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Honors Thesis Collection

2017

The Values of Architecture

Angela Sun
asun2@wellesley.edu

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 The Values of Architecture
Angela Sun

Submitted in Partial Fulfillment

of the
Prerequisite for Honors
in Philosophy
under the advisement of Erich Hatala Matthes

April 2017

© 2017 Angela Sun

 i

Contents

Introduction 1

Chapter I. On Value
i. The problem of architecture as art 8
ii. What is architecture? 10
iii. Artistic value 16
iv. Architectural value 22
v. Conclusion 29

Chapter II. On Functionality

i. Functional beauty 30
ii. Function in architecture 36
iii. Functional beauty and category-dependency 40
iv. Functional beauty and design solution 45
v. Conclusion 49

Chapter III. On Publicness

i. Architecture as public art 52
ii. The architect’s obligations 54
iii. The public’s obligations 62
iv. Conclusion 78

References 79
ii

Acknowledgments

I am immensely grateful to my mentors, friends, and family for their support throughout

the thesis process. First, I owe many thanks to the members of my committee—Professor Helena

de Bres, Professor Andy Mowbray, and Professor Julie Walsh—for their time and insights. I am

also grateful to the philosophy students at Wellesley, especially Adele Watkins, for sustaining

such a positive, vibrant community in the department. Many thanks, too, to Isabella Rosenberg,

Rebecca Selch, Imran Thobani, Victoria Uren, and Victoria Wicks, who have been a constant

source of emotional and intellectual support over the years. The word “friend” hardly captures

the depth of my love and appreciation for them.

I have had many mentors and role models at Wellesley, but two in particular have shaped

my experience here. First, many thanks to Professor Alice Friedman, who inspired my love for

architecture. Professor Friedman taught me a great deal about buildings, but even more about

sensitivity, hard work, and fearlessness. She will always be the epitome of an art professor to me.

Finally, unending thanks are due to Professor Erich Hatala Matthes, my thesis advisor,

for his mentorship and friendship beginning my very first day at Wellesley. Professor Matthes

spent countless hours helping me hone my fledgling philosophical ideas and pulling me out of

conceptual holes the many times I stumbled into them. This thesis exists because of his guidance

and optimism. Thank you, Professor Matthes, for all that you have taught me, and for pushing

me to make meaning for myself and those around me.

 1

Introduction

In the Western art tradition, painting, sculpture, music, literature, and architecture are

classified as the fine arts. Although these art forms deal with different mediums, represent and

express in different ways, and are used to different ends, the thought goes that they are essentially

alike in the ways that count, which warrants their subsumption under a single conceptual

umbrella. This use of “art” as a unifying idea is familiar to us. When we think about art, we

assume that its objects have the same underlying properties regardless of the mediums in which

they are created. If asked to name a paradigmatic work of art, we might identify the Mona Lisa,

Venus de Milo, the Suite bergamasque, Hamlet, or Fallingwater; the fact that these works have

different material forms does not affect our identification of them as art. This assumption that

the fine arts are fundamentally similar has led philosophers to theorize about the arts as a unified

body of objects. They have searched for definitions of art rather than of individual art forms, and

proposed all-encompassing theories of artistic value in lieu of independent theories about the

values of painting, sculpture, music, etc. In other words, the questions motivating the philosophy

of art have been “what is art?” and “what is the value of art?”

However, a body of literature has recently emerged challenging the conceptual

unification of the arts. The authors of these works posit that proceeding under the assumption

that the same philosophical problems apply across the artistic board obfuscates many of the

particularities of individual art forms. 1 Architecture, for instance, has essential non-aesthetic

properties that distinguish it from the other fine arts. Unlike paintings and sculptures, buildings

are public, site-specific, constrained by functionality, and immersed in everyday life. In the legacy

1
Noël Carroll, Art in Three Dimensions (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 6.
2

of Kant and Hutcheson and their emphases on disinterest and universal beauty, the norms for

fine art appreciation have been shaped to require contemplative attention to the formal features

of individual objects. Paintings, for example, are presented in frames that isolate them as

individual objects inviting careful scrutiny, and allow viewers to grasp them in their entirety in

a single view.2 By contrast, buildings cannot be totally isolated from their environments, and the

appreciation of architecture does not merely involve disinterested viewings of objects in their

entirety, but immersive experiences of objects from multiple viewpoints. Unlike other arts that

demand to occupy the foreground of our experience, architecture provides the backdrop to our

lives, becoming part of our daily routine rather than, as Clive Bell put it, a means to lift us above

the stream of life.3 Buildings are not meant to be carefully contemplated at a distance, but entered,

navigated, and lived in, a fact that challenges the applicability of the Western fine art framework

to architecture. Indeed, it is an unfortunate result of unification of the fine arts that architecture

has been largely neglected within aesthetics. Since other fine arts fit more comfortably within

the Western framework, it has been easy for theorists to focus on those art forms and relegate

architecture to the philosophical sidelines. In order to account for architecture and its differences

from the other arts, perhaps we ought to shift the focus in aesthetics away from general questions

about art and artistic value. A more meaningful set of questions might be “what are the arts?”

and “what are the values of the arts?”

This thesis aims to rectify the inattention to architecture within aesthetics by examining

the implications that arise when architecture is considered in isolation from the broader arts. The

chapters will proceed as follows. In chapter I, I advance a theory of architectural value distinct

2
Arnold Berleant, The Aesthetics of Environment (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2010), 162.
3
David Goldblatt and Roger Paden, “Introduction to the Aesthetics of Architecture,” Journal of
Aesthetics and Art Criticism 69, no. 1 (2011): 1.
 3

from artistic value. I survey the value-making features of architecture that are lost when

architecture is subsumed under the umbrella of fine art, and argue that the framework of Western

artistic value—with its emphasis on disinterestedness and contemplative attention—cannot

account for all the properties that make architecture valuable. I argue that the non-artistic

properties of architecture—its functionality, permanence, site-specificity, and publicness—create

multiple perspectives from which a building must be assessed before its overall value qua

architecture can be determined. I show that the norms of fine art appreciation in the Western

tradition, which call for evaluation from a single perspective, cannot accommodate the

perspectival plurality of architectural value. Under my theory, artistic value is determined by a

single value judgment, whereas architectural value is aggregative, consisting in the sum of value

judgments made about a building from all appropriate evaluative perspectives. Therefore, many

values of architecture are obscured in the Western art framework.

Chapter I sets the scene for the two subsequent chapters, which investigate specific

features of architecture that distinguish it from the other fine arts. Chapter II addresses

functionality in architecture. Specifically, it answers the problem of translation: how knowledge

of a building’s function can alter the aesthetic qualities we perceive it to have. In some cases,

knowing the purpose that a building is meant to serve, and then observing that the building

serves that purpose well, can change an initial negative aesthetic evaluation of a building into a

positive one. Conversely, observing that a building fails to perform its function satisfactorily may

impel us to change an initial positive aesthetic evaluation into a negative one. A solution to the

problem of translation must stipulate the mechanism underlying these shifts in aesthetic

evaluation. I propose that our aesthetic judgment of a building changes once we know the

function it is meant to serve because that knowledge helps us organize our perception of the

building, allowing us to understand how its design addresses that specific function. My argument
4

shows that functionality—a feature that the Western evaluative framework cannot

accommodate—has an impact on our aesthetic evaluations of architecture.

Chapter III investigates the moral questions that arise from architecture’s status as a public

art. Unlike the other fine arts, which are typically displayed or performed in private “art spaces”,

architecture necessarily exists in the public arena. Members of the public thus do not consent to

viewing architecture in the same way they choose to visit art museums and expose themselves

to the works inside. These facts imbue architecture with a moral weight. I begin by showing the

publicness of architecture subjects architects to two conflicting duties. As artists, they are

obligated to create works with integrity, satisfying their own artistic interests rather than

pandering to an audience. But as public artists, they are obligated to prioritize the interests of

their audience and design for public taste. These obligations are at odds because the taste of the

art community and the taste of the public tend to oppose one another, with the art community

favoring difficult, intellectualized art and the public preferring familiar, accessible art. I propose

that fulfilling these conflicting duties requires that architects design bilaterally rather than

parochially; that is, design buildings that appeal to both public and professional audiences, rather

than to one or the other. I insist, however, the bilaterality is not a responsibility that falls entirely

on architects. I show that the public, too, has a role to play in achieving bilaterality in architecture.

I argue that the public has a duty to be receptive to the aesthetically challenging features of

architecture, which distributes the burden of bilaterality between architects and the audiences of

their buildings.

My overarching aim in this thesis is to address the limitations of the conceptual

unification of the arts for architecture. In doing so, I partake in an emerging philosophical

tradition that recognizes the importance of thinking about different art forms and their individual

values rather than the fine arts as a whole. Dominic McIver Lopes’ Beyond Art is developed
 5

around the premise that the range of activities classified as art are too diverse to define neatly.4

Lopes argues that understanding what art is requires understanding what the arts are, and

proceeds to survey the wide array of phenomena that constitute the arts. Peter Kivy engages in

a similar project in Philosophies of Arts, where he identifies the problems that arise from the

conceptual unification of the arts for literature and music as non-representational art forms.5 In

Art in Three Dimensions, Noël Carroll dismisses the aestheticism dominating art historical

methodology, which he ascribes to the unification of the fine arts. According to Carroll, by

rejecting the assumption that there is a single affective state or experience that every art form is

meant to deliver, we can come to a clearer understanding of what exactly art is. My thesis

addresses the same concerns laid out by Lopes, Kivy, and Carroll, focusing specifically on the

problems that face architecture under a conception of unified artistic value.

Before addressing these problems, it will be useful to have an idea of how architecture

came to be classified one of the fine arts at all, given its obvious differences from painting,

sculpture, music, and literature. Despite its current prevalence, the use of “art” as a unifying

concept is a recent theoretical development. Paul O. Kristeller has argued that the classification

of fine art distinct from craft, science, and other human activities—that is, the modern system of

the arts—did not develop until the eighteenth century.6 The ancient Greeks, for instance, used

art to refer to a range of activities that we would now call crafts or sciences: activities that require

training rather than inherent skill. Thus, diverse pursuits such as rhetoric, statesmanship,

medicine, carpentry, and metalwork were all considered arts. This thinking persisted through

late antiquity and the Middle Ages, when the seven “arts” were subdivided into the trivium

4
Dominic McIver Lopes, Beyond Art (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014).
5
Peter Kivy, Philosophies of Arts (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997).
6
Paul O. Kristeller, “The Modern System of the Arts,” in Renaissance Thought and the Arts
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980), 163-227.
6

(comprised of grammar, rhetoric, and dialectic) and the quadrivium (comprised of arithmetic,

geometry, astronomy, and music). Surprisingly, not even the Renaissance saw a full unification

of the arts despite being among the most critical periods in Western art history. While the visual

arts experienced a rise in esteem during the Renaissance, they were still closely linked to the

sciences; painting and sculpture were taught alongside mathematics, anatomy, and perspective.

The decisive step toward the modern system of the arts was finally taken in 1746, when Abbé

Batteux published his treatise The Fine Arts Reduced to a Single Principle, explicitly designating

painting, sculpture, music, literature, and architecture as the fine arts. Although Batteux

identified the single principle underlying all the fine arts as the representation of nature—a theory

that has since been widely discredited—he laid the foundation for both the modern system of

the arts and the philosophical task of defining art, which remains a central problem in aesthetics

today.7

The upshot of this narrative is that the system of fine art that is now so familiar to us did

not exist in antiquity, the Middle Ages, or the Renaissance. While this does not mean, of course,

that prior to the eighteenth century there was no painting, sculpture, music, literature, or

architecture, it does show that the unification of these five art forms is far from an intuitive

grouping of activities that are importantly similar. Rather, the concept of art is historically

conditioned, acquiring a certain meaning at certain places and times.8 As it is used today, “art”

is a term that enforces a conceptual and institutional unity upon a range of activities that actually

have very little in common. The persistent effort of philosophers to define art in terms of

necessary and sufficient conditions therefore seems misplaced, and the recent effort of

7
Kivy, Philosophies of Arts, 4.
8
Dominic McIver Lopes, “Nobody Needs a Theory of Art,” Journal of Philosophy 100, no. 3 (2008),
112.
 7

philosophers of art to theorize about the arts individually rather than as a homogenous unit is

long overdue.
8

Chapter I. On Value

i. The problem of architecture as art

Why does architecture matter? Since the Western art tradition classifies architecture as one

of the fine arts alongside painting, sculpture, music, and literature, questions about architectural

value are typically subsumed under more general questions about artistic value. This classification

assumes, among other things, that the methods of evaluation in the Western art tradition are

appropriate for identifying the value of architecture. The methods of art history emphasize formal

analysis; by surveying the formal qualities of artworks, discerning their meanings and structures,

and placing them in their art historical contexts, these methods are meant to draw our attention

to the salient features of artworks that make them worth our care and attention.1 But are these

procedures as apt for identifying what is valuable about architecture as they are for the other fine

arts? After all, it is unclear whether we value buildings in the same way we do works of art; that

is, whether we value them as we do the Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo, the Suite bergamasque, and

Hamlet. Some works of architecture certainly possess artistic value. The Taj Mahal, the Sagrada

Familia, and Fallingwater immediately come to mind as buildings that are valued primarily for

their formal qualities and for the aesthetic experiences they provide. However, confining our

judgments about all works of architecture within the realm of art obscures many of the features

that we find valuable about architecture. The value of most buildings does not stem from any

remarkable artistic value they exhibit, but from their functional and economic virtues. The mass-

produced cookie-cutter houses in American suburbs, for instance, may not amount to much as

1
Noël Carroll, Beyond Aesthetics: Philosophical Essays (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001),
5-6.
 9

works of art, but they are successful works of architecture insofar as they have mass appeal, are

produced efficiently, and facilitate the day-to-day activities of the families that live in them.

Moreover, some buildings that possess extraordinary artistic value are not successful works of

architecture. Villa Savoye and the Farnsworth House may be artistic masterpieces, but both are

deficient in architectural value insofar they failed to meet the functional requirements that their

patrons demanded: the structural defects of Villa Savoye required constant repairs, and the total

transparency of the Farnsworth House’s glass walls made it impossible for Edith Farnsworth to live

there without paranoia about her lack of privacy.2 The possible incongruity between artistic and

architectural value has no analog in any other of the fine arts. How could a painting, for instance,

succeed as art but fail as painting? The value of painting, sculpture, music, and literature are

intertwined with artistic value to an extent that the value of architecture is not. This immediately

suggests that architectural value is distinctive among the fine arts and cannot be articulated in terms

of artistic value alone.

Perhaps the methods of art history are ill-suited for identifying the value of architecture

due to the peculiarities of architecture as an art form. Unlike the other fine arts, architecture is

public, site-specific, constrained by functionality, and immersed in everyday life. These features

do not fit comfortably within the norms of fine art appreciation, which require contemplative

attention to the formal features of individual objects. While paintings, for instance, are presented

in frames that isolate them as individual objects for observation, buildings cannot be completely

disconnected from their surrounding environment. Furthermore, to look at a building with

concentrated attention the way one would a painting in a museum is to engage with the building

2
For details on the structural shortcomings of Villa Savoye, see Nicole Sully, “Modern Architecture and
Complaints About the Weather, or, ‘Dear Monsieur Le Corbusier, It Is Still Raining in Our Garage,”
M/C Journal 12, no. 4 (2009). For discussion on the conflict between Edith Farnsworth and Mies van
der Rohe about Farnsworth’s privacy concerns, see Alice T. Friedman, Women and the Making of the
Modern House (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006), 134-143.
10

in an unusual way: as a tourist. The works of architecture that we truly know and love are the

ones that fall into the background of our consciousness, becoming part of our system of habits.3

The tension between the norms of fine art appreciation and architecture’s distinctive non-artistic

qualities challenges the applicability of the framework of Western artistic value to architecture.

