an awful lot of  people—a thousand or two thousand people 
in that tiny little area. They had to be in that area because it was the 
only thing they could defend. But by being crowded in that space, they 
made their piled-up homes beautiful, and I think all were at home there. 
Italians now may go to America and make a fortune, coming back to 
build some absolutely appalling bungalow in the valley underneath. But 
still their heart is in that little village on the top. I think that idea that we 
enclose space, that we make it smaller, so as to adapt it to ourselves, is a 
really important part of  the architectural motive.



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HARRIES: Yes, I agree with what you said, but 
I think we shouldn’t forget that other metaphor, 
which finds its expression in an understanding 
of  the church in the image of  Jacob’s ladder, a 
ladder that escapes the earth and that opens it up 
[Gestures to the sky]. You will see in the church of  
Vierzehnheiligen how self-consciously the archi-
tect opens up the architecture to the infinite.

ILLIES: That sounds as if  Karsten becomes a 
Hegelian and Roger turns into a Heideggerian. We 
should close the conversation before the trans-
formations get out of  hand, and open it to the 
audience.

AUDIENCE QUESTIONS

QUESTION: What about Heidegger’s “terror of  
time.” Where do you think it belongs? Does it 
belong to architecture or philosophy?

HARRIES: Where does it belong? It belongs to 
both. I think it is part of  the human situation. 

QUESTION: That means it belongs to space as well?

HARRIES: I think the two are related. As a matter 
of  fact, the separation of  time and space is itself  
very problematic. I talk a lot about that. How 
space and time are one. In other words, I am not 
satisfied by separating the arts of  space and the 
arts of  time. I think space enters into music, and 
time enters into architecture. And so the “terror” 
comes to both.

QUESTION: You both mentioned vernacular archi-
tecture. I want to ask, what do you think about the 
role of  tradition and style? It imposes rules: rules 
which allow us to understand and still to create 
homely architecture.

SCRUTON: I think it’s a fundamental question. 
When rules are a priori rules, worked out without 
consulting the object, and preceding the practi-
cal problem, you might justify them perhaps in 
functional terms. But there are also certain rules 



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in architecture that define tradition rather than reasoned solutions. They 
are not a priori maxims, but the collective wisdom over the many years—
people worked them out by trial and error. Architects see (for example) 
that when you make a room like this you should have a molding that 
goes along just below the ceiling, which has got three or four parallel 
lines in it, so as to bring the wall to an end. That’s something discovered 
over many centuries. And until modernism came along it was accepted. 
Those are the sort of  things that are, I would say, legitimate rules in 
architecture. They are not a priori rules, they are the résumés of  experi-
ence—that’s what a tradition is. Why do human beings need traditions, 
and when is it right to depart from them and when is it wrong to follow 
them? These are the big questions of  the twentieth century. 

QUESTION: You spoke of  the spiritual in architecture. Can there be such 
a thing as exclusively secular architecture?

SCRUTON: Jolly good question. [To Harries] Shall I just say something? 

HARRIES: You start.

SCRUTON: I have in recent years been quite intrigued by that ques-
tion because I am very much impressed by what the classical tradition 
achieved. In all its forms. In particular, in vernacular architecture. You 
are familiar with the vernacular Georgian house. It uses details which are 
mimicked in the next house. There’s something similar with the Ger-
man baroque cities. But the origin of  the repeated details is not secular. 
It is holy. The details come from the Greek and Roman temples in the 
neoclassical case or from the baroque churches in the German case. So 
it looks as though the deeper ground of  vernacular architecture does not 
come from the secular world. It comes from something holy—whether 
you say it was handed down by God, or just say it comes from the reli-
gious instinct. Funnily enough, if  you look back at the book of  Exodus, 
at the moment when God hands down the tablets of  the law to Moses, 
he hands down at the same time the design for a temple. He says “I don’t 
just want you to stop committing adultery and am not only speaking of  
the other things you’ve been doing. I want you to build a home for me, 
and here’s how you do it with columns, architraves, and capitals.” It’s very 
much a metaphor, but we do think ultimately that the origin of  archi-
tectural grammar has to be divine. Today we live in a secular society that 
doesn’t believe there is a divine origin of  things. So somebody could say 
that this leaves us in the wilderness

HARRIES: I would give a somewhat different answer with less empha-
sis on the classical tradition. But I would also say that it is a mistake to 
divorce the sacred from the beautiful. And that the vernacular buildings 



23

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that Roger speaks of, in some measure, all rec-
ognize the beautiful. In unpacking this, I don’t 
consider myself  particularly religious. I would 
emphasize the re-presentational function of  the 
beautiful; that is where we should begin. When I 
deck out a table for a festive meal, that is what I 
do: I invite people, as it were, to feel good in that 
room at that table. I think that’s what vernacular 
architecture does too. That’s what a good, well-
placed door does.

