Up@dawn 2.0

Thursday, April 18, 2013

(16-1) De Botton

April 18, 2013
We discussed De Botton on Architecture and his thoughts on if it is art. In the podcast he say

"When we describe buildings as beautiful we’re alluding to material versions of many of the qualities that we think of as good in other parts of life. So there’s a real correspondence between what you might broadly call human virtue as listed by, say, Aristotle in his ethics—different qualities that you might find in a good person—and things that are going on in a good building. And you pick this up when people talk about buildings. They’ll say, that building looks a bit arrogant, or that building looks heavy, or that building looks elegant. These are words in which you can praise and damn both humans and buildings. My book is an attempt to identify certain themes that are likely to be going on in buildings that are satisfying."

Warburton, Nigel; Edmonds, David (2010-08-12). Philosophy Bites (Kindle Locations 2260-2265). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.

So what do you think art is? Can buildings be art? Let us now with you comments.

1 comment:

  1. Here is a link to one of De Botton's lectures from TED that I found interesting.

    http://www.ted.com/talks/alain_de_botton_atheism_2_0.html

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