My aim in this chapter is to advance a broad theory of architectural value distinct from,

but inclusive of, artistic value. I argue that the non-aesthetic, non-art-historical features of

architecture—its functionality, permanence, and site-specificity—require a wider framework for

evaluation than what artistic value alone permits. I begin in part II with a discussion of what

architecture is, sketching out some of the characteristics that are central to our conception of

architecture. With these characteristics in mind, I take up the question of what constitutes artistic

value in part III, and in part IV I proceed to show why artistic value cannot adequately account

for what is valuable about architecture. I argue that the distinctive features of architecture create

multiple evaluative perspectives with respect to which architectural value is determined, a plurality

that cannot be accommodated by the norms of Western fine art appreciation, which call for

evaluation from a single perspective. The theory of architectural value that I propose in this chapter

explains the diversity of our experiences with architecture as well as the possibility of its

inconsistency with artistic value.

ii. What is architecture?

To begin, I delineate the scope of my project. Just which objects count as architecture,

and what, if anything, is the difference between architecture and mere building? My goal is not

3
Andrew Ballantyne, “Architecture, Life, and Habit,” Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 69, no. 1
(2011): 43.
 11

to provide a set of necessary and sufficient conditions for architecturehood, but simply to identify

those features that are central to our common conception of architecture.4 Just as philosophers

have succeeded in theorizing about artistic value without a precise definition of art, it is also

possible to theorize about architectural value without a precise definition of architecture that

accounts for every single borderline case.5

Broadly speaking, architecture is concerned with the built environment—buildings,

bridges, parks, roads, etc.—but in the context of the artworld, architecture pertains almost

exclusively to buildings. The first step in providing an account of architecture is thus to

determine what it means for something to be a building, and next to stipulate the conditions a

building must fulfill in order to be considered a work of architecture.

Buildings come in many types. Houses and apartment buildings are places for living,

offices places for work, schools and museums places for education, and religious buildings places

for worship. Despite this variation, comparing different building types reveals the following

similarities. First, buildings are all structures (i) designed (ii) for human occupation. The

requirement that buildings be designed distinguishes them from naturally occurring structures

that might also function as places of human occupation. A cave, for instance, may house human

4
Most theories of art consist of a set of necessary and sufficient conditions for art status. However, the
plethora of borderline cases of art and, in turn, the difficulty of providing hard conditions for art status
has resulted in the development of cluster theories of art: non-essentialist conceptions of art that explain
the nature of art through family resemblance. See Morris Weitz, “The Role of Theory in Aesthetics,”
Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 15, no. 1 (1956): 27-35 and Berys Gaut, “The Cluster Account
of Art,” in Theories of Art Today, ed. Noël Carroll (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2000), 25-
45. Similarly, my aim here to merely identify features that constitute common ideas of what architecture
is rather than to provide a rigid, essentialist definition of architecture.
5
Malcolm Budd writes in the introduction to his theory of artistic value: “I do not attempt… to present
a definition of a work of art or a philosophical theory of art or a statement of its supposed essence, then
to derive from the definition a conception of artistic value… Given what has happened to the concept
of art, especially in this century, it would be fruitless to proceed in this way.” Values of Art: Pictures,
Poetry, and Music (London: Penguin, 1995), 3.
12

activity, but is not a building. The human occupation requirement highlights the functionality

of buildings, which are all meant to accommodate some kind of human activity. Perhaps this

requirement explains our reluctance to regard structures such as the pyramids of Giza as buildings.

The worry about the pyramids is not that they house the dead—after all, other mausoleums such

as the Pantheon and the Taj Mahal share this function yet are still thought of as buildings—but

that they exclude the living. 6 Although pyramids have rooms, hallways, and other internal

structural features characteristic of buildings, they were intentionally designed without doors to

prevent the living from entering them once construction was completed. This particular feature

of pyramids aligns them more with monuments than with buildings.

Further qualifications must be made to our working definition, as there remain a number

of prima facie non-building structures that would count as buildings under our current

requirements. Tents, ships, and caravans, for instance, are structures designed for human

occupation and often have the same functions as conventional buildings, but nevertheless do not

fit our conception of building.7 Pavilions and underground catacombs also fail to align with our

intuitions about buildings due to the lack of interior qualities in the first case and exterior qualities

in the second. To address the first of these two problems, we can add to our definition that

buildings are (iii) permanent and (iv) site-specific. Tents, ships, and caravans are not buildings

because they are either temporarily erected or moving. And to address the problem posed by

pavilions and underground catacombs, we can further stipulate that buildings tend to (v) possess

both interior and exterior qualities.8 Although pavilions have many of the same structural features

as buildings, their lack of interior qualities seems to disqualify them as buildings. In a similar vein,

6
Stephen Davies, “Is Architecture an Art?” in Philosophy and Architecture, ed. Michael H. Mitias
(Amsterdam: Rodopi Press, 1994), 35.
7
Ibid.
8
Ibid.
 13

although underground catacombs such as the Basilica Cistern in Istanbul may possess interior

qualities, their lack of exterior qualities altogether makes it difficult to conceive of them as

buildings. The requirement that buildings exhibit exterior in addition to interior attributes calls

attention to the public face of architecture. Since buildings must be large enough to

accommodate human activity, their exterior qualities endow them with a presence in the public

world.

I have characterized buildings as permanent, site-specific structures designed for human

occupation that possess both interior and exterior qualities. Still, this definition doesn’t seem

sufficiently precise. Many sculptures and monuments fit this definition even though we would

not typically think of them as buildings. We do not, for instance, think of the Statue of Liberty

as a building, even though it fulfills all the requirements we have identified and even possesses

rooms, stairs, elevators, doors, and other quintessential architectural features. The problem is not

that the Statue of Liberty is representational; even non-representational monuments face this

problem. The Arc de Triomphe does not fit our intuitions of what a building is despite possessing

all the qualities that are characteristic of buildings. Although monuments such as the Statue of

Liberty and the Arc de Triomphe are technically buildings, our intuitive rejection of them as

such suggests that they belong to separate category of objects. Let us define monuments as

buildings that are necessarily externally focused and that have a specific commemorative

function. According to this definition, the interior qualities of monuments are non-essential. If

for some reason the interior of the Statue of Liberty became unusable, the monument would

still be functional in the relevant sense, as only its external features contribute to its

commemorative function. By contrast, if the interior of a house, school, or museum were to

become unusable, that building would cease to be functional in the relevant sense, as the

functionality of these buildings relies on their ability to accommodate human activity. These
14

distinctive features of monuments warrant their separate treatment, and I will therefore exclude

them in my discussion of buildings.

I have established some of the characteristics that are central to our idea of what a building

is, but I have yet to elaborate on what it means for a building to count as a work of architecture.

Although the terms “building” and “architecture” are sometimes interchangeable, the way in

which the latter is used often implies an elevated status. A building is any structure that possesses

the five aforementioned features, but a work of architecture achieves something more. Thus,

architecture would appear to consist of a subset of buildings exhibiting some special quality that

warrants a designation separate from mere buildings. This was the sentiment behind art historian

Nikolaus Pevsner’s statement that “a bicycle shed is a building; Lincoln Cathedral is a piece of

architecture.” 9 Theories that purport to explain the distinction between building and

architecture are therefore normative; they make claims about the features of architecture that are

so important as to call for a privileged status.

Although there are many theories that explain what makes architecture good or bad,

there is only one clearly stated account of what makes architecture architecture rather than

building. According to Pevsner’s aesthetic theory of architecture, “nearly everything that

encloses space on a scale sufficient for a human being to move in is a building; the term

architecture applies only to buildings designed with a view to aesthetic appeal.”10 This proposal,

however, is unsatisfactory. It can’t be that design with a view to aesthetic appeal is the deciding

factor of architecturehood. After all, most bicycle sheds are designed with a view to aesthetic

appeal. Bicycle shed builders must decide what materials to use, whether to paint them and if to

paint them then in what color, and where to build the sheds so that they do not look out of

9
Nikolaus Pevsner, Outline of European Architecture (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1963), 15.
10
Ibid. Emphasis added.
 15

place in their environment. These may not be aesthetic concerns in a fine art sense, but they are

aesthetic insofar as they pertain to the appearance of the shed. Although Pevsner is right to point

out that Lincoln Cathedral was designed with more aesthetic awareness than the bicycle shed, it

isn’t the presence of aesthetic awareness in the former that makes it a work of architecture and

the absence of aesthetic awareness in the latter that makes it a mere building.

This may, however, be a misinterpretation of Pevsner’s argument. Rather than applying

the notion of aesthetic appeal straightforwardly, Pevsner insinuates that the difference between

Lincoln Cathedral and the bicycle shed is that the former is a work of art and the latter is not.

Indeed, Pevsner proceeds to argue that a good architect requires the visual focus of a sculptor or

painter in addition to the spatial imagination of a builder, and the combination of these skills

grants the architect the status of an artist.11 Given this reinterpretation, the aesthetic theory can

be stated as

Aesthetic theory of architecture: x is a work of architecture iff x is a building and x is a

work of art.

The aesthetic theory, thus interpreted, is appealing because it seems to accurately

pinpoint the difference between buildings with architecture status and those without it. Lincoln

Cathedral is a work of art—one look at the sculptural intricacy of its towers, the upward sweep

of its vaults, and the transformation of sunlight through its stained glass windows reveals this.

The average bicycle shed, on the other hand, is not a work of art.

However, the problem with the aesthetic theory is that its selection of art status as the

sole condition that a building must fulfill to acquire architecture status is an arbitrary one, chosen

11
Ibid., 16.
16

without justification from a long list of important differences between Lincoln Cathedral and the

bicycle shed. Lincoln Cathedral possesses far more features beyond art status that the bicycle shed

does not: monumentality, multi-functionality (Lincoln Cathedral is not only as a place of worship

but also a public meeting space, library, landmark, affirmation of Christian devotion, etc.), high

levels of expenditure, and a host of other qualities that could also serve as the basis of demarcation

between architecture and building. Architecture has diverse ambitions, and it is arbitrary to

prioritize one of those ambitions at the expense of others. In the remainder of this essay, I will

therefore reject normative accounts of architecture that privilege works of architecture above

mere buildings, and treat all buildings as works of architecture deserving of individual

consideration.

iii. Artistic value

Setting architecture aside for the moment, I turn to the question of artistic value. The

account of artistic value I identify in this section will serve as a baseline for comparison with the

account of architectural value I develop in the following one.

Artistic value refers to the sort of valuable properties that are pertinent to evaluations of

objects qua art. The kinds of value in art make an impressive inventory, which includes aesthetic

value, historical value, art-historical value, cognitive value, moral value, political value,

economic value, therapeutic value, social value, educational value, sentimental value, and

religious value.12 However, not all of the valuable properties in art are relevant to judgments

about artistic value. The fact that I can hold Starry Night over my head to protect myself from

12
Dominic McIver Lopes describes the values in art as an “inventory of values” in “The Myth of (Non-
Aesthetic) Artistic Value,” Philosophical Quarterly 61, no. 244 (2011): 520.
 17

rain may be reason to value the painting, but it is not reason to value the painting qua art. It

would be rather strange if a critic were to defend the artistic value of Starry Night on the basis

that it makes a fine umbrella. Economic value is another valuable property that is irrelevant to

assessments of art qua art. Although the price at which a Starry Night sells might depend on the

painting’s art status, it does not affect the painting’s artistic value; the selling price of Starry Night

can fluctuate while its artistic value remains constant. Developing a theory of artistic value

involves providing criteria that allow us to sift out the right reasons for valuing art from the

inventory; that is, the reasons that justify valuing art qua art.13 To value Starry Night as an

umbrella or for its selling price is to value the painting for instrumental reasons that have no

bearing on what makes it worth valuing qua art: the wrong reasons.

But what exactly are the right reasons for valuing art? What criteria should we use to sort

through the inventory of values in art to distinguish the valuable properties determinative of

artistic value from those that are merely adventitious? Since artworks are intended to elicit

responses from spectators, theories of artistic value tend to address the quality of experiences that

artworks engender. My intention in the following discussion is to assess a few representative

theories of artistic value and settle on an account that most parallels the conception of fine art

value deployed by art historians and critics in the Western tradition. Philosophers have advanced

numerous theories of artistic value, many of which are broader than the Western formulation

and are thus able to accommodate the value of functional arts such as architecture.14 It is a virtue

of such theories of artistic value that they can explain architectural value, but those theories are

13
I borrow this framework of valuing for the right reasons from Erich Hatala Matthes, “Love in Spite
Of,” in Oxford Studies in Normative Ethics: Volume 6, ed. Mark Timmons (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2016), 247-248.
14
For a sampling of theories of artistic value that are able to accommodate architectural value, see Noël
Carroll, Beyond Aesthetics and Robert Stecker, “Artistic Value Defended,” Journal of Aesthetics and Art
Criticism 70, no. 4 (2012): 355-362.
18

not my concern here. I will show that unlike these more generous theories, artistic value as

sanctioned by the Western tradition cannot wholly account for the values of architecture.

Theories of artistic value can be divided into three categories: inclusive, exclusive, and

moderate. Inclusive theories of artistic value are those that more or less dissolve the distinction

between artistic value and value in art. Consider, for instance, Nicholas Wolterstorff’s purposive

account of artistic value:

Purposive theory (inclusive): Artwork x possesses artistic value iff, and to the extent that,
the experience of x realizes the purposes for which it was made.15

The purposive theory doesn’t narrow down the inventory of values in art much because

artists create artworks with countless objectives in mind, and the theory legitimizes all of those

objectives to the extent that artists are successful in achieving them. Artists are motivated to

produce artworks not only to create objects of aesthetic interest, but also to convey political

messages, inspire religious devotion, and achieve fame and fortune. However, not all of these

motivations are relevant to assessments of art qua art. As previously discussed, considerations such

as whether or not an artwork sells at a high price should not be relevant in judgments about

artistic value. Inclusive theories of artistic value are unsustainable; they fail to recognize that some

of the properties that make art valuable simpliciter do not make art valuable qua art.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, exclusive theories of artistic value designate a single

kind of value as constitutive of artistic value: aesthetic value. Consider an exclusive theory

proposed by Monroe Beardsley:

15
Nicholas Wolterstorff, Art in Action (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980), 157. Dominic McIver Lopes
discusses Wolterstorff’s trivialization of artistic value in “The Myth of (Non-Aesthetic) Artistic Value,”
520.
 19

Aesthetic theory (exclusive): Artwork x possesses artistic value iff, and to the extent that,
x generates a valuable aesthetic experience.16

According to Beardsley, an aesthetic experience is characterized by an intense and unified

fixation on the perceptual features of its object, and is valuable for its own sake.17

The aesthetic theory is attractive because it captures the primacy of aesthetic

consideration in evaluations of art. Instead of emphasizing all values in art uniformly as inclusive

theories do, exclusive theories single out the most pertinent value that drives artistic evaluation.

However, confining artistic value to aesthetic value is too restrictive for a number of reasons.

First, there are artistically valuable artworks that lack aesthetic value. Duchamp’s Fountain, for

instance, is artistically valuable despite being aesthetically indiscernible from a commonplace

urinal. Second, the artistic value of an artwork is rarely exhausted by its aesthetic value.18 If artistic

value could be explained through the formal features of an artwork alone, then subject matter

and other non-formal properties of art would be irrelevant in artistic judgments. Third, by

singling out aesthetic properties as determinative of artistic value, the aesthetic theory is

committed to the view that the artistic value of a work is fixed at the time of the work’s creation.

The problem with this view is that not all extrinsic, time-dependent values are adventitious. Art-

historical value—the value of an object given its place in an art tradition or a historical

sequence—is an important factor in art historians’ and critics’ judgments about artistic value

despite taking into account factors beyond the aesthetic features of artworks. 19 Max Ernst’s

16
Monroe C. Beardsley, Aesthetics (New York: Harcourt, Brace, and Company, Inc., 1958), 528.
17
Ibid.
18
Stecker, “Artistic Value Defended,” 355.
19
Alan H. Goldman, “Art Historical Value,” British Journal of Aesthetics 33, no. 1 (1993): 22. For a
more general discussion of the role of history in theories of art, see Noël Carroll, “History and the
Philosophy of Art,” Journal of the Philosophy of History 5, no. 3 (2011): 370-382.
20

surrealist Pietà or Revolution by Night would possess substantially less artistic value if it were

not grounded in the millennium-long artistic tradition of the Pietà, a fact that cannot be

explained simply through attention to the painting's formal features. The aesthetic theory’s

narrow view equating artistic value with aesthetic value does not do justice to the nuance of

artistic value.

