Submitted by Jonathan Budd
On Dependent Beauty
Architecture News - Nov 07, 2007 - 16:40 6537 views
Now where we have a case of dependent beauty, a thing has beauty that expresses its function. But a thing can be dependently beautiful despite not in fact fulfilling that function, or even having a disposition to fulfill it. For example, a building could aesthetically express strength and impregnability despite literally being nothing of the sort since it merely has a flimsy fake façade that looks strong and impregnable.
www.dur.ac.uk/nick.zangwill/JLev-NZ-Beauty.doc