Fascinating ideas, and thank you for sticking your neck out and expressing them. Medieval religious architecture (Islamic as well as Christian) does have an oppressive quality to it, even if it's also ornate in ways that would have stood out as appealing in the relatively dull general environment of medieval cities. And there's no denying that the great cathedrals and palaces were built partly as assertions of power by the mighty over ordinary individuals.
If American monumental architectures is much more obviously ugly, well, it's the same kind of assertion of power by the mighty, except it's corporate power rather than religious, while most of the aesthetic sense of ornateness from the Middle Ages has been lost.
"they were constructed to humble man, not glorify him" Yes, exactly. But your overall critique, to me, is ahistorical. Your assumption that a piece of architecture *should* glorify man would strike any medieval cathedral builder or European citizen of the time as blasphemy. They wouldn't even understand it. Because you've omitted God from the equation. It was not about 'humbling' man in the sense of subjugation, it was about glorifying God through architectural design, the spires, the ceilings and floor plans, the light through stained glass etc. to show man his 'humble' place in the order of things but at the same time lift his spirit closer to the Divine. Properly understood, cathedrals as places of worship were a person could find liberation from his fallen humanness, his sin, not enslavement. This was exactly the moral purpose that a cathedral was intended to express and serve. You might not agree with that, but I think you need to acknowledge the truth of it in an historical context.
Of course, that doesn't make every cathedral automatically beautiful, some were obviously more successful in achieving their vision than others.
I do agree with your mission, here, though, to recover a sense of beauty in the world as it's true that the modern age has for more than a century now essentially turned against the whole idea. And the connection with moral purpose is definitely important. To glorify man? Maybe, but personally, I think that effort has brought us to some pretty dark places.
The reason these ideas would have struck people in the Dark Ages as blasphemous is that they were indoctrinated with religious ideas that portrayed man as fallen, sinful, and obligated to be humble toward the powerful and toward the imaginary supernatural entities the latter used as squid ink to justify their position (think of the projection of Oz the Great and Terrible). The oppressive quality of medieval monumental architecture was meant to reinforce that indoctrination. It was all part of the same system, the system we've been struggling to free ourselves from since the beginning of the Enlightenment.
Indoctrinated? By who? The use of the term is, I think, ahistorical. Teaching such a worldview could be called indoctrination today if it were done without critical thinking or openness to other viewpoints. We’d say it was bad or a poor education. In the medieval world, there were essentially no other viewpoints or competing ideologies. Within their world, it was all good, all to the glory of God and their salvation. What you call ‘oppressive’ only makes sense from a modern perspective. It wasn’t a tool manipulated by some wizard to control the population. That judgement is only possible post enlightenment. The problem of ‘indoctrination’ is a product of the age of reason and didn’t exist during that period and context.
I disagree with premises, analysis and conclusions. I am not aware of any pre-modern examples of a beautiful architecture built to elevate the daily life of regular men of serving a similar moral purpose. The kind of democratic beauty you are talking about is a very, very modern idea.
The only thing that would come closest is the beauty of European street architecture. I mean, in many European cities the streets are just amazing, and walking there and looking around is in my opinion much more enriching than visiting any museums or cathedrals. But it’s important to understand where this beauty is coming from historically. Sometime during Renaissance wealthy families in Europe started to build luxury houses to compete with each other in displaying their wealth and the passion for aesthetic. I don’t know if that can be considered a union of moral purpose and aesthetics.
It was what it was: wealthy people building something beautiful for their private use, and their desire to display it on facades made it available to everyone else. And they didn’t get their aesthetic ideas in vacuum. There was undoubtedly a lot of creativity and new design ideas, but it was happening within the broader context of magnificent European cities, where you had to compete with the cathedrals and king’s palaces built for very different moral purposes.
And by the way, where did the idea to build magnificent cathedrals and palaces come from in Europe? From Roman Empire, of course. And for Rome the moral purpose of architecture was glorification of power and the empire. Christians certainly channeled that type of beauty into a more dignified moral purpose.
Now as we move to modernity, I’m not so sure what to say. They are some good modern democratic architectural projects in Europe, but they don’t arise in vacuum. I’ve seen a few in Russia as well, but they borrow them from Europe. Israel has interesting projects of this kind, but keep in mind that Israel is a very special country. American architecture is on the other hand, just generally speaking ugly. Clearly, the desire for comfort and individual prosperity hasn’t produced any beautiful architecture in the last 100 years here. There’s good urban architecture in wealthy areas, but that is very far from being called “art”, unlike the Reneissance-time street architecture.