Given the untenability of both inclusive and exclusive approaches to artistic value, we

are left with a moderate theory as a final possibility. While inclusive theories pick out too many

values from the inventory of values in art and exclusive theories pick out too few, moderate

theories of artistic value fall somewhere in between. Consider Malcolm Budd’s view:

Intrinsic value theory (moderate): Artwork x possesses artistic value iff, and to the extent
that, x offers an experience that is intrinsically valuable.20

By intrinsic value, Budd means that artistic value must derive from the experience of the

work itself, rather than any instrumental value of the work’s effects. Although his reference to

intrinsic value may suggest an exclusive conception of aesthetic value, the kinds of experiences

that Budd has in mind are quite broadly conceived. He does not set intrinsic value in opposition

to extrinsic value (i.e. the value of an artwork in virtue of its relation to other things), but to

instrumental value (i.e. the value of the effects of an artwork on people who experience it, or

the value of an artwork’s accomplishment of some end).21 Although he gives priority to formal

features intrinsic to artworks, he admits that a work’s extrinsic values can contribute to the

intrinsic value of the experience the work affords. Thus, the experience of representational

20
Budd, Values of Art, 4.
21
Ibid., 5.
 21

subject matter, the cognitive and ethical dimensions of art, and the art-historical properties of art

are all given legitimacy (albeit of a secondary nature) in Budd’s account.

Budd’s theory of artistic value is attractive because it gives formal features in art

precedence while allowing room for the possibility that other values in an artwork will have a

bearing on its artistic value. This conception of artistic value is consistent with the kind of value

that art historians and critics search for in their assessments of art. Consider the following passage

from a recent art history textbook describing the task of the art historian:

Art historians use a variety of theoretical perspectives and a host of interpretive strategies
to come to an understanding of works of art within their cultural contexts. But as a place
to begin, the work of art historians can be ranked into four types of investigation:
1. assessment of physical properties,
2. analysis of visual or formal structure,
3. identification of subject matter or conventional symbolism, and
4. integration within cultural context.22

Of the art historian’s four tasks, only the fourth (and last) in the ranking pertains to anything

beyond the intrinsic properties of the artwork.

Although art critics have in addition to the art historian’s interpretive task a further one of

making an evaluative judgment about an artwork, the tools at their disposal to make that judgment

are no different from those of the art historian. In fact, if a critic’s interpretation of a work is well

presented, her evaluation of the work will be self-evident.23 Consider the following excerpts from

critiques in Art in America: “Against all odds, the appropriation of David Hockney’s sets and

22
Marilyn Stokstad and Michael W. Cothren, Art History: Volume II, 5th ed. (Upper Saddle River:
Pearson Education Inc., 2014), xxxi.
23
Tom Anderson, “Defining and Structuring Art Criticism for Education,” Studies in Art Education 34,
no. 4 (1993): 202.
22

costumes for Mozart’s The Magic Flute… proved a resounding success,”24 “[t]aut and luminous,

Tom Butter’s new constructions of fibreglass and found objects are like a set of concise, cryptic

tales.”25 The evaluation in the first of these critiques is explicit; in the second, the evaluation is

implicit in the positive tone of the critique. But both of them show that the same interpretive

strategies of formal analysis used by art historians provide the basis for sound criticism and

judgments of artistic value.

In sum: in the Western tradition, the right reasons for valuing an artwork are determined

by the intrinsic value of the experience that the artwork affords. Although formal analysis takes

precedence, extrinsic properties can also factor into judgments of artistic value.

iv. Architectural value

Given this account of artistic value, we are now in a position to gauge its compatibility

with architectural value. As with defining artistic value, the project of defining architectural value

involves providing criteria for distinguishing the values of architecture qua architecture from mere

values in architecture; that is, determining the right reasons for valuing architecture. My aim in

this section is twofold: (i) to show that the scope of Western artistic value is too narrow to

accommodate the range of properties that constitute architectural value, and (ii) to propose a

theory of architectural value that, unlike the Western evaluative framework, is sensitive to the

unique, non-artistic properties of architecture.

The first of these tasks can be accomplished by means of example. Since architectural value

is something that all great works of architecture possess to a high degree, a good starting point for

24
Brooks Adams, “Magical Mystery Flute,” Art in America 79, no. 5 (1991): 51.
25
George Melrod, “Tom Butter at Curt Marcus,” Art in America 79, no. 5 (1991): 171.
 23

thinking about architectural value is examining the sources of value in great works of architecture.

What are the value-making features of, for instance, the Seagram Building, the Walt Disney Music

Hall, and Tate Modern? Each of these buildings possesses value qua art. They are praised for their

aesthetic qualities, the interpretive challenges they pose, their art-historical awareness, and the

impacts they have had on subsequent architectural designs. Although each of these buildings enjoys

a high degree of artistic value, their value qua architecture is not exhausted by artistic value. The

Seagram Building is valuable for its role in shaping modern corporate identity and lifestyle in the

United States.26 The Walt Disney Music Hall is valuable for its acoustics, which make lackluster

concerts performed at other venues sound extraordinary.27 Tate Modern is valuable for the success

of its architects’ repurposing of the original power plant to serve as a museum. 28 These are

instrumental values of the buildings they describe and thus are not constitutive of the artistic value

of those buildings. However, they are not merely adventitious values in the buildings. Although

we may not yet have a clear picture of exactly the right reasons for valuing architecture, the

arguments listed above are among the right kind of reasons that make architecture worth valuing.29

Yet, they are excluded from the set of reasons offered in standard Western accounts of artistic

value.

Artistic value also fails to explain the values of architecture because it obscures the primacy

of the relational value of architecture to its environment, favoring individual buildings rather than

the role that buildings play in shaping their broader environments. One problem with approaching

26
Carol Willis, founding director of the Skyscraper Museum in New York, quoted in Mark Lamster, “A
Personal Stamp on the Skyline,” New York Times (New York, NY), April 3, 2013.
27
Herbert Muschamp, “Architecture Review: A Moon Palace for the Hollywood Dream,” New York
Times (New York, NY), Oct. 23, 2003.
28
Rowan Moore, introduction to Building Tate Modern: Herzog & De Meuron Transforming Giles
Gilbert Scott, ed. Rowan Moore and Raymund Ryan (London: Tate Gallery Publishing, 2000), 7-12.
29
Matthes develops this account of valuing for the right kind of reasons in “Love in Spite Of,” 248.
24

architecture with the kind of contemplative attitude the Western tradition demands is that such

thinking privileges a small subset of buildings: well-funded buildings by academically-trained

architects in internationally established styles, meant to be stand-alone objects of aesthetic interest.

The vast majority of buildings do not fall under this description. When we think about the

architecture of a city, a few individual buildings may come to mind—the famous museum or

distinctive skyscraper, perhaps—but what we really think about is the general character of the city,

which can be unique and lively even though the individual buildings that make up the city are

banal.30 Consider, for instance, the vibrantly colored buildings on the cliffs of Cinque Terre, or

the brownstones lining the streets of Brooklyn. Although these buildings create aesthetically

interesting environments, considered as individual objects the Cinque Terre buildings are kitschy

and the brownstones are unremarkable.31 However, despite their lack of individual value qua art,

these buildings possess value qua architecture insofar as it is important for buildings to complement

their neighbors and contribute positively to their settings. Indeed, a building’s fit within its

environment is so important that it can eclipse considerations of artistic merit. A large-scale

International Style building such as Frank Lloyd Wright’s Guggenheim may possess outstanding

artistic value in Manhattan among buildings of a similar scale, but that value might be compromised

if the museum were instead constructed among small, gable-front houses in a residential

neighborhood in Queens.

I have discussed a number of cases in which artistic value proves to be inadequate in

accounting for what makes architecture valuable. In doing so, I have shown that despite the

30
See Allen Carlson, “Reconsidering the Aesthetics of Architecture,” Journal of Aesthetic Education 20,
no. 4 (1986): 21-27.
31
Stephen David Ross addresses the question of whether components of artworks ought to be considered
artworks in themselves in “Some Ambiguities in Identifying the Work of Art,” Journal of Aesthetics and
Art Criticism 36, no. 2 (1977): 137-145. He briefly discusses the implications of this view for architecture
on 140.
 25

Western tradition’s classification of architecture as a fine art, the evaluative framework that the

tradition provides is unsatisfactory for determining the value of architecture. Now I turn to the

task of proposing an alternative theory of architectural value that fills in the gaps left by artistic

value.

Throughout this essay I have examined cases in which good architecture turns out to be

mediocre when evaluated qua art and, conversely, in which mediocre architecture turns out to be

good when evaluated qua art. The fact that the qualification “qua art” must be made suggests that

art is a perspective from which objects can be evaluated—a perspective attributed to the Western

fine art tradition and characterized by an attitude of disinterest and contemplative attention. I will

call this the art-perspective. Evaluating art qua art (i.e. determining an artwork’s artistic value)

requires adopting the art-perspective; assessments of art from non-art perspectives that are

interested rather than disinterested or immersive rather than contemplative do not produce

evaluations of art qua art. For instance, to determine the artistic value of Pachelbel’s Canon, one

must assume the art-perspective and evaluate the song’s formal features and structures, and art-

historical significance. However, since for many listeners Pachelbel’s Canon evokes memories of

their wedding day, the song is often evaluated sentimentally—a perspective that is neither

disinterested nor contemplative. Whatever judgment of Pachelbel’s Canon results from this

personal, interested evaluation is not a judgment of the song qua art, but qua sentimental object.

Although there are many ways to evaluate art, evaluating art qua art demands assuming the art-

perspective.

I do not wish to undersell the relevance of artistic value to architectural value. Many works

of architecture of are also works of art, and the artistic value of these buildings is one facet of their

architectural value. The Sagrada Familia is a great work of art as well as a great church, cultural

symbol, tourist destination, landmark, and museum. The Farnsworth House, like the Sagrada
26

Familia, is a great work of art, cultural symbol, tourist destination, etc., but is not a great house.

Although the Farnsworth House is still considered a great work of architecture, it is such in virtue

of its artistic merit and not its functional merit. We would be far less forgiving of the practical faults

of the Farnsworth House if it were not the artistic masterpiece that it is.32

Although artistic value is an element of architectural value, the discussion above indicates

that it does not fully constitute architectural value. The possibility of discrepancy between artistic

and architectural value suggests that unlike art, which qua art must be evaluated from a single

perspective, architecture can be evaluated qua architecture from several perspectives. Assessed from

the art-perspective, the Farnsworth House has a high degree of value; thus, the Farnsworth House

is valuable qua art. Evaluated from the inhabitant-perspective, the Farnsworth House has a low

degree of value; thus, the Farnsworth House is not valuable qua house. Although evaluations from

these two perspectives yield disparate judgments about the same object, both are appropriate

perspectives from which to judge architecture qua architecture. Considered alone, however, each

evaluation provides an incomplete picture of the house’s architectural value. Unlike artistic value,

architectural value does not consist of the value judgment from a single evaluative perspective;

rather, architectural value consists of the sum of value judgments from all the appropriate

perspectives from which a building should be assessed.

The multi-perspectival quality of architectural value is possible because of architecture’s

non-artistic properties. Recalling our previous discussion of architecture’s central characteristics,

architecture is necessarily functional, permanent, and site-specific in a way that the other fine arts

are typically not. These characteristics create a variety of perspectives from which architecture can

32
See Larry Shiner, “On Aesthetics and Function in Architecture: The Case of the ‘Spectacle’ Art
Museum,” Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 69, no. 1 (2011): 38.
 27

appropriately be evaluated qua architecture. The right reasons for valuing architecture are therefore

much more broadly conceived than the right reasons for valuing art.

Some evaluative perspectives are created by the functionality of architecture. For example,

a house has the function of providing a living space for its inhabitants. Houses can thus be assessed

from the perspective of the inhabitant, who is concerned with the quality the living space the

house provides. Often, however, the function of a building is not so clear. There is usually some

degree of ambiguity in what a building is meant to achieve, a problem known as the problem of

indeterminacy.33 Consider, for instance, the Sydney Opera House. Although the function of the

opera house may appear to be to accommodate concerts, the building is endowed with the

additional functions of being a restaurant, a public monument, a place for concert-goers to display

wealth and status, and a work of art. The opera house can be evaluated according to its success in

accomplishing any one of these functions. Indeed, some architects have argued that a civic

building’s function as a symbol of a community’s shared values and standards of life is equally as

important as the building’s more immediate functions.34 Evaluated qua concert venue, the Sydney

Opera House is not successful. The acoustics of the concert hall are notoriously deficient; architects

have been trying to find ways to improve the hall’s sound quality since construction was completed

in 1973.35 However, evaluated qua public monument or qua art, the Sydney Opera House is

tremendously successful. The architectural value of the Sydney Opera House is determined by

weighing all of these assessments rather than picking out a single one. According to my account

of architectural value, the problem of indeterminacy in architecture is not a curse in the way that

33
Roger Scruton identifies the problem of indeterminacy in The Aesthetics of Architecture (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1979), 38-43. Glenn Parsons and Allen Carlson elaborate on the problem in
Functional Beauty (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 143-149.
34
James Taylor-Foster, “Renzo Piano on ‘Civic Duties’ in Our Cities,” Arch Daily, January 13, 2015.
35
Marina Kamenev, “Sydney’s Opera House: Easy on the Eyes, Not the Ears,” Time, October 19, 2011.
28

many philosophers have characterized it. Instead, the problem presents an opportunity to elaborate

on the multifarious values of architecture qua architecture.

Permanence and site-specificity are also features of architecture that create multiple

evaluative perspectives. Permanence and site-specificity embed buildings into their environments

and make it difficult to isolate them as individual objects of appreciation. Architectural

photography that appears in magazines and textbooks often aims to make architecture as art-like

as possible, eliminating any contextual cues surrounding the building being photographed.

However, this kind of isolating art-perspective is only one way to evaluate architecture. As I have

shown in my discussion of the Cinque Terre and Brooklyn houses, architecture can also be

evaluated from a perspective that accounts for the relational value that buildings have as elements

of a neighborhood or landscape.

I have shown that architectural value, unlike artistic value, is aggregative. Determining

architectural value involves adding up the value judgments made about a building from all the

appropriate evaluative perspectives. Perhaps there is a parallel to be drawn between the multi-

perspectival quality of architectural value and the multiple perspectives needed to experience a

building in its entirety. Just as determining architectural value requires assessing a building from

various perspectives, experiencing a building requires walking through it and examining it from

different angles.36 By contrast, the value of a painting can be determined from a single evaluative

perspective, just as paintings can be grasped in their entirety from a single viewpoint. Such an

analogy seems fitting given the intricacies of architectural value I have discussed in this chapter.

36
Jenefer Robinson, “On Being Moved by Architecture,” Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 70,
no. 4 (2012): 337.
 29

v. Conclusion

My discussion has shed light on the complexity of architectural value, and has emphasized

the inability of the framework of Western artistic value to account for much of what is valuable

about architecture. In section III, I was able to provide a succinct account of the right reasons for

valuing art as conceived in the Western tradition. Such an account was possible because artistic

value is determined with respect to a single evaluative perspective, so defining artistic value simply

involved determining the right kind of reasons for valuing art according to that perspective. Unlike

artistic value, architectural value cannot be understood from a single evaluative perspective.

Architecture’s functionality, permanence, and site-specificity endow architecture with a multitude

of values that contribute to its value qua architecture, and those values cannot all be identified

from a single perspective.