SCRUTON: A festive meal, though, traditionally, 
allows you to see a state of  grace.

HARRIES: Yes, and I would welcome that. I think 
that we recognize the importance of  the distinc-
tion between the sacred festal and less festal times. 
And the same thing goes for spaces. This is part 
of  a successful life.

ILLIES: Would you say that a similar thing hap-
pens even in modernist architecture, where you 
don’t start with divine points of  reference? But 
architects still need, do they not, some normative 
points of  reference? You look for certain qualities 
to replace the divine points of  orientation, for 
example the ideal of  ‘equality.’ They can give a 
kind of  orientation for an entire building. So you 
still have an orientation in normative ideals—func-
tionless ideals which are then incarnated in the 
entire building.

HARRIES: I would like to then turn to particular 
examples. I would agree with you here, but what 
I would not overlook is the offering of  the site. 
It’s not just the materials, it’s not just the setting, 
it’s the recognition of  the site and its constraints. 
The building then re-presents the landscape; it lets 
us look more happily at it.  A good building is not 
like a scar on the land, it lets you look more hap-
pily at that land—at the same land. I think quite a 
few modern architects succeeded very well at that. 
So I would not restrict it to a certain style. I mean 
I happen to like the eighteenth century, but if  I 



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were to build myself  a house today, it would be modern.

SCRUTON: Well, yes, I would disagree with that bit! [General laughter]

QUESTION: If  we were to look at architecture today, it is on the one hand 
characterized by different approaches with different priorities. On the 
other hand, we have to try to integrate architecture. What shall we do? 
Should we try to correlate the different approaches in a more substantive 
way, or should we remain constant on this different approach?

SCRUTON: Hegel says in the introduction to the “Elements of  the 
Philosophy of  Right,” when philosophy paints its gray in gray, then has 
a form of  life grown old—meaning that philosophy comes after life. It’s 
a reflection upon it, and it is not the premise upon which life begins. I 
think this is also true about the philosophy of  architecture. You don’t 
want architects to begin from a philosophy of  architecture. You want 
them to be architects. Philosophers meditate on what they are doing, and 
perhaps make sense of  it. But there is always a danger in trying to start 
from a philosophy of  something and then arriving at the thing. One of  
my writings consists of  a book on the philosophy of  wine. I’ve never 
thought that someone could start making wine by learning the philos-
ophy of  it. But of  course wine is an incredibly pregnant object for a 
philosopher to think about, and also to drink. So the philosophy comes 
afterward. Of  course you can come to the conclusion, through philoso-
phy, that this architect is doing something really interesting and this one 
is perhaps doing something wrong or whatever, but those are not topics 
that architects themselves need to be very interested in.

HARRIES: I would just want to add that, yes, philosophy should come 
afterwards, but I think it should come afterwards with its questions. That 
is, it should make the architect a little bit less sure of  himself. It should 
invite him to call into question certain assumptions. For example, the 
attitudes towards space of  the students in our architecture schools. I 
think it needs to be challenged. It needs to be questioned. So I see the 
function of  philosophy in architecture schools to be a little like yeast that 
makes the dough rise, as it were.

iILLIES: Thank you very much. We’ve had fascinating conversions 
between Karsten and Sir Roger and Heidegger and Hegel. But it is 
time to come to an end. Let us do what Roger warned us not to do; we 
inverse the order. We’ve had philosophy, and now we turn to wine.

ACknowledgment: The editors would like to thank Tom Spector whose 
transcription made this article possible. 


	0-Front Matter
	1-Editorial
	2-Harries and Scruton
	3-Pedragosa
	4-Hvattum
	5-Dicks
	6- Roussel 
	7-Back Matter