I think we agree more than you think. I’m not arguing that the kind of beauty I’m describing was common in history—I’m arguing that it’s rare, radical, and worth pursuing. My point is precisely that most of the buildings we call beautiful were built to glorify power, not man. That’s why we need to rethink what beauty means.
I agree that American architecture is mostly ugly. I do like the art deco and possibly mid-century. In Israel we do have some cool skyscrapers; I'm writing this comment from sitting in one of the prettier ones:
Well, Roman palaces and Saint Petersburg embankments are objectively beautiful and quite incomparably so. And yet both cities were built with the purpose of power. What does it mean to glorify man, by the way? Ok let’s throw palaces and cathedrals aside, but street architecture in Europe was created to glorify man: the Renaissance man who wanted to display his wealth and creativity. Do you call that “glorifying man” or not?
Great article Yonatan. A concept I have been grappling with lately is the concept of “meaning”. Would you say your definition of beauty is more or less synonymous with the concept of meaning from a philosophical perspective? I’ve been formulating ways to explain the connection between esthetic experience/judgment and meaning. It seems that one reason people seeking meaning gravitate to religion is because it has the marriage of philosophy and esthetic Dr. Peikoff talks about in OPAR baked in through myth and story, but that this is misdirected toward separating meaning from the one’s self toward some higher or supernatural ideal which detracts from why something is or should be truly meaningful or beautiful in the context of one’s life.
I'm in Australia. That building in Barcelona, I think it's a church, is by far the ugliest building on the planet. In fact, its obscene. Its got to be pretty bad to call a building obscene. The most beautiful building was a department store built in my hometown in the 60's. Its gone now, the commercial hub of the town shifted and my favourite building was left stranded. Its been replaced by an apartment block.
Fascinating ideas, and thank you for sticking your neck out and expressing them. Medieval religious architecture (Islamic as well as Christian) does have an oppressive quality to it, even if it's also ornate in ways that would have stood out as appealing in the relatively dull general environment of medieval cities. And there's no denying that the great cathedrals and palaces were built partly as assertions of power by the mighty over ordinary individuals.
If American monumental architectures is much more obviously ugly, well, it's the same kind of assertion of power by the mighty, except it's corporate power rather than religious, while most of the aesthetic sense of ornateness from the Middle Ages has been lost.
"they were constructed to humble man, not glorify him" Yes, exactly. But your overall critique, to me, is ahistorical. Your assumption that a piece of architecture *should* glorify man would strike any medieval cathedral builder or European citizen of the time as blasphemy. They wouldn't even understand it. Because you've omitted God from the equation. It was not about 'humbling' man in the sense of subjugation, it was about glorifying God through architectural design, the spires, the ceilings and floor plans, the light through stained glass etc. to show man his 'humble' place in the order of things but at the same time lift his spirit closer to the Divine. Properly understood, cathedrals as places of worship were a person could find liberation from his fallen humanness, his sin, not enslavement. This was exactly the moral purpose that a cathedral was intended to express and serve. You might not agree with that, but I think you need to acknowledge the truth of it in an historical context.
Of course, that doesn't make every cathedral automatically beautiful, some were obviously more successful in achieving their vision than others.
I do agree with your mission, here, though, to recover a sense of beauty in the world as it's true that the modern age has for more than a century now essentially turned against the whole idea. And the connection with moral purpose is definitely important. To glorify man? Maybe, but personally, I think that effort has brought us to some pretty dark places.
It will lead us to dark places depending on what the view of man is and what we mean by glorifying it.
My meaning is essentially an architecturally ambitious building that inspires its dweller or viewer to achieve more in his own life.
The reason these ideas would have struck people in the Dark Ages as blasphemous is that they were indoctrinated with religious ideas that portrayed man as fallen, sinful, and obligated to be humble toward the powerful and toward the imaginary supernatural entities the latter used as squid ink to justify their position (think of the projection of Oz the Great and Terrible). The oppressive quality of medieval monumental architecture was meant to reinforce that indoctrination. It was all part of the same system, the system we've been struggling to free ourselves from since the beginning of the Enlightenment.