30

Chapter II. On Functionality

i. Functional beauty

Philosophers often maintain that works of fine art belong to a special category of objects

that have no functions beyond serving as sources of aesthetic experiences.1 However, as my

argument from chapter I suggests, a more suitable way to phrase this claim is that works of art

do not have practical, non-aesthetic functions qua art. Let us call this the independence thesis:

the position that artistic and practical values are independent of one another.2 According to the

independence thesis, some works of art have practical functions, but whether they successfully

fulfill those functions is irrelevant to their artistic value. A commemorative statue, for instance,

might effectively fulfill its function of paying tribute to a historical event or figure, yet lack value

qua art. Similarly, recalling the previously discussed suburban cookie-cutter house, a building

might possess value qua architecture if it successfully fulfills its function (in this case, facilitating

the day-to-day lives of the families that live in them), but nevertheless lack artistic value. Because

functional value is an instrumental value—a value an object has in virtue of its effects—there is

a tension between functional value and artistic value, which is concerned with identifying the

qualities in artworks that make experiences of those works intrinsically valuable. The

independence thesis maintains that a work of art’s functionality may contribute to its value, but

only adventitiously and not qua art.

1
See Monroe Beardsley, The Aesthetic Point of View (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1982), Clive
Bell, Art (New York: G. Putnam’s Sons, 1958), and Nick Zangwill, “The Creative Theory of Art,”
American Philosophical Quarterly 32, no. 5 (1995): 307-323.
2
Sven Ove Hansson, “Aesthetic Functionalism,” Contemporary Aesthetics 3 (2005).
 31

However, there is reason to think that functionality is more integral to the aesthetic

character of objects than the independence thesis suggests. There are cases where knowing an

object’s function affects the aesthetic qualities that we perceive the object to have. For example,

bicycles with missing seats and cars with flat tires are eyesores not because there is anything

inherently displeasing about the way they look, but because we know what functions bicycles

and cars are supposed to perform, and their disfigured appearances make them appear manifestly

unfit to carry out those functions. Indeed, someone without the functional concepts of “bicycle”

and “car” might not experience the same displeasure at the sight of the damaged objects that we

do.3 The same idea is applicable to judgments about architecture. Although there is a difference

between evaluating a building qua art and evaluating a building qua functional object, we do not

completely forget about function when we evaluate a building qua art. We do not think about

buildings as works of sculpture or abstract compositions of lines and shapes. Rather, when we

observe buildings we implicitly recognize them as functional objects, and the aesthetic qualities

that we discern in them are shaped in part by this recognition. A house with broken windows is

visually displeasing, not because there is anything inherently ugly about the appearance of broken

glass, but because the broken windows make the house look unable to perform its function of

providing shelter for its inhabitants. In this case, knowing the house’s function alters its

appearance and determines the aesthetic qualities that we perceive in it. These cases provide

motivation for rejecting the independence thesis in favor of an alternative that recognizes the

possibility of a connection between practical and aesthetic value. Let us call this alternative

position functionalism.

One might wager that the displeasure we take in the appearance of the bicycle with a

missing seat, the car with a flat tire, and the house with broken windows is not aesthetic in nature.

3
Glenn Parsons and Allen Carlson, Functional Beauty (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 107.
32

Perhaps the source of our displeasure does not lie in any aesthetic quality of the disfigured objects,

but simply in knowing that these objects cannot fulfill their functions. This point, however,

oversimplifies the matter. Although these disfigured objects certainly cause us practical frustration

in being unfit to perform their functions, our displeasure is not exhausted by that practical

frustration. Consider the difference between a computer that won’t turn on due to an irreparable

software problem and a computer that won’t turn on due to irreparable physical damage, perhaps

a dented surface or a cracked screen. Although both computers are equally unable to carry out

their functions, the latter is far more unsightly than the former, which is visually indistinguishable

from a functioning computer. Both computers are equally unfit for function, but because the

physically damaged computer looks more unfit for function, we feel more displeasure at the sight

of it than we do at the other one. Indeed, the quality of looking fit for function seems to carry

far more weight in our aesthetic judgments than the quality of actually being fit for function; a

computer with physical defects will be visually displeasing regardless of whether or not it

functions well. Because we take aesthetic pleasure in objects that look fit for their function and

aesthetic displeasure in objects that do not, the appearance of fitness for function seems to be an

aesthetic quality. 4 Call this feature that an object has in virtue of its function and whose

appreciation requires knowledge of that function functional beauty. Functional beauty is only

possible under a functionalist view because the independence thesis precludes the possibility of

a relationship between aesthetic and practical value, a relationship that must hold for functional

beauty to exist.

Functional beauty is especially meaningful in architecture in virtue of the unique kinds

of functions that buildings serve. Although all buildings have the immediate function of

providing shelter or, at the very least, organizing space, most buildings also have additional

4
Ibid., 108.
 33

technical and intellectual functions that factor into our evaluations of them. Concert halls have

the function of complementing the acoustic quality of the music performed inside them, houses

of worship have the function of inspiring religious devotion, and civic buildings have the

function of expressing their societies’ values. Without knowing a building’s function, one’s

aesthetic evaluation of a building is incomplete.

One building that illustrates this point particularly well is Frank Gehry’s Stata Center at

MIT. The Stata Center—coincidentally, home to MIT’s philosophy department—is a

Deconstructivist building with a cartoon-like exterior of metal segments protruding at

unexpected angles scattered among a group of more conventional rectangular brick towers. In

addition to its whimsical façade, the Stata Center is known for being notoriously difficult to

navigate. Each elevator serves only certain floors, the hallways are curvilinear, and there is an

excess of unoccupied space scattered throughout the building. The Stata Center’s floor plan is,

on the whole, a mess, and it is impossible to find one’s destination within the building during a

first visit. The lack of organization in the Stata Center’s plan might make the building seem unfit

for function, and therefore lacking in functional beauty. When we first encounter the building,

we assume that one of its functions is to efficiently facilitate navigation, which it clearly fails to

do. The Stata Center makes what should be a simple task difficult, violating one of the

fundamental tenets of good design that alleges that the best designed objects are those that

function so seamlessly that we do not even notice ourselves using them.5 The Stata Center’s

apparent failure in fulfilling its function might impel us to assign negative aesthetic qualities to

the building; we might describe it as inefficient, sloppy, or convoluted.

However, knowing the Stata Center’s true function forces us to reexamine this initial

negative evaluation. Frank Gehry intentionally designed the building to be difficult to navigate

5
Donald Norman, The Design of Everyday Things (New York: Basic Books, 2002), 3.
34

because he wanted to facilitate chance encounters among faculty and students at MIT. After

listening to faculty members’ complaints that the overly efficient buildings in which they

currently worked made them feel isolated and were not conducive to collaborative research,

Gehry implemented numerous design strategies in the Stata Center to address their grievances.

For example, he decided that designing offices around “neighborhoods” rather than hallways

and incorporating more meeting spaces and shared facilitates would help to catalyze discussion

among the MIT community, even though it meant settling on a floorplan that would be difficult

to navigate.6 Another of Gehry’s design strategies was to plan the Stata Center according to a

progression from public to private. The spaces near the building entrances are all open to the

general public, the transition areas are open only to members of the MIT community, and private

workspaces are located at the innermost points within the building. Therefore, in order to reach

their offices and classrooms, faculty and students must walk through numerous public spaces,

creating an opportunity for spontaneous interaction. Frank Gehry discusses his intentions for

Stata’s design in the following statement:

I am happy that this building expresses what’s going on inside. My interpretation is that
it reflects the different groups, the collision of ideas, the energy of people and ideas. They
each have their own sorts of vectors and they will all be colliding with each other, some
accidentally and some by contrivance. That’s what will lead to the breakthroughs and
the positive results. I think that’s really going to work. I can’t wait to see everybody in
there—to see the beehive buzzing.7

6
Robert Campbell, “Does Gehry’s Stata Center Really Work?” Bloomberg, June 19, 2007 and Nancy
E. Joyce, Building Stata: The Design and Construction of Frank O. Gehry’s Stata Center at MIT
(Cambridge: MIT Press, 2004), 43.
7
Frank Gehry, quoted in Joyce, Building Stata, xv.
 35

Without knowing the Stata Center’s function, it is easy to assign negative aesthetic

attributes to the building because it appears unfit for its function. However, knowing that the

building was designed to be confusing in order to spark conversation among members of the

MIT community changes the way we perceive it, as the building performs this function very

well. Although the building under observation has not changed, the aesthetic qualities that we

perceive in it shift with knowledge of its function.

However, the mechanism underlying the translation from knowledge of an object’s

function to perceiving special aesthetic qualities in that object requires explanation. How can an

object look one way to us when we do not know what its function is, and then look a different

way once we do? Ostensibly, nothing about the object has changed, yet our experience of the

object is reshaped once we know the purpose it is meant to serve.8 In this chapter, I address this

question, which is typically referred to as the problem of translation.9 My aim is to propose a

solution to the problem of translation that is sensitive to both the multifunctionality of individual

buildings and the range of functions across works of architecture.

I begin in part II by elaborating on what functionality in architecture consists in, focusing

on the distinction between primary and secondary functions; that is, functions that determine

8
There are other properties that, like function, cannot be discerned in an object, but that may
nevertheless affect the way the object is perceived. For instance, knowing that a work of art is of
groundbreaking originality might translate into a positive aesthetic quality in the work, and knowing
that a work is a forgery might translate into a negative one. Originality and authenticity, like
functionality, seem to have a bearing on the aesthetic value of artworks even though they are
indiscernible. For general discussion on the possibility of aesthetic difference between two apparently
identical objects, as well as more specific details on groundbreaking originality as an aesthetic quality,
see Robert Hopkins, “Aesthetics, Experience, and Discrimination,” Journal of Aesthetics and Art
Criticism 63, no. 2 (2005): 119-133. For discussion on authenticity as an aesthetic quality, see Carolyn
Korsmeyer, “Touch and the Experience of the Genuine,” British Journal of Aesthetics 52, no. 4
(2012): 365-377.
9
The problem of translation was initially identified by Roger Scruton in The Aesthetics of Architecture
(Princeton: Princeton University Press), 41-42.
36

the kind of thing an object is, and functions that an object is accorded incidentally. I show that

works of architecture—unlike “simple” functional objects that are defined in terms of their

primary functions—are complex functional objects whose primary functions cannot claim

priority as the source of their identity. The distinction between simple and complex functional

objects forms the basis of my discussion in part III, where I consider Glenn Parsons and Allen

Carlson’s solution to the problem of translation. Because their argument assumes that all

functional objects can be categorized according to their primary functions, I criticize their

proposal’s inability to explain the functional beauty of complex objects such as works of

architecture. In part IV I propose an alternative solution to the problem of translation with the

flexibility to account for complex functional objects. I argue that knowledge of a building’s

function organizes our perception of the building and allows us to understand how the building’s

design addresses that function. In other words, under my account, functional beauty is an

aesthetic evaluation of a design solution. I show that the beauty of complex functional objects

cannot be organized into the kind of neat, simple structure that Parsons and Carlson propose,

and argue that my solution is more amenable to the particular functionalities of architecture.

ii. Function in architecture

To begin, I will address a key distinction in our understanding of functionality—the

distinction between primary and secondary functions—and consider its applicability to

architecture.
 37

An artifact’s primary functions are those functions without which the artifact would not

be the kind of thing that it is.10 Primary functions are contrasted with secondary, or accidental,

functions: functions to which an artifact is put to use but are not indicative of the artifact’s

identity. For example, the primary function of a shovel is to move loose material such as coal,

dirt, or snow. 11 Whether the shovel performs this function effectively is irrelevant—a

dysfunctional shovel is, after all, still a shovel—but an object lacking the function altogether

cannot be a shovel at all. Sometimes, however, shovels are not used as shovels, but for other

purposes, such as propping up garage doors. This is a secondary function of shovels. If a shovel

could not perform this function, it would still be the kind of object that it is.

What are the primary functions of architecture? When I sketched out the characteristics

that are central to our conception of architecture in chapter I, I postulated that one such

characteristic is architecture’s accommodation of human activity. Although the range of

functions across buildings is extensive—houses, hospitals, libraries, and shopping malls, for

example, are all buildings but serve extremely varied purposes—the one primary function that

works of architecture possess overarchingly is the function of enclosing or, at the very least,

organizing space for human activity. An artifact lacking this function would be disqualified as a

building.

What sets architecture apart from simple functional objects such as shovels, however, is

that in addition to their overarching primary function of organizing space for human activity,

most buildings have additional primary functions that cannot be generalized across the board.

Hospitals must provide health care and treatment; without this function, a building could not be

10
Jonathan Gilmore, “A Functional View of Artistic Evaluation,” Philosophical Studies 155, no. 2
(2011): 296.
11
I borrow this example from Parsons and Carlson, Functional Beauty, 76.
38

a hospital. Clearly, however, not all works of architecture share this primary function.

Subcategories of architecture—or building types—specify additional primary functions that

buildings must perform in order to qualify as members. Therefore, not only are works of

architecture multifunctional (i.e. possessing multiple primary functions), but the functions that

constitute a building’s multifunctionality differ from one building to another.

However, even within building types there is variation in the functions that buildings

serve. For instance, although all religious buildings have the overarching function of

accommodating worship, not all religious buildings share functional aspirations in other respects.

Churches, mosques, synagogues, and pagodas have different primary functions in virtue of being

attributed to different religions. But even among the houses of worship in a single religion there

is variation in primary function. Consider the functional differences between an opulent Gothic

cathedral and a simple Quaker meeting house. Gothic cathedrals were built to impress and

generate awe in spectators. Their high ceilings, sculptural ornamentation, and stained glass

windows were meant to appear to defy gravity and give visitors the impression of entering a

celestial realm. By contrast, meeting houses were designed without steeples, decoration, or

explicit liturgical symbols characteristic of cathedrals, as Quakers believed that these

embellishments distracted from the content of religious ceremonies, obscuring what was truly

important about religion. The simplicity of meeting house design was meant to emphasize the

sermon instead of the spectacle of religious practice. Although these two kinds of religious

buildings share the primary function of accommodating worship, their other primary functions

do not align.

We could, perhaps, get even more specific about building types in order to determine

the primary functions of architecture. Rather than thinking about religious buildings generally

as a subcategory of architecture, we could identify even narrower subcategories of religious

 39

buildings—for instance, Gothic cathedrals specifically—and determine the primary functions of

objects that belong in these subcategories. But variation in primary function will persist even

then. There are differences between the primary functions of Gothic cathedrals in France and in

Poland, of those affiliated with convents or monasteries and those that are not, and of those that

are also museums or tourist destinations and those that are strictly used for religious ceremony.

Although we could continue to identify increasingly precise subcategories, at a certain point we

will reach such a high level of specificity that the primary functions we attribute to objects in

those subcategories will lack generalizing power and thus cease to be informative about the

primary functions of architecture, which are what we were aiming to identify in the first place.

The fact that architecture cannot be defined in terms of its primary functions suggests

that the functionality of architecture is different from that of objects such as shovels. It was easy

to specify the primary and secondary functions of shovels earlier in this section because shovels

can be defined in terms of their primary function. To be a shovel is just to possess the primary

function that is characteristic of shovels, namely, to move loose material. Let us call such objects

that are categorized according to their proper function simple functional objects.

Unlike simple functional objects, architecture cannot be defined in terms of its primary

functions. As I have shown, most buildings have primary functions that do not apply

overarchingly to all works of architecture. Architecture therefore resists definition in terms of its

primary functions. To bring out the contrast in functionality between architecture and simple

functional objects such as shovels, let us call objects whose functional categories are not defined

by the primary functions of objects in that category complex functional objects. With this

distinction between simple and complex functional objects in mind, I will proceed to address

the problem of translation.

40

iii. Functional beauty and category-dependency

In this section, I analyze Parsons and Carlson’s response to the problem of translation,

which posits that functional beauty depends on the functional category under which an object

is perceived, and in section IV I develop an alternative account of functional beauty that addresses

the limitations of their proposal.

Parsons and Carlson’s adapt their response to the problem of translation from Kendall L.

