This question was really inspired by a comment in another thread.
Architectural Excellence:
Who or what defines it?
To put it simply architectural excellence is established by what and more importantly by whom? I, myself, find architectural excellence in buildings that may not be commonly accepted as excellent but to me it is! So do you see where I am leading with this? Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Sometimes a shanty hut looks better than the palaces of Kings...
So I ask again:
Who/what defines architectural excellence?
Abdul Basit Mukri
Responses
What/Who defines architectural excellence?
Abdul, Beauty is the sense of aesthetic appropriateness someone feels and as humans have more than one sense, beauty is not only visual. Beauty can be all and any sense of visual, audible, the smellable, touchable, tastable, spiritual, spatial, conceptual and logical.
Usually the feeling of beauty is so subtle a blend that most people are happy just to bathe in the aesthetic without questioning the nuts and bolts for fear of loosing the lovely fragile butterfly nature of the aesthetic.
Therefore "Architectural excellence" is another way of saying that some architectural design is aesthetically appropriate in all senses.
Caveat Emptor ("Let the buyer beware")The saying "Beauty lies in the eye of the beholder" has been corrupted by the Avante Garde adding to aesthetics the non-spiritual subjects of politics, ideology, materialism and nihilism. :(
