So, here's a question: what exactly is beautiful?
While I think there are some basic things that people universally accept as beautiful, it is still nonetheless a very subjective thing. People have tried to quantify beauty, turning aesthetics into a science, formulaic, rote, and precise. Others have tried to simplify beauty, paring it down to its essence, and identifying specific and precise elements that must be there (or not) in order to make something beautiful. And still others assert that beauty can be found in meaning - that is, that things and places and experiences that are meaningful and important acquire beauty. Thus, a place that is meaningful is beautiful, while places that are plain or boring are not.
This last one is interesting to me, because it implies a sort of evolution of beauty over time - a place or object can become more beautiful as an individual or collective experience is had. Further, it speaks to the idea that beauty is subjective - it is the person's experience that imparts the meaning and therefore the beauty, and that experience is unique.
This morning I read this:
http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20150630-the-worlds-most-beautiful-house
It's a wonderful exploration of homes around the world, with a discussion of what may make a particular house beautiful.
There are few things more basic to the human condition than the need for shelter. Further, as we desire places to foster our families, we create nests of comfort, peace, and safety. There are decisions and compromises that are made in order to achieve these basic needs and desires, and of course budgetary constraints are real and have significant impacts. But there is also an inherent desire to have these places be beautiful... Even the most primitive cave dwellers painted their domiciles.
I tend to agree with Palladio - the rational proportions of spaces and walls, of the flow in and around and through spaces, and of the relation between the existing landscape and topography - all of this lends to a pleasing and comfortable aesthetic. It is simple, yet elegant, complex without being confusing, and understandable while retaining a clever kind of mystery that is revealed only through careful consideration and study.
Much like some women I've known. :)
Frank Gehry has his own kind of beauty, but it's a beauty that doesn't appeal to me as much. It feels almost like he's trying too hard to be contrary and impressive, like a child wearing adult shoes - it comes of as clunky and unresponsive and unnecessarily complex. It's not an adult wearing clown shoes - that's not Gehry at all. His stuff is not comical or whimsical - it's just unnecessarily complicated. And it's off-putting, particularly in someone's home.
Because a home wants to be comfortable and inviting. It wants to have and retain the fingerprints of those who have lived and do live in the place. It wants to feel lived in and livable. Too much simplicity in either function, space, or design leads to an antiseptic, cold, and harsh feeling, while too much complexity shifts the focus from the residents and the people to the house itself, where the house becomes an art object, which is just as off-putting and foreign as the hyper-modern simple design.
So, to me, the most beautiful house is one that is also a home - a place where people want to be.
While I think there are some basic things that people universally accept as beautiful, it is still nonetheless a very subjective thing. People have tried to quantify beauty, turning aesthetics into a science, formulaic, rote, and precise. Others have tried to simplify beauty, paring it down to its essence, and identifying specific and precise elements that must be there (or not) in order to make something beautiful. And still others assert that beauty can be found in meaning - that is, that things and places and experiences that are meaningful and important acquire beauty. Thus, a place that is meaningful is beautiful, while places that are plain or boring are not.
This last one is interesting to me, because it implies a sort of evolution of beauty over time - a place or object can become more beautiful as an individual or collective experience is had. Further, it speaks to the idea that beauty is subjective - it is the person's experience that imparts the meaning and therefore the beauty, and that experience is unique.
This morning I read this:
http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20150630-the-worlds-most-beautiful-house
It's a wonderful exploration of homes around the world, with a discussion of what may make a particular house beautiful.
There are few things more basic to the human condition than the need for shelter. Further, as we desire places to foster our families, we create nests of comfort, peace, and safety. There are decisions and compromises that are made in order to achieve these basic needs and desires, and of course budgetary constraints are real and have significant impacts. But there is also an inherent desire to have these places be beautiful... Even the most primitive cave dwellers painted their domiciles.
I tend to agree with Palladio - the rational proportions of spaces and walls, of the flow in and around and through spaces, and of the relation between the existing landscape and topography - all of this lends to a pleasing and comfortable aesthetic. It is simple, yet elegant, complex without being confusing, and understandable while retaining a clever kind of mystery that is revealed only through careful consideration and study.
Much like some women I've known. :)
Frank Gehry has his own kind of beauty, but it's a beauty that doesn't appeal to me as much. It feels almost like he's trying too hard to be contrary and impressive, like a child wearing adult shoes - it comes of as clunky and unresponsive and unnecessarily complex. It's not an adult wearing clown shoes - that's not Gehry at all. His stuff is not comical or whimsical - it's just unnecessarily complicated. And it's off-putting, particularly in someone's home.
Because a home wants to be comfortable and inviting. It wants to have and retain the fingerprints of those who have lived and do live in the place. It wants to feel lived in and livable. Too much simplicity in either function, space, or design leads to an antiseptic, cold, and harsh feeling, while too much complexity shifts the focus from the residents and the people to the house itself, where the house becomes an art object, which is just as off-putting and foreign as the hyper-modern simple design.
So, to me, the most beautiful house is one that is also a home - a place where people want to be.
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