Walton’s account of aesthetic appreciation. 12 Walton develops a cognitively rich account of

aesthetic appreciation: an account that recognizes the centrality of knowledge and beliefs about

an object to its appropriate appreciation. Cognitively rich theories of aesthetic appreciation stand

in contrast to disinterested theories, which urge audience members to divorce themselves from

rather than attend to facts that apply to the object of appreciation. According to Walton’s

cognitively rich theory, knowing the artistic category in which a work belongs—for instance, in

either the category of painting or sculpture—determines the aesthetic qualities that we ultimately

perceive in the work. He distinguishes between perceptual qualities in art that are aesthetic (e.g.

mystery or tension) and non-aesthetic (e.g. dark coloring or diagonal composition), and argues

that the artistic categories to which an artwork belongs determine the aesthetic properties of the

work because they specify the sort of non-aesthetic properties that count as “standard”,

“variable”, and “contra-standard” for that category. 13 He defines a standard non-aesthetic

property as a property that all or at least paradigmatic instances of that category possess (e.g. two-

dimensionality in painting), a variable non-aesthetic property as a property that is irrelevant to

works’ belonging in that category (e.g. the colors in a painting), and a contra-standard non-

12
Kendall L. Walton, “Categories of Art,” Philosophical Review 79, no. 3 (1970): 334-367.
13
Ibid., 335.
 41

aesthetic property as a property that tends to disqualify works from a category (e.g. three-

dimensionality in painting). Works in the same category are primarily distinguished by their

variable properties. For instance, the differences between two paintings will likely lie in their

colors, compositions, and representational content: factors that neither qualify nor disqualify

artworks from the category of painting. The categories in which we perceive an artwork give

structure to our aesthetic experience because they implicitly specify the non-aesthetic features in

the work that count as standard, variable, or contra-standard according to those categories.

Walton argues this organization of non-aesthetic qualities has an impact on the aesthetic qualities

we discern in art. For instance, perceived in the category of sculpture where two-dimensionality

is contra-standard, Jackson Pollock’s Autumn Rhythm might seem lacking in dynamism due to

its flatness. But perceived in its proper category of painting in which flatness is standard, Autumn

Rhythm epitomizes dynamism.

Although Walton does not use this term, his theory of aesthetic appreciation describes

the cognitive penetrability of aesthetic experience. Cognitive penetrability—the thesis that

differences in background beliefs or cognitive states may cause two perceivers to view the same

object in distinct ways—provides a useful way for thinking about the role that functionality

might play in aesthetic experience.14 Cognitive penetrability stands in opposition to cognitive

impenetrability, which describes cases where our knowledge or beliefs about something are

incapable of affecting our perception of it. A famous illustration of cognitive impenetrability is

the Müller-Lyer illusion, where two lines of equal length but with tails that point in opposite

directions continue to appear to be of different lengths even after the perceiver knows that that

they are equally long. Unlike the Müller-Lyer illusion, our experience of art is cognitively

14
Dustin Stokes proposes this definition of cognitive penetrability in “Cognitive Penetration and the
Perception of Art,” Dialectica 68, no. 1 (2014): 1.
42

penetrable, as knowledge of certain facts about artworks—namely, the artistic categories in which

artworks belong—can affect our perceptions of them. Cognitive penetrability therefore helps us

see why knowledge of a building’s function might have an impact on the aesthetic qualities we

perceive in it; knowing what a building’s function is alters our perception of the building.

However, cognitive penetrability does not tell us how that knowledge impacts our perception.

This is the question that the problem of translation boils down to. What happens once we have

knowledge about a building’s function that impels us to see it in a new light?

In their response to the problem of translation, Parsons and Carlson borrow Walton’s

theory of aesthetic appreciation as category-dependent, but change its application from general

artistic categories to specific functional categories. They argue that knowing an object’s function

alters its perceptible aesthetic qualities because that knowledge specifies the qualities that count

as standard, variable, and contra-standard to a functional category. Depending on the

combination of standard, variable, and contra-standard properties perceived in an object in light

of knowledge of its function, the object may possess one of three types of functional beauty.

Parsons and Carlson summarize these three types of functional beauty in the following way:

The first of these involves aesthetic qualities, such as the traditionally recognized quality
of ‘looking fit’, that things possess when the functional category employed to perceive
them causes us to see these things as having no contra-standard features at all and as
having, to a high degree, certain variable features that are indicative of functionality. The
second type includes aesthetic qualities like simplicity, gracefulness, or elegance, which
functional things possess when the functional category used to perceive them makes them
appear as having no contra-standard or variable features, but only the essential, standard
ones. In the third way in which functional categories can affect aesthetic appearance,
things appear able to perform their function, but the functional category that we apply
in perceiving them leads them to appear as lacking some standard features. In this event,
things, by still looking capable of performing their function, may display a pleasing
 43

dissonance in their sensory elements. The resulting aesthetic quality may be described as
a surprising, even playful “visual tension.”15

In his discussion of functional beauty, Rafael de Clercq provides a helpful outline of Parsons and

Carlson’s classification of functional beauty types:

Functional Perceptual features that appear to be… Relevant aesthetic

beauty qualities
Standard Variable Contra-standard
Type I Some Some None Looking fit
Type II All None None Simplicity, gracefulness,
elegance
Type III Some (possibly) Some (possibly) Some (by Visual tension16
definition)

Although Parsons and Carlson’s account may explain the functional beauty of simple

functional objects that are defined in terms of their primary functions, it fails to explain the

functional beauty of complex ones such as works of architecture. The problem in their account

lies in its imperfect adaptation of Walton’s theory of aesthetic appreciation. They begin by

swapping Walton’s claim that properties are standard, variable, or contra-standard with respect

to category membership in favor of a modified claim that properties are standard, variable, or

contra-standard with respect to functional category membership. So far, so good. The trouble

arises when, in order to make their account of functional beauty as widely applicable as possible,

Parsons and Carlson begin to fudge the distinction between functional categories and functions

15
Ibid., 158.
16
Rafael de Clercq, “Reflections on a Sofa Bed: Functional Beauty and Looking Fit,” Journal of
Aesthetic Education 47, no. 2 (2013): 38.
44

generally.17 This shift is not so problematic when it comes to simple functional objects such as

shovels, as the functional category to which shovels belong is defined by the primary function

of shovels; what it means to belong to the functional category of shovels is exactly to possess the

primary function that is characteristic of shovels. Although Parsons and Carlson’s framework

captures the functional beauty of simple functional object, it is unclear whether complex

functional objects such as buildings can survive the same shift, as the functional category

membership of complex functional objects is not tied to the primary functions those objects

serve. Art, for instance, is a functional category, but defining art in terms of its primary function

of providing aesthetic experiences is not an informative way of conceptualizing functional beauty.

It is unclear how knowing that the function of art is to provide aesthetic experiences would

allow us to identify the properties that count as standard, variable, and contra-standard for art.

What would it mean for a work of art to provide an aesthetic experience in a standard, variable,

or contra-standard way?

Similarly, as discussed in section II, architecture is not defined in terms of the primary

functions of objects that belong in that functional category. Although all buildings share the

primary function of organizing space, most buildings have additional primary functions that do

not apply overarchingly to all works of architecture. This concern cannot be alleviated simply

by being more precise about the functional category in which a building belongs, as the same

problem will arise for architecture even when its functional categories are made narrower. The

comparison of Gothic cathedrals and Quaker meeting houses demonstrated this. Because the

functional categories in which buildings belong cannot be defined according to their primary

functions, Parsons and Carlson’s account does not capture the functional beauty of architecture.

17
Stephen Davies, “Functional Beauty Examined,” Canadian Journal of Philosophy 40, no. 2 (2010):
328.
 45

Because the functions of simple functional objects are straightforward, there is no

problem determining the features that count as standard, variable, or contra-standard according

to the functions they serve. The complexity of architecture’s functionality makes it difficult to

classify the features of buildings in the same way. Therefore, while Parsons and Carlson’s

definition of functional beauty as dependent on functional category might help us deal with the

problem of translation as it pertains to simple functional objects, it does little to shed light on

functional beauty more generally.

iv. Functional beauty and design solution

I have shown that the problem in Parsons and Carlson’s account of functional beauty lies

in its false assumption that architecture can be defined in terms of the primary functions of

buildings. Because works of architecture are complex functional objects, an account of functional

beauty in architecture must have flexibility; it must be sensitive to the fact that buildings are

multifunctional and that there are a broad range of functions across works of architecture. In

what follows, I introduce an alternative solution to the problem of translation that fulfills this

requirement. I propose that knowing a building’s function has an impact on the aesthetic qualities

we perceive in it because that knowledge allows us to assess the ways in which the building’s

design addresses its function. Therefore, although I agree with Parsons and Carlson’s premise

that knowing an object’s function organizes our perception of it, I disagree with them about the

process and effect of that organization. While Parsons and Carlson posit that knowledge of

function allows us to sort through the properties that count as standard, variable, and contra-

standard with respect to that functional category, I suggest that knowledge of function simply

allows us to ascribe aesthetic qualities to way that the object addresses that function. I therefore
46

relieve their account of its rigid framework, and propose an alternative that can explain the

functional beauty of simple as well as complex functional objects.

Parsons and Carlson briefly outline a concept that does not end up factoring into their

response to the problem of translation, but that I think provides a helpful starting point for

thinking about what a possible solution might look like. They tease out a distinction between

two meanings of “understanding function”.18 On one hand, this could mean understanding the

identity of an object’s function: what the object’s function is. On the other, this could mean

understanding how the object performs its function. They point out that this distinction tends

to go unnoticed because we have no problem seeing how most everyday objects perform their

functions. For instance, when we are determining the functional beauty of a chair, the question

of how the chair performs its function does not factor into our judgment explicitly because all

chairs perform their functions according to the same basic principles that we are already familiar

with. However, in some cases understanding how an object performs its function is not as

obvious. For example, knowing that a complicated machine has the function of detecting certain

molecules will likely do little to affect our aesthetic experience of the machine; our perception

in this case remains cognitively impenetrable. But knowing how the machine detects these

molecules would likely penetrate our experience, as this knowledge would allow us to see certain

parts of the machine as being, for instance, perfectly in place or out of place, and efficiently or

inefficiently arranged.19

The distinction that Parsons and Carlson draw out between understanding what and

understanding how parallels the tendency of architects to frame their work in terms of design

problems and design solutions. What architects call “problems” in a building project are in fact

18
Parsons and Carlson, Functional Beauty, 93.
19
Ibid., 93-94.
 47

functions that the building is meant to serve. To understand a design problem is to understand

what the building’s function is. For instance, when commissioned with the design of an art

museum, an architect is faced with the problem of planning a space that will best showcase the

objects in the museum’s collection. In other words, the architect’s task is to address the function

of the art museum. Although many buildings pose similar design problems, architects address

them in different ways. Every art museum must display art, but the designs of art museums—

that is, the solutions to art museum design problem—are by no means alike. There are few

architectural similarities between, for instance, the MoMA (a sleek, International Style building)

and the Guggenheim Bilbao (a daring, Deconstructivist building) even though both are

exhibition spaces for modern art. To understand a design solution is to understand how the

building’s design addresses the problem.

The MoMA and the Guggenheim Bilbao demonstrate not only that there are multiple

possible solutions to the same design problem, but also that those solutions have different qualities.

The MoMA solves the problem effectively: the modern simplicity of the glass and steel exterior

gestures to the kind of art inside the museum, and the plain, rectilinear galleries inside provide

an anonymous backdrop for the works inside to shine. Because we recognize that the architect’s

solution to the MoMA design problem is successful, we perceive positive aesthetic qualities in

the building; we might describe the building as elegant because we perceive the building’s

solution to the design problem to be elegant. By contrast, the Guggenheim Bilbao has faced

harsh criticism for failing to fulfill its function as an exhibition space.20 The metallic, sloping walls

of the Guggenheim Bilbao have been criticized for swallowing whatever art is displayed inside.

The primary exhibition space in the museum is an enormous, polychrome, curvilinear room

20
Larry Shiner, “On Aesthetics and Function in Architecture: The Case of the ‘Spectacle’ Art
Museum,” Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 69, no. 1 (2011):
48

longer than a football field that is an unflattering display space for art, which tends to require a

plain backdrop to be appreciated properly. Although the Guggenheim Bilbao might be successful

in fulfilling its other primary functions—such as serving as a tourist attraction and a work of art

in its own right—it does not successfully fulfill its function as an exhibition space. Because we

know that the architect’s solution problem of the Guggenheim Bilbao is not successful, we

perceive negative aesthetic qualities in the building; we might describe the museum as harsh or

unaware because the museum’s design does not effectively address the design problem. These

positive aesthetic qualities we perceive in the MoMA and negative ones we perceive in the

Guggenheim Bilbao are judgments of those buildings’ functional beauty. They are aesthetic

judgments that require certain knowledge about the buildings—specifically, their design

problems and design solutions—to make. Just as knowing how the molecule-detection machine

performs its function has the capacity to penetrate our aesthetic experience of the machine,

knowing how an architect’s solution addresses a design problem can penetrate our aesthetic

experience of architecture.

Consider again the Stata Center, which I introduced in part I of this chapter. According

to my account of functional beauty, knowing that Frank Gehry intended for the Stata Center to

be difficult to navigate affects the aesthetic qualities we perceive in the building because that

knowledge provides a basis for our identification and evaluation of the building’s design solution

with respect to the problem it addresses. Although the labyrinthine floorplan might at first appear

to have the negative aesthetic properties of being daunting and unattractive, our perception of

the building’s aesthetic features changes with knowledge of its function. Knowing the Stata

Center’s true function, the challenging floor plan no longer seems daunting and unattractive, but

instead represents an imaginative solution to a difficult design problem.

 49

Like Parsons and Carlson’s theory, my account of functional beauty aims to establish a

relationship between functional beauty and the cognitive penetrability of aesthetic experience.

However, we told different stories about what that relationship looks like. Parsons and Carlson

attempted to systematize the relationship, arguing that knowing an object’s function alters its

perceptible aesthetic qualities because that knowledge specifies the qualities that count as standard,

variable, and contra-standard against a given functional category. I showed, however, that their

thesis does not hold for complex functional objects such as works of architecture, whose

functional categories cannot be defined in terms of the primary functions of the objects in the

category. My alternative account about the relationship between functional beauty and the

cognitive penetrability of aesthetic experience posits that knowing an object’s function alters the

aesthetic qualities we perceive in it because that knowledge allows us to identify and evaluate

the creator’s solution to a design problem. Because my account does not rely on the notion of

functional categories, which do not suit architecture’s complex functional nature, it is not

susceptible to the same criticism as Parsons and Carlson’s is.

v. Conclusion

Functionality is one feature that distinguishes architecture from the other fine arts.

However, because the Western framework of artistic value emphasizes disinterestedness, the

relationship between practical and artistic value in architecture is often overlooked. In this

chapter I advanced a functionalist view of aesthetic appreciation, explaining how knowledge of

a building’s function might shape our aesthetic experience of it.

The position that I developed in this chapter is applicable not only to architecture, but

to functional objects more generally. Of particular interest are works of craft, design, and non-
50

Western art, objects that are of great aesthetic interest but that do not fit comfortably in the

framework of fine art appreciation due to their functionality. The utilitarian nature of crafts such

as ceramics, weaving, and woodwork is at odds with the “art for art’s sake” attitude that

dominates the world of Western fine art.21 As a result, “craft” tends to lack the same positive

valence as “art”; theorists often contrast art with mere craft, which suggests that craft occupies a

lower status than art. Like craft, design is concerned with functionality, but refers to mass-

produced rather than handmade objects. Due to its functional focus, design too lacks the positive

connotation of “art”. Non-Western and subaltern artifacts—artifacts made by groups at a

disadvantage to those in power—are also objects that are aesthetically interesting but often

distinct from fine art due to their functionality.22 Most non-western artworks were created to

serve a purpose such as hunting, agriculture, providing shelter, or addressing the spiritual realm,

and not to be displayed in art museums.23 To subject these artifacts to the customs of Western

fine art display is to impose a foreign categorization upon them that obscures the sources of their

value. Evaluated for their formal qualities in a disinterested and distanced manner, subaltern

artifacts are susceptible to assessment as aesthetically deficient because they were never meant to

be evaluated against that standard in the first place. Although works of craft, design, and non-

Western art are undoubtedly objects of aesthetic interest, their beauty cannot be properly

appreciated in the framework of Western of artistic value, which emphasizes contemplative

attention to an object’s formal features. Because architecture bears important similarities to craft,

21
Sally Markowitz, “The Distinction Between Art and Craft,” Journal of Aesthetic Education 28, no. 1
(1994): 55.
22
A. W. Eaton and Ivan Gaskell, “Do Subaltern Artifacts Belong in Art Museums?” in The Ethics of
Cultural Appropriation, ed. James O. Young and Conrad G. Brunk (Malden: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012),
235.
23
Ibid., 245.
 51

design, and non-Western art with respect to functionality, my discussion in this chapter helps to

shed light on the values of these objects as well, providing a vocabulary to describe their beauty.

