Guest editor: Professor Paul Guyer

The mysterious figure of Marcus Vitruvius Pollio, of whom we know nothing but what he implies about himself in his Ten Books on Architecture from the first century BCE, identified firmitas, utilitas and venustas – which can be loosely translated as good construction, functionality and aesthetic appeal – as the three chief goals or values in architecture. For centuries, theorists and working architects accepted those goals in some form. In recent decades, however, philosophers such as Nelson Goodman and Arthur Danto argued against “aesthetic theories of art” or the necessity of beauty as an aim of art, although more recently still other philosophers, such as Alexander Nehamas, have contested their position. Departures from classical canons of beauty, such as Marcel Duchamp’s “Fountain” (a urinal) in the visual arts or dissonance and atonality in music, have motivated philosophical theories that declared beauty an inessential aim in art. Yet others, however, have asked, what is beauty? Is it some specific type of form or appearance, or is it rather whatever in an object can bring us a certain kind of pleasure? And can we define such pleasure instead of defining some specific form as beautiful? Perhaps beginning with Brutalism, architects and architectural theorists have also contested whether beauty is a necessary goal of architecture. Such debates are complicated by the fact that beauty is such an abstract or vague concept, and by the fact that architecture, in this regard perhaps unlike other arts, always has to be pursued in a complex social, moral and political, environmental and technological context. Further, sometimes the debate is not really about whether architecture should aim at some sort of beauty or aesthetic appeal, but only about whether this should be achieved through its structural and technological character (Frampton’s “poetics of construction”) or through its functionality (“form follows function,” although probably not in the way Louis Sullivan meant this phrase). Perhaps the real question here is whether those concerned with architecture should use some broader conception of “aesthetic appeal” rather than any narrow concept of beauty, but whether there is any way to keep such a concept from becoming so broad that it becomes meaningless.

For this issue, Khorein seeks contributions from architects, architectural theorists and historians, and philosophers that will address this question from various points of view, including but not limited to contemporary theories and practices in design and construction.

Submissions should be emailed to khorein@ifdt.bg.ac.rs.

Submission deadline: December 31, 2024