Indoctrinated? By who? The use of the term is, I think, ahistorical. Teaching such a worldview could be called indoctrination today if it were done without critical thinking or openness to other viewpoints. We’d say it was bad or a poor education. In the medieval world, there were essentially no other viewpoints or competing ideologies. Within their world, it was all good, all to the glory of God and their salvation. What you call ‘oppressive’ only makes sense from a modern perspective. It wasn’t a tool manipulated by some wizard to control the population. That judgement is only possible post enlightenment. The problem of ‘indoctrination’ is a product of the age of reason and didn’t exist during that period and context.
I disagree with premises, analysis and conclusions. I am not aware of any pre-modern examples of a beautiful architecture built to elevate the daily life of regular men of serving a similar moral purpose. The kind of democratic beauty you are talking about is a very, very modern idea.
The only thing that would come closest is the beauty of European street architecture. I mean, in many European cities the streets are just amazing, and walking there and looking around is in my opinion much more enriching than visiting any museums or cathedrals. But it’s important to understand where this beauty is coming from historically. Sometime during Renaissance wealthy families in Europe started to build luxury houses to compete with each other in displaying their wealth and the passion for aesthetic. I don’t know if that can be considered a union of moral purpose and aesthetics.
It was what it was: wealthy people building something beautiful for their private use, and their desire to display it on facades made it available to everyone else. And they didn’t get their aesthetic ideas in vacuum. There was undoubtedly a lot of creativity and new design ideas, but it was happening within the broader context of magnificent European cities, where you had to compete with the cathedrals and king’s palaces built for very different moral purposes.
And by the way, where did the idea to build magnificent cathedrals and palaces come from in Europe? From Roman Empire, of course. And for Rome the moral purpose of architecture was glorification of power and the empire. Christians certainly channeled that type of beauty into a more dignified moral purpose.
Now as we move to modernity, I’m not so sure what to say. They are some good modern democratic architectural projects in Europe, but they don’t arise in vacuum. I’ve seen a few in Russia as well, but they borrow them from Europe. Israel has interesting projects of this kind, but keep in mind that Israel is a very special country. American architecture is on the other hand, just generally speaking ugly. Clearly, the desire for comfort and individual prosperity hasn’t produced any beautiful architecture in the last 100 years here. There’s good urban architecture in wealthy areas, but that is very far from being called “art”, unlike the Reneissance-time street architecture.
I think we agree more than you think. I’m not arguing that the kind of beauty I’m describing was common in history—I’m arguing that it’s rare, radical, and worth pursuing. My point is precisely that most of the buildings we call beautiful were built to glorify power, not man. That’s why we need to rethink what beauty means.
I agree that American architecture is mostly ugly. I do like the art deco and possibly mid-century. In Israel we do have some cool skyscrapers; I'm writing this comment from sitting in one of the prettier ones:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Totzeret_HaAretz_Towers
Well, Roman palaces and Saint Petersburg embankments are objectively beautiful and quite incomparably so. And yet both cities were built with the purpose of power. What does it mean to glorify man, by the way? Ok let’s throw palaces and cathedrals aside, but street architecture in Europe was created to glorify man: the Renaissance man who wanted to display his wealth and creativity. Do you call that “glorifying man” or not?
Great article Yonatan. A concept I have been grappling with lately is the concept of “meaning”. Would you say your definition of beauty is more or less synonymous with the concept of meaning from a philosophical perspective? I’ve been formulating ways to explain the connection between esthetic experience/judgment and meaning. It seems that one reason people seeking meaning gravitate to religion is because it has the marriage of philosophy and esthetic Dr. Peikoff talks about in OPAR baked in through myth and story, but that this is misdirected toward separating meaning from the one’s self toward some higher or supernatural ideal which detracts from why something is or should be truly meaningful or beautiful in the context of one’s life.
Thanks, Jackson! I'm glad you liked the article :)
Please do check out the discussion I've had on Art Discourse with artist and philosopher Kelsy Landin here:
https://youtu.be/2dxbUZKq22Q?si=YkNotjzM3BJugCAH
Specifically from minute 35:50, but throught the episode we discuss the concept of beauty in great depth and detail.
Thanks for sharing! I will give it a watch.
I'm in Australia. That building in Barcelona, I think it's a church, is by far the ugliest building on the planet. In fact, its obscene. Its got to be pretty bad to call a building obscene. The most beautiful building was a department store built in my hometown in the 60's. Its gone now, the commercial hub of the town shifted and my favourite building was left stranded. Its been replaced by an apartment block.