Framing the problem of translation in terms of design problems and design solutions also

helps to illuminate the aesthetic concerns of mathematicians and scientists. Mathematicians, for

example, are often motivated by aesthetic considerations such as simplicity and elegance, and

often speak of the “beauty” of mathematics. Math is a helpful example for thinking about

functional beauty because it deals so obviously with problems and solutions. Just as the beauty

of the Stata Center stems from the building’s ingenious solution to a challenging design problem,

the simplicity and elegance that mathematicians are interested in concerns the aesthetic properties

of the solutions that they propose to mathematical problems.

52

Chapter III. On Publicness

i. Architecture as public art

Architecture is a public art. Unlike paintings, sculptures, and concerts, which are normally

displayed or performed in private “art spaces” such as museums, galleries, and auditoriums, buildings

necessarily exist in the public arena. While we choose to enter art spaces and expose ourselves to

the works inside, we do not have a choice when it comes to viewing buildings in the spaces where

we live and work. Architecture’s status as a public art carries with it a number of moral implications

that do not apply to the private arts.1 Because buildings make us their audience without our consent,

architects have a social responsibility that other kinds of artists do not. We generally have no

objection to private artists pushing the envelope, even if the results are disturbing or offensive.

Indeed, there is a common intuition that artists should have the right to control the creation,

exhibition, and treatment of their work, and that freedom of creative expression is essential to artistic

progress.2 Although it seems like the same artistic rights should be extended to architects, who are

artists in equal measure to painters, sculptors, musicians, and poets, the publicness of architecture

demands that those rights be weighed against the interests of the public. We may enjoy visiting

museums and viewing art that we fine ugly or offensive, but we might oppose that same art being

1
Philosophers disagree on the relationship between moral and aesthetic value. Autonomists maintain that
moral merits and demerits in art are not aesthetically relevant, while moralists believe that a work’s moral
value contributes to its aesthetic value. For a defense of autonomism, see James C. Anderson and Jeffrey T.
Dean, “Moderate Autonomism,” British Journal of Aesthetics 38, no. 2 (1998): 150-166. For a defense of
moralism, see Noël Carroll, “Moderate Moralism,” British Journal of Aesthetics 36, no. 3 (1996): 223-238.
Although there are cogent arguments to be made in favor of autonomism in the private arts, moral and
aesthetic considerations cannot be separated in architecture due to its publicness.
2
K. E. Gover, “Artistic Freedom and Moral Rights in Contemporary Art: The Mass MoCA Controversy,”
Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 69, no. 4 (2011): 355-356.
 53

displayed in public, where we would be forced to interact with it every day. Thus, architects seem,

at least to some extent, to have an obligation to design for public taste.3

However, the problem with assigning this obligation to architects is that public taste and

the taste of the art community tend to oppose one another, with the public preferring familiar,

accessible art and professionals preferring difficult, intellectualized art. If architects were obligated

to design for the public’s unrefined taste, then the future of architecture as an artistic enterprise

would look pretty bleak. After all, the vitality of the artistic enterprise consists in artists pushing

beyond existing artistic styles to find new and creative ways to express themselves and respond to

the world around them. The success of art therefore depends at least in part upon artistic progress,

and in the interest of promoting that progress, architects should not simply serve public taste, but

challenge the public with new architectural forms. How can these two competing duties be

reconciled?

This chapter evaluates such moral problems that arise from architecture’s status as a public

art. I begin in part II by outlining the conflict between the architect’s right to artistic freedom and

responsibility to design for public taste. Although the publicness of architecture prevents architects

from enjoying equal artistic freedom to private artists, I argue that architects should not simply

comply with public aesthetic preferences; rather, they should strive to design challenging buildings

within the artistic constraints imposed by publicness. I argue that architects ought to aspire to

bilaterality; that is, they ought to design buildings that appeal both to the public and to art

professionals, rather than to one or the other. I show how bilaterality is possible in architecture, and

argue that in designing bilateral buildings architects reconcile their conflicting duties of artistic

integrity and designing for the public. However, to place the burden of bilaterality entirely on

architects might seem unfair. I address this problem in part III, where I show that the public also

3
I use “obligation,” “ought,” and “duty” interchangeably throughout this chapter.
54

has a role to play in achieving bilaterality in architecture. I argue that the public has an obligation

to be receptive to the aesthetically challenging features of architecture, and show that this obligation

distributes the burden of bilaterality between architects and the audiences of their buildings.

ii. The architect’s obligations

There is an intuition that artists should have artistic freedom: the freedom to produce art

unhindered by society. One motivation behind this intuition is the privileged status we accord art

as a form of expression. Artists often use their work to explore their creative potential and

understand issues that they think are important, and the value of these activities warrants their

protection.4 Respecting the privileged status of art by ensuring artistic freedom is one step that a

society must take to maintain optimal conditions for the production of good art. Art produced in

societies that restrict artistic freedom—for instance, under authoritarian regimes where artists are

used as pawns to advance a political agenda—tends to suffer in aesthetic value.5

However, our expectations for artistic freedom do not end with the mere freedom to

exercise it. We also believe that artists ought to embrace that freedom, creating works that satisfy

their own artistic interests over and above their audience’s; that is, we believe that artists ought to

create their work with integrity. Ted Cohen calls cases where an artist produces art to satisfy her

audience and not herself cases of “fraudulence.”6 If an artist produces her work with integrity but

does not find an audience for it, she has done nothing morally wrong. The morally objectionable

4
James O. Young, “Profound Offense and Cultural Appropriation,” Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism
63, no. 2 (2005): 140.
5
See Haig Khatchadourian, “Artistic Freedom and Social Control,” Journal of Aesthetic Education 12, no.
1 (1978): 23-32.
6
Ted Cohen, “High and Low Art, and High and Low Audiences,” Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism
57, no. 2 (1999): 139.
 55

situation occurs instead when an artist is not committed to her work but produces it nevertheless

because she knows it will find an audience and earn her fame, fortune, or some other reward

unrelated to her self-realization as an artist.

Cohen does not indicate his reasons for thinking that artistic fraudulence is wrong, but I

believe that there are two possible sources of moral wrongdoing that explain his view. First,

pandering artists commit an injustice against their audiences. Since there is an expectation for art to

be created with integrity, an artist who fails to uphold that integrity deceives her audience; the

public’s appreciation is governed by the false view that the work is a manifestation of the artist’s

genuine self-expression when, rather, it has been created to manipulate its viewer into a positive

response. Second, artists who pander to their audiences fail themselves. To understand how this can

be, it is helpful to think about duties of artistic integrity as arising from an artist’s practical identity.

Practical identity is “a description under which you value yourself, a description under which you

find your life to be worth living and your actions to be worth undertaking.”7 Our practical identities

give rise to reasons and obligations, and when we fail to fulfill the obligations that our practical

identities create for us, we risk losing that identity altogether. For example, being someone’s friend

is a practical identity that generates various duties—supporting the person, sympathizing with them,

being loyal to them, etc.—and a friend who fails to support, sympathize, and be loyal to the other

person can no longer call herself that person’s friend. Similarly, to be an artist is to assume a practical

identity that gives rise to obligations, one of which is to create works with integrity. We criticize

pandering artists whose primary motivation is not self-realization, but material gain by labeling them

as “sellouts,” as they fail to act according to what being an artist—a practical identity that they

proudly choose for themselves—requires of them. Both these lines of reasoning suggest that artists

ought not only have artistic freedom, but ought to exercise that freedom in their work.

7
Christine Korsgaard, The Sources of Normativity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 101.
56

Should architects have the same artistic freedoms as other artists? It is first worth noting that

the artistic freedom of architects is already limited by the fact that architecture is a service as well as

an art.8 Due to the nature of their service, architects are morally obligated to be honest to their

clients and to design buildings that (at a minimum) will not collapse, as well as legally obligated to

follow building codes and regulations. But setting aside these service-related restrictions on artistic

freedom, should architects otherwise have the right to artistic freedom over their designs?

One reason to resist according architects artistic freedom is the gap between public and

professional taste. If architects were to embrace their artistic freedom and design buildings without

regard for public taste, then they would end up designing an awful lot of buildings that the public

would hate. Taste—one’s capacity to discern aesthetic quality—is not given, but cultivated, and

because architects devote much of their lives to the study of art and architecture, they have had the

opportunity to engage in the education and leisure required to cultivate taste. It thus makes sense

that their taste in architecture is different from that of the public who, for the most part, have not

taken time to develop the same level of aesthetic sensibility to architecture. Because public taste is

uncultivated, it is typically synonymous with bad taste. A 1949 Life magazine article entitled “High-

brow, Low-brow, Middle-brow” included a chart classifying members of each category’s tastes in

everything from sculpture and music to salads and games.9 The chart makes the gap between high-

brow and low-brow tastes obvious; high-brow musical preferences, for instance, are shown to

consist of Bach and Bartók, and low-brow musical preferences of jukebox music. The article makes

clear in its various derogatory remarks targeting low-brows that high-brow tastes are not merely

different from but better than low-brow ones, and because the overwhelming majority of people

belong in the low-brow category, low-brows are deemed a hindrance to cultural development. The

8
I borrow the distinction between architecture qua art and architecture qua service from Noël Carroll,
“Architecture and Ethics: Autonomy, Architecture, Art,” Architecture Philosophy 1, no. 2 (2015): 139-140.
9
Russell Lynes, “High-brow, Low-brow, Middle-brow,” Life, April 1949, 99.
 57

problem with the gap between public (low-brow) and professional (high-brow) taste for

architecture is that architects, unlike private artists whose obligations concern only their own artistic

integrity, have duties to design for the public in addition to themselves. This leaves architects in a

difficult position. Their duty as public artists tells them to design architectural equivalents of pop

music, but their duty of artistic integrity tells them to design Bachs and Bartóks.

One case that calls attention to the difference between public and professional taste in

architecture is the controversy over Kallmann, McKinnell, and Knowles’ Boston City Hall. At its

opening, the massive, concrete building received praise from critics, art historians, and architects.

One architecture critic, Walter McQuade, insisted that City Hall’s “robustness” echoed the

distinctively Bostonian character of Trinity Church—the city’s architectural icon—and was thus a

modern interpretation of Boston’s aesthetic essence. 10 Critics at most major newspapers shared

McQuade’s sentiments, and City Hall was awarded the American Institute of Architects Honor

Award in 1969. The public, on the other hand, hated the building, describing it as “overbearing,”

“cold,” “monstrous,” and “a lot of wasted space.” 11 In 2008, Boston Mayor Thomas Menino

campaigned to have the building torn down, proclaiming that it was “modernistic and not typical

of Boston.”12 Boston City Hall seems to be a case in which architects exercised their artistic freedom

at the expense of their responsibility to design for public taste. Architects and critics, with their

cultivated tastes, responded positively to City Hall, while the public with their unrefined aesthetic

sensibilities found themselves unable to understand it.

One might think that professional opinion should be privileged over public opinion in

debates over architectural merit. After all, professionals have cultivated tastes that make them more

10
Walter McQuade, “Toughness-Before-Gentility Wins in Boston” quoted in David Monteyne, “Boston
City Hall and a History of Reception,” Journal of Architectural Education 65, no. 1 (2011), 45.
11
Ellen Perry Berkeley, “More Than You May Want to Know About Boston City Hall” quoted in
Monteyne, “Boston City Hall and a History of Reception,” 45.
12
Jack Thomas, “I Wanted Something That Would Last,” Boston Globe (Boston, MA), Oct. 13, 2004.
58

reliable identifiers of aesthetic value than the layperson.13 In debates over the artistic merit of private

art, we tend to accord more credibility to the opinions of art critics than to those of non-experts.

However, since architecture occupies communal space and makes the public its audience without

their consent, there is reason to be skeptical about deferring to professional opinion alone in cases

involving architecture. McQuade may have liked Boston City Hall, but why should the public care

what he thought? He wrote his comments from a privileged position as an art professional, and was

not even a resident of Boston when City Hall was built. How could he have understood what it

was like to be a member of the public who had to live and work every day in the midst of a building

as ugly as City Hall?14

McQuade’s comments are problematic because they are too esoteric for the public to take

seriously. Consider again his claim that City Hall is beautiful because it is aesthetically linked to

Trinity Church and thus consistent with Boston’s architectural character. This is more a defense of

City Hall’s intellectual value than its aesthetic value; it defends the building’s beauty on the basis of

what the building says rather than what it looks like. Douglas Stalker and Clark Glymour posit that

intellectual defenses of public art are only successful if they show that (1) the work says something

serious or interesting and (2) the work says it in a way that is accessible to the public; defenses that

fail the first of these conditions are “vapid,” and those that fail the second are “pretentious.”15

McQuade’s defense of City Hall fulfills the first of these conditions. I imagine that most Bostonians

would agree with McQuade that it is important for buildings in Boston, especially civic ones, to

13
See David Hume, “Of the Standard of Taste,” in Four Dissertations (Cambridge: Chadwyck-Healey,
1999), 228.
14
Cf. Jerrold Levinson, “Hume’s Standard of Taste: The Real Problem,” Journal of Aesthetics and Art
Criticism 60, no. 3 (2002), 229-231.
15
Douglas Stalker and Clark Glymour, “The Malignant Object: Thoughts on Public Sculpture,” The Public
Interest 66 (1982): 9. Stalker and Glymour use “vapid” and “pretentious” to describe all intellectual defenses
of art that fail either condition, but I think that attaching vapidity to the first condition and pretentiousness
to the second makes their argument clearer.
 59

celebrate the city’s architectural heritage. However, his defense fails to satisfy the second condition

of accessibility. Even though McQuade’s defense says something serious and interesting, surely few

Bostonians think that City Hall actually succeeds in representing Boston’s architectural character;

the building looks nothing like any of the traditional buildings in Boston. His defense of City Hall,

like most intellectual defenses of public art, suffers from pretentiousness. It expresses a difficult idea

in inaccessible terms and fails to acknowledge that the public must carry the burden of interacting

every day with what is ultimately an ugly object. Pretentiousness is a moral problem for public art

because it is offensive for professionals to present the public with an ugly object and insist that they

see its intellectual beauty; such situations make members of the public feel “stupid or ridiculous.”16

As public artists, architects are obligated to avoid pretentiousness by displaying sensitivity to public

taste in their designs. This obligation holds architects to a different standard from private artists.

Private artists usually do not act wrongly in creating challenging or offensive works of art—indeed,

we generally encourage them to do so for the sake of artistic progress—because their audiences elect

to view those works. However, because buildings make us their audience without our consent, it

is reasonable to expect architects to serve the interests of the public and to hold them accountable

when they fail to do so.

