Abstract

For a century now, any architect who explicitly declared an attempted to cultivate the experience of beauty in architecture was considered decadent. “Politically, the socially conscious have been suspicious of the slightest trace of hedonism in architectural endeavors, and have rejected it as a reactionary concern”¹. It is not that beauty was not sought by architects and users alike, but beauty was relegated from the academic-leading architectural discourse. This paper, a summary of a workshop on the experience of beauty in architecture, will assert that re-legitimization of beauty in architectural education may have a particularly liberating effect on students and allow an uninhibited expression of the situated self. Several research projects by young graduates will be presented and discussed. They will show how unconditioned observation leads to fresh and original appreciation of beauty in specific architectural context, which does not necessarily comply with established doctrines in aesthetics. These projects and interpretations are not opposed to but may form counterparts of ethical approaches. (¹ Tschumi, Bernard. (1996) Architecture and Disjunction. Cambridge, Mass.: M.I.T. Press. p. 81)