Architects must prioritize their audience, but this does not consign them to a career of

pandering to their audience. In what follows, I argue that architects should still create aesthetically

challenging works, but given the constraints that publicness places on architecture, they ought not

proceed in doing so in the same way as private artists would. I propose that architects have an

overarching, second-order duty of reconciling their competing first-order duties of artistic integrity

and designing for public taste.17 Ted Cohen has introduced a distinction between parochial and

16
Hilde Hein, Public Art: Thinking Museums Differently (Oxford: Altamira Press, 2006), 55.
17
The first-order and second-order distinction is borrowed from Harry G. Frankfurt, who differentiates
between first-order desires (desires to perform some action) and second-order desires (desires to have certain
desires, or desires concerning first-order desires). “Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person,” Journal
60

bilateral art that helps explain what the architect’s second-order duty might look like.18 Cohen

observes that most art appeals to either professional audiences or public audiences, but not both;

fine art attracts professionals and popular art attracts the public.19 He calls art that caters to one of

these two audiences parochial art. However, he notes that some artworks—Hitchcock movies, for

example—attract both public and professional audiences, and labels such works bilateral art. Bilateral

art may be either fine art or popular art, but it is special because it contains something for every

audience.20

The trouble with Boston City Hall is that it is parochial; it attracts professional audiences

and excludes public ones. Parochial art that appeals only to professional audiences is appropriate for

display in private settings, as private artists are neither required nor expected to create works that

will appeal to anyone but themselves. However, since architecture is necessarily public, moral

problems arise for parochial architecture that appeals only to professional audiences due to the

offense it causes the public when they find themselves excluded by an elite, private language. When

architects design parochial buildings like Boston City Hall, they fail their duty to design for the

public. Parochial architecture that appeals to the public as opposed to professionals is equally

questionable, albeit for different reasons. In designing such buildings, architects fail their duty of

artistic integrity. For instance, McMansions—mass-produced copycats of traditional domestic

architecture—are not designed with artistic integrity, but pander to the public’s preferences. Beyond

the fact that they are pandering, these buildings create a further problem in virtue of being banal

of Philosophy 68, no. 1 (1971): 5-20. Here, I use Frankfurt’s framework but apply it to duties rather than
desires.
18
Cohen, “High and Low Art, and High and Low Audiences,” 140-141.
19
Cohen calls professionals “snobs” and the public “vulgar,” which provides a useful, if harsh, way for
thinking about the gap between public and professional taste, but I’ll continue using my own labels.
20
Although I do not address it here, this point raises the question of whether public and professional
audiences appreciate the same things in bilateral art or whether there are two distinct sets of features in
bilateral art, one of which appeals to the public and the second to professionals.
 61

and repetitious. Shouldn’t architecture sometimes challenge us and expand our aesthetic

expectations?21 Isn’t the public disadvantaged when they are exposed only to trite architecture, just

as they are disadvantaged when they have access only to trite art? Fine art is generally more difficult

to understand and appreciate than popular art, but the intellectual challenge of interpretation is part

of what makes art—and architecture—so valuable.

One solution to the conflict between public taste and artistic integrity lies in Cohen’s

description of bilaterality. Bilateral architecture that appeals to both public and professional

audiences is possible, and indeed quite common. Many of the most renowned buildings are bilateral.

Fallingwater, the Guggenheim, Tate Modern, and the Beijing Bird’s Nest are some modern

examples that come to mind. Bilateral architecture is challenging, which appeals to professionals

and presents the public with an opportunity for aesthetic growth. Yet, parts of bilateral architecture

are publicly appealing without being intellectually demanding. Unlike Boston City Hall, which

requires cultivated sensibility and art-historical insight to appreciate, Fallingwater is visually beautiful

without further intellectual input. Although understanding the principles of organic architecture

that underlie Frank Lloyd Wright’s design certainly makes one’s experience of Fallingwater more

meaningful, it is not required see that the building is beautiful.

Artistic integrity only requires of private artists that they create works for themselves.

Whether their work turns out to be parochial or bilateral has no effect on their artistic integrity so

long as they embraced their artistic freedom in creating it. As public artists, however, architects

must not only design for themselves, but for the public. Thus, architects who design parochially

have failed one of their first-order duties. Either they have pandered to the public and thus failed

21
Christian Illies and Nicholas Ray argue that part of an architect’s duty in serving her uncultivated client’s
interests is introducing the client to new kinds of beauty, as condemning the public to a repetition of
conventional architecture will not satisfy their aesthetic desires. See their “An Aesthetic Deontology:
Accessible Beauty as a Fundamental Obligation of Architecture,” Architecture Philosophy 2, no. 1 (2016):
68.
62

to uphold their artistic integrity, or they have designed a publicly inaccessible building and thus

failed their duty to design for public taste. Only in designing bilaterally can architects fulfill their

second-order duty of reconciling these competing first-order duties.

Not all architects claim to be artists. Many architects are quite happy to abide by their clients’

demands and simply provide the technical expertise needed to realize them. My concern has been

primarily with architects who think of themselves as artists, as their artist-status accords

responsibilities to them that non-artist architects do not have. Non-artist architects do not have

duties of artistic integrity; only persons who identify as artists are subject to this duty. They are,

however, subject to duties to design for public taste, as the publicness of architecture itself is enough

to confer this duty upon all architects, regardless of their self-identification as artists. Even non-artist

architects have an obligation to protect the public from offensive architecture, and should challenge

any client that wants a building that will offend people who must see it every day.

iii.. The public’s obligations

My discussion up to this point has focused on the obligations that publicness creates for

architects. My account of architects’ duties to design bilaterally has been driven by a sensitivity to

the public’s needs. I have shown that the two sides of bilateral architecture—the aesthetically

accessible side and the aesthetically challenging side—are both good for the public. The former

keeps the building within the public’s aesthetic comfort zone, while the latter presents the public

with an opportunity for aesthetic growth.

One might object, however, that my proposal is too burdensome for architects. Thus far, I

have placed the onus of bilaterality entirely on architects, making them singularly responsible for

gauging public taste and reconciling it with their own ideas for architecture. In the picture of

bilaterality I have offered, the public seems to be absolved of responsibility. The aesthetically
 63

challenging side of architecture is available for them to explore if they choose to do so, but they do

not have an obligation to evaluate the art-historical, intellectual, and otherwise inaccessible features

of architecture. In other words, there is no expectation for the public to even consider the kinds of

defenses of architecture that Stalker and Glymour call “pretentious.”

However, there is reason to think that the public should consider such defenses. Art

professionals may be guilty of pretentiousness when they defend architecture on the basis of its art-

historical or intellectual value, but members of the public who dismiss a building before giving it

the attention needed to assess its aesthetically challenging qualities may be equally guilty of close-

mindedness. Perhaps bilaterality should not be a responsibility assigned solely to architects, but one

shared between architects and the public. If the public has an obligation to try to understand the

challenging features of architecture that architects think are important, then bilaterality can be

characterized as a conversation between the public and the art community, rather than a burden

that falls entirely upon the latter.

In order to determine whether the public has a duty to appreciate the aesthetically

challenging side of architecture, we must first answer some broader questions about our obligations

concerning artworks. Do we have obligations to like, or at least consider, good art? Are we obligated

to cultivate our faculties of taste? I will examine these questions at length as they pertain to art in

general, and will proceed to consider their relevance to architecture as a public art form specifically.

There are various possible justificatory grounds for our obligations concerning artworks. For

instance, one’s obligation to like or to consider a friend’s artwork might stem from one’s duty of

friendship to that person. In this case, our obligation would be justified on moral grounds. Another

possible way to justify our obligations toward art—and one that emphasizes the importance of art

itself—is to point to some aesthetic quality of the work that warrants our approval or consideration

of that work. Let us call an obligation of this kind that is defensible on purely aesthetic grounds an
64

aesthetic obligation.22 Consider the claim that one ought to like Starry Night. If this claim can be

justified by reference to some aesthetic quality of the painting such as its beauty or expressiveness,

then the claim invokes an aesthetic obligation. The key idea here is justification; while it is true that

Starry Night is beautiful and expressive, these facts do not necessarily justify an obligation to like

the painting. Indeed, the claim that we ought to like Starry Night because it is beautiful and

expressive—or any claim that we ought to like a given artwork because of its aesthetic qualities, for

that matter—lacks any real force. Because ought implies can, and because we cannot like an artwork

through sheer force of will, we cannot have obligations to like artworks. In light of this objection,

we might want to amend our current formulation of aesthetic obligations. If the claim

(I) One ought to like x because of its aesthetic qualities.

is too strong, then a softer alternative might be

(II) One ought to consider x because of its aesthetic qualities.

(II) is preferable to (I) because it invokes a duty of action rather than a duty of feeling. To consider

an artwork is to refrain from dismissing it out of hand if or when one has the opportunity to see it.

(II) is thus better understood as a negative rather than a positive duty; to consider Starry Night, for

instance, is not necessarily to go out of one’s way to visit the MoMA and examine the painting, but

to pay adequate attention to the sources of the painting’s artistic merit before forming a judgment

about it if or when one visits the MoMA. Of course, depending on the degree of cultivation of

one’s tastes, the difficulty of considering different artworks will vary. It is easier to put oneself in a

22
Hilde Hein, “Aesthetic Prescriptions,” Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 26, no. 2 (1967): 213.
 65

position to assess, say, pop music than it is the music of Bach and Bartók, as assessing the latter calls

for refined aesthetic sensibilities that the former does not. Nevertheless, both pop music and the

music of Bach and Bartók ask for our attention if or when we have an occasion to listen to them,

which—unlike the approval asked for in (I)—is within our ability to give freely.

Although our aesthetic obligations concerning particular artworks are of a negative kind,

we might have some positive aesthetic obligations concerning art in general. While we are not

obligated to go out of our way to visit the MoMA and see Starry Night in particular, we might be

obligated to make a special effort to expose ourselves to and give our attention to at least some art,

whether that be to Starry Night, pop music, the music of Bach and Bartók, or any other works of

art. If we have such aesthetic obligations to art in general, then they are obligations of an imperfect

kind: we have options as to how we fulfill them. If we had perfect obligations to consider art, then

we would be obligated to consider every work of art, which is clearly beyond our ability to do.

Therefore, if aesthetic obligations to art in general exist, then we can choose how we satisfy them,

be it by visiting art museums, reading books, attending concerts, etc. Although it might be preferable

to do all three, we do not fail our aesthetic obligations in selecting one over the others.23

The transition from accepting that we have negative duties to particular artworks to

accepting that we have some positive, imperfect duties to art in general may seem a bit abrupt. In

order to see where our obligations to art in general come from, there are a number of questions we

must address. Who do we wrong in failing to engage with art? Who benefits from the fulfillment

of aesthetic obligations?

23
Martha Nussbaum makes a similar point when she writes, “Works of art are precious objects, objects of
high value. And yet it is a remarkable feature of our attention to works of art that it appears to spread itself
smoothly and harmoniously… If one day I spend my entire museum visit gazing at Turners I have not
incurred a guilt against the Blakes in the next room; nor have I failed a duty toward Bartók by my loving
attention to Hindesmith. To live with works of art is to live in a world enormously rich in value, without a
deep risk of infidelity, disloyalty, or any conflict which might lead to these.” Love’s Knowledge (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1992), 131-132.
66

Every duty has a subject, object, and beneficiary, the subject being the person required to

fulfill the duty, the object the person to whom the duty is owed, and the beneficiary the person

who benefits from the duty’s fulfillment.24 The subject of an aesthetic obligation can be anyone, as

every person is a potential member of art’s audience. The object and beneficiary of aesthetic

obligations, however, are not so easily identified. Let us consider a few candidates for these roles

and settle on one that, for the moment, seems the most promising.

Some philosophers have argued that artworks, in virtue of their privileged status above

ordinary objects, are the bearers of moral rights, which create obligations for the people who interact

with them.25 Just as your right to free speech creates obligations for people with whom you interact

to refrain from silencing you, an artwork’s moral rights generate obligations for its audience to deal

with or not deal with it in certain ways. If artworks have moral rights, then we might owe it to

them not to mishandle or destroy them, to perform and interpret them appropriately, and to

appreciate them in a way that befits them.26 However, while thinking about artworks as the bearers

of moral rights might help to explain our negative duties to art—duties not to dismiss art out of

hand when and if we have the opportunity to see it—they do not explain our imperfect positive

obligations to art in general. The moral rights of artworks do not seem to ground an obligation for

us to make a special effort for us to expose ourselves to them, but simply to appreciate them in a

befitting manner when we do encounter them. Furthermore, it is unclear how artworks could

benefit from our appreciation of them. Although we might be obligated not to mishandle or destroy

artworks, these obligations do not benefit artworks, but simply prevent them from being harmed.

Therefore, artworks are neither the objects nor beneficiaries of aesthetic obligations.

24
Alison Hills, “Duties and Duties to the Self,” American Philosophical Quarterly 40, no. 2 (2003): 132.
25
See Alan Tormey, “Aesthetic Rights,” Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 32, no. 2 (1973): 163-170
and David Goldblatt, “Do Works of Art Have Rights?” Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 35, no. 1
(1976): 69-77.
26
Anthony Cross, “Obligations to Artworks as Duties of Love,” Estetika 54, no. 1 (2017): 85-101.
 67

Another candidate for the object and beneficiary roles of aesthetic obligations are artists: the

creators of the works that we are obligated to consider. It seems unlikely that our aesthetic

obligations are owed to artists. After all, artists are not owed, but must earn consideration from their

audiences. If simply calling oneself an artist were enough to warrant the consideration of one’s

work, then all artists would be owed consideration regardless of their work’s caliber. However, the

fact that we believe that artworks of high quality deserve consideration and works of low quality

do not deserve (or at least deserve less) consideration suggests that consideration is a privilege that

artists earn by cultivating a reputation for making good art, rather than a right that they are accorded

simply in virtue of being artists. Although artists cannot be the objects of an aesthetic obligation,

they may, however, be its beneficiaries. Artists clearly benefit from our consideration of their work.

Even though they ought not focus exclusively on finding an audience when creating their work, as

in doing so they would violate their duty of artistic integrity, they still benefit when their work

enjoys wide consideration, which might bolster their reputation or bring them some financial

reward. Therefore, while artists are not the objects of aesthetic obligations, they might be considered

the beneficiaries of those obligations.

I have considered both artworks and artists as candidates for the object and beneficiary roles

of aesthetic obligations, but I believe that the most promising approach to aesthetic obligations takes

the subject of the obligation herself to be its object and beneficiary, too. These accounts of aesthetic

obligations stem from perfectionism, as they claim that our aesthetic obligations arise from our more

general duties to make our lives as rich as possible or realize our abilities to their full potential. In

other words, proponents of perfectionist accounts maintain that we owe our aesthetic obligations

to ourselves, and we ourselves benefit from their fulfillment. Marcia Muelder Eaton makes such an

argument when she claims that we have a duty to live our lives as fully as we can, and because

aesthetic experiences play an important role in making our lives “meaningful or worth living,”
68

fulfilling that duty requires paying attention to art.27 In a similar vein, Jerrold Levinson reasons that

we have a duty to cultivate our tastes because the kind of artworks that we can appreciate with

refined taste provide experiences that are more enriching and worth having than those afforded by

works that do not require refined taste to understand. 28 Thus, Levinson believes that we are

obligated to consider good art because it is good for us. In Eaton’s and Levinson’s accounts of

aesthetic obligations, the same person takes on all three roles of subject, object, and beneficiary. A

person (the subject) owes it to herself (the object) to consider art because in doing so she (the

beneficiary) enriches her life. When we fail to consider a beautiful artwork, we overlook an

opportunity for enrichment and therefore fail a duty to ourselves.

According to Eaton and Levinson, duties to consider art have moral in addition to aesthetic

foundations, as the enrichment of our lives is a moral matter.29 They formulate aesthetic obligations

as

(III) One ought to consider x because doing so will enrich one’s life in unique and invaluable
ways.

While both (II) and (III) are meant to justify the same obligation concerning artworks, they ground

that obligation in different sources: (II) identifies strictly aesthetic sources for the obligation, and

(III) broadens the source of the obligation to include moral in addition to aesthetic considerations.

Let us call (II) a strict aesthetic obligation, and (III) a moral-aesthetic obligation. I have given (III)

this particular name because unlike purely moral obligations concerning art—such as an obligation

to consider a friend’s artwork out of a duty of friendship, as previously discussed—moral-aesthetic

27
Marcia Muelder Eaton, Merit, Aesthetic and Ethical (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 79-80.
28
Levinson, “Hume’s Standard of Taste: The Real Problem,” 234.
29
Hein, “Aesthetic Prescriptions,” 215.
 69

obligations emphasize art’s indispensability. The consideration of art that is asked for in the

friendship case does not derive from the value of art, but from the value of friendship. Friends are

only obligated to consider each other’s art insofar as they are obligated to be involved in each other’s

endeavors, whatever those endeavors might be. If, for instance, one’s friend no longer wanted to

be an artist and decided to become an athlete instead, then one would no longer have an obligation

to consider that friend’s art, but to attend her athletic competitions. By contrast, moral-aesthetic

obligations are justified on the basis of art’s distinctive value. According to Eaton and Levinson, our

obligations to consider art do not merely stem from the fact that art enriches our lives, but from the

fact that it does so in unique and invaluable ways. Art could not be replaced in this case by some

other enriching activity because no activity can afford the same kind and level of enrichment as art.

It is therefore appropriate to designate (III) as a moral-aesthetic obligation, rather than simply a

moral obligation.

Because my aim is to show that we have duties to consider art, whatever the justificatory

grounds of those duties may be, I will adopt Eaton and Levinson’s formulation of moral-aesthetic

obligations over the formulation of strict aesthetic obligations; there is a stronger case to be made

for the former than for the latter. However, the moral-aesthetic approach gives rise to a difficult

problem that must be addressed before we can establish that all members of the public have an

obligation to consider art. To understand this problem, it is helpful to look more closely at the

differences between Eaton’s and Levinson’s stances on the nature of art’s indispensability. Eaton’s

view suggests that art’s value is objective: that art is uniquely and invaluably enriching in anyone’s

life. On the other hand, Levinson ascribes subjectivity to art’s value. He distinguishes between art-

interested persons and non-art-interested persons, and claims that his argument for moral-aesthetic

obligations applies only to those who identify as art-interested persons.30 According to Levinson,

30
Levinson, “Hume’s Standard of Taste: The Real Problem,” 236.
70

art may be uniquely and invaluably enriching to an art-interested person, but may not be so to non-

art-interested-persons. Levinson’s understanding of moral-aesthetic obligations is sensitive to the

fact that what counts as a uniquely and invaluably enriching activity often involves a high degree of

subjectivity. For instance, an athlete may find that playing her sport enriches her life in a way that

no other activity could, while a non-athlete may enjoy playing sports, but feel like her life could be

equally enriched by partaking in some other activity. Similarly, someone might enjoy visiting

museums and engaging with artworks, yet feel like she could equally enrich her life by picking up

another hobby. Because the activities that one finds enriching are determined by one’s individual

preferences, Levinson’s subjective account of art’s value seems more plausible than Eaton’s objective

one.

The subjectivity of art’s indispensability raises the following concern. Art-interested persons

are subject to moral-aesthetic obligations. They are, after all, exactly those persons whose lives art

enriches in unique and invaluable ways. But why should non-art-interested persons be subject to

them? Many non-art-interested persons lead fulfilling lives without art, and it is unclear why they

should feel that they ought to add art to their repertoire of interests. Although engaging with art

may enrich one’s life in unique and invaluable ways, there are many projects that are uniquely and

invaluably enriching—travel, religion, marriage, and child-rearing among them—yet we do not

expect everyone to take on all of these projects. Art may be uniquely and invaluably enriching to

art-interested persons, but why should that matter to non-art-interested persons? Levinson

summarizes these objections clearly and forcefully:

Why, after all, spend any of one’s free time with Shakespeare, Flaubert, Titian, Welles, or
Beethoven… Why not spend it all, say, in some combination of windsurfing, motorcycling,
parenting, communing with nature, doing good works, practicing yoga, touring Europe,
 71

exploring Asian cuisine, and learning to master Gödel’s proof? For those are all demonstrably
good things. What is so special, then, about art?31

To better frame this objection and a potential response to it, it is helpful to return to the

framework of practical identity that I introduced in section II. Recall that a practical identity is a

description under which one values oneself that gives rise to reasons and obligations. Just as being

someone’s friend is a practical identity that gives rise to obligations to support, sympathize with,

and be loyal to that friend, being an art-interested person can be thought of as a practical identity

that gives rise to obligations to consider art. If you value yourself as an art-interested person, yet

you fail to partake in art-related activities such as visiting museums, attending concerts, or watching

films, then it is unclear whether you can rightfully call yourself an art-interested person at all. The

practical identity of art-interested persons therefore gives rise to moral-aesthetic obligations, and

art-interested persons who fail to fulfill them risk losing that practical identity altogether.

Within the framework of practical identity, Levinson’s objection can be reinterpreted as

follows. Art-interested persons are subject to moral-aesthetic obligations because those obligations

follow from the description under which they value themselves. However, because non-art-

interested persons do not value themselves under that same description, they are not subject to

moral-aesthetic duties at all. This fact gets at the crux of the public art problem. My aim in this

section, after all, is to show that members of the public, many of whom are non-art-interested

persons, ought to be receptive to the aesthetically challenging side of bilateral architecture. But if

non-art-interested persons do not have moral-aesthetic obligations—duties to enrich their lives by

learning to appreciate art—then they do not seem to have duties to consider the aesthetically

challenging features of architecture.

31
Ibid. Levinson does not provide a complete response to this question, but vaguely suggests that an answer
might lie “in the context of a general account of intrinsic value, the nature of human lives, and our considered
images of what we, as human beings, most want to be.”
72

Resolving this problem is not as straightforward as simply persuading non-art-interested

persons to develop interests in art. The only way to convince someone that art is uniquely and

invaluably enriching is to have them experience that enrichment firsthand.32 I believe that many

non-art-interested persons could be convinced to become interested in art; these potential art-

interested persons simply have not yet had adequate exposure to the quality and diversity of art. But

some non-art-interested persons who have had such exposure to art may still not be convinced that

their experiences with art were enriching in unique and invaluable ways. Although they might

agree that those experiences were worthwhile and even understand why art-interested persons find

those experiences uniquely and invaluably enriching, they themselves may not be compelled to

share that belief.33 Assuming that these non-art-interested persons cannot be convinced to develop

interests in art at all, how can they be obligated to consider the aesthetically challenging qualities of

architecture?

One resolution to this problem involves considering a fourth candidate for object and

beneficiary of aesthetic obligations and reformulating those obligations once again. So far, I have

considered three candidates: artworks, artists, and the subjects of aesthetic obligations themselves. I

quickly touched on the first two candidates, but argued that it is most plausible to identify the object

and beneficiary of an aesthetic obligation as the subjects of aesthetic obligation themselves, at least

when the subject is an art-interested person. A fourth candidate for the object and beneficiary roles

of aesthetic obligations that I have not yet considered is art’s audience in general. Perhaps non-art-

interested persons owe it to everyone else—i.e. art-interested persons and potential art-interested

32
This point is related to the acquaintance principle: the notion that an adequate aesthetic judgment of a
work must be based on first-hand experience it. For a historical overview of arguments for and against
acquaintance, see Paisley Livingston, “On an Apparent Truism in Aesthetics,” British Journal of Aesthetics
43, no. 3 (2003): 260-278.
33
Samuel Scheffler discusses the difference between regarding an activity as valuable and valuing that activity
oneself in his essay “Valuing,” in Equality and Tradition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 21.
 73

persons—to advance, or at least not to hinder, the artistic enterprise that those people find so

uniquely valuable. Aesthetic obligations of this kind take the following form:

(IV) One ought to consider x to avoid hindering the artistic enterprise.

Unlike (II), which establishes strictly aesthetic justificatory grounds for our obligations concerning

art, and (III) which establishes both moral and aesthetic justificatory grounds for those obligations,

(IV) expresses a strictly moral obligation. (IV) is not justified on the basis of art’s distinctive value,

but on the basis that we ought generally to refrain from hindering others from pursuing their

interests, so long as those interests are not themselves immoral and doing so does not impose a

significant burden upon us. Thus, non-art-interested persons do not need to develop interests in art

to be subject to aesthetic obligations; rather, they are subject to (IV) simply in virtue of being moral

agents. Because artistic progress sustains the vitality of the art community and provides art-interested

persons with new aesthetic challenges and experiences to pursue, when artistic progress is hindered,

the art community suffers. Non-art-interested persons therefore owe their consideration of art to

art-interested persons in cases where their failure to do so would impede the artistic enterprise.

The sort of consideration that (IV) asks of non-art-interested persons is less demanding than

what (III) asks of art-interested persons. Non-art-interested persons are merely obligated to consider

art so as not to impede the artistic enterprise, whereas art-interested persons have a further duty to

cultivate their tastes in order to have the best aesthetic experiences they can. To understand exactly

what (IV) asks of non-art-interested persons, we must identify the cases in which the failure of non-

art-interested persons to consider art would hinder the artistic enterprise. Would artistic progress

suffer if non-art-interested persons did not go to museum exhibitions, read novels, or attend

concerts? The answer seems to be no. The success of painting, sculpture, music, and literature—i.e.

the private arts—does not hinge on the participation of non-art-interested persons. There are more
74

than enough art-interested persons to participate in and sustain the private arts without the help of

non-art-interested persons. After all, art-interested persons are subject to moral-aesthetic

obligations, and thus have duties to themselves to partake in activities such as visiting museum

exhibitions, reading novels, and attending concerts. Because the failure of non-art-interested persons

to consider private art does not hinder the artistic enterprise, (IV) is not invoked in cases concerning

private art.

On the other hand, public art calls for the participation of art-interested persons and non-

art-interested persons alike because it exists in the public domain. There is thus reason to think that

the failure of non-art-interested persons to consider public art would hinder the artistic enterprise.

When the public fails to consider a work of public art—that is, when they dismiss the work before

giving it the attention required to see its merit—they create obstacles to artistic progress. Therefore,

(IV) is invoked in cases concerning public art.34

The upshot of this argument for architecture is that non-art-interested persons have an

obligation to consider the aesthetically challenging features of architecture, as their failure to do so

would impede the artistic enterprise that so many people find valuable. The public therefore has a

role to play in achieving bilaterality in architecture; since architects can assume that the public will

consider their work, they are not necessarily obligated to cater to existing public tastes, but to design

buildings that they expect will appeal to the public after giving the buildings fair consideration.

Although the best works of architecture are universally liked by the public and by art professionals,

they are not necessarily immediately liked by members of both audiences.

34
(IV) might have wider implications beyond architecture and public art. Perhaps all valuable activities in
the public domain generate obligations for persons who do not personally find those activities uniquely and
invaluably enriching, insofar as their failure to consider them would prevent them from taking place.
Whenever our failure to consider a valuable public activity would hinder that activity, we ought to try to
understand the reasons why others find it valuable.
 75

Some examples will make clearer how the public’s failure to consider the aesthetically

challenging features of architecture impedes the artistic enterprise. Recall, for instance, my

discussion of Boston City Hall and the public backlash it received. My description of the Boston

City Hall debate in section II of this chapter was written from the public’s perspective, and was

intended to show how the public was wronged by the architects’ lack of sensitivity to public taste.

There is, however, another side to the debate. Architects and other art-interested persons are often

frustrated by the public’s close-mindedness about buildings such as Boston City Hall, as this close-

mindedness has led to a general disapproval of brutalist architecture, an architectural style that the

art community believes has great value. In the eyes of the art community, the public’s close-

mindedness about an aesthetically challenging form of architecture has created a hindrance to the

architectural enterprise. Therefore, (IV) is invoked in the Boston City Hall case; the public has an

obligation to consider the building and try to see its architectural merit.

One might point out, however, that the public has tried to see the architectural merit of

Boston City Hall. After all, the building was completed nearly fifty years ago, and the art

community’s defenses of it have become widely known over the years as a result of the ongoing

debate surrounding the building. If the public were able to see the building’s architectural merit on

the basis of the art community’s defenses, they would have done so by now. Perhaps Boston City

Hall is truly a parochial building, a building that appeals only to the art community and not the

public because the sources of the building’s architectural merit are simply too esoteric for the public

to see.

To better illustrate how (IV) can help achieve bilaterality in architecture, I will turn away

from Boston City Hall to a different example. The picture of bilaterality I offered in the first part

of this chapter seemed to suggest that bilateral buildings must be uncontroversial. For instance, I

identified Fallingwater—a building that is admired effortlessly by both the public and by art

professionals—as a paragon of bilaterality. However, many works of bilateral architecture are not
76

immediately well-received by the public. The Pompidou Center, for instance, may now be admired

by both public and professional audiences, but it took a few years for the public to warm up to the

building. Although the Pompidou received negative responses from the public when it first opened

in 1977, attitudes toward the building shifted a few years later once the public began to recognize

its architectural merits as an exhibition space, a cultural landmark, and a generally fun building to

look at and navigate, precisely the kinds of merits that art professionals had initially identified in

defense of the museum’s value when it underwent public criticism. 35 Three years after the

Pompidou’s initial opening, National Geographic summarized the conflict that the building incited

between art professionals and the public, eloquently describing the public’s reception of the museum

as “love at second sight.”36

The Pompidou Center demonstrates that bilateral architecture does not need to be designed

strictly according to public taste, nor with the expectation that the public will immediately take to

the building. The public’s duty to consider the aesthetically challenging features of architecture can

help bridge the space between an initial negative reaction to a building and a later positive one, and

explain why so many bilateral works of architecture—the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre Pyramids, the

Guggenheim, and the Yale Art and Architecture Building, to name a few—only become bilateral

once the public has considered the aesthetically challenging aspects of those works.37 Because the

public has an obligation to consider these difficult features of architecture, architects can challenge

their audience without violating their duty to design for public taste, and bilaterality becomes a

35
Cathy Newman, “Pompidou Center, Rage of Paris,” National Geographic, October 1980.
36
Ibid.
37
For comparisons of initial versus current attitudes toward these buildings, see Jill Jonnes, Eiffel’s Tower:
The Thrilling Story Behind Paris’s Beloved Monument and the Extraordinary World’s Fair That Introduced
It (London: Penguin, 2010); Susan Stamberg, “Landmark at the Louvre: The Pyramid Turns 20,” NPR,
December 7, 2009; Patrick Huguenin, “Guggenheim Museum Turns 50,” Daily News (New York, NY),
October 21, 2009; and Nicolai Ouroussoff, “Yale Revelation: Renewal for a Building and Its Original
Designer,” New York Times (New York, NY), August 27, 2008.
 77

shared responsibility between the architects and the public rather than a burden that falls on

architects alone.

Attempts to design challenging yet bilateral buildings are not always as successful as the

Pompidou. Sometimes, the aesthetically challenging features of a building are too esoteric for the

public to grasp even after making an effort to see the building’s architectural merit. These are

parochial buildings: buildings that appeal only to the art community and not to the public because

the sources of their merit are too obscure for the public to see. The Boston City Hall is a parochial

building; over the years, members of the public have worked in, visited, contemplated, and paid an

enormous amount of attention to the building, but still have not been able to see its aesthetic or

architectural merit. When the public dismisses Boston City Hall, they do not do so out of hand,

but after a long consideration process. Boston City Hall is therefore a parochial building, and

represents a failure of its architects to design with the public’s interest in mind.

I have shown that all members of the public have aesthetic obligations concerning

architecture. Art-interested persons have moral-aesthetic obligations to consider the aesthetically

challenging features of architecture; these obligations follow from the description under which they

value themselves. Non-art-interested persons have strictly moral obligations to consider

architecture; these obligations follow from their more general duty to refrain from impeding the

interests of others. Because the failure of non-art-interested persons to consider the aesthetically

challenging features of architecture might hinder artistic progress—something that is central to art’s

vitality—they owe their appreciation of architecture to art-interested and potential art-interested

members of architecture’s audience who would be harmed by that hindrance.

78

iv. Conclusion

Architecture’s status as a public art gives rise to obligations that do not necessarily exist for

the other fine arts. Because their works are imposed upon their audiences, architects must show

special concern to the interests of the public, whereas private artists whose works are displayed or

performed in museums, auditoriums, or other sanctioned art spaces are not obligated to exhibit such

sensitivity because their audiences elect to view their works. Although architects must aim to design

buildings that will ultimately appeal to the public as well as to art professionals, I have shown that

they do not bear the burden of bilaterality alone. Since the members of the public—art-interested

and non-art-interested alike—have obligations to consider the aesthetically challenging features of

architecture, they meet architects partway in the pursuit of bilaterality.

The conclusion I have reached may seem counterintuitive. It seems strange that the public

has stronger obligations concerning public art than they do private art. After all, since they do not

consent to viewing public art, it seems like their obligations concerning it should be minimal. I

have shown, however, that architecture’s existence in the public domain imbues the appreciation

of architecture with a moral weight. Rather than being nuisances, these extra obligations seem to

demonstrate that architecture, unlike the other fine arts, has a unique ability to engage audiences

who would not otherwise seek out aesthetic experiences.

 79

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